Euphonywho

I am a huge fan of the Internet. Between Google, Wikipedia, Hulu, Amazon, Facebook, and all the other countless (and frequently mindless) places to visit, there are so many good things that have come about because of the Internet. Shopping online has become quite the experience now. Most major stores will offer free shipping on orders, making it extremely convenient and usually cheaper than buying in a brick and mortar store. Web stores have lower overhead costs, like the possibility of much lower rent, or similar rent with a much larger inventory. But you still don’t get the same experience as you would in a store.

I’m thinking in particular of a recent shopping experience I had, where I needed a trombone mute quickly, and at a decent price. The problem was that I wanted to test some out before I bought, but the local store, Allegro Music, doesn’t stock anything but grossly overpriced Humes & Berg mutes and one random Harmon mute.  It is impossible for them to carry a large inventory of trombone equipment, as there isn’t a lot of demand for the five brands of trombone mutes and countless brands of mouthpieces.  But then they lose that sale to a store that does, usually online. Allegro can special order items, but that costs extra time and money.
There are some web stores that have policies for trying out items, I can think of Dillon’s off the top of my head.  This requires you decide on the item(s) you want, buy them, have them shipped to you, try everything out and decide on one, ship the rest back and wait for a refund.  This is not exactly ideal for those like me, who want to try out a few mouthpieces (Christmas present anyone?) that can cost around $300 each, and don’t want to charge 3 of them on a credit card to try them out.
My favorite stores are ones that have both brick and mortar stores and web stores, but had their physical locations long before their virtual.  These are usually family owned, and have been long established, and are generally very knowledgeable. But because of their web stores, they also have a good idea of the market, and can offer good prices due to long relationships with the vendors and manufacturers.  One of my favorite places is Hickey’s Music (just don’t Google the name at work!).  Great New York music store, semi-decent prices, semi-decent website, but amazing selection and service.
I wish there was an easy solution.  Web stores can’t afford to ship out product for testing without some sort of deposit.  Brick and mortar stores can’t afford to stock a large variety. Luckily, there is a good selection of stores both on the web and places you can actually visit personally.  Between all of the stores, there are ways to find what you want, get good prices, test things before buying if needed, get good service, and not have to pay Amazon or some other large store.  I ended up buying my cup mute from Hyson Music, and had a great experience.  They seem like a fairly new store, at least online, but I can see things going well for them.