Official Luthiers Forum!

Six months ago we were talking about Guitar Center going under. There is a grand opening tomorrow for a new store in Cary, NC...

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Steve Sollod (pronounced sorta like "Solid")
www.swiftcreekguitars.com

The word you're looking for is WEEDS.

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"Act your age, not your shoe size" - Prince

GC also opened a Times Square Store less than a year ago in some of the most expensive retail real estate in the world... while all the while strong arming employees under sign or be terminated threat to binding arbitration for work place disputes....

Not unusual for companies having difficulties to expand in efforts to improve cash flow.

The economist who follows (and hates....) GC is Eric Garland and Eric is a very cool and nice guy. I wrote him and got a reply at once. If you want an update on GC and it's about time too since it's been a while maybe google Eric and email him - he's very approachable.

Just opened a new store in Springfield, MA last month as well....

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Mitch

There may be lots of reasons to think GC is either struggling or a particularly bad company or both, but I would not take the binding arbitration agreements as a sign of either one. That has become a pretty popular thing for many employers of all sorts to insist upon. I don't want to get political; I just happen to see this trend happening due to my day job as a lawyer. The United States Supreme Court has made it a lot easier in recent years for employers to insist upon binding arbitration of employment disputes as a condition of employment. Lots of companies are taking advantage of that ability.

I never even set foot in one. I guess they tend to be in the more populated areas.

They opened one here in Tyler, Texas just a few months ago. I don't personally have anything against GC, but as for this one, I've been to it twice and won't be back. Both times the store music was so loud you could not even think of hearing an acoustic if you tried one. Most of the gits were cheapies, some decent. I honestly don't think this GC stands a chance against the local Mom and Pop place just a few miles down the same road.

Screw GC, they are opening a Lee Valley Tool here in Windsor this fall.

Bob

One opened near me a few years ago. It was mobbed at first, but the place was so bad, it is a ghost town now. Not only are the guitars not tuned, but one had a broken tuner and another was missing strings.

Sounds like you wallet may be getting a workout, Bob! On your first visit, grab a pile of order form slips so you can fill out your order at home. I used to forget at least one item that I went for, until I started doing this.

Alex

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"Indecision is the key to flexibility" .... Bumper sticker

I'm always happy to see another local brick and mortar store open anywhere. While we seldom buy anything from Guitar Center or Musician's Friend, they provide a steady stream of baffled or disgruntled customers for local repair businesses. We get one or more of their messes every week. While Guitar Center appears to engender some particularly vehement anti-love from a segment of the community, our local music stores - Victor Litz, Washington Music, and Appalachian Bluegrass - all do well competing against the four Guitar Center stores in the area.

This week, we had a new LG-2 American Eagle in with buzzing on the higher frets and poor performance of the onboard electronics. After the owner received the guitar from Chicago Music Exchange, he took it to Guitar Center to resolve a minor buzz on the low E with first position bars and the pickup issue. The store's luthiery school-trained repair staff elected to adjust relief to about .025" and lower the saddle, then ignored the pickup problem.

Root issue was a high second fret in string path for the low E string and a poorly done factory installation on the L.R. Baggs Element - they failed to pocket the bridge slot for the end of the Baggs (there are no peizo elements in the last 1/4" or so of the pickup...which was directly under the high E), had the stand-off installed incorrectly, and no radiusing on the 90 degree pass-through hole from inside the body. We corrected the mess and reinstalled the pickup properly. About 25 minutes of work.

Result? Guitar Center's advertising and repair expertise provided us with new customer, CME credited the buyer for our work, and we provided directions to Victor Litz Music (local mom and pop) for owner to purchase about $100 of strings, humidier, etc.

As Churchill said, "...a pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty." Or in this case, every new Guitar Center store.

The notion that large monopolies help mom and pop businesses is not generally born out in reality.

It's not that it never happens, but like the success stories of the few underprivileged overcoming childhood circumstances, It's hardly proof that the economic system works well.

(Sorry. I'm pretty grumpy about humanity this AM.)

At least in our micro-economic, shady niche of by-referral-only repair work and custom building, Guitar Center is a net benefit. If their repair folks were even marginally competent, it would be a tougher go for our referring shops, but I doubt it would impact us that much, given we see all the stuff no one else will touch. I suspect this model only works in a few metro areas.

As one of our customers mentioned, outside of a few perennial bright spots in the US economy like DC or Seattle...most of the rest of the country is living paycheck to paycheck and the partly-employed or unemployed are competing with the other 95 million people looking for meaningful work. In those areas, guitar repairs or custom instruments look a bit harder to justify in a locally stagnant economy.

Victor Litz, Washington Music, and Appalachian Bluegrass compete based on a generally higher level of sales expertise, tailored stockage (Litz has a large selection of instruments focused on the larger minority populations here in Montgomery County, MD - Guitar Center tends to avoid these locally significant/nationally inconsequential markets), and committed employees.

Lots of things to be grumpy about my friend, hang in and here's hoping that something to smile about comes your way.

