8 ms·

Very bad news imo. Having everything flow into a Amazon Monopoly of retail isn't great. Even just going in the stores to talk and get a literal feel for instru

Very bad news imo. Having everything flow into a Amazon Monopoly of retail isn't great. Even just going in the stores to talk and get a literal feel for instruments is great. The biggest issue with online retail is it erodes one of the last community functions. Particularly for older Americans retail shopping might be their only social interaction all day. If 2050 is this dystopia where everything is ordered online, all food is dropped off by drones, it's going to be very bleak. That said retail, particularly non essential retail ( my various instruments are all effectively toys, I'd guess the working musician to hobbyist ratio to easily be 1:100) is getting hit hard. No one NEEDS a news 1500$ Gibson. Edit : Worth while to add a with concerts being shut down the professional market is effectively dead as well. I wouldn't count on this returning until late 2021 at best

kampsduac 6y ago
Agree that extra online market is not good, but I am lucky and have an awesome, locally owned family shop right by my house (Guitar city / drum land in wheat ridge colorado). They are great, usually beat Guitar Center prices by ~10% via bonus gear or cash discounts, and has a more legit musician feel to the store. If GC ends up closing, hope more local shops can benefit.
- gtfoutttt 6y ago
  Amen. We've got a couple local music instrument stores here too. But I feel for my buddies that make electronic music. They loved GC since they could try out the synthizers and drum machines before they bought.
  - the-dude 6y ago
    In the EU online purchases can be returned for any reason within 2 weeks? ( not sure about that period though ).
    - alangibson 6y ago
      In many cases, yes. It's called 'right of withdrawl.' There are quite a few exceptions though.
SteveNuts 6y ago
Finding someone interested in helping me at a guitar center is extremely rare in my experience - so if they fold good riddance IMO. The independent music shops are so much more welcoming and helpful.
- bluGill 6y ago
  Business model. Gc always pretended to be the place to get your first guitar, even advertised constantly about it. But their business model was service to people buy 100k or more worth of stuff. (schools and large bands) it is bad for their real business to service the little guy, they need to be free should the big spender walk in! Small shops always gave better service to the little guy because that was their business.
the-dude 6y ago
Amazon is currently marketing the Netherlands heavily for 'Black Friday' ( a totally foreign concept to us, however it is marketed for 5 - 10 years now ). Not for specific products, for like everything from now till Christmas. Normally I am totally ad-blocked, but my Mac refuses to reconnect to my OSS Airplay Raspi contraption, and I just don't feel like rebooting ( already killed coreaudiod ). I wired up my tuner with a dipole and am listening to radio through the ether mind you. No adblocking though. Amazon is almost absent in NL at the moment, but they will crush the competition in a couple of years. Amazon should be broken up.
- missedthecue 6y ago
  >Amazon should be broken up For offering more products and better service at a lower price? They don't have a monopoly on anything. The governments role should not be to subsidize uncompetitive businesses. That hurts consumers.
  - njanirudh 6y ago
    But the govt should also consider the effect of drastic competition that will put local stores out of business and many people losing their jobs. This is similar to anti dumping taxes we have against chinese products.
    - alisonkisk 6y ago
      The problem with dumping is that is anti-competitive, not that it is competitive.
    - lotsofpulp 6y ago
      If the government wants people to have money, then they can easily add money to people’s bank account without going through the trouble of an employer.
    - missedthecue 6y ago
      So the purpose of a business is that it should be a jobs program?
tibbydudeza 6y ago
Amazon = Buy n Large (Wall E)
skee0083 6y ago
Brick and mortar is inneficient and takes up to much land. Amazon is the future. Just get a prime memebership and order anything you want. no shipping charges. it's great.
amyjess 6y ago
Unfortunately, this pandemic has made it necessary for people to not have social interactions when they go to buy things. And that goes double for a store where you expect to take your time, get a feel for things, put your hands all over the merchandise, and try things out. I feel bad for the employees who have to wipe down the demo guitars after customers use them. Ultimately, I think the only stores we'll see survive the pandemic are the ones where you just get in, grab what you need, and get out.
- jozzy-james 6y ago
  personally i've never spent time in a GC unless i was bored. other times i just buy what i want and return it if it's a dud for my use-case. their limited amp setup isn't reflective of what i use anyway, so it's not like i could make an informed decision. anecdotal case in point: did once try out a new guitar, sounded good there - get it back to my house and line feedback like no other. i have many other guitars that work fine on this setup, but this one wanted to be a complainer...no way that any hands-on demo would have stopped that, unless i haul all my gear in there as well.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
aczerepinski 6y ago
For me anecdotally, it’s Sweetwater that’s been killing Guitar Center, not Amazon. Like many, I bought a ton of music gear during the pandemic. At first I split my purchases between GC and Sweetwater, but over time it became clear that SW shipped more reliably, had better inventory, was quicker to respond to questions, and sent candy in every order.
- jozzy-james 6y ago
  american musical supply and zzounds are pretty good as well with the finance options. just don't usually get as much boutique stuff as sweetwater does
  - endtime 6y ago
    I've had good experiences with Musician's Friend, and with great deals. I've gotten two great guitars from them in the past few months at $150 and $200 off (for $300 and $350 respectively). That said, I'd love to go to a GC in person and try before I buy. Just...not during a pandemic.
    - jozzy-james 6y ago
      GC owns musician's friend, fwiw
      - analog31 6y ago
        AFAIK they also own American Musical Supply, ZZSounds, Woodwind & Brasswind, to name a few.
        busterarm 6y ago
        Music123...
        jozzy-james 6y ago
        don't own ams/zzounds (ams split off after a separate acquire iirc)
dangerbird2 6y ago
