Who killed Sam Ash (and how is Guitar Center still alive)?

[p90jr]

(I'm "gifting" this article so you can read it without a New York Times subscription)

Sam Ash Music Stores to Close After 100 Years in Business
The chain, which started with a single shop in Brooklyn in 1924, said it would close all 42 of its locations by the end of July, citing competition from online retailers.

Some of you should remember that I've been watching for the death of Guitar Center and posting updates on that here for... I think close to 15 years, now... (wow, time flies)... and somehow it has beaten the odds, and actually shot into the black during the great guitar-buying frenzy during the COVID shutdown, which of course was not going to last (though apparently the suits in the instrument business believed it would...).

I don't know if someone shared this here already but...

“We forgot who our core customer was”: Guitar Center CEO says premium guitars key to firm’s future and promises “playground” experience for serious musicians

Gabe Dalporto, the new CEO of the US-based gear giant, outlined his vision for the firm, and a retail experience that lets players get hands-on with more pro-quality gear

some counter opinions:
Tom Morello Hits Back at Guitar Center CEO's Controversial Comments About Affordable Instruments
"He doesn’t want to sell guitars to serious musicians, he wants to sell expensive guitars to lawyers/doctors/etc." - X (Twitter) user comment 

Here's my opinion(s):

Sweetwater were genuises in setting up their entire online operation. It improved on Musician's Friend and made it more focused and personal.

The Chicago Music Exchange were genuises when they set up Reverb. It improved on eBay and made it more focused and personal for gear.

It's a simple rule of economics and business that you make more money selling a lot of something that is inexpensive than a few of something that is expensive. You will not have someone come in and buy a $1,500+ guitar every single day, but you will have someone come in and buy a pack of strings and picks and a patch cable every hour if you're in the right location, and that is what pays the bills steadily. You sell a lot of Squier and Epi starter packs around Christmas... that is the market to let GC grow into a behemoth (along with Bain Capital...).

"Pros" are also pros at the hunt of finding great guitars and gear for a bargain, and vintage gear has long been fashionable to everybody except maybe the metal segment. I don't see the "pro" segment going into Guitar Center anymore... it turned itself into the WalMart of music gear, just as others more shrewdly built online things aimed at Pros.

The used gear section of GC's website is abysmal.

Brick and Mortar music stores can't sell expensive gear that's new, because most guitar buyers these days suffer from "Trogly's disease": they expect a guitar to be perfect and never before handled by human hands... unopened in a box, flawless... so a physical store would have to have a floor demo model and then boxed models in the back, which most can't afford to stock that way. A guy ranted in a guitar group on facebook that he went to GC and asked for a guitar and told them he wanted an unopened one from the back, so they got one, put it on the counter and started opening the box... he lost his temper and they looked at him like he was nuts. "Didn't I say I wanted an unopened one! Why are you opening it!" "Hey, man... I have to see what I'm selling you so you don't come back and say it was a Squier in the wrong box or something, you can be the only one who touches it!" "Forget it, you're idiots!!!" Storms off... he didn't appreciate people telling him he was unreasonable and nuts. So that shifts sales to online. Local guitar shops can do well if they're good at finding used instruments and selling them online. As for new guitars, besides the big sellers the guitar companies themselves are cutting out the middle man and selling direct online, now... so if you can afford to stock every model of guitar in every color and variation and not open them for display you can have happy customers. People now expect it to work like Target where you look at the display model and buy an unopened example... a change from the "I would never buy a guitar unless I'd played it for an hour to make sure I liked it" mindset.

So... GC will create a lot of dented and scratched new guitars that they have to sell as used to move if they put the $500 and up guitars within arms reach on the wall. I can't see this as a winning business strategy. Maybe with their volume they can afford to have a demo model designated of higher-end guitars on the floor at each store that they "sacrifice." My personal advice to them would be to have employees set up, stretch out and tune all of the Squiers and Epiphones on the low level of the wall, because they're uniformly awful and seem to go right out of the box onto the wall with no care... and I've watched kids come in with their parents and grab one and plug it in and have an awful experience, which makes them think the guitar is defective because it's almost impossible to tune, the intonation isn't set, the action sticks and frets buzz and strings ground out and electronics don't work properly. And I say that as a guy who had the same experience as a 13-year-old who was excited to find tons of vintage Jazzmasters and Jaguars in pawn shops for $50-150 that were all wrecks and scared me off.

