Ukelele.de

Hiya

Is there anyone from Ukelele.de on here?
Submitted a query on their site a few days ago and still not heard anything yet.
Help!

Fill us in, what's ukulele.de?

No worries, its this place..
http://www.ukulele.de/menu/

Ukulele.de is a reputable company run by Rigk Sauer who makes te RISA ukuleles. I would send your message again and see if you have more luck this time around.

Try sending email to info@ukulele.de or rigk.sauer@risa-music.de

Rigk Sauer who runs ukulele.de is a great person. He has to be busy at the moment and propably can't answer your email. But I'm sure he will.

I have bought 4 ukuleles from Rigk and a lot of other stuff and I highly recommed his ukulele surfer shop. He is also a very nice and kind person when you ask him questions (and I ask a looot of questions before I buy something). Thanks to Rigk I bought a Kala Acacia long long before they actually showed on european market (Rigk sold me his Musikmesse show model).

Yup! Rigk is a great guy to deal with.
I have purchased from him before, and his service is pretty good.

Send him an email

Careful with ukulele.de

I bought many ukuleles from Rigk, too. At the beginning of my UAS he was my only source for ukuleles since I'm also from Germany and the other German ukulele online shop "ukulele24.de" is very unreliable (I paid for strings that never arrived... no answers on e-mails, etc.) and "theukuleleshop.co.uk" had unfortunately closed down.

The problems with ukulele.de began when I asked for a regular customer discount. First he sent me a wrong ukulele (another Flea than I had ordered) and no strings (I had ordered Worth strings of a value of 50 EUR), then he sent me the right Flea but not the right strings... dammit! That gave me a strange feeling... so I sent the (second) Flea and wrong strings back to him and asked him to refund my payment - which he did promptly. I'm not going to buy from him again. (Dammit, I still don't own a Flea because of this story!!)

I also found out that Rigk is exploiting his monopoly around here. He raised the prices of the Kala Acacia models by 50 EUR (20%!) when he read in forums that these models were much sought-after. This lead to the fact that his Kala Acacia Soprano model now is more expensive in Germany than if I ordered it from MGM!! (YES, you're hearing right, even with shipping costs and tax added, it's still cheaper for me to import this ukulele from Hawaii!!)

Another point I'd like to mention is, that Rigk's ukuleles aren't set up (except for his own RISA brand that is manufactured in the Czech Republic and well set-up). This may not be a problem with the more expensive ones like the Ponos. I never had a problem with these. But at the beginning of my UAS I bought a white Kala Color Concert (with an active pickup) from Rigk and the instrument looked even dusty when I unpacked it!! It looked like it had been in the shelf for years... the fretboard was extremely dry, the saddle was crappy and badly installed so that the pickup did not pick up the sound well. Problem was: At this time, I was really a beginner with the uke and I had no idea about anything. Later I made a bone saddle for this uke and set it up properly myself.

I suggest you also ask Ken Middleton or other European uke players about "ukulele.de" to find out their opinions and experiences!

There are also ukulele dealers in France and I've heard that Ken Middleton has bought ukuleles from them (in case you don't want to buy from MGM because of the shipping & import tax). You may ask Ken for a list of suppliers.
Btw. I think such a list could be of interest to more people in the forum.

At the end I'd like to state that MGM ( http://stores.ebay.com/Musicguymics-Room ) is a great ukulele supplier! I will definitely buy from him again!
You may also want to check out http://www.mainlandukes.com ! I don't own one (yet) but in this forum you only hear the best of these ukes!

I bought my ukulele from Rigk too, he is a great person, but his ukuleles really got expensive during the last year, except the cheaper models he offers. I agree that buying at MGM is cheaper at the moment even from germany. I phoned him last week as I had a little buzz on a string and he helped me out, so I'd trie to phone him instead of sending emails...

-[deleted.]-

I´m buying ukuleles´n stuff at ukulele.de quite regularly for years now. I never exoerienced a delay and have always been satisfied.

Hmmm this now gets interesting...quite a mixed bag

Clarification by ukulele.de

I haven't seen this post before. But you can imagine that I feel a bit offended by some statements.

1. Discounts and prices:
The price of all our ukuleles is 10% below the US list price. This was always the case and has not changed. There might be some minor fluctuations due to changes in the currency exchange rate. Also you have to be aware that US prices are always shown without VAT and without custom duty. It is true that MGM is a very cheap dealer. It is fine to order from him, but you should be aware that it might become expensive to return an instrument you don't like, or if there is a warranty case.

2. Acacia models:
The price of this uke is also 10% below the US list price. It was never raised! There was a preliminary price shown on our webpage before this new model was available. Once it arrived, we had to realize that the price was higher than announced from the supplier. We offered all customers to buy it for the originally announced price before we set the calculated price.

3. Communication:
There is no case in the history of our company where anyone had to wait for an email reply longer than 48 hours (except weekends)! Most emails are replied in less than 24 hours. Sometimes people wirte emails on Friday afternoon and they become upset if they don't have a reply on Sunday morning. Sorry about that, but sometimes we take the freedom to spend a weekend without office work.

4. Wrong deliveries
We ship many thousand ukuleles and accessories every year. It will happen in every company from time to time that there is a wrong delivery. We do our best to avaoid it. Mistakes happen and the question is how a company reacts. It is certainly annoying for a customers, but we solve these problems as fast as possible.

5. Setup of ukuleles
Every ukulele which is sold is checked (and setup if needed) before it leaves our company. It is certainly impossible to put hours of work in a cheap ukulele to make it the perfect instrument.

