Sam Ash now closing all stores?

[BluMunk]

13 hours ago, jazzpiano88 said:

There was something magical about walking into a great music store in the 80s and 90s.

 

Yes... I posted this in the other Sam Ash thread a few weeks ago... local music retail, done right, is a vital piece of a local community of musicians. 

 

 

13 hours ago, zephonic said:

From the way our local branch looks, I bet Guitar Center is on life support too...

Same... I don't ever shop there (so maybe it's my fault... but they're also in a big box out of town, and a 20 minute drive from any gig), but I ran in last week to pick up a set of Shure in-ears last minute. It was a Friday night at 7pm and I saw 4 or 5 employees standing around chatting, and I think one customer in a corner. No one making music. No one trying gear. Depressing.

[cphollis]

BI -- Before Internet -- many young people like me grew up immersed in music.  There wasn't a lot else to do that was fun, entertaining and social, especially if you weren't athletic like me.  Parents signed their kids up for all sorts of musical activities -- lessons, choirs, bands, etc. -- at an early age, probably to keep us all busy.  Lots of kids played instruments, sang, etc.

 

As a result, there was a healthy and diverse ecosystem of music stores in the SF Bay Area in the 60s-70s.  All gone of course.  The internet changed how people experience music, and putting retail music stores out of business was just one consequence.

[ProfD]

As we have mentioned in similar threads, the magic of hanging out in a music store has diminished and the sustainability of brick and mortar stores has become harder with alternative shopping options. 

 

I'm not surprised that the Ash family is cashing in its chips.  The handwriting has been on the wall for a long time now. 😎

[Lou Gehrig Charles]

14 hours ago, zephonic said:

 

From the way our local branch looks, I bet Guitar Center is on life support too...

GC has a few locations within reasonable driving distance of me.  But oh boy do they vary from store to store....  Some thriving, some not.

[The Real MC]

3 hours ago, Outkaster said:

It's so strange. So many things are closing now. Restaurants, businesses and stores all since COVID. 

 

Stark contrast in FL.  I can't believe how prosperous it is here.

[Outkaster]

Yeah but Mike there is a vacation economy also where you are now. 

[Iconoclast]

Went to the single Sam Ash in Glendale (Phoenix AZ) yesterday.

Things are not really discounted at all. In fact many things were quite a bit more than the advertised prices I was easily able to find at GC or SweetH2O.

The employees felt blindsided; they thought their store was going to survive. Supposedly will be open for another 6ish weeks.

But if they don't drastically slash prices, they're certainly not going to move any thing they weren't moving before.

 

[Stokely]

My Sam Ash "saga" is over, or will be very soon.  They ended up cancelling my order, and will refund me (that's when it definitely will be over).

Reason is, the store that supposedly had it in stock brand new didn't.  The one they did have was missing two knobs and according to the guy who called me "wasn't in great shape."

Which is another reason these stores are dying--their stock gets beat to hell by the apes we call "the public".   I've seen so many knobs missing on keyboards.   New in the box, ok, but I'd never want a floor model unless it was a big discount.

I kinda feel relieved even though I'd have to pay more (by a couple hundred) for any other new Fantom out there currently.   I just sold something on Sweetwater's gear exchange and opted for the gift card (to save 7%) so I'll likely be getting the Fantom EX down the road, ideally with at least a bit of a discount from my intrepid rep.    

[ProfD]

Obviously, an angel investor did not buy the music store chain. 

 

However, I envision a scenario where an investor bulk buys the remaining Sam Ash inventory upon closure. 

 

Then, that buyer will open an online music store and/or sell through Reverb or Amazon.

 

About 6 months from now, patient buyers will find great deals on new gear.😎

[BenWaB3]

I've tried logging on to their website on 2 different computers and getting the same error message. Anyone else experiencing this?

[CHarrell]

1 hour ago, Iconoclast said:

Things are not really discounted at all. In fact many things were quite a bit more than the advertised prices I was easily able to find at GC or SweetH2O

 

Looking online yesterday after getting the e-mail about the big savings, I was really surprised to see just how small most of the discounts turned out to be.

[Doerfler]

5 hours ago, CHarrell said:

 

Looking online yesterday after getting the e-mail about the big savings, I was really surprised to see just how small most of the discounts turned out to be.

 

I had the same experience. I wasn't looking for anything in particular,  just randomly looking around but nothing I couldn't get for the same price for anywhere else

[MathOfInsects]

9 hours ago, Iconoclast said:

Went to the single Sam Ash in Glendale (Phoenix AZ) yesterday.

Things are not really discounted at all. In fact many things were quite a bit more than the advertised prices I was easily able to find at GC or SweetH2O.

The employees felt blindsided; they thought their store was going to survive. Supposedly will be open for another 6ish weeks.

But if they don't drastically slash prices, they're certainly not going to move any thing they weren't moving before.

 

 

1 hour ago, Doerfler said:

 

I had the same experience. I wasn't looking for anything in particular,  just randomly looking around but nothing I couldn't get for the same price for anywhere else

Same here. I'll wait until doomsday is closer and try again.

