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Came across this interesting article...
The End of Guitar Center
"The objective truth is that the growth of the last decade was financed by banking fraud, and that financial trickery of this sort only fools people in the short-term. Eventually, you must have a product people demand, sold by competent people who care about the business, financed in a way that makes sense.
...Go ask the good people at Behringer for a preview. Representatives from their company have informed me that since they parted ways with Guitar Center they discovered a network of smaller, more focused retailers who were more than excited to form a stronger relationship with their company, and in turn delight customers even more. This resulted in the company’s greatest annual revenue in history, both in the United States and throughout the world. Behringer seems to think that a world without a single, corporate, banker-driven industry hegemon is not only possible, it’s preferable."
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02-05-2015 05:30 PM
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How many times has that guy said that. When companies grow as big as GC it isn't easy for them to die. How times was the end of IBM predicted in the 90's. When you have a lot of 3rd parites that depend on you existing they are going to do what they need to, to keep you around. I say they will continue and probably be sold a couple more times before someone buys them and turns them in to a chain of shoe stores.
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It's like Jenga. When will it fall?
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I dunno...where is Pan American Airlines? Plymouth automobiles? Gulf Oil? Sun Microsystems and Silicon Graphics?
IBM and Apple came very close to going under in the 90's.
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When will it fall? I still remember one music chain that closed a few years back. The employees found out when they tried to come to work and found the doors locked.
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So does this mean there will be fire-sale prices on guitars and gear?
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Most likely on all Epiphone, Ibanez, and Behringer products.
Originally Posted by jasaco
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This chappie, Eric Garland, has made this pronouncement before. I'm not saying he's wrong once more, but his tone is rather personal and butt-hurt like he was rocking a sweet Strat and then...
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With a new store opening in Lafayette, LA tomorrow and one in Columbia, SC in the beginning of March, I think the rumours of GC demise might be a bit premature...
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...He may be right, and his behind the scenes info may be accurate...I found it interesting....
...but that having been said - just exactly what does this guy and his team do ?....short stock as a profession ?...we know what brick and mortar Guitar Center does - -or tries to do, good or bad........but funny about this guy's indignation....he plays bass and gives keynote speeches.....and gives uh' futuristic ' et cetera et cetera 'strategic planning advice' et cetera et cetera...his own description of his business sounds like one of those on-line ' How To Write a Winning Resume' sites.....
....I wonder if his Dad put him in business or his Mother.....
......of course just MHO.......
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I have two GCs relatively close to me, I think they followed Starbucks growth plan. It would make sense to close the stores with market overlap, to be honest with you I don't need one GC close to me, not a fan. Originally Posted by ah.clem
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GC going down?? Fender going down...Gibson in trouble..?? chicken little was right..!! ok..so GC goes .. at least the brick & morter versions - im sure they will have an online version of some sort..I have bought a les paul online..had it setup for $25 and it plays wonderful..no dealing with sales people on commission..and having to listen to 25 kids playing "stairway to heaven" out of tune...the concept of a guitar (instrument/equipment) superstore has come and gone..small is beautiful seems to be back in style..no pressure/custom built if you want/need beats off the rack formats all day long..and the price may be in the same ballpark - depending on your specifications you can have a very sweet guitar built for close to the same price as a "ready made" .. I would rather go to a small shop like this where you can actually meet the person(s) who built your guitar and tell them exactly what you need
so in the end if GC goes the way of the white elephant I wont miss it
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Originally Posted by wolflen
I don't think many know that Guitar Center, Musician's Friend, and some others are all "Guitar Center" online. GC has bought some online dealers and left the names alone so they do have a large online presence.
I still remember when the first Vox Guitar Center opened in Hollywood and we would make trips up there to check it out. Back then they were Vox Guitar Center and Vox at that point was owned by Thomas Organ. Thomas only had GC a short time and sold it and name was then simply Guitar Center. Back then they were like a large local music store expect they had all the Vox gear. They did have some cool old gear (we had started calling thing vintage) like a Gibson violon body bass and a SG with that sideways vibrato are two I remember see there.
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Sims Music in Columbia is a first rate, family owned store with a large inventory, excellent selection, and a great staff. I hope they survive the competition from GC. Originally Posted by ah.clem
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It irritates me that guitar center owns most of the online market. It would seem that they could justify putting the GC's in place just to kill the other brick and mortar stores off. When the business goes online to "keep from giving more money to GC", they just have to love it. I'd imagine that their online market share is even bigger than their brick-and-mortar market share. They own several band instrument catalog companies in addition to musician's friend and 1-2-3...
