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Old 02-17-2019, 10:57 AM
Manothemtns Manothemtns is offline
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Originally Posted by ThermiteTermite View Post
They are businesses, not charity cases. I go to whoever can give the best deal, regardless of how many poor hungry little urchins the local shop owner or Jeff Bezos have tugging at their trouser legs.
That's the idea.
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Old 02-17-2019, 12:27 PM
BT55 BT55 is offline
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No one can argue that Internet and Big Box vendors are putting local B&M stores out of business in every category. This is to the detriment of all customers. Yes you will get better pricing but access to demoing guitars is disappearing. As everyone knows B&M cannot compete with mass marketers due to overhead. Paying more to B&M vendors is the only way to preserve our access to try out good guitars.
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Old 02-17-2019, 12:36 PM
Manothemtns Manothemtns is offline
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Originally Posted by BT55 View Post
No one can argue that Internet and Big Box vendors are putting local B&M stores out of business in every category. This is to the detriment of all customers. Yes you will get better pricing but access to demoing guitars is disappearing. As everyone knows B&M cannot compete with mass marketers due to overhead. Paying more to B&M vendors is the only way to preserve our access to try out good guitars.
Excellent response. You are absolutely right on the will of the consumer being able to turn the tide. I wrote my post because it's not over yet and the "fat lady has yet to sing". It's about consumer awareness and allowing big box chains and internet wholesalers to ruin American small business which accounts for 70% of American jobs. When small business goes so do the jobs. Well put. I thank you for your insightful comment.
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Old 02-17-2019, 12:41 PM
Gmountain Gmountain is offline
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It's every business. Anyone who shopped at Walmart help put local stores out of business. Anyone who went to a shopping mall in the 70's and 80's put local stores out of business.

Now it's the internet. Hopefully the internet will put walmart out of business.
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Old 02-17-2019, 12:57 PM
rstaight rstaight is offline
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The shop I frequent price matches his guitars to what is found on the internet. He hopes to make it up with service. He actually gives a 50% discount on yearly service if you bought the instrument from him.

He worked at another local store and routinely had people come in to try something. They would by it on line and then bring it to them for repair or setup.

If you want something just to have that one ok, get it on line.

Small shops understand if you are shopping brands. But it is just plain rude to go to a small shop and test drive their inventory and buy the same thing online.
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Old 02-17-2019, 12:59 PM
IndyHD28 IndyHD28 is offline
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There are three guitar stores of consequence in my city: GC, SA and independent Reno’s Music. GC is dying, Sam Ash has taken over as the big box general music store and #1 Taylor dealer (Road Show goes only there), and Reno’s.

Reno’s is the archetype on the modern B&M+Internet. First, they specialize in Martin so they have a very profitable niche. Secondly, they are “right sized” for this combo business. Small showroom, generous warehouse space for plentiful inventory, lots of custom shop Martins in stock. They will compete with the toughest online guys—if you ask— or happily sell you a guitar at MAP if you don’t. They support the locals with accessories, lessons and generous hours with two employee/owners. They’ve got the sweet spot for today’s retailer. Low overhead, strong inventory and great prices. I would never buy a Martin anywhere else and I promote them on forums because I want them to thrive.
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  #22  
Old 02-17-2019, 01:00 PM
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Basalt Beach Basalt Beach is offline
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Except for an AGF classified purchase, and our Voyage Air, all of our six other guitars are purchased from a private owner B&M store long distance via the internet. No business environment is static, and Reverb, founded in 2013, (per their website story) has evolved and buyers have evolved. We recently learned from an "article" that fifty percent of new guitar purchases are by women, which is not something you would have expected 5, 10, 15 or 25 years ago, however those in the business who adapt and cater to their potential customers have a better chance to survive and thrive.

You may be extremely knowledgable, and be an unsung musician, however to be successful you also have to be a good at business, have a well thought business strategy and adapt to changing market conditions. Sure, large well known chain retailers are a challenge, however well run individual shops are thriving, and those that do not succeed, likely fail from a poor business model/strategy and/or poor management/customer service. Not limited to the retail instrument business, it is easy to blame others or market conditions, rather than look inwardly and examine yourself for business failures.

I hope the individual well run privately owned B&M continues to survive and does so by managing the business in the successful manner which makes it so today.


Welcome to the world’s most popular music gear website.
Reverb is the online marketplace for musicians to buy, sell and learn about new, used, vintage and handmade music gear. When Reverb launched in 2013, it was founded on the principle that buying and selling musical instruments should be easy and affordable. Since then we’ve become a thriving marketplace that connects millions of people around the world to the gear and the inspiration needed to make music.
The Reverb Marketplace is made up of hundreds of thousands of buyers and sellers – from beginner musicians to collectors, mom-and-pop shops to large retailers, and popular manufacturers to boutique builders and luthiers. You might even run into some of your favorite rock stars buying and selling on Reverb!
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  #23  
Old 02-17-2019, 01:12 PM
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Rev Roy Rev Roy is offline
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I keep hearing folks talking about this “buyer’s market”...but it hasn’t been my experience. I’ve sold ten guitars on Reverb in the last few years and have always gotten about 50% of MSRP...though the fees can shave it a bit. Since I typically bought them st 60% of MSRP, I consider 50% to be a fair price. I’m not trying to make money flipping guitars; I’m just selling one to buy another.

