The pill that powers ebay, methinks, which is why I typically find the harps I want there, none of which are the ones you sited, by the way. I buy from other retailers when they have sales that make sense to me, but why would I pay, for example, $40-45 for a new GM, when I can routinely find the same new harp on ebay for under $35, and sometimes under $30?
This is a dilemma, of course, because I'd like to support the smaller, maybe more local retailers instead of the gigantic maybe multi-national behemoths (don't get me started).
There was a time a few years ago when I felt strongly about not buying Chinese goods, in particular shoes. My kids were young and we were poor, very poor, and when they needed new shoes it was a big deal. It became virtually impossible to find any affordable shoes that didn't come from China. So I had to do what I had to do, like it or not.
So wanting to support local and smaller retailers is my preference, and I understand the power of large quantity buying in being able to sell at lower prices, and yet I have trouble paying maybe 50% more for something in order to do what I'd prefer to do.
Oops. Silly me. I think it must have been me who took the wrong pill. Or maybe I took the pill that gave me another view of your post. Any way, crazy, to be sure. Why would someone, with or without a pill, pay more for the replacement plates than the entire harp costs? Unless you simply must have the thicker MS reed plate replacements for some reason, at a nifty price premium. Is there some secret marketing strategy at work here?
