New England Music Store?

We Apologize

That was an error on our part and we apologize, no excuse.

We welcome all comments good or bad, as long as they are fair and balanced, that’s all.

By the way, we never go by any acronym.

Also, for whatever it is worth, we receive quite a few unsolicited phone calls from various companies regarding Search Engine Optimizations and other, well lets say unscrupulous people asking personal questions about our business, supplier or other personal matters.

All we can say is that we try our best and do our best to answer any legitimate question regarding what we sell.

Changed my mind about post.

No problem with New England Music Store

After reading some of the posts regarding New England Music Store, I must say I am a bit amazed.

I bought a Makai SMT-80 Tenor from several months ago and was completely satisfied. They helped every way possible. I must admit I sent them a lot of emails and they returned them very promptly. Not only that, but they sent me the tracking information and when I could expect delivery, which very nice. I don’t think other retailers do that, but I may wrong.

I kinda feel sorry for New England Music Store in that some of the posts, and maybe its me, are confusing them (New England Music Store) with the other website New England Music Supply which are two different sites.

Anyways, I just want to thank them for all the help and the really nice ukulele!

I'll weigh in. I don't think there is any thing wrong with this store. I think the issues were with the pongee poster bashing two respected dealers (UR and elderly) and making claims that new England guys save buyers money by doing the work themselves (which I know Mim and ukerepublic do as well). I don't think the deals are any better. Yes the uke might have been a little cheaper but when I went to UR I saw the uke was almost same price but I get a bag with it. Its a toss up. I've dealt with UR and Mim. I will always deal with them unless I want a uke they don't sale. We all have or preferences. Me personally am glad there is another uke dealer out there. More dealers only ensures that we the consumer get a better deal. No need to bash anyone. Especially when you are new to the forum.

About running an online business


Dear Haolejohn:

How true and I really appreciate your comments.

When I said New England Music Store does all the work ourselves, I guess I should have mentioned the business aspect as well. There is a lot more effort (for a lack of a better word) when it comes to running an online business.

There is the accounting and bookkeeping, Federal taxes and maintaining the website. Do you hire an accountant to do the accounting and bookkeeping, we don’t. Do you hire someone to maintain your website, we don’t. We make every effort to ensure the information on our website is accurate as possible. This includes making sure the pictures representing each item is as accurate as possible (we get them from our suppliers), availability of the items and if there are any changes to the products are just some items that need to be addressed. I saw on some websites selling Makai ukuleles depicting friction peg tuners where they are now geared tuners and the other way around. I also saw some websites where they mentioned an item was out of stock when it was clearly available, go figure. What about the policy page? I saw some that I thought were ambiguous or non-existing. How are potential customers going to know exactly what your policy is if it is ambiguous or non-existing?

Then there is the issue of hosting the website. How much should you pay, $29.99 per month? Can you strike up a deal, we did. Then there is the URL and how much should you pay; $2.99 per month? Here we entered into a really great deal on our hosting and URL fees. We don’t have to worry about these costs for a long time.

For those familiar with Search Engine Optimization, who is going to that? What about submitting your website to search directories like DMOZ? Do you pay someone, we don’t, we do it. What about the sitemap.xml, that needs to maintained and submitted to the big four search engines, who does that? We do.

In addition, there is writing articles and blogs. Who is going to do that? Do you hire someone or do it yourself? Then there is Google Merchant that also needs to be maintained. Do you pay someone to do that, we don’t.

Then there is the credit card processing. Authorize.net charges a monthly fee plus if the customer has any perks associated with the credit card there is an additional charge. Then you have the Merchant Provider and there could be another monthly fee, at least the one we had did. So there are two monthly fees, even if you don’t make a sale.

Then there is the profit margin. What is going to be: 20%, 30% 40% and still remain competitive.

So as you can see if you have to hire someone to handle some or all these activities, it costs money, right? If you can do this as much as possible, this lowers your overhead costs, at least I think so. This is what I meant by working smart, nothing more than that. It was not to imply other retailers are doing things less efficiently, that is strictly up to each retailer how to run their business.

Yes, this takes effort and time, but if you enjoy what you are doing, like we do, then it isn’t so bad. One step at a time and you be surprised what can be accomplished.

Once again, Haolejohn, thank you for post.

From all of us at New England Music Store happy strumming!

Why is it spam?

This appears to be a thread regarding experiences with a vendor, positive or negative.

The Vendor has posted, and given his perspective. What's wrong with that?

We, the uke buying public, will shop where we feel comfortable.



And there's nothing wrong with that.

UKEON TERRITORY said:

This thread was SPAM from the #1 post ! ! ! ! !