I don't really know what justifies a monopoly, but at some point it would seem that they could almost lose money on GC and still have most of the market's revenue come back to them as everything "goes online". Doesn't amazon pretty much use musician's friend for their instrument stuff? More and more difficult not to buy from Guitar Center.
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matt..agreed .. even looking for a "plan B" not dealing with GC is a bit depressing..local shop in santa monica CA will order any guitar you want and MEET GC price..so it begs the question..where does the local shop order the guitar from?? (example: les paul) not from Gibson direct..not at their list prices..so its a good bet its GC in one of its many incarnations and the local shop just matches the GC price and makes a bit more if no commission has to be paid.
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Originally Posted by wolflen
Depends on the if the local store is a official dealer or gray market. I worked in a small local store in L.A. for awhile and they did manage to become a official Gibson and Fender dealer, but it was very expensive. Dealers especially the small ones have a standard order they have place every year and what it included changes every year. It usually contains a lot of stuff you don't want that is part of the product line. I worked there during the Norlin era so Moog products, LAB amp and so on also models of guitars that were very slow sellers. So sometimes deals could be found on Gibson or Norlin gear. We had a set of Moog bass pedal that sat for years no one wanted. Gibson from what i could tell played a lot of favorites with dealers so we did have trouble orders some thing especially high ticket instruments. The salesman would always say well dealer X has one right now. Fender product line was more focused so less deal weight to order mainly Fender PA's which weren't too popular.
Then there were the other stores who I know owners of that weren't official Gibson or Fender dealer, but they always had the guitars and amps people wanted. They were gray market dealers and were buying from official dealers. It was a dealer violation to sell to gray market, but it goes on all the time. That why little dealers could give quite as good a deal because the official dealer was usually charging about 10%. But little stores always make up the difference in customer service and good prices on other things. The funky part was if something major happen to your instrument and you need warranty work then you might hear "you didn't buy from an licensed dealer" then you were at the mercy of the company on how much they would do for you. That's what sometimes you had go back to the store for repair and they in the background would go back to the dealer they bought from (if they could.) Some stores said dealing gray market was better in long run because they didn't have to place the annual order and no resictions on discounting and other things licensed dealer has to abide by (officially.)
Then there was black market dealers and that doesn't need to be explained.
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I won't buy from GC online because their stores are so objectionable.
Local or Sweetwater for me!
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Man, Sweetwater has good customer service, ......though slightly stalker-ish.... Originally Posted by boatheelmusic
:-)Last edited by matt.guitarteacher; 02-07-2015 at 06:18 PM.
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I understood that GC and Musicians' Friend were the same corporate entity. Musician's Friend handling the lion's share of the online business and GC for the brick-mortar stores.
Here in St. Louis, it's pretty limited aside from GC. We have a number of small, well-established specialty stores and a couple that specialize in band instruments and instruction... But if you want to look at the latest gear... You go to GC.
Now I havent' had any bad experiences at the one I go to, perhaps because I'm, ah....Mature. If I want to look at guitars, it's just "Oh, there's all the semi-hollows... You can use that amp."
No pressure, no salesman pushing some particular item.
Likewise I've ordered a couple of things from Musician's Friend and they are blazingly fast like Amazon and so far everything's arrived in great shape and no problems.
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Originally Posted by matt.guitarteacher
you implied that GC was a monopoly in an earlier post. so this talk of "local or Sweetwater" must be a mirage.
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so, GC:
doesn't stock many archtops (until recently, they didn't stock hardly any at all)
sells Gibson archtops now (which cheapskates love to hate on - and not buy)
doesn't sell Henrikson, Rivera, AI, Benedetto, etc., etc. amps
doesn't sell TI strings
doesn't sell Aebersold play a-longs
doesn't sell jazz books
so here's a question - why does anyone on this forum give a rip whether they thrive or fail to survive? and the same goes for their competitors. are you really concerned with where people buy their Tele, Les Paul, PRS, affordable model Fender amp, crummy strings?
why?
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YOU said "local or Sweetwater". I just said they had good customer service, but I guess that's the same thing....
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Are you implying that there are stores that ONLY sell niche JAZZ products , who therefore aren't affected by guitar center's market pressure? I think there is general concern that guitar center puts a lot of smaller shops out of business who might otherwise have things like arch tops. Originally Posted by fumblefingers
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The guy says enough other stuff that various between paranoid and wingnut conspiracy theories that's it's hard to take his analysis seriously. Originally Posted by FatPick
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