But also, I think we're headed into the great post-COVID Guitar comedown... there's a glut of slightly used guitars on the market, which in turn should be creating a glut of new guitars on the market... which could be what killed Sam Ash.

[AnotherScott]

Two thoughts...

 

...One, if a customer wants an unopened box, then for god's sake, check with him before you open it! If the store really has a policy of selling no unopened boxes (I've never heard of such a thing), let him know that. But don't just go ahead an open it. Maybe he was buying it as a gift, or has other reasons for wanting it to be factory sealed, he's entitled to that.

 

...Two, with guitars, I think it's unusual that someone actually wants a sealed box, I think they usually WANT the exact display unit they played. There's no real additional value here to "one that has been untouched by human hands since leaving the factory," at least compared to "I want the exact one that put that smile on my face when I played it." Because more than with keyboards, every guitar can feel and play a little differently. Especially acoustics, but even electrics. At least that's how it used to be, anyway.

[p90jr]

... One... I dunno, it was Guitar Center, and I'm sure they have their share of scams... hell, people grab guitars and just run out of their stores some places.

--Two. While I agree with you, generally (I've bought a lot of guitars online, most of the ones I have, really...) that doesn't seem to be the emerging mindset, and I think that's because you and I are players who buy guitars to play, and increasingly the average guitar customer is someone buying an object they think will appreciate rapidly and they don't really play that well or gig. I want used or "open box/demo" guitars that are pre-dented and discounted, so I don't get pissed when I do it... I'm fine with B-stock stuff... it's going to get played and gigged and as careful as I try to be some wear will happen. I get great laughs from guitar groups on facebook (as much as from vinyl record groups on facebook) because people are increasingly a bit nutty and unknowledgeable. The guys returning Fenders because of that inevitable hairline fracture in the finish that almost all of them get in that lip where the neck is bolted on (if you have a Strat, you have to know what I'm talking about)... the fact that they ignore the instruction to not open the box and let the guitar acclimate to the new environment/temperature for 48 hours then return the guitar 3 days later when "this crack happened in the finish!!!" is funny/sad. Guys will dent a guitar and ask how much it costs to have it refinished... we're talking about MIM Telecasters, not expensive vintage guitars. People will post a guitar that they've changed something on and people start yelling at them about "ruining the resale value!" Like, for a late 70s Fender Brinco or something. One guy trolled a group by posting tons of pics of Late-50s Les Pauls and early 60s Les Pauls/SGs that had been heavily modified and letting them all go insane... and I recognized that these were Les Paul's personal guitars that were being auctioned off... they sold for way more than if they were perfect because they were LES PAUL'S PERSONAL GUITARS!!!! mostly prototypes he was experimenting on, and all were given to him for free... "It doesn't matter. He was a jerk to do that to vintage guitars, man!!!"

The "pros" I know can't afford $3,000 guitars because they're playing for a living and don't make that kind of money... unless they do make that kind of money in which case they're big enough to be given a lot of stuff by companies and they buy rare vintage stuff as tax write-offs. EVen some kids I know in a stoner metal band got to the point where Gibson gave them guitars on permanent loan, which came in handy because they were trying to figure out how to afford guitars after grinding the affordable stuff they had down with constant touring.

This actually just rolled around on my youtube channel while I was assembling something for my wife. I like this guy... he usually has some good insights as a former store owner...
 

1:37:22 below he talks about GC
 

 

I believe acoustic guitars are overwhelmingly sold online these days...

[surfergirl]

Sweetwater is not on my favorite list anymore. I have an order coming from them now, it's shipped but I have go to my account to get the information. I've received no order confirmation or shipping confirmation. My last order was 6 days late. But they were both sale or demo and a good price. I guess you can't always expect good service. I try to buy local if I can, but they don't always have demos blemished or B stock, which is what I look for.

[CEB]

If I buy a new guitar I better not get it in an unopened box.  That s*** needs to be setup.  Even then getting my Acoustic stuff right is often a process.  

 

Unopened box is cool for keyboards but, guitars are a no.   But that is just me.

[Winston Psmith]

GC is still alive in part because it killed off so many small independents that the major manufacturers and distributors still need GC to front their products, at least for now. It'll be interesting to see how many of them start looking into exclusive relationships with other marketers, the way you can only find Behringer gear through Sweetwater.