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Err... I would vote from maybe the second post. Otherwise I think we all learned some valuable lessons here:

1. It's New England Music STORE, not to be confused with NEMS, which is New England Music SUPPLY
2. All the UUers who like New England Music STORE are brand new to UU. Welcome!
3. New England Music STORE is no longer permitted to sell its ukuleles at super-low prices, thus mooting all discussion re: price vs. service

jmw, I think I missed how you came to conclusion #3. No longer permitted to undersell everyone? When were they permitted to do so?

I also wonder why the person from New England Music Store posts with an anonymous forum name, rather than his own. We know the key names at Mim's, Uke Republic and HMS and their phone numbers are posted on the website.

GT3T11 said:

jmw, I think I missed how you came to conclusion #3. No longer permitted to undersell everyone? When were they permitted to do so?

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Ack, good point! I was just trying to diffuse the situation with a little humor... I apologize that it did not go over well.

jmw,

If you check out the response from the folks at New England Music Store on Ethan's thread (appears below this one in the Buying Tips section), you may have been closer on #3 than you realised. At least on the Moku ukes.

"Our supplier told us that we cannot sell Moku Ukuleles anymore at these low prices. Other retailers are complaining about our low prices and saying they cannot compete with us, oh well…"

Wow, this has been a lively thread. I just want to clarify my intentions for starting this thread. I am new to both the ukulele and UU. I have found UU members to be very informative and helpful to me as I begin my uke journey. In many of my few posts to fellow newbies, I have advised them to strongly consider buying their ukes from HMS, Uke Republic and Mim. Why? Some of it was personal experience. I had a great experience buying from HMS and had a wonderful and very helpful interaction with Mike from Uke Republic. Additionally, I relied on the uniformly positive responses regarding these three wonderful uke dealers. I wanted to share that knowledge with people looking for their first or second uke so that they could have the best possible experience.

At the same time, I assumed that each of these topnotch sellers began at some point as unknowns. Over time, their fair dealings, honesty, helpfulness, and all around greatness became known to the UU community and they attained the gold standard of excellence.

I have absolutely no connection to New England Music Store and have had no dealings with them. My post was really trying to ascertain whether the New England Music Store was also a potential gold star seller or something else. Clearly some potential issues seem to have surfaced through these posts and I respect the attention that so many placed on this topic, although the tone sometimes struck me as a bit strident. I do not feel that my post was spam as my question seemed to fit my understanding of buying tips. It strikes me as similar to asking if anyone had personal experience with a particular ukulele brand or model.

In the end, I will most likely be purchasing my ukes from UU marketplace, HMS, Uke Republic, Mims, Elderly Instruments or some other highly regarded seller. I was just wondering if I should also consider New England Music Supply as well. At this point, I will probably not but would still appreciate any stories of people who actually bought ukes from them.

About New England Music Store

GT3T11 said:

jmw, I think I missed how you came to conclusion #3. No longer permitted to undersell everyone? When were they permitted to do so?

I also wonder why the person from New England Music Store posts with an anonymous forum name, rather than his own. We know the key names at Mim's, Uke Republic and HMS and their phone numbers are posted on the website.

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You can find that information on our Contact Us page. Please take a look!

We never said all our ukuleles, just the Moku ukuleles. We want to work with our suppliers and were told that are prices are far too low. Other retailers are complaining to our supplier stating that they can't compete with our prices, that's all. We never said anything about the Makia Ukuleles.

By the way my name is Jim, if that helps. Once again, I would recommend visiting our Contact Us or About Us pages. You may find it informative.

Thanks,
New England Music Store

It is unfortunate you came to you conclusion, but I respect your decision. I noticed some of the posts appear to be rather harsh, misguided or twisted around, oh well.

We have been around for several years selling exclusively Makai ukuleles and then introduced the Moku ukuleles. We try to keep our prices as low as possible but as you may see in some of the posts, it is taken negatively. We are a legitimate business and verified through PayPal.

If you have any questions or concerns I would be happy to respond to them as soon as possible. Please see our Contact Us page.

Take care!

Jim
New England Music Store

Investigating Work?

jmw said:

So glad you said something, Ukeon. And thanks for your investigative work!

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I would appreciate what investigating work you are referring to and how it can be vetted?

Thanks!

ukeplayer1 said:

I would appreciate what investigating work you are referring to and how it can be vetted?

Thanks!

Click to expand...

See post #4.

developer said:

I ordered the Makai LK-80W Soprano ukulele from New England Music Store for $97.50. I also opted for the setup service done by their luthier for $8.50, so the total price was $106.00, including shipping!

I am very happy with the Makai LK-80W, nice and loud just like they said. The customer service at New England Music Store was extremely helpful and responsive to my emails, unlike the other websites I visited.

