Pricing in the New Year

[fatmunkey]

I'll add my two cents worth here.

Towards the end of 2013 I wanted a semi hollow guitar, but couldn't afford one. I'd heard about kits, and so got a cheap ES-335 kit off of eBay. I put in as much effort as I could, but it still wasn't quite right. The scale length was about 10mm too long using the predrilled bridge post holes, and it sort of intonates up to around the seventh fret. Looks pretty. Dog to play. But what can you do, it's eBay.
In the course of working out how to build the first kit I stumbled across this site, the forums really, and found something pretty unique: a group of kit builders putting together good gear from good parts, and a guy that made sure good kits were supplied. So when I got some spare cash together, I ordered a TL-1 and an IB-5, and was impressed with the service, the speed, and the quality.
I got inundated with work, and so the TL-1 sat half sanded for a few months, but is now underway. And it's awesome. Very happy

TL;DR: You're not competing with the crappy kits of the world, these are actually good bits of gear, and not too dear. A small price rise is the way it has to be. I think there's an opportunity to sell a complete range of upgraded parts as well, along the lines of the Emerson prewired rigs, and some tools like radius sanding blocks.

[dave.king1]

I'll add my two cents worth here.
I think there's an opportunity to sell a complete range of upgraded parts as well, along the lines of the Emerson prewired rigs, and some tools like radius sanding blocks.

My thought on this and particularly the tools, the good stuff is expensive and for mine the overhead on slow moving stock could be a lead weight and detrimental on the cash flow.

On the other side of the coin I've given PBG & Forum a bit of a push over on Pistonheads.com and myself and others ( happy birthday for today Shane D ) have mentioned the kits on Ozclubbies.com ( closed forum ) and also TDPRI.com

[bargeloobs]

I'll add my two cents worth here.

I think there's an opportunity to sell a complete range of upgraded parts as well, along the lines of the Emerson prewired rigs, and some tools like radius sanding blocks.

That's actually a really good idea. I mean there's a few different online luthier suppliers around Aus, but really if you want exactly what you're looking for unfortunately most of the time you have to bend over and let Stew Mac give it to you, and that hurts!!
e.g $10 (aus) for a tiny bottle of super glue then another $30 just to get it here, etc etc:-(
I know you'd be entering into a whole new realm stocking specialist tools, but the way the site, the community, and by default the business are growing I don't think you'd have a problem shifting stock.
Even if you started with basic fret leveling kits, say a notched straight edge, leveling beam, fret rocker, crowning file that sort of thing, then progress to your fretting tools, router bits, inlays and binding and the list goes on...
Shit, I know if I had the choice when shopping for luthiery tools who I'd rather give my money to.
Why not make PBG the one stop shop for everything guitars.