Music Tribe, formerly known as Behringer, announced in a Dec. 5 Facebook post that it would no longer sell its products to independent MI retail stores. Instead, it will focus on “super partners,” including Sweetwater and Amazon. This change is expected to commence on Jan. 1.
“For many years, our U.S. Customers have been suffering from late product delivery and high prices as we’ve been operating through an added distribution channel,” The Music Tribe, stated in the Facebook post. “This is about to change and it’s big news for you. We’re in close contact with the best U.S. e-commerce partners to establish a ‘factory direct’ model, where we’ll ship products straight from our factories to these super partners, which will dramatically increase speed and lower cost. These amazing super partners have also committed to stock all our products, so you have access at all times.
Best of all, we’ll be able to pass those massive savings on to you, which means U.S. prices will now be in line with our attractive prices in Europe. We’re also currently working on a global pricing strategy, so all of you have access to all products at equal pricing (excluding local taxes etc.).
Stay tuned, as we’ll soon be announcing our super partners and new pricing. Fasten your seatbelts. As always, we like to take the opportunity to thank you all for your incredible loyalty and support during these 30-plus years. We promise to work even harder to provide you with great products at the best possible prices.”
Music Tribe CEO Uli Behringer stated the following in an internal memo obtained by the Music & Sound Retailer: “Based on our Customer Obsession Vision, we believe that every customer must have access to all of our products anywhere, anytime, and at the most competitive global price possible,” he said. “As we are changing our selling model from ‘selling’ and serving every partner, we are now focusing on a select choice of the most influential e-commerce partners who have the largest customer reach and depth of services. In order to provide our customers with access for all our brands and products, deliver them at lighting speed and lowest possible cost, only large e-commerce partners are capable of delivering this service.
“As a consequence, this unfortunately disqualifies all small brick-and-mortar stores and traditional distributors, as serving them adds little value and increases cost, which our customers shouldn’t be burdened with,” Behringer continued. “We are now identifying these global super partners, such as Amazon, Thomann, Sweetwater, Alibaba, etc. and select them by country and region to establish large volume and factory-direct engagements to ensure we’ll build the leanest and most cost-effective channels to our customers. These savings will be largely passed on to our customers.”
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