[LarsHarner]

Sometimes I miss the 90's when there were both Sam Ash and more independent stores to pick from. In South Jersey we had Zapfs (also in Philadelphia), and the Music Place in Atco.

Currently there is a Sam Ash and Guitar Center in the same strip mall. At some point I migrated to Guitar Center and Musicians Friend because of the 20% discounts (now capped at 15%).

I think the change in industry is also reflected in the manufacturers- it seems less new items come out yearly. Howeveer, perhaps this is due to at some point keyboards sounding better,

and more people using computers and vsts.

 

Music stores could fall by the wayside, much like book stores and music stores like Tower since we are in a digitized environment. Think about it - example- you buy a Piano VST without even leaving your house and in the old days you would have to go to a store and by a box with some DVDS or CDS to download.

 

[Outkaster]

4 hours ago, LarsHarner said:

Sometimes I miss the 90's when there were both Sam Ash and more independent stores to pick from. In South Jersey we had Zapfs (also in Philadelphia), and the Music Place in Atco.

Currently there is a Sam Ash and Guitar Center in the same strip mall. At some point I migrated to Guitar Center and Musicians Friend because of the 20% discounts (now capped at 15%).

I think the change in industry is also reflected in the manufacturers- it seems less new items come out yearly. Howeveer, perhaps this is due to at some point keyboards sounding better,

and more people using computers and vsts.

 

Music stores could fall by the wayside, much like book stores and music stores like Tower since we are in a digitized environment. Think about it - example- you buy a Piano VST without even leaving your house and in the old days you would have to go to a store and by a box with some DVDS or CDS to download.

 

Also Cintioli's

[HammondDave]

Have you been to a mall lately? In So Cal 1/2 of the mall stores are empty shells.  

[Docbop]

18 minutes ago, HammondDave said:

Have you been to a mall lately? In So Cal 1/2 of the mall stores empty shells.  

Never thought malls would go out of style but seems like there are closings all over the country.   People discovered ease of shopping online during covid especially with Amazon and their easy returns.    The apartment complex I live in the Amazon delivery truck comes here twice a day to deliver. 

[GovernorSilver]

Adding a Lego Discovery Center saved one of our local malls.

[GovernorSilver]

On 5/2/2024 at 3:20 PM, GovernorSilver said:

I ordered a digital piano from them just this past Saturday.  Tried calling them yesterday to get a status on the order because I hadn't received a shipping notice, and the rep said he'd look into it.

 

Called again today because I didn't hear anything.  The rep who answered the phone said his internet connection is down so he can't look up the order, then apologized.

 

I'll give them a few more days.  If no progress is made after those few days, I'll cancel the order.  If I can't do that I'll call my credit card provider to dispute the purchase - but hope it won't come to that.

 

I called 2 more times.   

 

On the 2nd and final call, I was told that they actually only had 2 FP-90Xs in the warehouse - one was an open box, and the other was a return that they intend to sell as new.  I said no thanks and asked to cancel the order.  

 

Shame as 20% off brought the price down into the $1600 range but you win some, lose some.

[The Real MC]

6 hours ago, Docbop said:

Never thought malls would go out of style but seems like there are closings all over the country.   People discovered ease of shopping online during covid especially with Amazon and their easy returns.    The apartment complex I live in the Amazon delivery truck comes here twice a day to deliver. 

 

Malls aren't going out of style because of online shopping.

Malls are going out of style because of poor quality product and narrow target market.

 

I usually buy enough work clothing to last 10-12 work days between wash cycles, to minimize the wear from laundry machines and get maximum life from the clothing.  The last time I bought slacks for work at a mall store, they only lasted a year.  That is poor quality.  The store wasn't a chain either, it was a well known local store with a long history and it was an anchor store.

 

Starting about 20 years ago, mall stores stocked next to nothing that appeals to men.  There used to be book stores, music stores, tool stores (Brookstone), stores with decent quality men's clothing/shoes.  The majority of women are impulse buyers by nature, which brings in the badly needed short term revenue to pay the high rent that mall owners charge to stores.  That is the target market today.  The last twenty years I have browsed malls around the country and the primary store products since then are women's clothing, cell phone services, cell phone accessories, games, confectionaries, fast food, entertainment... the last one is the only store with male appeal, and with my shelves completely full I stopped buying CDs and DVDs.  

 

Back home in NY, I watched the slow death of malls.  Many are closed, many no longer have anchor stores, many have empty storefronts, many have very little foot traffic.  Just miserable.  You know a mall is in trouble when they have a store that sells headstones 

 

It's not just NY, it's everywhere.  Even in prosperous FL.

The ONLY reason I go to a mall anymore is to review/buy Apple products/accessories.

 

[LarsHarner]

10 hours ago, Outkaster said:

Also Cintioli's

Although  I never went there, a friend and his father would always mention Benny Cintiolli- I think they got a Roland RD 1000 and Korg T3 from him around 1988-1990

[Dave Bryce]

15 hours ago, LarsHarner said:

Although  I never went there, a friend and his father would always mention Benny Cintiolli- I think they got a Roland RD 1000 and Korg T3 from him around 1988-1990

 

Benny has a bit of notoriety as being the first music store owner (in our area, anyway) to discount gear.