Amazon is still pretty second-tier when it comes to instrument sales. I'd imagine that Reverb.com has hurt GC's sales much more than Amazon has: especially since it gives both new and used options for anything GC might be selling at any given time. And although I don't know a lot about sellers' relations with reverb, it makes it much easier for me to buy from non-chain music stores from around the country.
jozzy-james 6y ago
GC/sam ash have been pretty lackluster for quite some time - other than maybe some traditional instruments. don't feel like paying out the nose for some patch cables? want some actual pro-audio level monitors? good luck finding them there. places like sweetwater/vintage king/etc fill that need for the most part, but good luck living in the radius of the actual stores...so in this case, online ordering is paramount.
- ganoushoreilly 6y ago
  100% Their pro grade (IE not $200 interfaces) has dropped in the recording / production area steeply. You're lucky to find a UAUDIO Arrow let alone any of the higher end stuff. Need a license for Protools? HDX Card? Not gonna happen. In the old days (IE 2000 or so) GC had full Protools setups on display in stores for demos. Same for Keyboards, they have a couple cheap synths and digital pianos. The abundance of cheap gear / equipment to fill the shelves makes it feel more like a big lots of music with premium prices.
  - busterarm 6y ago
    Korg and Gibson and other brands you mentioned were floating them billions of dollars in inventory a decade ago. That's what enabled that. Once it looked like GC was in trouble in 2007-2009ish, those large brands worked on other sales channels and stopped extending GC so much credit once they were established.
- busterarm 6y ago
  Yes, but Sam Ash owns Samson/Hartke and has long term contracts with school districts keeping it afloat. Guitar Center had to sell Harmony Central off to Gibson to cover its debts years ago and basically has nothing else going for it. None of their instrument brands are any good.
vmception 6y ago
As long as we aren’t watering our crops with Gatorade I’m fine That’s my line in the sand
- nytesky 6y ago
  brawndo: it’s what plants crave
ryanSrich 6y ago
Amazon is irrelevant for music gear. It’s reverb, eBay, and sweetwater that has killed Guitar Center. If you’re in a city though, I can’t recommend local music shops enough. So much about what makes a guitar (or any instrument) great is how it plays for you. How it feels. I’ve bought dozens of guitars online. I’ve returned maybe 95%. I’ve returned 0% of the guitars I’ve bought locally. It’s all about how they play.
elihu 6y ago
> Having everything flow into a Amazon Monopoly of retail isn't great. Even just going in the stores to talk and get a literal feel for instruments is great. I agree that if sales go to Amazon instead, that's a loss for customers and the community. On the other hand, online retailers can't really compete when it comes to being able to actually try out the exact instrument you're buying. Guitars aren't completely homogeneous; one might sound better than another, or have different wood grain, or whatever. Also, physical stores can provide guitar setup and repair services. Local setup can help a lot: manufacturers will often set the action very conservatively at the factory because they don't know what kind of humidity conditions the guitar will endure in transit or at its final destination, and they don't want the frets to buzz when someone takes it out of the box. Consequently, the strings are higher than they need to be which makes it unnecessarily hard to play. Fixing that is pretty simple and makes a big difference. I hope that if Guitar Center closes a lot of their business goes to smaller local music shops for those reasons. However, I expect that if GC is having a hard time, a lot of other music stores are in just as bad of a situation and a lot of them are going to close. > That said retail, particularly non essential retail ( my various instruments are all effectively toys, I'd guess the working musician to hobbyist ratio to easily be 1:100) is getting hit hard. No one NEEDS a news 1500$ Gibson. Back around 2007-ish, there was a surge in sales of ukuleles, as a large number of recently-unemployed people with a lot of time on their hands were looking for a cheap hobby. My own anecdote from this last summer was that I made a pond and in early fall went looking for koi to put in it, but a local supplier was sold out and couldn't get more. Apparently there was more demand than has been seen in a long time, which makes sense. If you're stuck at home and need a project, why not make a koi pond?
agumonkey 6y ago
Three things: if online has enough real value it will stay if just enough, long term sufferings will happen then it will be removed otherwise people will reopen things they need (just like vynil and newspapers)
busterarm 6y ago
> No one NEEDS a news 1500$ Gibson. It doesn't help that with Gibson's quality control, you're maybe getting a $300 instrument for your $1500. I know a lot of guitarists. Professionals. They all are buying new guitars frequently. There's too many niches to fill and variation between instruments. I know quite a few who cycle through a couple of dozen guitars bought and sold every year just to find instruments with the right sound.
TACIXAT 6y ago
>If 2050 is this dystopia where everything is ordered online, all food is dropped off by drones, it's going to be very bleak. No it won't. That will free up space so that your social interaction isn't the hardware store, but instead some place meant for entertainment. Hell, we might even build some public spaces. If you enjoy mumbling some words to a cashier you life might be a drag, but the arcade pub that replaces that market is gonna be rad.
- titzer 6y ago
  > If you enjoy mumbling some words to a cashier Well my sister used to work as a cashier at a local hardware store when she was a teenager before they got obliterated by Lowes and Home Depot and pretty much everybody would go there to buy their sundry needs for various projects. Turns out that you strike up a conversation with someone who lives in your neighborhood, you find out about their projects, then their family, then their lives. It's you know, community, not mumbling words at some faceless person that is a poor cog for megacorp whose only plan is to literally extract more money from the community than they inject.
  - bluGill 6y ago
    My sister enjoys this about working at home depot. That and meeting the dogs, if the dogs could tell her about the owners project it would be perfect. Local hardware stores are actually doing well. They are a little more expensive, but have made up for it by having someone who knows where to find what you need quickly.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
musicale 6y ago
> No one NEEDS a news 1500$ Gibson I do. Donations accepted. ;-) (Sadly a Gibson [not Epiphone] Les Paul Standard is more like $2500, though a Special or sub-$1K Tribute looks like it might be a pretty good deal for a US-made Gibson...)

