5 Reasons NOT TO BUY your Ukulele on Amazon

It doesn’t matter if you want to buy an ukulele for yourself or if you want to give it to someone you love, the most common thing we do –and I say “we” because Terry and I have been in this position too– is go to amazon.com and find the best option that fits our budget and needs. But… is it really the best thing to do, at least for the ukulele player? MAYBE NOT!

Don’t get me wrong, Amazon offers a lot of great things, but when it comes to ukuleles, the reality is that getting a good quality instrument on Amazon can be an impossible task due to different variants such as brand, sound, wood, materials, strings, and other specs that we as ukulele lovers like to have in our musical arsenal.

So, if you’re here because you wanted to get an ukulele and searched on Google the “ukulele + Amazon” word combination… You’re welcome! You’ve just being saved from buying an instrument that actually will not fit your –or your loved one’s– needs. To back up my words, I will present you below 5 reasons why you shouldn’t buy an ukulele on Amazon.

#1 – Is it Amazon, really, the cheapest place to buy an Ukulele?

No, it’s not!

Thinking that Amazon is the “cheapest” place to buy anything is just a myth. The reality is that all the ukulele companies have a list of prices that they give to the dealers with the “Minimum price allowed” to sell or advertise their products. That means only one thing: Amazon cannot be cheaper than the actual brand stores or the authorized brand dealers, such as store.ukelikethepros.com, the #1 Store for your Ukulele & Guitar needs.

As a matter a fact, I took the initiative to search for ukulele stuff on Amazon and what I’m about to show you will blow your mind! In the image below you’ll see what I found on a simple ukulele search on Amazon, arranged by the “Low to High” and “High to Low” prices:

Yes, the difference in prices is huge and overwhelming, but that’s nothing compared to the prices you can find for the same instrument in an Authorized dealer’s ukulele shop. For example, let’s take the Enya EUT-Flower ukulele and compare its price with the one we have in our store.ukelikethepros.com site:

We’re talking about a $2,464.75 difference between the 2 offers, and this is just the start. We can find ukulele offers on Amazon that are way off behind the human logic!

#2 – Customer Support & Answers

When you’re searching for a gift, you want to see all the options, ask some questions and compare the products before making the final decision. That’s why the customer support is a very important key, especially in the E-Commerce field, when a “simple” type of wood can make a difference in the sound and the look you’re searching for your new ukulele.

Imagine having questions about a specific ukulele and not being able to find answers about it. Would you have the confidence you need to finally buy that product? That’s what happens on Amazon! Either you don’t get your answers on time, or you don’t get any answers at all; and this translates into immediate disappointment if you still buy that ukulele and find out, when you open that box, that is not what you were looking for with your new investment.

We know that people really struggle with this situation, and that’s why we offer a one-on-one customer support that will help you out with all your questions so you can be sure and ready to buy the instrument that you’re really looking for. Our team has been trained for this and is ready to answer all your questions. If you have any doubts about this, contact us in our live chat at store.ukelikethepros.com.

#3 – Does Amazon have the Best ukulele Brands in the World?

Let’s start by saying that Amazon offers a great amount of ukulele brands in its site. That’s a good thing (for them), but it doesn’t mean that those brands are The Best Ukulele Brands of the market. So, to give you a straight answer: No. Amazon does NOT have the best ukulele brands.

The best brands get their recognition by their quality. For instance, ukulele brands like KoAloha, Kanile’a or Kamaka are well known for their excellent quality + time in the market. In the image below I’m going to show you an example of what happens when you search the name of one of those ukulele brands on Amazon. In this case, let’s use KoAloha. To make things easier, the image will also show you a comparison of what should happen when you search the same word “KoAloha” in a specialized ukulele store like store.ukelikethepros.com:

The image speaks by itself. If a site doesn’t have the best of the best, then the best thing to do as a customer is to go to a different site that can actually offer quality instead of quantity. In Uke Like The Pros we carry more than 20 ukulele brands, including –of course– the best of the best. To give you a sneak peek, in our store you can find ukulele brands like KoAloha, Kanile’a, Kamaka, Ko’olau (These 4 known as the big “K”s from Hawaii), Romero Creations, ANueNue, Pono, Ohana, Kala, Flight, Enya… And the list goes on and on!

#4 – Quality Control

Have you thought about the process that comes along after you buy an Ukulele on Amazon? What do they do? The most common thing is to simply pick up the product off the shed and ship it out to you without even checking that the instrument is in its proper conditions. You could get a damaged ukulele! If that happens, you would have to return it and wait days and days to get a new one.

Nobody likes to wait that much to get one purchase, right? Instead, we recommend you to find a store that can actually offer you a quality control system, such as our Uke Like The Pros Repair Shop. If you get an ukulele from us, we’re going to make sure that the instrument is in perfect conditions with our 10 Point Inspection that allows us to check every aspect of the ukulele before shipping it to the final location.

Besides the 10 Point Inspection, we also offer costume set-ups by our luthiers with different tyers depending on your needs. You can add-on those tyers right after selecting the instrument, as long as some other extra accessories like picks, straps or humidifiers. Can you do that on Amazon? I’ll let you answer this by yourself 🙂

#5 – The Extra Value

Sometimes it’s not enough to just buy the instrument. The extra value that you can get with the purchase can make the difference between being a frustrated ukulele player or being an ukulele student that can actually grow and play more things other than the Island Strum (D-DU-UDU).

When you get your ukulele on Amazon, you pay the bill, get the box, open the box… And then what? The excitement disappears in minutes if you don’t have anything to guide you in the learning process. Instead of buying just a piece of wood with strings, we’re offering you a complete learning experience with courses, memberships, books, chord charts and everything you need to not only “have” an ukulele, but actually know how to play it.

So… in conclusion: Should you buy a new ukulele on Amazon? No. Should you buy something with your eyes closed, trusting only in the images Amazon shows on their site? No. Should you go to the random ukulele brands that Amazon has, instead of going to the best ones in the market? No, but that only depends on you.

Now it’s your time to decide. I’m giving you all the facts about mixing ukuleles with Amazon products, but the last call is yours. Do your own search and if you need help or have any questions about this, just ask! We have a live chat support in all our sites with trained agents that can answer all your doubts. You can also write me a message down below and I’ll be happy to help you out. ⬇️⬇️⬇️

If this article was helpful for you, go ahead and share it with your ukulele friends! And… if you make a decision and buy one of our ukuleles: CONGRATULATIONS!