 

For me growing up in the Philly area, the coolest music store was Medley.

 

dB

[Stokely]

On 5/4/2024 at 11:57 AM, GovernorSilver said:

 

I called 2 more times.   

 

On the 2nd and final call, I was told that they actually only had 2 FP-90Xs in the warehouse - one was an open box, and the other was a return that they intend to sell as new.  I said no thanks and asked to cancel the order.  

 

Shame as 20% off brought the price down into the $1600 range but you win some, lose some.

Argh, well at least you are (like me) able to reset.   I felt a bit relieved actually even though I missed out on a great deal.

I'd say that when you sell things online as new, then it comes out that you don't have the stock--which is the same thing that happened to me--it says a lot about how organized you are as a business.  As in, not very.  Contrast with Sweetwater and how they sold me my guitar--I got to pick the actual guitar, see the weight and so on.   If I lived near SW I'd be in serious trouble financially....

[Outkaster]

46 minutes ago, Dave Bryce said:

 

Benny has a bit of notoriety as being the first music store owner (in our area, anyway) to discount gear.

 

For me growing up in the Philly area, the coolest music store was Medley.

 

dB

When Tom Petro was alive we would go down there.  Supposedly he had Mob ties.

[AnotherScott]

On 5/2/2024 at 2:49 PM, Mike Martin said:

They're closing stores. Online operations will continue for quite a while. 

One would have hoped, but...

On 5/2/2024 at 4:11 PM, Stokely said:

Something else that I just noticed when I refreshed my orders page:

ALL SALES FINAL FOR PURCHASES MADE AFTER MAY 1ST 2024

Yup. Not just "in-store" sales are final, ALL sales on the site are final. So it seems no returns for online purchases either.

 

I think an issue here may be that, in a way, I don't think there *IS* any "online operation" for Sam Ash, per se, i.e. no online fulfillment warehouse. When you order from the site online, it still ships from a store, as far as I've seen. If there are no more stores, where do they ship from? And in fact, if you go to order something online now, and say you want it shipped, here's the pop-up next to the shipping option:

 

 

I suppose they could attempt to establish a strictly online presence, but the fact that you can't currently return anything you buy from their site does not bode well for that possibility (even if their current strategy is to use the site largely as a clearing portal to empty their stores). If they lack an existing online warehousing/shipping infrastructure, and they no longer have the stores, I'm not sure how they'd even justify putting resources into that. And things had to be pretty dire to close ALL stores. Did they not have a single one that was profitable? It sounds like the whole organization might have been deeply in the red. Maybe in the end, someone just buys the name, and it becomes another front end for one of the existing online sellers.

 

 

 

[GovernorSilver]

23 hours ago, Stokely said:

Argh, well at least you are (like me) able to reset.   I felt a bit relieved actually even though I missed out on a great deal.

I'd say that when you sell things online as new, then it comes out that you don't have the stock--which is the same thing that happened to me--it says a lot about how organized you are as a business.  As in, not very.  Contrast with Sweetwater and how they sold me my guitar--I got to pick the actual guitar, see the weight and so on.   If I lived near SW I'd be in serious trouble financially....

 

Sweetwater and - believe it or not, Musicians Friend - spoiled me into expecting that when I put in an order, a shipping notice will come by the next business day.  

 

Sweetwater in particular has yet to sell me an item that was not truly in stock - another sin committed by other online shops.

[Stokely]

To be fair, it's one store and I gather that Sam Ash (and probably GC) pull their stock from the various locations...and probably some of them are less than organized.  Ie, their job is a bit tougher than Sweetwater's.

But yeah I immediately got a bit on edge when I saw no shipping label.  And it makes me wonder just how long I'd have waited if I hadn't been a squeaky wheel.

[ProfD]

1 hour ago, AnotherScott said:

Maybe in the end, someone just buys the name, and it becomes another front end for one of the existing online sellers.

As I mentioned above, I could see that happening too.  Would definitely make sense.😎

[AnotherScott]

What they said in March, when they announced closing of nearly half the stores:

 

Quote

“For the last 100 years, Sam Ash Music has successfully adapted to meet the challenge of changing business conditions. As we look towards the next 100 years, the company must continue to adapt to ensure its continued success. Sam Ash Music remains committed to keeping a strong physical store footprint in the future while we continue growing our successful online sales offerings. As part of this restructuring, the company is closing several stores nationwide. This restructuring is emotionally tough, but we are confident these moves will make Sam Ash Music stronger as we continue serving the music community into the future, as we have for the past 100 years.”

 

Well that didn't last long. (At least the commitment to "keeping a strong physical store footprint.")

[Stokely]

It's a giant load of bollocks is what it was, to steal a phrase from friends across the pond.  "remains committed" my ass.

If you are saying that in March, and then closing in early May, you didn't mean one word of that spiel.  You always intended to close all the stores.   

I feel bad for the employees, who possibly believed that tripe.