The End of Guitar Center - America and the Big Corporate Empire,.. good article......

AS far as I can tell, that's the only thing this guy has written about in the last few years. Who cares if they go under?
 
If they go Chapter 11 they will either restructure or be sold. They are too big to just die.
You heard it from this blog first.
 
Farview said:
AS far as I can tell, that's the only thing this guy has written about in the last few years. Who cares if they go under?
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I care. I like GC. Well, I like the idea of GC. They're the Wal-Mart of music stores. If you put aside the general cluelessness of the employees, GC offers a valuable service to musicians. They're everywhere, and they have a little bit of everything. They have enough buying power to keep their prices better than a mom-and-pop shop. Their used inventory is huge, you can find anything you want online, and they'll ship it right to you. You can then return it locally if you need to. That's pretty awesome. I think the pros of a GC outweigh the cons. But I'm pretty spoiled. My city has 5 or 6 Guitar Centers, and three of them are quite spectacular. The one 5 minutes from my house is a small store, but it's great for popping in for sticks, strings, cables, little things like that.
 
they just blew a lot of $$$ remodeling the store near me. I actually liked the old store layout better, but I'm old and hate change.. :D
 
What Gerg said ^^^^. Just avoid Saturday afternoons unless you wear earplugs and only go in for what you really need.
That Garland guy is a self-professed expert, claiming things like his blogs 'going viral' have forced GC to do press releases, bla bla bla...
 
I too love the idea of Guitar Center. I've got to drive 30 minutes to an hour to get to the ones I frequent, but it's worth it. I have bought a lot of my equipment and most of my strings/sticks/heads, etc. at local shops and my $500 desk from their online.
OTOH, if people treat GC like I did when looking for monitors, I can see how it would not be helpful. Spent 5 hours with one of their salespeople trying out different monitors and then ordered what I wanted from amazon...not nice of me, but by the time I listened to the files and reviewed the data and asked opinions, I was at a point where I was not going to drive an hour to get them...free shipping and all that.
Hopefully they can turn this around. Would sure miss them if they went away.
 
Two of the most common gripes about GC are that they have shit customer service, and they kill mom and pop shops. Both valid, but misguided.

1) Bad customer service - True. Their employees are mostly stupid. But what do you expect? They get paid jack shit and the requirements to work there are that you breathe oxygen and have a heartbeat. That's it. Do your own fucking homework. In this day and age, everyone has a computer in their pocket. Google will not try to push anything on you for a sales commission. Arm yourself with knowledge and go get what you want.

2) They killed the mom and pop shops - Mom and pop shops have limited inventory and high prices. Why do people lament the loss of that bad business model? I don't want people to lose their business, but fuck, if they can't compete they can't compete. People that support the mom and pop business model only do so because they have some socio-political agenda against big-box corporation retailers. It's not about service or quality to those goons. It's just politics. If your personal politics dictate that you spend more money for the same equipment while having less options, then you're stupid.
 
I'll tell you something. If my Mom and Pop ever owned a store, I wouldn't shop there.
 
Mine are both dead, so that'd be pretty scary!
Greg makes some great points. But the opposite of the mom and pop shop coin comes when they're all gone and there's only a couple places to buy from and they start upping the prices to further their pockets (and keep their stockholders happy) widening the social gaps...But still, it's just good business. Buy cheaper, sell lower. Make more profit, grow bigger. It's been the trend since the 60s.
 
BroKen_H said:
Mine are both dead, so that'd be pretty scary!
Greg makes some great points. But the opposite of the mom and pop shop coin comes when they're all gone and there's only a couple places to buy from and they start upping the prices to further their pockets (and keep their stockholders happy) widening the social gaps...But still, it's just good business. Buy cheaper, sell lower. Make more profit, grow bigger. It's been the trend since the 60s.
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GC has a few online stores that are owned by the parent company. I found this out when trying to order something that was out of stock, and the stock numbers were all identical, and all of the on delivery dates changed at the same time, and when I pinged the sales rep about it, he confessed.

