GC is f****d up

[Radagast]

I found a guitar I wanted on Guitar Center’s site.  It said “in stock”.  I ordered it and paid through PayPal.  The next morning I checked my order.  It said “backordered”.  I went to the site again and it said “in stock”.  I called them.  Their warehouse is indeed out of the guitar.  The lady helping me, said she would check the inventory in stores.  She found four stores that had more than one in stock.  She suggested choosing a store that had more than one, meaning one of them was probably on the floor and the other was unopened.  I ordered one with her help, being unable to pay through PayPal.  I called the local store to make sure they actually had two.  They said yes, but they were short on shipping supplies, so it would take a few days to get it shipped.  Moral of the story?  Don’t trust what Guitar Center’s website says.  Check your orders after making them.  And Musician’s Friend, which mirror’s GC’s stock, also says that guitar is in stock when it isn’t. 

[KuruPrionz]

They are too large and too busy for their web services to keep up with. 

 

I try to buy used guitars only and only after I've held the guitar I want in my hand and played it. That's been working pretty well so far.

I have slapped a few Strats and Teles together using parts that I've bought online. I know that Warmoth (for one) will deliver a quality neck and if they are out of stock they'll send a nicer one to fill the order. But they are a relatively small company run by people who understand customer service. 

 

I'm pretty sure if you called Sweetwater looking for the guitar you want, they would tell you the truth. 

Guitar Center wants your money. They just happen to sell guitars, they could sell shoes and it would be the same deal. 

[Radagast]

If Sweetwater had this guitar, I would have bought it from them.  It’s a limited edition model and there aren’t many left.

[KuruPrionz]

16 minutes ago, Radagast said:

If Sweetwater had this guitar, I would have bought it from them.  It’s a limited edition model and there aren’t many left.

Good luck!!!

[Radagast]

I called the GC in Boise.  They said they had the guitar and could see my order.  Unless GC is worse than I thought, I’m pretty sure I’ll get the guitar.

[Dannyalcatraz]

That kind of tomfoolery can happen with small retailers as well.

 

I went shopping for my first Reverend at a small store in the ‘burbs, and was shocked to see what else they had in stock.  Besides a decent supply of Revs, they carried G&L, Taylor, and even had a Gibson room.  After trying a bunch of stuff out, I went home to mull things over.  I was torn between two Reverends and a G&L.  I decided on a limited edition Reverend Flatroc- a different model than the one I had initially been shopping for.  There were only 50 made, with that number spread out over a half dozen colors or so.

 

I fired up my tablet, found their website, and pulled the trigger.  Got an email with a confirmation number for my order and everything.  When I checked my email in the morning, though, I had another email from the store.  It seems someone sold that guitar to a different customer before checking the computer orders, etc.  I was given a full refund.

 

In the end, I had to find the guitar in another state…in a different color.  I never bought anything from that store. (And they closed a few years later.)

[Winston Psmith]

Not looking to excuse GC, nor the jerk who sold that Reverend Flatroc, but having worked in Music retail, I can say that trusting Inventory Management to a software system is essentially an act of faith, and I'm agnostic, at best.

 

The old line about a chain and its weakest link applies here, and almost invariably, the human element is the weak link. People failing to get a proper inventory count (too many or too few of something), entering the wrong inventory code for an item so there's no way to know what really sold, having items shipped between stores so no one knows exactly where they are (Radagast's issue), and people failing to check Special Order status in-store (Dannyalcatraz' Flatroc).

 

The only way to know that you have an item in stock, unless it's right out in plain sight, is to have some human go and put hands on it, no matter what the computer says. Given the rate of turnover at GC, it's not surprising that they're losing track of gear, while they lose customers.

 

Like @KuruPrionz, I've never bought a Guitar, or any Instrument, that I haven't held in my hands. if nothing else, that way, I know what I'm getting.

 

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Many are the times in which I have asked whether someone could visually confirm something was in stock.  Because I have experienced enough instances where inventory systems (and other databases) varied from reality in any number of ways.

 

But such is the great paradox of the Information Age!