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MY TURN I BY MILES DECASTRO PULLING BACK THE CURTAIN ON TARIFFS T he year 2025 is a wild time to be a music products dealer. Tar- iffs and economic un- certainty abound. And
pad crisis of the mid-2020s would not be enough to charge my clients more than what I told them I would charge after inspecting their instrument. If I mistakenly undercharge, that’s on me. I take note of why this happened and adjust for the fu- ture. But never for the past. It’s not only common courtesy but also the level of service my cli- ents expect. And they should expect it. Anyone exchanging their hard-earned dollars for the opportunity to make mu- sic, or facilitate music making, should at the very least be fully informed of how many of those dollars will be changing hands. When it comes to the manu- facturers, sure, I can cancel my orders. And in a few cases, I have. But I wouldn’t have much of a music store without any music products in it. So, I must soldier forth with the new surCHARGE (more like surPRISE) pricing. ADVICE TO SUPPLIERS Does it need to be like this? I submit that it does not. There are better, more ethical options available. The first, and best, op- tion would be to fulfill orders sooner. If an item wasn’t backor- dered to begin with, we wouldn’t need to worry about a tariff and its related surcharge. I will be surcharged for items I ordered in September of last year. If these items had been delivered in nine months or less, both
if you’re anything like me, you’re probably sick of hearing about it. I will likely need to write “tariff” several times during this article, but I’ll do my best to keep it to a minimum and to not focus on the doom-and-gloom of the current economic outlook. These wild times have led to, or at least coincided with, dealer terms I have not seen the likes of in my 20 years in the industry. Raising prices af- ter an order has been placed is something I never imagined I would see, yet I have received memos from multiple manufac- turers stating that they would be doing this — usually calling it a tariff surcharge. To me, this is somewhat sketchy. I’ve heard it called words much worse than “sketchy” from industry friends, but I’ll stick with “sketchy.” I can’t think of another situation in life where I would agree to purchase something at the price the seller decided on — let’s not forget, the manufacturer is the one who decided on the price in the first place — only to have the seller increase the price after an agreement has been reached. I understand why they’re doing it, and empathize with
One MI retailer’s take on the tariff surcharges.
their position, but I can’t fathom raising a price that both parties already agreed to. Imagine a customer ordered a product online for in-store pickup. Then, once the cus- tomer got to the store to pick up the item, they were charged an extra 10%. That would be a good way to lose a sale, your credibility, your trustworthi- ness and a customer for life. While I do have more than 1,000 SKUs in my shop, the bulk of my business is instru- ment repair. Estimating or quoting is one of the tricki-
est parts of repair, yet I would be hard-pressed to think of a scenario where I would have the audacity to charge a repair client an amount higher than what I quoted them. Instrument repair is my business and what I’ve devoted my professional life to. I know it well and use my expertise to try to account for all possible scenarios when I inspect, and ultimately quote, the cost of the work I plan to do on an instrument. Occasionally, unforeseen things arise. But a surprise problem during disas- sembly or the great saxophone
20 I MUSIC INC. I AUGUST 2025
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