USA buyer here, I always buy from Sweetwater if possible. The fact I have had the same person as my sales rep for many years tells me they are paying these people well and it is a decent place to work. When you call other places, the person on the phone is like "Bro, I am making minimum wage. What do you want from me?". SW always goes the extra mile to make sure I am happy.
That said, SW annoys me with the Google Ads following me around for weeks after I look at something. You looked at a Kemper, here are Kemper ads for the next 3 weeks. Hope it wasn't a Xmas present because now everyone in your house is getting these ads. Some days I want to move to Europe, you guys dont seem to put up with this crap as much.
I wonder how much of a difference it is to buy from Kemper direct. Seems like most sales rep configs would have the german sales rep firm making money from the sale. Of course that would be closer to 5% then the higher numbers a seller would make. Interesting topic. For me, it would be dumb since they would have to mail across the globe. Someone will eat that cost.
I purchased my Kemper from Guitar Center (in town) in case I wanted to return it. When I was unhappy, GC would not take it back. So that back fired. I then bought my Helix from Sweetwater, so you lost a sale GC nice job. I try to never buy from GC ever. Musicians Friend purchased them and are slowly making them better but they are still my last choice.
I buy Sweetwater or MF Stupid Deal. MF has taken care of me in the past very well, but dont have the depth of help SW has.
I have a local shop I try to buy from first, to help them. But they rarely have what I am looking for. So I end up buying like 2% of my stuff there I may make donations of old stuff there later