EBMM Dealers

[Virtuoso]

I will add this--and I don't mind attacking this other dealer by name-- because I hate some of their business practices and will only buy from them as a last resort-- but I am absolutely sick of Sweetwater and the monopoly-like hold that they are gaining in the industry.

I used to use Sweetwater a lot, but in the past couple of years I've had a few negative experiences.

My rep is surly and unhelpful. When I ordered a special Fender from several they had in stock, I asked him to pick one out for me with a dark fretboard (a few had streaky light ebony and I didn't want that). Any decent music store will do this without question, but he flat out refused and made it sound like I was asking the impossible. They take them all out of their cases anyway to photograph, so I really don't see why this would be a challenge. They then shipped one out to me and sent me photos of it - the fretboard was exactly what I had said I didn't want. When I phoned to ask for the order to be stopped he blew a fuse as it would cause him a lot of admin work.

I bought one of the Sweetwater-exclusive Music Man guitars in Eclipse Sparkle (great finish - almost as good as Starry Night!) and when it arrived the bridge humbucker was dead. I guess the "55 point inspection", which they use to justify their unwillingness to discount, doesn't include actually plugging the guitar in?

Most recently, I asked for a deal on an $1800 mic. He wouldn't budge on price but offered me a $9.99 discount on a $50 mic clip and sent an invoice with a tacky presumptive close asking which card I would like to put it on. I went elsewhere and got $400 off the mic without any hassle. A few days later I got a single line email (again with the invoice) saying "Were you still wanting this mic?". I replied that I had got a better deal elsewhere and he said, "No one should be discounting it. I don’t understand why would anyone do that. It’s a disservice to us and to the brand that trusted the dealer to represent them properly. And I’m getting punished for doing the right thing. I’m never going to be the cheapest. That’s not who we are and what we do. We can be the cheapest (and get paid nothing) or we can be the best but I can’t be both."

I think I'm done with Sweetwater!

 

[jlf599]

As someone in the data space, SW uses the same vendor I do for analytics and can attest they are doing analysis and machine learning on their customer base and site traffic. For browsers, I’d recommend using Firefox with uBlock origin. Brave is just another chrome fork.

So it's not really fair to blame Sweetwater for the data collection -- they're just a consumer of search data and their own site logging, right? The data collection exists whether Sweetwater purchases it or not.

 

[Vito Porkleone]

I used to use Sweetwater a lot, but in the past couple of years I've had a few negative experiences.

My rep is surly and unhelpful. When I ordered a special Fender from several they had in stock, I asked him to pick one out for me with a dark fretboard (a few had streaky light ebony and I didn't want that). Any decent music store will do this without question, but he flat out refused and made it sound like I was asking the impossible. They take them all out of their cases anyway to photograph, so I really don't see why this would be a challenge. They then shipped one out to me and sent me photos of it - the fretboard was exactly what I had said I didn't want. When I phoned to ask for the order to be stopped he blew a fuse as it would cause him a lot of admin work.

I bought one of the Sweetwater-exclusive Music Man guitars in Eclipse Sparkle (great finish - almost as good as Starry Night!) and when it arrived the bridge humbucker was dead. I guess the "55 point inspection", which they use to justify their unwillingness to discount, doesn't include actually plugging the guitar in?

Most recently, I asked for a deal on an $1800 mic. He wouldn't budge on price but offered me a $9.99 discount on a $50 mic clip and sent an invoice with a tacky presumptive close asking which card I would like to put it on. I went elsewhere and got $400 off the mic without any hassle. A few days later I got a single line email (again with the invoice) saying "Were you still wanting this mic?". I replied that I had got a better deal elsewhere and he said, "No one should be discounting it. I don’t understand why would anyone do that. It’s a disservice to us and to the brand that trusted the dealer to represent them properly. And I’m getting punished for doing the right thing. I’m never going to be the cheapest. That’s not who we are and what we do. We can be the cheapest (and get paid nothing) or we can be the best but I can’t be both."

I think I'm done with Sweetwater!

My experience with Sweetwater has been fantastic. Call their CS team and let them know you'd like to be assigned to another rep. I'm pretty sure they would do that to keep your business.

 

[racerx]

So it's not really fair to blame Sweetwater for the data collection -- they're just a consumer of search data and their own site logging, right? The data collection exists whether Sweetwater purchases it or not.

I can’t say with certainty - I just know what they’ve shared in their demos and case studies. Given prior experiences, it’s likely they are purchasing additional customer/lead/demographic data, whether or not they sell their own is probably buried in T&Cs somewhere. Hard to fault them though, everyone does it. It’s not just the baseball guys. Data is very valuable and very much in the Wild West stage of its life until things like Europes GDPR catch on elsewhere.

 

[Ted]

Google should not be a thing.

 

[jayjayjay]

Most recently, I asked for a deal on an $1800 mic. He wouldn't budge on price but offered me a $9.99 discount on a $50 mic clip and sent an invoice with a tacky presumptive close asking which card I would like to put it on. I went elsewhere and got $400 off the mic without any hassle. A few days later I got a single line email (again with the invoice) saying "Were you still wanting this mic?". I replied that I had got a better deal elsewhere and he said, "No one should be discounting it. I don’t understand why would anyone do that. It’s a disservice to us and to the brand that trusted the dealer to represent them properly. And I’m getting punished for doing the right thing. I’m never going to be the cheapest. That’s not who we are and what we do. We can be the cheapest (and get paid nothing) or we can be the best but I can’t be both."

I'm going to hazard a guess that their sales guys are on commission. If that's the case, then this guy sounds like he's desperate to pump up his figures for a bigger paycheck; that's why he was unwilling to give a discount. That whole trusted dealer line is a load of tripe. The last line is probably closer to the truth - he must figure talking with you on the phone justifies sticking to the higher price.

Usually when I deal with these sorts of situations, I play the two off each other - see who really wants your business and can give the better deal. That said, I'm more inclined to accept a higher price if I'm dealing with a small local store, because I want those places to stay around.

 

[Virtuoso]

The line about "We can be the cheapest or we can be the best but I can’t be both" made me laugh really, since in my experience they are neither. The whole price fixing thing sticks in my craw too - I'm from Europe originally where such practices are illegal, as they should be in a supposedly capitalist country like the US.

As for good dealers, I have nothing but positive things to say about Wildwood and Willcutts. I've bought many high end guitars from them both with good deals and no issues. Eddies aren't so great on price* and their support is a bit lacking, but they do carry good inventory. *(They had a couple of James Tyler Studio Elite HDs recently with the exact same spec as ones at Wildwood which they had priced $1,000 higher!)

 

[73h Nils]

The Axe Palace

 

[Mixolydian82]

The Axe Palace

Nick is a very good dealer, and excellent to deal with for sure.