Greg Suarez
Well-known member
It would be easier to not bitch about my local GC if it did have a large inventory. You live in a bigger city than I do.
- Thread starter lessthanone
- Start date
- Status
It would be easier to not bitch about my local GC if it did have a large inventory. You live in a bigger city than I do.
ksandvik
Well-known member
My newly purchased Y2D with Floyd Rose tremolo had a broken black brick in the tremolo system, found out when I was going to replace the strings and it popped out. Over to GC, they could not find a spare part so *they disassembled another guitar and put that block in for me* so I could gig with the Y2D on Saturday. Extraordinary good service.
Well that was cool. You didn't just want another one?
Tis BOOLsheet
Well-known member
- Joined
- Feb 12, 2012
- Messages
- 145
I'd imagine Musician's Friend does not have the same inventory problems. Doesn't it just ship to you directly from the warehouse? I have ordered several guitars from them, and never had an issue.
Greg Suarez
Well-known member
I'm going to go ahead and assume the sacrificed guitar was taken off the racks and either not sold or sold at a discount after it was repaired. I mean, I hope so...
lessthanone
Well-known member
- Joined
- Apr 9, 2010
- Messages
- 440
Not the one from natick ma, I hope...
uOpt
Well-known member
Isn't that the fault of the Guitar Center companies (including Musiciansfriend/music123 and the like) in the first place?
Greg Suarez
Well-known member
Technically, it would be the fault of the people who shop at GC and who have allowed it to become so powerful.
While it's a shame the mom and pop music stores are disappearing, the global economy is in a powerful flux at the moment. Consolidation and price power are winning the day. It's textbook Fiscal Darwinism. But it doesn't mean it will stay like this forever.
ksandvik
Well-known member
Well, it was not a Music Man guitar, those Floyd Rose parts are generic. I'm sure they fix the other guitar with the spare parts they needed to order to the service department later. Anyway, I'm very happy I got my Y2D from the local GC, was a 12 minute drive to fix the issue and the Y2D was gigging the same evening.
I have a dealer in my country that sells like one or two overpriced EBMM JPs and they put it in a premium room with all other overpriced guitars and amps. So for a peasant like me it's basically embarrassing to go in and to even touch one knowing I can't afford it. Bought my JP6, used but mint at half the price I can get here from Pete without even seeing that kind of guitar (Mystic Dream) in person. But my belief is that EBMM make flawless guitars and it turned out great.
Getting access to huge EBMM inventories is a dream come true. I'd really like to get to try all the ALs, Lukes, Reflexes if I had the chance.
uOpt
Well-known member
The fact remains.
In the Guitar Center next to me the situation is as follows:
You can't tell me that is good for business.
In the Guitar Center next to me the situation is as follows:
- I'm not sure about guitars, mainly looked at basses, but I don't think there are any MM guitars
- they have MM basses, but literally only stingrays. No other MM guitars, just a bunch of stingrays
- I did not pick up all of them but none of those I did pickup were not playable, with the strings on the frets in all cases
- The other basses are playable
- the reason for the MM necks out of whack is that they have been hanging on the wall for 3+ years, which gets us into a circle of not getting moved, deforming the neck and not getting moved
You can't tell me that is good for business.
Greg Suarez
Well-known member
In my local GC I only ever remember them having two MM since they opened that store in 2006: a red Silhouette about five years ago, and a Luke III that arrived in early 2013, and which I bought a few weeks ago. I've never seen a MM bass in there.
uOpt
Well-known member
I think that GC looks a lot more attractive on the input side, how much inventory they buy/borrow.
Down on the floor of an individual shop the situation when it comes to Music Man instruments can be very shady.
GC has always been unable to translate good high-level intentions into making individual contributors and local managers take care of the instruments themselves.
Big Poppa
Well-known member
OK Greg...WITh all due respect turn the high and mighty knob down a notch...its a 2.5 billion dollar company they do a lot right....
The mom and pop is a chicken vs egg argument. I love the romanticism of mom and pop...but when the wallet whip out happens people vote with their dollars. Mom and pop stores asleep behind the counters with a rabbit ear tv and a dirty coffe cup and disassociation with their customers are prime locations for guitar center...mom and pop stores that are current with trends and involved with their customer and with the right inventory do well.....Much like guitar center there are good ones and bad ones....from our perspective guitar center has a higher batting average that mom and pop....again happening mom and pop or single location stores that get it are better than the best gc....
