How Many Brasswinds are there?

[CJ Krause]

***

[J.Harris]

The Woodwind and Brasswind have two online aliases that I know of. MI Supply and Music123. If you look at their addresses you'll notice they are located outside of Indiana. This lets Indiana residents order the same products through these sites and avoid paying Indiana state sales tax.

[tubaman5150]

There is only one Woodwind and Brasswind. The rest are affiliates that sell WW and BW's stock for a commission. It all comes from the same place. They are sometimes called resellers.
Amazon is a reseller as well. It is affiliated with countless other stores to draw upon a wide array of varied merchandise to become a "one stop" shop. Although, it does have some of its own stock.

[king2ba]

tubaman5150,

Not true. The other companies that Charlie is refering to are not affiliates. They are the same company as WW and BW. (Though, MI supply is a new one to me, but since the address is Cherry Hill, NJ I'm sure they belong to Dennis Bamber)

WW and BW let Music 123 buy into them in 2001ish. Once Bamber sucked all the life out of the Zapf brothers (owners of Music 123) he fired them making Music123 and WAB one company under his control. MI supply must have been a company that was just along for the ride with Music 123.

Lyons music has been owned by WW and BW for years. There used to be two or three people that did nothing but Lyons work, but now that all the websites are the same with slightly different grapics, I'm guessing there isn't much for a real human to do. Though, I could be wrong.

They used to also own BandNOW and Band 123, but last I knew one of the employee's used one of those sites to post things about what Dennis Bamber was really like as a human being.

I'm sure Charlie K. knew all this, though!

[tubaman5150]

tubaman5150,

Not true. The other companies that Charlie is refering to are not affiliates. They are the same company as WW and BW. (Though, MI supply is a new one to me, but since the address is Cherry Hill, NJ I'm sure they belong to Dennis Bamber)

WW and BW let Music 123 buy into them in 2001ish. Once Bamber sucked all the life out of the Zapf brothers (owners of Music 123) he fired them making Music123 and WAB one company under his control. MI supply must have been a company that was just along for the ride with Music 123.

Lyons music has been owned by WW and BW for years. There used to be two or three people that did nothing but Lyons work, but now that all the websites are the same with slightly different grapics, I'm guessing there isn't much for a real human to do. Though, I could be wrong.

They used to also own BandNOW and Band 123, but last I knew one of the employee's used one of those sites to post things about what Dennis Bamber was really like as a human being.

I'm sure Charlie K. knew all this, though!

Thanks for clearing that up. I simply thought they were just more of the ever growing list of WW and BW affiliates. I had no way of knowing the difference.
Do you know why one company would keep so many aliases?

[king2ba]

4 reasons-

- The most simple - the tax man! Spreading profits to companies that aren't "doing so well" according to the books saves on the total tax bill.

- The more important one is that when you have multiple companies under one governing organization, you can piss lots of people off and not get effected. Let's say WW and BW wants to buy $500,000 worth of Yamaha tubas. They buy them through one of the "side" companies and then find out that no one wants to buy them, so they have to sell at a loss. This may mean that the manufacture won't get their money. Let's say the manufacture gets really mad and takes the "side" company to court to the point that the "side" company has to declare bankruptcy. WW and BW doesn't care that it lost a "side" company. WW and BW isn't affected by it, and the manufacture probably will never see their money. I don't believe this is why WW and BW would buy other companies, but they could be used in this way.

- WW and BW doesn't have purchasing agreements with every manufacture. For a long time, WW and BW couldn't sell Conn. But, when Music123 came into the picture, Conn started to show up in the WW and BW catalog. WW and BW still couldn't buy the product directly, but they were able to get it and sell it in a very neat and legal way.

- Market share. Some areas of the country are used to shopping at certain stores. If WW and BW owns those companies, then they get lots of extra business without having to take the risk of advertising.

I'm sure there are other reasons, but these are the ones I can think of off the top of my head!

[davet]

The Woodwind and Brasswind have two online aliases that I know of. MI Supply and Music123. If you look at their addresses you'll notice they are located outside of Indiana. This lets Indiana residents order the same products through these sites and avoid paying Indiana state sales tax.

NO! NO! Our Indiana income tax form has a seperate line for paying tax on out- of -state purchases. They call it a "use tax." Its rate is equal to our sales tax rate and all Hoosiers keep track of all such purchases and pay all tax due every year!

We want our governor to be free from worrying about tax collecting so that he can spend his time on really important issues such as daylight savings time!

Dave