kampsduac 6y ago

Agree that extra online market is not good, but I am lucky and have an awesome, locally owned family shop right by my house (Guitar city / drum land in wheat ridge colorado). They are great, usually beat Guitar Center prices by ~10% via bonus gear or cash discounts, and has a more legit musician feel to the store. If GC ends up closing, hope more local shops can benefit.

gtfoutttt 6y ago
Amen. We've got a couple local music instrument stores here too. But I feel for my buddies that make electronic music. They loved GC since they could try out the synthizers and drum machines before they bought.
- the-dude 6y ago
  In the EU online purchases can be returned for any reason within 2 weeks? ( not sure about that period though ).
  - alangibson 6y ago
    In many cases, yes. It's called 'right of withdrawl.' There are quite a few exceptions though.

SteveNuts 6y ago

Finding someone interested in helping me at a guitar center is extremely rare in my experience - so if they fold good riddance IMO. The independent music shops are so much more welcoming and helpful.

bluGill 6y ago
Business model. Gc always pretended to be the place to get your first guitar, even advertised constantly about it. But their business model was service to people buy 100k or more worth of stuff. (schools and large bands) it is bad for their real business to service the little guy, they need to be free should the big spender walk in! Small shops always gave better service to the little guy because that was their business.

the-dude 6y ago

Amazon is currently marketing the Netherlands heavily for 'Black Friday' ( a totally foreign concept to us, however it is marketed for 5 - 10 years now ). Not for specific products, for like everything from now till Christmas. Normally I am totally ad-blocked, but my Mac refuses to reconnect to my OSS Airplay Raspi contraption, and I just don't feel like rebooting ( already killed coreaudiod ). I wired up my tuner with a dipole and am listening to radio through the ether mind you. No adblocking though. Amazon is almost absent in NL at the moment, but they will crush the competition in a couple of years. Amazon should be broken up.