The mom and pop is a chicken vs egg argument. I love the romanticism of mom and pop...but when the wallet whip out happens people vote with their dollars. Mom and pop stores asleep behind the counters with a rabbit ear tv and a dirty coffe cup and disassociation with their customers are prime locations for guitar center...mom and pop stores that are current with trends and involved with their customer and with the right inventory do well.....Much like guitar center there are good ones and bad ones....from our perspective guitar center has a higher batting average that mom and pop....again happening mom and pop or single location stores that get it are better than the best gc....
Greg Suarez
Well-known member
That's pretty much what I said in a follow-up post: market consolidation and price power are what is driving almost all retail business today. It's simply the reality of the world we live in right now.
As far as doing a lot right, I agree they do some things right, but what they do wrong is mostly bolstered by a too-big-to-fail mentality. If GC's upper management really wanted to whip their rusty stores into shape, they would. They did it with Dayton. In a way, HOW a certain retail location operates really doesn't matter to me. I generally know what I want going in and the salespeople are there simply as cash register operators. Sure, it's disappointing, to a certain degree, if I want to make a spur of the moment visit to see new gear or whatever... it's just not worth the trouble. But, really, I am not likely to walk out with a new guitar on a visit like that. What really irritates me is how they sell used gear on their web site. There is no excuse for a company this large to have such a pathetic system for this. As a manufacturer, I know this aspect of GC doesn't really concern you a great deal (and you'd probably rather they not have it all) - I understand that. But for a bargain hunter or someone on a budget, it's quite frustrating. A single, poor quality 350x900 JPEG taken with an employee's camera phone and with a description limited to the 100 characters of the page's headline is not how you sell used gear, especially the pieces that are going for $2000 or more.
Ultimately, what's enticing GC to expend the resources to make all of this better? No one else comes close to their volume and influence in the musical instrument retail market. The indie stores can't touch them on price (or, if they're willing to, they cannot sustain that strategy for very long), and the indie stores cannot compete on product availability. I'm not arguing whether this is right or wrong - it's the reality of capitalism, no more, no less. However, I think GC could really bolster its used gear sales if they put more effort into their presentation. Used gear has really high profit margins. There is no reason some of these instruments need to sit around in a store collecting dust as long as they do when the company has the means to present them to a far larger audience on their web site.
The bottom line is I firmly believe in holding companies accountable for their products and services. I think too many people are too willing to cut companies unnecessary slack because they simply might be too lazy to demand better, or worse, believe their individual voice is too small to make a difference. You put a lot of effort into your company, and the end result shows. I repeatedly sing the praises of EBMM guitars to anyone who will listen because I truly believe they are something special. The product deserves praise because it's well designed, very well manufactured, and worth the money. On the other hand, I'm not shy about voicing my displeasure with Gibson; this is a company that should be embarrassed by the quality of many of the "premium" products it produces. And I'm not shy about calling out GC when they deserve to be called out.
guitarp77
Well-known member
I´d love to have a guitar store like GC in Chile.
Every time I go to the US, the trip to GC is mandatory. It´s like Disneyland for me!
Every time I go to the US, the trip to GC is mandatory. It´s like Disneyland for me!
Siddius
Well-known member
This is great. The only musical instrument shop left in our downtown area is a dump. They take forever to do setups and maintenance, even though the lazy-a$$ family that runs it just sits around all day. Their guitars are setup like crap and their diversity of products is terrible. My bass player once brought in a blown bass cab (back when he was in high school) and they said they could fix it. He came back 2 weeks later and the cab hadn't even moved from WHERE HE PUT IT! He picked it up and walked out with it, and no one even noticed! That means that anyone could have just come in and grabbed his cab. For reasons like these, I travel to a GC for maintenance and order Balls through Sweetwater with no guilt or remorse for not supporting the local shop.
The store that just moved outside of the downtown area has good selection (for a large town/ small "city"), good setups, and gets their maintenance done in a reasonable time, but no Balls, no business.
- Status