6. Monopoly
Would we have something like a monopoly, if our service was so poor as dirk.li describes? Why aren't the other shops doing so well, if they are better than we are?
We are exploiting our monopoly? Interesting idea, how we are doing this? We try to offer a big range of good products with a reasonable price below the list price. We offer a good and fast service. We have the highest availablility of ukuleles in Europe with the shortest delevery times, because we always keep 3000 - 5000 ukuleles in stock. We have an excellent know-how, because we are not just a seller, but also a manufacturer with a high reputation. We are the only ukulele company which is present at many festivals and on the big music shows like Musikmesse Frankfurt and NAMM show. Yes, we have a good position in the market, even though it is not at all a monopoly. I am not ashamed, I am very proud to be in this position, because it was almost 10 years of very hard work. We have this position, because we consider our company as a serious business, while some other shops seems to consider it as a nice hobby.

7. Ask Ken Middleton
Also a very interesting suggestion. I know Ken and he is a nice guy. However, it is his job to endorse Ohana ukuleles. I doubt that this can be a neutral opinion.

I live in Belgium and a few months ago I tried to buy two sets of strings from ukulele.de: a set of aquila's low G and a set of Ko'olau gold strings.
(planning on making a comparison video)
After my payment they informed me that they were out of Ko'olau strings so they had sent me a set of aquila's high G instead.
I replied that I already had quite a few sets of those so I really didn't need them and therefore wasn't willing to pay for them. They replied that they were sorry for this mistake and they would send me a set of Ko'olaus as soon they got in, FREE of charge.

A couple days later my set of Aquila Low G's and the unwanted set of high G's arrived. As a few weeks passed I felt sure that they had forgotten about their promise, so I took peace with it, after all another set of Aquila's ain't that bad.

But a few weeks ago I was surprised to find another package in my mail, they had sent me the Ko'olaus free of charge (including shipping costs)

So in my opinion, excellent customer service!

List of Ukulele Suppliers in Europe

I got this list from a fellow YouTuber from the UK who was desperately looking for an Ohana CK35-GS (a model with geared tuners). He got the list from Ken Middleton, so I guess these are reliable suppliers. Please note: This list is probably not complete!

FRANCE

JusteCordes
3 Kerhars
22160 Mael-Pestivien
02 96 45 70 52
www.justecordes.fr

Sunset Location Musique83
Patrick Becker
Lamiradou
Rte de collobrieres
83310 Grimaud
06 09 51 49 73
www.musique83.com

Exquisite
c/o Ambiance Musicale
22, Avenue Gaude
06800 Cagnes sur Mer
www.exquisite.fr

R & F Charle
17 Galerie Vero-Dodat
75001 Paris
33 1 42 33 38 93
www.rfcharle.com

GERMANY

Maunakea Ukulele
Hauptstr.3
91438 Bad Windsheim
9841 401377
www.maunakeaukulele.de


GREAT BRITAIN

Duke of Uke Ltd
22 Hanbury Street
London, E1 6QR
2072 477924
www.dukeofuke.co.uk

Foulds Music
40 Irongate
Derby, DE1 3GA
1332 344842
www.fouldsmusic.co.uk

Musical Instruments (Cheltenham) Ltd
52 Winchcombe Street
Cheltenham GL52 2ND
1242 517635
www.cheltenham-piano-centre.co.uk

Music Is Life
9 Christchurch Road
Boscombe
Bournemouth, BH7 6AW
1202 430820


ITALY

Mercatino dellUkulele
Via Aviano 16
36030 Caldogno
Vincenza, Italy
0444 986972
www.mercatinodellukulele.it


SPAIN

Ukecosos
Bruniquer, 41, ppal 1 a
08024 Barcelona
www.ukecosas.es


SWEDEN

Gottfrid Johansson
Sveavägen 2426
111 57 Stockholm
08-20 21 21
www.gottfridjohansson.se

What I gather from all of this is... ukulele.de seems like an honest business with honest intentions but might need a couple workflow improvements (possibly a new system of checks) to minimize errors. Sometimes a slight case of OCD helps.

@Rigk

I think there is no need to justify yourself. I have just described my very personal experience and expressed my personal opinion. I did not say your service was bad, I only described what really happened to myself and what I think about it.

I'm generally of the opinion that small shops should be supported. The ukuleleshop.co.uk was excellent, they were the only Kanile'a dealers in Europe. Now there's something missing!!

A monopoly may be good for the one who holds it, but not for the scores of customers.

I think it's SO important that the online community supports each other in things like this. I have been agonizing over which uke to buy for weeks and the help and support I have got from total strangers through the internet has been overwhelming and heartening in these times where people generally seem so closed off and self-centered.

That's also a funny list. Ukulele.de didn't make it on the list of reliable dealers, but 9 out of the 12 dealers on the list buy their ukuleles through ukulele.de, who is exclusive European distributor for Kala, Pono, Kiwaya, RISA, Honu etc. This is really absurd. Looks to me like these posts come from our competition.

I also doubt that we need workflow improvements, because we have very good employees and a perfectly tailored software system. Errors will always occur and can never be avaoided completely, but we have less than 1 problem out of 1000 shipments, which I think is an excellent ratio.

My personal Experience with RISA was fine... fast shipping, beautiful uke. pleasant dealings indeed. and i raise the dosh, im thinking one of those risa tenor steel strung electrics would look good on my wall!

dirk.li said:

@Rigk

I think there is no need to justify yourself. ...

Click to expand...

If there is a need to offend me, then there is also a need to justify. Especially because your attacks are hurtful for my company. It is fine for me, if you think you rather want to support the small companies, but you should also be aware that there were not so many ukulele brands available in Europe without a company who takes the risk to distribute them in Europe. Most of the small companies wouldn't even exist without a local distributor.

Please be nice, guys.

Rigk, welcome to the forum. I like your website, it does have a good range (in my opinion).