 

I know back when GC could still afford to mail out regular sales flyers and catalogs, you'd see some products that were exclusive to GC. In many cases, it wasn't so much a particular model or product that was exclusive, so much as a cosmetic detail, like a specific Guitar finish, or a pedal with different graphics than the usual run, but otherwise, pretty much a stock item. As it is, I can't think of the last time I got any kind of flyer/ad from GC?

 

Luckily, here in the D.C. area, we still have Chuck Levin's Washington Music Center (locally known as "Chuck's"), which is very much what you'd expect a full-service Music store to look like, well-stocked, and well-staffed, with some folks who have worked there for decades, no exaggeration. For Used Gear, we have Atomic Music, out in the industrial wasteland of Beltsville, where I have found some of the coolest, and strangest stuff I currently use. There are also a few other independent Music stores, even for Vintage Gear.

 

If GC were to shut down, it's not the Pros who'd be impacted, at least not here. Many of the big acts coming through town check in with Chuck's, and many of the locals have long-time relationships with Chuck's.

 

In fairness, I have to mention the small GC outlet that was just blocks from my house, tucked into the upstairs of a local indoor mall. There were some good folks working there, and the vibe was very different from many of the full-size GC's. I found my Brian Moore iGuitar in that store, and the last thing I got there was my Quarantine Guitar, a used Taylor 110CE, bought on Friday the 13th, 2020, right before the world closed down. Less than a week later, our Governor ordered all indoor malls to close, which killed that GC outlet.

[Lou Gehrig Charles]

On 5/5/2024 at 1:00 PM, AnotherScott said:

 

 

...Two, with guitars, I think it's unusual that someone actually wants a sealed box, I think they usually WANT the exact display unit they played. There's no real additional value here to "one that has been untouched by human hands since leaving the factory".....

 

 

[p90jr]

 

[p90jr]

https://www.reddit.com/r/Guitar/comments/8xrxje/question_guitar_center_told_me_they_cant_give_me/?embed_host_url=https://forums.musicplayer.com/index.php

 

[murphybridget]

On 5/10/2024 at 8:00 AM, Winston Psmith said:

GC is still alive in part because it killed off so many small independents that the major manufacturers and distributors still need GC to front their products, at least for now. It'll be interesting to see how many of them start looking into exclusive relationships with other marketers, the way you can only find Behringer gear through Sweetwater.

 

I know back when GC could still afford to mail out regular sales flyers and catalogs, you'd see some products that were exclusive to GC. In many cases, it wasn't so much a particular model or product that was exclusive, so much as a cosmetic detail, like a specific Guitar finish, or a pedal with different graphics than the usual run, but otherwise, pretty much a stock item. As it is, I can't think of the last time I got any kind of flyer/ad from GC?

 

Luckily, here in the D.C. area, we still have Chuck Levin's Washington Music Center (locally known as "Chuck's"), which is very much what you'd expect a full-service Music store to look like, well-stocked, and well-staffed, with some folks who have worked there for decades, no exaggeration. For Used Gear, we have Atomic Music, out in the industrial wasteland of Beltsville, where I have found some of the coolest, and strangest stuff I currently use. There are also a few other independent Music stores, even for Vintage Gear.

 

If GC were to shut down, it's not the Pros who'd be impacted, at least not here. Many of the big acts coming through town check in with Chuck's, and many of the locals have long-time relationships with Chuck's.

 

In fairness, I have to mention the small GC outlet that was just blocks from my house, tucked into the upstairs of a local indoor mall. There were some good folks working there, and the vibe was very different from many of the full-size GC's. I found my Brian Moore iGuitar in that store, and the last thing I got there was my Quarantine Guitar, a used Taylor 110CE, bought on Friday the 13th, 2020, right before the world closed down. Less than a week later, our Governor ordered all indoor malls to close, which killed that GC outlet.

It's interesting how Guitar Center used to offer exclusive products or cosmetic variations in their catalogs. It's a shame that physical flyers and catalogs seem to be less common these days. It might be worth checking out their online offerings to see if they still have any exclusive items or unique finishes available.

[skipclone 1]

Sad news. My main U.S. electric which is still in storage, was purchased at Sam Ash. I went through maybe half a dozen Charvels before I found 
'the one'.