Learn how pricing works and you will know when you're encountering the real thing.
Just some thoughts about pricing; the customer service horror story speaks for itself.
Most small shops have a sticker price that is above the catalog prices, which are all pretty much the same between shops. It allows them to deal down to the catalog prices: the Minimum Advertised Price. MAP is the lowest price they can go with distributor permission. If an item is advertised at less than MAP price the distributor is likely to pull co-op ad budget (gratis advertising funds, or promotions paid for in part or whole by the distributor, relieving the retailer of a HUGE overhead item). Sometimes the distributor drops the retailer altogether, which is illegal but still happens.
So a small retailer will usually meet the catalog price - they can or ought to be able to make money selling at it - but
almost never will they feel comfortable dropping below it. So you should be able to approach or match Musicians Friend pricing on factory stuff. The difference is tax and value added in the form of service and accessibility.
Now for why they can't (or shouldn't) drop below MAP as a practical matter. Question: If you have a staff of three and are running floorplan financing on $500,000 inventory, plus covering lease payments of $3,000 per month and God knows what all for heat and so forth, how many Gibsons will you have to sell every week just to keep the doors open? Answer: A whole bunch. A whole big bunch. It just doesn't happen. A small shop might sell one or two. That's a few hundred bucks at best.
So they will sell a few Gibsons and a truckload of Epiphones and Samicks. They make some markup on each, but the Samicks and whatever else they can move for $249.99 will provide volume and cash flow, without which they are dead and finished. The markup and most of the profit is going to be found in accessories like guitar picks, $49.99 tuners and all that. It's the mic cable and the $300 keyboard and the $400 mixer and the $99.99 stompbox sales volume - and the $249.99 guitar kit, complete with matching strap and pick - that will really keep the place in business. Hundreds of smaller transactions.
Where they can and often will deal is in used or traded in equipment like a guitar traded earlier in the day (no time invested in setup) or on a used amp (usually no financing or work to be done). Their markups can be as good or better on this stuff as on new equipment, but they have another tool - they can afford to bargain. They can invest in a customer and not get hurt at the end of the day.
I get stuff at ebay and through MF and all that, but not anything I can find at my local shop because if he does well, so will I. Many's the time I've borrowed a whole live sound rig for a church or school benefit - at no charge. When I wanted a set of speaker stands but couldn't spend the cash on the $160 Peavey set, he went to the catalog and found me a "me too" generic brand at half the price. When I bought
a jazzbox, he threw in an upgraded TLK case at his cost, and so on. When I wanted a certain mixer, he actually took on the line - and I bought one; still have it. That "value added" component really means something to me. In return he knows that
when I am ready to make a purchase, I look to him first. It becomes common sense.
He also has a strong internet business:
www.guitarsam.com . I plug the place shamelessly; they're raising families from the cash flow there. That's one shop that matters.