missedthecue 6y ago
>Amazon should be broken up For offering more products and better service at a lower price? They don't have a monopoly on anything. The governments role should not be to subsidize uncompetitive businesses. That hurts consumers.
- njanirudh 6y ago
  But the govt should also consider the effect of drastic competition that will put local stores out of business and many people losing their jobs. This is similar to anti dumping taxes we have against chinese products.
  - alisonkisk 6y ago
    The problem with dumping is that is anti-competitive, not that it is competitive.
  - lotsofpulp 6y ago
    If the government wants people to have money, then they can easily add money to people’s bank account without going through the trouble of an employer.
  - missedthecue 6y ago
    So the purpose of a business is that it should be a jobs program?

tibbydudeza 6y ago

Amazon = Buy n Large (Wall E)

skee0083 6y ago

Brick and mortar is inneficient and takes up to much land. Amazon is the future. Just get a prime memebership and order anything you want. no shipping charges. it's great.

amyjess 6y ago

Unfortunately, this pandemic has made it necessary for people to not have social interactions when they go to buy things. And that goes double for a store where you expect to take your time, get a feel for things, put your hands all over the merchandise, and try things out. I feel bad for the employees who have to wipe down the demo guitars after customers use them. Ultimately, I think the only stores we'll see survive the pandemic are the ones where you just get in, grab what you need, and get out.

jozzy-james 6y ago
personally i've never spent time in a GC unless i was bored. other times i just buy what i want and return it if it's a dud for my use-case. their limited amp setup isn't reflective of what i use anyway, so it's not like i could make an informed decision. anecdotal case in point: did once try out a new guitar, sounded good there - get it back to my house and line feedback like no other. i have many other guitars that work fine on this setup, but this one wanted to be a complainer...no way that any hands-on demo would have stopped that, unless i haul all my gear in there as well.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

aczerepinski 6y ago

For me anecdotally, it’s Sweetwater that’s been killing Guitar Center, not Amazon. Like many, I bought a ton of music gear during the pandemic. At first I split my purchases between GC and Sweetwater, but over time it became clear that SW shipped more reliably, had better inventory, was quicker to respond to questions, and sent candy in every order.

jozzy-james 6y ago
american musical supply and zzounds are pretty good as well with the finance options. just don't usually get as much boutique stuff as sweetwater does
- endtime 6y ago
  I've had good experiences with Musician's Friend, and with great deals. I've gotten two great guitars from them in the past few months at $150 and $200 off (for $300 and $350 respectively). That said, I'd love to go to a GC in person and try before I buy. Just...not during a pandemic.
  - jozzy-james 6y ago
    GC owns musician's friend, fwiw
    - analog31 6y ago
      AFAIK they also own American Musical Supply, ZZSounds, Woodwind & Brasswind, to name a few.
      - busterarm 6y ago
        Music123...
      - jozzy-james 6y ago
        don't own ams/zzounds (ams split off after a separate acquire iirc)

dangerbird2 6y ago

Amazon is still pretty second-tier when it comes to instrument sales. I'd imagine that Reverb.com has hurt GC's sales much more than Amazon has: especially since it gives both new and used options for anything GC might be selling at any given time. And although I don't know a lot about sellers' relations with reverb, it makes it much easier for me to buy from non-chain music stores from around the country.

jozzy-james 6y ago

GC/sam ash have been pretty lackluster for quite some time - other than maybe some traditional instruments. don't feel like paying out the nose for some patch cables? want some actual pro-audio level monitors? good luck finding them there. places like sweetwater/vintage king/etc fill that need for the most part, but good luck living in the radius of the actual stores...so in this case, online ordering is paramount.

ganoushoreilly 6y ago
100% Their pro grade (IE not $200 interfaces) has dropped in the recording / production area steeply. You're lucky to find a UAUDIO Arrow let alone any of the higher end stuff. Need a license for Protools? HDX Card? Not gonna happen. In the old days (IE 2000 or so) GC had full Protools setups on display in stores for demos. Same for Keyboards, they have a couple cheap synths and digital pianos. The abundance of cheap gear / equipment to fill the shelves makes it feel more like a big lots of music with premium prices.
- busterarm 6y ago
  Korg and Gibson and other brands you mentioned were floating them billions of dollars in inventory a decade ago. That's what enabled that. Once it looked like GC was in trouble in 2007-2009ish, those large brands worked on other sales channels and stopped extending GC so much credit once they were established.
busterarm 6y ago
Yes, but Sam Ash owns Samson/Hartke and has long term contracts with school districts keeping it afloat. Guitar Center had to sell Harmony Central off to Gibson to cover its debts years ago and basically has nothing else going for it. None of their instrument brands are any good.

