Best On-Line Experience

DinoRock

DinoRock

New member
Given a wide variety of options for on-line and phone ordering of guitars and basses, what are people's preferences and why? My main interest is where people either have been satisfied or dissatisfied in terms of ordering bass guitars.
 
My preference for any musical gear has become Sweetwater. I've ordered a bass and at least 6 or 8 guitars from them through the years and I have never had an issue at all, even when I lived down in Houston and it took a few days for the instruments to ship. Now I get them the very next day or I can drive the 2 hours to go visit the showroom.

My main plug for Sweetwater though is their customer service - bar none the best experience I have ever had. I've got my own sales rep (order anything and you will, too) who has taken the time to get to know what I use, what I do, what kind of music I like and he's just as good at talking me out of something that I don't need as he is in selling me stuff. I used to have a good friend in Houston that worked at Guitar Center, that was a fun place to go and hang out, but when you need a rep with real product knowledge then Sweetwater is the place to call.
 
pikingrin said:
My preference for any musical gear has become Sweetwater. I've ordered a bass and at least 6 or 8 guitars from them through the years and I have never had an issue at all, even when I lived down in Houston and it took a few days for the instruments to ship. Now I get them the very next day or I can drive the 2 hours to go visit the showroom.

My main plug for Sweetwater though is their customer service - bar none the best experience I have ever had. I've got my own sales rep (order anything and you will, too) who has taken the time to get to know what I use, what I do, what kind of music I like and he's just as good at talking me out of something that I don't need as he is in selling me stuff. I used to have a good friend in Houston that worked at Guitar Center, that was a fun place to go and hang out, but when you need a rep with real product knowledge then Sweetwater is the place to call.
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+1

The only bad thing I will say about them is that they keep calling if you haven't ordered from them in a while, wanting to know if there's anything you're looking for. Kinda of a pita to get rid of. But they will take care of you.
 
It seems that many/most on this forum really like SW. I've ordered from GC, MF, Amazon, Sam Ash, and others by phone over the past decade and been pretty happy. MF is pretty much my go to place at this point. However, I'm trying to figure out what I'm missing about SW and see if I can rectify it. Every time I try to order from SW, I find that their prices are high and the phone folks don't know much more than what the spec sheets say. Am I just getting unlucky or don't I know how to navigate their system. (FYI, I grew up in the NY area, so I used to have the pleasure of shopping in the '70s at Manny's, Gracin's, Sam Ash, and others with extremely knowledgeable folks and great/competitive prices.)
 
Sweetwater is good, once ou order from them you get set up with a regular 'sales engineer' whose specialty aligns with what you bought. They don't call that often, and you can always let it go to v/m! They don't carry some of the 'bargain' brands. If you've got a good price form GC or elsewhere, it can be worth a call to SW to see if they'll match it. When I got my Taylor acoustic, I talked to the SW guy, but he could only come within $50 of the price I got, and as I had over $200 of GC gift cards, it was a no-brainer on that one.
Chicago Music Exchange also has very good customer service.
 
mjbphotos said:
Sweetwater is good, once ou order from them you get set up with a regular 'sales engineer' whose specialty aligns with what you bought....
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...and who will endlessly call you and send you emails on a regular basis until the end of time to see if you need anything, and when he moves on, they pass your account over the new sales engineer who will do the same, only twice as much and twice as frequently! :D

Last week I bought a guitar strap from SW via their eBay store. The sent me an email to check....then my sales guy called too.

Hey Miroslav, did you get the strap?
Yup.
Do you like like the strap?
Yup.
Any issues with the strap?
Nope.
Is there anything else I can help you with today?
Nope.
OK, have a good day.
You too.

:)

Really though, Sweetwater is fine...so is Musicians Friend, so is American Musical, so is Music 123....and so are another handful that I've purchased from over the years...and of course, there is also eBay.

I can't think any one online retailer that I've had seriously bad experiences with...and that includes my purchases on eBay.
Sure, if you do mostly online purchases, like I do these days, you are bound to have the odd issue, but all of these places offer some kind of return/refund or buyer protection policy....so I never give it a second thought buying from any of them.
 
We aren't talking high-end stuff here, but...

Santa brought me an Epi Les Paul Studio from Musician's Friend...no problem.

Santa tried to get me an Epi Dot from Guitarcenter.com...it had been discontinued and they didn't have any in the warehouse...GC guy found one in one of their stores and had it shipped...a bit "above" and beyond I'd say...

Regarding Miroslav's Sweetwater phone call...different but similar...after ordering from an online pet store they emailed me every day wanting me to write a review of my purchase...somewhere on their website is a reviews that says, "It's a freakin' dog bowl, it doesn't leak, what the hell else can I say?"
 
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