G*itar C*nter is beneficial for our business in a number of ways.... but my beef with them has nothing to do with any impact that they may or may not have on our business.

You will find quotes on our site from former GC clients and we get this all of the time. In fact I was reluctant to post the reviews that sing our praises and tear GC a new one. I did post one on our site though and it exists in social media for verification.

my beef with GC has the following reasons behind it:

1) At least two area music stores, Mom and Pops directly attribute their demise to a GC coming into the market. We also saw this first hand with one of the stores. Folks would sit down, put on the full body condom (towel in their lap that this store used....) and start bonding with a nice Martin. The prospective client would play it for 1/2 and hour or so, ask others what they thought, pull out the IPhone and check the price at GC and off they went....

A week later they were back with the acquisition that they made at GC saving $35 now asking for a set-up at around $80 bucks and of course we had no obligation to set anything up for free since we didn't sell the Martin. In the end the client lost money, used extra gas, time, etc. and contributed to GC's future and the demise of the Mom and Pop.

We saw this happen many, many times....

2) Very poor quality merchandise in the store. Everything is dirty, shop worn, scratched, etc. The acoustic room has not had water in the humidifier since last century....

3) The atmosphere is a nightmare. Go to a GC at noon on a Saturday and better yet during a big sale and you will hear 13 snot nosed brats playing a really bad version of Stairway at the same time but in different tunings, etc. This must be what hell is like....

4) We have seen first hand several heirloom, vintage instruments that GC people did not know their limitations and as such they destroyed family heirlooms.....

For us though it's a crusade against not only the big box invasion where the traditional Mom and Pop was and is something that we don't want to lose.... ever. I remember Rex Aldridge at the music store in my home town letting me as a little kid take the Les Pauls and Strats out of the cases and sit on the floor and play them. He described me to others that I over heard as a very careful kid and clean too.... He once showed me how to tell if a speaker is blown with a D size battery.... In fact this entire Lutherie journey for me from hobbyist to business co-owner of a very busy and successful repair shop started with Rex and his wife taking me in and trusting me.

I'll mention too that two of our regular clients are GC repair guys. They want us to work on their personal stuff instead of getting it messed up under their hands or by someone that they work with at GC.

There are other reasons why I hate GC that have to do with what kind of corporate stewards they are, debt load, not treating employees well or paying them well, and of course being owned by venture capital making their continued existence dicey at best.

Can a Mom and Pop survive in the age of GC? You bet ya but most won't because running a music store is what they know not how to have a parasitic positive relationship with the spend of a major competitor such as GC. It is possible to let GC market your wares for you and you make the sales but many store owners know nothing about this.

Oh well maybe it will come full circle. Remember too that Best Buy tried to be a GC and lost....

Sending best wishes too to Turkey and France. Hang in David.

I get a lot of work because the repair guy at GC (who graduated from Red Wing), messes up so much stuff. I was in there recently to talk to him, and he was out on lunch break. The manager told me "He's the best luthier in town. Bring in your guitar for him!".

You should have seen the guys' face after I finished a very long and loud belly laugh. I concluded with this: "If Andy is the best in town, why is he working here at Ninth Circle Of Hell Music?" He had no comeback.

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"Act your age, not your shoe size" - Prince

I don't think Guitar center has much impact on my business. Other than increasing the proliferation of instruments that are not worth fixing.

One of the most useful things I do, for people and for myself, is to tell them to make sure they get a period of time to return a newly acquired instrument and get thier money back. Bring it to me and let me have a quick look. No charge.
I've found EBay purchases with tops propped up with dowels, High end vintage guitars with transducer wire right through X braces, and on and on.
I'm sure that sounds like business suicide but I find it's one of the most appreciated things I do. It immediately lets people know I'm on their side and frequently cements a long term relationship with many who have a room full of instruments and need someone they trust to keep them working.
After trust is earned, most are happy to pay a fair price for work.

People just want someone with knowledge to tell them the truth.
That's what's missing from every business where low price is king.
It's too bad it's becoming a third party service.

Guitar Center appears to benefit no one except a very few at the top.
In a week of horrific failures of human organization, hearing GC is continuing to open new stores seems to further confirm that entropy is winning.

I wish I knew the solution. Somehow we have to figure out how to treat one another better, in all areas, including business.

Oh and Hesh, you referred to "employees" in your post.
No such thing anymore, only "team members"

Whether it is Guitar Center or the best guitar shop in your region, running a brick and mortar store to sell things is a rough business, and I don't envy anybody who tries to do it. If you have the option, I think it is smart to focus on selling services instead of selling stuff.

Does anyone use the 20% off coupons that GC is always spamming? I've been using them to get 40 bucks off of a Lyric pick up every time they send me one. I don't know if L.R. Baggs offers builder pricing but those are a lot more affordable at 160 instead of 200.


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From those pics... it seems we have finally identified the person responsible for some of the "repairs from hell" threads...


OOps was meant for another thread....don't see a delete button