Even before the pandemic, Guitar Center was in trouble. What’s not widely known is that it wasn’t Guitar Center’s fault – they were essentially bought by a company and then saddled with debt. But the retail music landscape was changing – online stores had lower overhead and sold instruments for low prices. In theory, it should be worth a little more to a customer to be able to try a bunch of guitars and then pick one, but in reality the stores didn’t have huge inventory, and customers would often try out a guitar in the store and then buy online. The only solution was that the store had to have the same low prices, despite having higher overhead. That’s not good.
When the Fender Bassbreaker amps came out, I thought they looked and sounded great and they were at a great price point and I couldn’t wait to try one in person. But it was at least 6 months before they actually showed up on my local Guitar Center. I guess I could have bought one online and then returned it if I didn’t like it, but that ignores the fact that I didn’t have the money. Nope, I wanted to try the thing to see if it was worth saving up for. Think about that. That’s reality for a lot of broke ass guitarists.
Now the pandemic has destroyed the stock of guitars at the local Guitar Center/Sam Ash stores. Half the show wall is empty at the last store I went in. This took a terrible problem and made it far worse. Because guess what? Gibson has a $1,500 Black Les Paul with binding. Binding is something you normally don’t see until over two grand these days. It’s an all mahogany body, so it doesn’t have a maple cap, which is where they’re saving the money, but who cares? I want to play one. Nope. Zero chance this thing will be anywhere near me until 6 months from now. Maybe.
More often than not, I can’t find what I need in a local music store, so I need to buy online. OK, now take out the word “music” from that last sentence and you’ll see the current state of retail shopping. The grocery stores are safe – they have what I need. Even the hardware stores are disappointing these days. I had to order a spark plug for my old lawnmower online. It feels like the entire retail experience is on the ropes sometimes. I would rather buy local, because it gives people jobs. But I can’t buy what they don’t have.
Under “be careful what you wish for,” I think it’d be cool if Fender opened a store in Tampa, where they always had the latest products for sale. In 1998, Apple was three months from going under. They sold computers through a network of dealers like CompUSA, who stuck their stuff on a shelf in the back and never maintained it. Apple hired Jobs to save the company. His retail strategy was to yank computers out of most stores and sign exclusive agreements with some stores – he’d give them exclusivity, in exchange for them making sure the “Apple” section was well-maintained. And while that was going on, he built a chain of Apple stores, then he yanked the licenses from other retailers except Best Buy… who contractually still has to have an Apple section that is well-maintained. What if you could walk into a Gibson store or a Fender store and they had all their stuff there?
I mean, they do already have stores… just not very many, and in the case of Gibson, you need to be a dealer or a rock star to go to their elite showroom. Fender is changing that, but they are far from having 500 Fender stores across the country.
But it wouldn’t work – there aren’t enough people in Tampa to keep a fully-stocked Fender store up and running. What if Fender had an “Apple Store” in their imaginary Tampa location? I still don’t see this working, but I really wish it could.
There’s always going to be a market for a local music store to sell used gear. But I for one am tired of these “big chains” not being able to get products until 6 months after we care. Sometimes it’s the manufacturer’s fault. Right now, it’s the pandemic’s fault. But honestly, once the pandemic is over, the problem will still exist.
Maybe if we made people understand that local employment is important, and it’s worth paying a little more for your guitar so that people can have jobs. OK, I’ll wait until you stop laughing. In the USA, we’re big on token gestures but at the end of the day, we don’t care about our neighbors, as long as we can pay the lowest price possible. I mean, that’s harsh but true.
People complained that the mom and pop stores didn’t carry Fender, Gibson, and PRS, which they didn’t, because the big companies wouldn’t sell to tiny stores. So they went out of business. Now people bitch about Guitar Center and Sam Ash for a million reasons, but they’re the only game left in town (unless you live near a big city.). And eventually they’ll be gone, and then people will complain that there aren’t any stores. Hey, as long as people have something to complain about.
Can music stores be saved? Sure. Make the music store a local hub for musicians (after the pandemic). Give stores more authority to determine what types of products make the most sense for them. Hire and listen to consultants. Do you have any idea how many fret end files a store could sell? And, as I’ve said before, here’s the biggest tip of all – have a local tech on the payroll to do a good setup on every guitar on the shelf over $500. At Guitar Center I’ve played $1,500 guitars with strings so old they were unplayable and sharp fret ends. That guitar will never, ever sell. Give me 10 minutes with it. I’d put on new strings. Then it’d sell. Or a thousand dollar guitar with sharp fret ends. Ten minutes with a fret file would fix it. Otherwise, it’s not going to sell. Why is this so hard?
I go to my local music stores (all five of them) and I buy from them (all five of them) because I want them to stick around. At a minimum, we can at least get our picks and strings there. Trust me – it’ll suck when they’re gone.
