Rainsong Change Up?
 

Was looking at Rainsongs website and it looks like they discontinued the Hybrid line? I was looking for a Dread 14 fret at that price point but it doesn't look like they have it now? What did they replace it with at that price point?

They are still in-stock at the major Internet retailers and 15% off right now at MF, but they are gone when current inventory runs out. It seems RainSong is abandoning the less than $2K price points.

Come to think about it, this is a common theme in the CF guitar business. At one point Emerald, CA, and RainSong had cheaper instruments.

They don't call the "loss leaders" for nothing, Jon! I imagine that it's hard for small shops like most CF builders to keep losing money for the sake of advertising...

Phil

In my business days in a mid sized semiconductor company, one of the problems was cost accounting. How much of the greater overhead do you assign to a newish product. Should it be in proportion to its cost of goods sold, or in proportion to the marketing, sales, research and development, or maybe a free pass since it would not reduce any of the greater overhead to discontinue?

CF guitar companies are not big entities so it might not be as tough a decision to make, but in big companies incremental cash flow positive is not generally enough to keep making something you don't believe will grow to be profitable on a fully absorbed cost basis (note all the judgements that go into that calculation).

I'm thinking if there are unused molds sitting around the RainSong factory or under utilized staff, this was not a great decision.

I would think they keep using same molds and change compositions of the CF and composite layers and or can just change the tops , just guessin’... Ashvin is pretty sharp, not guessin’.

Where is that darn "like" button...?

Phil

Yep. :up:

I have no idea how it is in the CF guitar business, but in the boat business, the molds have a life (i.e. after a certain number of boats are built, they have to make another mold to continue that model... or, move on to a "new" model.

Eliminating the lower price line just makes good business sense. For the person who now wants to buy one: snag one at one of the aforementioned retailers before they are all gone.

I should have said that differently. I know the molds are universal across all the variations of the same body size. But if there is unused capacity to make guitars now that they've focused on more expensive instruments, then it was probably not a great decision.

Unless they can do volume I get how it is not worth it for them. Relative to other companies they are certainly low volume...At least that is my understanding.

I think RainSong is a great company and wish them the best of luck. Gorgeous guitars.