I asked how the come the prices are so much lower than the other websites and was that they work smart (they do all the website updates, blogs and articles) so they can pass those savings to their customers and they are not as greedy as the other websites.

They also mentioned that they have a great relationship with PayPal and pass those saving to their customers.

It’s just that simple.

Thank you so much for all your help; I really appreciate it.

Click to expand...

I usually don't even read these sorts of threads, but this one intrigued me because it won't seem to die.

A couple of observations -
Judging by the quantity of posts some of us make, we obviously don't have anything better to do than to pay fairly close attention to this forum - myself included. This results, I think, in the occasional bit of well-intentioned over analysis of some of the posts made by brand new members in these types of contentious threads. This level of scrutiny is understandable and - sometimes - well-founded. Generally, I think there's really no way of knowing one way or the other what's really going on - sort of like the news these days - but it's funny what details you start to notice when you're looking for things out of place.

In this spirit, I read through this thread pretty carefully. In the post I quoted above, by a new member defending the vendor in question, I noticed the last line: "Thank you so much for all your help; I really appreciate it." Seems strange in context.... thank who? The online vendor? The rest of the message isn't addressed directly to them at all - it's intended for the public as a positive review of services rendered. Again, in the spirit of slightly rabid, anonymous hyper-scrutiny - could this line be a clue? Perhaps the vendor e-mailed a friend or relative - 'please register for this forum and post this message on my behalf - they'll know if I post under another name from the same IP'.... the well-meaning friend or relative copies and pastes the vendor's prepared text from the e-mail, accidentally including the last line, intended only for him/her....'Thank you so much for all your help; I really appreciate it.'

Or it could be nothing, a strangely worded message of support from a random satisfied customer.

This whole thread is becoming preposterous, to a certain extent - this is all meant as a bit of pointed fun.

I'm going to go make a peanut butter sandwich.

My Experience with New England Music Store

Hello:

I am a retired elderly person 80 years old. I am interested in buying a ukulele for my granddaughter since she expressed a great interest in playing one. She is pretty good on guitar and now she wants to try the ukulele.

She searched the Internet and came across the Makai MT-70 Solid Top Tenor ukulele at New England Music Store. Now, please keep in mind I know nothing of ukuleles so I decided to give them a call.

I was completely amazed on how nice and helpful Jim was at New England Music Store. I asked all sorts of questions like what is the difference between a concert and tenor, which size would be best for my granddaughter, what is a setup and various woods. Jim answered all my questions and even suggested other models/brands and websites, such as Uke Republic and Elderly Instruments and a couple more. He even mentioned the different brands you may want to consider and all sorts of helpful hints.

So, I decided to call. Now don’t get me wrong, the customer service at both websites was all right. I mean they didn’t tell to get lost or anything like that; but I did notice one thing. When I spoke with Jim at New England Music Store, I got the feeling he was generally concerned about getting the best ukulele at the best price for my granddaughter and that really resonated with me. I got the feeling Jim was more concerned about my granddaughter than making a sale. Remember, he did mention other brands and other retailers.

Oh yes, one more thing I noticed on the other two websites. I got the feeling they were pushing what I feel were all sorts of promotional gimmicks for me to buy, like throwing in a gig bag and some other stuff I can’t remember. I guess there is nothing wrong with that, but this did nothing for me to buy because all I wanted is to buy a really nice ukulele for my granddaughter. I will pay the extra money so that she is happy. I really don’t need the promotional gimmick stuff, but then again, that is me.

I haven’t decided yet, since I will leave that up to my daughter and granddaughter, but if my granddaughter has her heart set on the Makai MT-70 Tenor ukulele I am going to get it from Jim at New England Music Store.

Another thing that I really like is the Buy It Now option that Jim has on the website. If I understand it correctly, you make a purchase and have up to 6 months to pay it back interest free. Jim said this is an offer made through PayPal. I noticed the other two websites did not mention this or have it or even knew what this is about. Interesting?

I was reading other posts and I did notice one thing. Like I said I am 80 years old and I just can’t believe some of the vicious and probably unfounded comments made. Maybe I am from a different generation and things have changed, who knows?

Anyways, I thought I would put this post out there should that be of any help to someone.

I’ll let you know how things worked out.

Bye,

Elderly Person

Elderly Person-

I know what you mean about the level of civility displayed in this thread - one of the things that prompted me to have my bit of fun a couple of posts back. Unfortunately, this sort of tone is a direct result of the consequence-free anonymity of today's online forums. Most of these folks would never dream of saying some of these things face to face with a real person.

I am curious, though - how did you find out about this thread? Like I said, I usually don't engage in these sorts of discussions, so I'd be interested to know how you stumbled into it yourself.....

Due to suspicious postings (based on analysis of IP addresses), this thread is locked until further notice.

JJ