Musician's friend is one of them, and Woodwind and something is another. As I remember there were at least 3 all using different websites, but the same backend inventory system.

I pretty much use sweetwater and I recommend going to their gearfest if you are someone in driving range of Northern Indiana. I went last year for the first time, and I'm going to try and go back again this year. (bring some $$$.. ) :D
 
I honestly use amazon.com for about 80% of everything. Sometimes what I order comes from Musician's Friend, Kraft Music, etc...but usually the best prices are there (when you consider free 2 day shipping I get from Prime. Get electronics, ordered my Radio Shack dB meter there, clothes, cologne/perfume (for the wife :)), everything but food...if I can't find it locally or can't justify buying it locally because of large price differences, it comes from amazon unless they don't have what I want or there's a huge price diff like the guitars I just bought from Musician's Friend (actually the bass is still on B/O).
 
BroKen_H said:
Mine are both dead, so that'd be pretty scary!
Greg makes some great points. But the opposite of the mom and pop shop coin comes when they're all gone and there's only a couple places to buy from and they start upping the prices to further their pockets (and keep their stockholders happy) widening the social gaps...But still, it's just good business. Buy cheaper, sell lower. Make more profit, grow bigger. It's been the trend since the 60s.
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GC hasn't done that though. Their pricing is stable and comparable to online retailers. It seems that their pricing increases come from the individual companies. For example, Gibson dictates that the price of their shitty 2015 line up be increased by 29%. Okay, fine, GC has no choice, but where they can fight back is when no one buys those shitty overpriced Gibsons and they're left on the wall collecting dust - which is what's already happening. They have the presence and buying power to potentially say "hey fuckers, if you want us to sell your shit, make them better and price them better". Since GC is a huge retailer for Gibsons, I'm interested to see who caves first. Gibson is a stupid and stubborn company. GC is a retailer in trouble. Hello used gear!

The few independent and smaller businesses in Houston that are licensed to carry Gibsons have refused to carry the 2015s, or have significantly reduced their offerings. One mexican company trying to get their foot in the door here used to have a whole wall full of very nicely priced pre-2015 Gibsons. I don't know how they did it. Being a mexican company, I suspect they robbed some Gibson trucks or something. I mean they were selling new Customs for $2700. I should have bought one. But anyway, they have just few left and they don't want to carry the 2015s. Another single independent guitar shop carries the very high end Custom Shop stuff and still has a nice inventory of older models. But this guy is high dollar. He doesn't want the 2015s either.
 
It's always outside forces that cause that sort of thing...;) Like the price of gas raising all the prices of meat at Wal-Mart through the roof, but now that the price of gas has dropped lower than it was 8 years ago, the prices are still way above where they were. It's always something external, but in the long run, competition is a good thing. Yes there are still a lot of online options. But if we get down to Guitar Center/Woodwinnd and the Brasswind/Musician's Friend/whatever else they own, and Sweetwater and whatever else they eat up. We end up with another Microsoft dictating that we'll be paying monthly fees to keep having operating systems...none of this may happen, but the potential with lack of competition exists. I'm probably not the most eloquent at making this point, but it is valid none-the-less.
Would like to see Gibsons come down, but it's not the only name. There's always ESP or SGR or Dean :laughings: We all know your love for pointy guitars...
 
GC probably does better sales via their online outlets (Musician's Friend, and a few others) than their GC stores...so I'm sure they will still survive one way or another. Maybe judt fewer brick-n-mortar stores.
 
They could do with fewer stores. There is one every 15 miles in the Chicago area and there are two in Vegas. Vegas is only a 20 minutes from one side of it to the other... Both stores are mid-sized. It would make more sense to have one big store here.
 
BroKen_H said:
Would like to see Gibsons come down, but it's not the only name. There's always ESP or SGR or Dean :laughings: We all know your love for pointy guitars...
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No thanks, I'll just go back to drumming full time. For me, those pointy metal douche guitars can't touch a nice Gibson.
 
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