vmception 6y ago

As long as we aren’t watering our crops with Gatorade I’m fine That’s my line in the sand

nytesky 6y ago
brawndo: it’s what plants crave

ryanSrich 6y ago

Amazon is irrelevant for music gear. It’s reverb, eBay, and sweetwater that has killed Guitar Center. If you’re in a city though, I can’t recommend local music shops enough. So much about what makes a guitar (or any instrument) great is how it plays for you. How it feels. I’ve bought dozens of guitars online. I’ve returned maybe 95%. I’ve returned 0% of the guitars I’ve bought locally. It’s all about how they play.

elihu 6y ago

> Having everything flow into a Amazon Monopoly of retail isn't great. Even just going in the stores to talk and get a literal feel for instruments is great. I agree that if sales go to Amazon instead, that's a loss for customers and the community. On the other hand, online retailers can't really compete when it comes to being able to actually try out the exact instrument you're buying. Guitars aren't completely homogeneous; one might sound better than another, or have different wood grain, or whatever. Also, physical stores can provide guitar setup and repair services. Local setup can help a lot: manufacturers will often set the action very conservatively at the factory because they don't know what kind of humidity conditions the guitar will endure in transit or at its final destination, and they don't want the frets to buzz when someone takes it out of the box. Consequently, the strings are higher than they need to be which makes it unnecessarily hard to play. Fixing that is pretty simple and makes a big difference. I hope that if Guitar Center closes a lot of their business goes to smaller local music shops for those reasons. However, I expect that if GC is having a hard time, a lot of other music stores are in just as bad of a situation and a lot of them are going to close. > That said retail, particularly non essential retail ( my various instruments are all effectively toys, I'd guess the working musician to hobbyist ratio to easily be 1:100) is getting hit hard. No one NEEDS a news 1500$ Gibson. Back around 2007-ish, there was a surge in sales of ukuleles, as a large number of recently-unemployed people with a lot of time on their hands were looking for a cheap hobby. My own anecdote from this last summer was that I made a pond and in early fall went looking for koi to put in it, but a local supplier was sold out and couldn't get more. Apparently there was more demand than has been seen in a long time, which makes sense. If you're stuck at home and need a project, why not make a koi pond?

agumonkey 6y ago

Three things: if online has enough real value it will stay if just enough, long term sufferings will happen then it will be removed otherwise people will reopen things they need (just like vynil and newspapers)

busterarm 6y ago

> No one NEEDS a news 1500$ Gibson. It doesn't help that with Gibson's quality control, you're maybe getting a $300 instrument for your $1500. I know a lot of guitarists. Professionals. They all are buying new guitars frequently. There's too many niches to fill and variation between instruments. I know quite a few who cycle through a couple of dozen guitars bought and sold every year just to find instruments with the right sound.

TACIXAT 6y ago

>If 2050 is this dystopia where everything is ordered online, all food is dropped off by drones, it's going to be very bleak. No it won't. That will free up space so that your social interaction isn't the hardware store, but instead some place meant for entertainment. Hell, we might even build some public spaces. If you enjoy mumbling some words to a cashier you life might be a drag, but the arcade pub that replaces that market is gonna be rad.

titzer 6y ago
> If you enjoy mumbling some words to a cashier Well my sister used to work as a cashier at a local hardware store when she was a teenager before they got obliterated by Lowes and Home Depot and pretty much everybody would go there to buy their sundry needs for various projects. Turns out that you strike up a conversation with someone who lives in your neighborhood, you find out about their projects, then their family, then their lives. It's you know, community, not mumbling words at some faceless person that is a poor cog for megacorp whose only plan is to literally extract more money from the community than they inject.
- bluGill 6y ago
  My sister enjoys this about working at home depot. That and meeting the dogs, if the dogs could tell her about the owners project it would be perfect. Local hardware stores are actually doing well. They are a little more expensive, but have made up for it by having someone who knows where to find what you need quickly.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

musicale 6y ago

> No one NEEDS a news 1500$ Gibson I do. Donations accepted. ;-) (Sadly a Gibson [not Epiphone] Les Paul Standard is more like $2500, though a Special or sub-$1K Tribute looks like it might be a pretty good deal for a US-made Gibson...)