I thought Mars was having a sale?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Michael Jones
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Michael Jones

Michael Jones

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I went there yesterday, and all they were offering was 10% off.
Guess they're not too interested in clearing out their inventory.

Hell, GC gave me tax exempt status, that's 8% off - right off the bat.
Maybe as the days wear on their prices will come down?
 
Same Story

I went to the Arlington Store and heard the same story. They are closing (perhaps) the Plano store and (might be) moving Inventory around to be sold off at a slight discount if it makes the other stores overstocked.
I wasn't looking forward to them having hard times but I was under the impression they were going to be moving off some big time inventory! I guess they are not.

tmix
 
The Boston stores are gone...extinct...nothing but a memory. They didn't just have a sale - they AUCTIONED off everything in the store at a public auction.
 
The Salt Lake City store went out of business over a year ago but it took forever for them to finally cllose the doors; the "going out of business" sale seemed to go on forever. The only deal I got was on a SKB 8 space case for $50. I saw a GP-100 go for $300 but you can usually get that price on eBay.

I suspect they shipped all the nice stuff to other stores that hadn't closed yet, or maybe they have some way of wholesaling what's left to get better prices.
 
Yeah.
I mean, I hate to see them go under; competition is always a good thing, but hey, I'm always looking out for deals too.

My local Mars said they would remain open until everything was sold off. So they could be around for a while.
 
The last time I was in a Mars I offered to buy the only Korg ms2000 synth they had left. The best they could do was 10% off, and this was for the floor model. You gotta be kidding me...
 
They don't do liquidation to keep a customer happy, they do it because they have to do it. The longer it keeps going, the longer they have a job. When it's over, so are the salespeople. So it is to their advantage to gush about a sale and offer 10% until they have no other choice. Then they offer 20, 30 and so on. Usually they run out of time, lose the lease and everything gets shipped to an auction house. There may be deals to be found, but you're on your own as to warranties.




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Wanna buy a Korg? No? Well, how about the display it's sitting on? 10% off retail on that, too. Maybe we could interest you in a bathroom door...
 
The Mars liquidation has nothing to do with keeping salespeople employed, keeping customers happy or anything more complex than the liquidator trying to make the best return on thier investment. In reality, there is no Mars anymore - just a liquidation company using the name and the building for a while.

Simply put, the liquidator bid $X million for the Mars inventory and they wasnt to make the most they can. At some point it is likely the discount will go to 20%, 30%, etc. until all that is left is junk which will be sold to aution or to other gear brokers - such as the local "used gear stores"

Hiw long the "sales" last will be dictated by the finance terms (the liquidator had to get thier money from somewhere) and as Treeline said may also be dictated by short term lease ageeements on what were formerly the Mars stores - but the length or terms of the liquidation sale has nothing to to with sale people trying to hang on to thier jobs.

Lets also keep in mind that when this is all said and done, about 2,000 of our fellow musicians (dare I say possibly our friends and neighbors) will be losing their jobs - right before Xmas, so perhaps we should keep that in mind when we are inclined to bitch at them because the sale ain't good enough.
 
mikeh has it right.

The "sale" will be dictated by how long they have to stay in the building. (in most cases)

The Milwaukee store went 10% and the employees aren't in a position to deal anymore. You just have to keep an eye on the place and try and find out how long they have. In the case of the local store they thought around 4 or 5 weeks. They need to move everything, and want to get as much as they can so it usually starts slow, then drops as time goes by.

Eventually they will drop and you gotta be there when they do.
 
mikeh said:
Lets also keep in mind that when this is all said and done, about 2,000 of our fellow musicians (dare I say possibly our friends and neighbors) will be losing their jobs - right before Xmas, so perhaps we should keep that in mind when we are inclined to bitch at them because the sale ain't good enough.
Click to expand...

A good point

I asked a few of the people what they were going to do and most had found work at other stores already.
These guys were patient with me over the course of my dealings with them and it pained me to see people bitching at them and whining about not getting any "deals"
A little patience should pay off
 
The word from the manager of the arlington store is that it will stay at 10% until the sales slow, then it will go 20%, 30% etc.
Arlington was closed for inventory today, I will be there tomorrow and will report back
 
10% off of what, retail? Anything less than 25% off of retail isn't that great of a deal.
 
10% of thier normal "discount" price. In other words, a behringer multicom street price is 99 bucks, its going fo 90 now. The main thing I am looking forward to is the rental PA gear...Shit has Mard Rental spray painted on it, it should go fairly cheap.
 
Damn

I went by there today, all their rental PA gear is being sold to another company. Most stuff is still 10%, but some stuff is 20% and all the books are 30%.

In other words, their not serious about this yet. But, people were buying things still. I will check back in a couple of days and see where they are at then.
 
I wonder why?

Condonlences aside, I've been trying to guess why are they going out of business.

I bought part of my studio from there and the other part from GC and some other stuff from Brook Mays. Mars cut me a deal but not the best. GC is very open to dealing on price and Brook Mays, although they don't really have the selection and brands - they will cut deals. The Mars stores probably just are too expensive to run.

Overhead of Mars must be higher because the Mars store in Plano is much nicer than your typical GC. GC also seemed to have more knowledgeable sales people, at least that's been my experience so far.

Of course, there's always some deeper reason that may be an insider would know why Mars is going going gone.

Sad to see them go though. The competitive situation is going to make it a little harder to make that next great deal.
 
Although I am not an "insider" I believe I have a fairly good understanding of why Mars filed Chapter 11.

In about 1997, Mars developed an aggressive business plan to grow the company and then go public after 5 years. The strategy was that with rapid growth (they went from about 5 stores to 50 stores - in 5 years) the company would look attractive to investors looking for growth opportunity (in the late 90's all investors were looking for growth companies ie: the dot.com explosion).

To achieve the growth, Mars had to carry a lot of debt much of which was structured to come due in balloon payments. Much of that debt came due in 2001/2002 and with the economy and the market suffering, the plan to go public (which would have introduced additional cash flow - cash flow needed to pay down the debt) was compromised.

I'm sure it appeared to be a good business plan in the 90's when everything was geared toward rapid growth. In reality, given the Guitar Center and Sam Ash and all the e-commerce music stores - can a limited musical community (which in itself is feeling the effects of a down economy - less gigs, smaller recording budgets, etc) support that many instrument supply companies? I never thought so.

What will be interesting to see is the future impact. Obviously Roland and Fender and all the other big players will be taking a large loss. One must suspect that this will lead to higher future costs on gear and probably tighter credit terms for all the remaining music stores - which could really hurt the mom and pop stores. It is possible some of the manufacturers won't survive the losses they took from the Mars closings. In addition, now during the peak retail season - the Mars inventory hits the street at discounted prices which means the other stores have to lower their prices - reducing their margins at the one time of year they make 30 - 50% of their yearly profits.

I suspect we will all feel the hit in the next several months.
 
If anyone is looking for a deal on PA speakers check out the JBL Eon's at GC. They have been blowing out the older models because of the new G series and I got the powered 15" for $400 each. They may have sold them all by now but it's worth a call.
 
Theyve got those eons marked down to 350 or so at mars now. I wish I wasnt so broke, those things kick ass. I used to have one I used as my floor monitor.
 
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