Amazon is doing something that is, to the best of my knowledge, unique – they make it easier to buy music gear than anyone else. Let me explain…
Sweetwater is one of the biggest online music dealers in the world, which is why they just got bought up. They make it super easy to buy gear. But how do you PAY for the gear?
If your husband or wife is totally cool with you buying whatever you want on the family credit card, great. But if you don’t want to have to debate why an HX Stomp is really worth $600, well, you don’t want to use the family credit card.
One option is to get a “secret” credit card, whether it be Visa or Sweetwater, but really, that’s never a good idea in a marriage. Secret credit cards have gotten many men and women into deep trouble, and the temptation to live beyond your means is huge.
So you decide you want to just set money aside here and there until you have enough cash to buy the Pod Go… but you can’t buy from anywhere online with cash. Now what? You can buy those Visa gift cards, but you can’t buy one for $500 any place I know. And you can’t combine Visa gift cards when you check out online. Of course you can always sit down with your spouse and show them the money and tell them you’ll be putting it in the bank and buying this expensive thing. You can do that each and every single time you buy gear online. Nothing wrong with that.
But what if you decide that it’s your money you’ve been setting aside, and why is it anyone else’s business how much you spend and on what?
Enter Amazon. You can buy Amazon gift cards up to $100. You can then add said Gift cards to your Amazon account. And when you have enough, you can make your purchase. And whatever’s left will sit in your account. Unlike the $6.89 left on that stupid Visa gift card that’s basically useless.
Better still, you can encourage people to give you Amazon gift cards for birthdays, Christmas, whatever. And a lot of places sell Amazon gift cards.
See how this works? You build up a balance. It’s for your eyes only. You can save up and buy stuff. The gift cards aren’t hard to find at stores. Amazon has a very big variety of gear – way bigger than your local Guitar Center.
If your family already has an Amazon Prime account, you could just use that… but then your entire purchase history will be dinner table fodder.
If you make money from music, having all of your purchases (or almost all) in one place is very handy. Amazon remembers everything you’ve ever bought.
Anyway, I’d like to be able to buy Sweetwater gift cards at my local grocery store, and then be able to add them to a Sweetwater account. But I don’t see that ever happening.