Virtually all the guitars I’ve sold were high-end, excellent condition Martins (D-28, D-18, CEO-7), Taylors (812ce, 712ce, 714ce) and Gibsons (J-45, Songwriter Deluxe Studio). Desirable guitars offered at a fair price are still moving well on Reverb...at least for me.
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  #24  
Old 02-17-2019, 01:36 PM
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The OP makes it seem like Reverb was some sort of cool hang out that got trampled by corporate culture, which is a nice idea but is unfortunately pretty far from the truth. Reverb was started by David Kalt, who also started OptionsXpress, which was sold in 2011 to Charles Schwab for a billion dollars. Pretty much the definition of big and corporate. Pretty much every guitar dealer, online or brick and mortar, moved from Gbase to Reverb almost immediately as it offered a better platform for sales. In my opinion, the thing Reverb did the best was to allow individual sellers a way as easy ebay to list their items. Gbase didn't do this and lost out on all of these small sellers. I spoke with a number of dealers who hated Gbase but were stuck with it and were just waiting for someone to come along with a better version and Reverb did that.

As for the market being down, it's just not true. The marked ebbs and flows. I'll admit to knowing very little about the new guitar market but I am quite tuned into the used and vintage market as I make a good part of my living selling guitars. Some guitars that you couldn't give a way a couple years ago are hot today and some that were hot a year ago are stacking up unsold on ebay and Reverb. This is how it's always been in any used/collectables market and if you don't have the capital to sit on "cold" instruments until they come back around or aren't willing to adapt quickly to what the market wants, you won't last long in the business.
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Old 02-17-2019, 01:44 PM
Shortfinger Shortfinger is offline
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Your original post could have used some more paragraph breaks. Hard for me to get into one that has 'graphs six and seven or more lines long.

My only guitar that was bought from a store preceded the internet by 25 years.
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Old 02-17-2019, 01:45 PM
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IMHO, the OP's post is akin to "let's all do our little part to save..............." I have never seen a tsunami stopped. The online business world is growing and similar to a tsunami, it won't get stopped. There will always be brick and mortar stores but the Mom and Pop ones are going the way or the dinosaur.
  #27  
Old 02-17-2019, 01:45 PM
Davis Webb Davis Webb is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Manothemtns View Post
I've had a Reverb shop for seven years and closely follow consumer markets for contemporary new, used, and vintage guitar sales. In the third quarter of 2016 the market began to flip from strong, well established retail-type pricing to a huge drop in pricing across all segments, electric, acoustic, new, and used with the exception of vintage guitars. Japanese collectors have cleared the isles on that chunk of Americana. Chicago Music Exchange owns Reverb and attempts to operate the site as a truly separate entity but, what began as a fun member- based buying and selling forum predominantly for individual players, collectors, and a community comprised primarily of musicians has morphed into a place for larger guitar shops and wholesale retailers to advertise their complete inventories free of charge at the expense of the very community that got Reverb off the ground in the first place. Interestingly, while allowing bigger online retailers to list entire inventories for free (Music 1,2,3, Musician's Friend, and Sam Ash) Reverb does not provide advertising space for Guitar Center. I believe this is because Reverb has grown to a point so huge (as has it's parent company, now the largest combined brick and mortar and online guitar "shop" in the world) that they view Guitar Center as its primary competitor. While the area of global economics fascinates me, my little Reverb shop has gone from being a fun and, believe it or not, profitable experience, to something I seldom anymore spend my time on. The reason is because I can't compete with a saturated market. Secondary guitar sales (including thousands of impulse buys from Guitar Center) have literally flooded Reverb to the point of complete market saturation. Subsequently, prices almost across the board have plummeted and Reverb has become a buyer's market...with every Tom, Dick, and Harry advertising their wares combined with providing de facto entry for large retail chains...again, all but Guitar Center who's primary market is in guitars that sit in closets, unplayed, for years until they are (seemingly) unleashed en masse on Reverb, GBase, and eBay. All of this has led to Reverb being antithetical to its own mission statement and charter as written back, I believe, in 2010. To paraphrase loosely "...where individual musicians and guitarists can come together in a forum that charges less than eBay and share a far cooler overall buying and selling experience..."; anyway, something akin to that type of language. Like a runaway train, Reverb couldn't now slow down and reassess itself even if it, as a company, wanted to. These changes have impacted people everywhere, in every facet of the music retail industry, from small brick and mortar operations that have been family run and in business for fifty years to luthiers attempting to launch their own luthieries, to buyers, sellers, and traders alike. There's simply not enough room for everyone to play in the same sandbox anymore. But there is something that can be done about it.

I wonder how many of you on AGF have noticed these pernicious changes and their impact on guitar retail shops located in Everywhere, USA and even abroad. Shops are closing their doors forever because they simply can't compete with online guitar sales. Some of the larger stores have bridged the gap and seem to be doing fine because they've bolstered their "in-house" sales with ample internet sales but, still, the margins are very small affording only companies with a decent amount of staying power to make what is nothing short of a mind boggling shift in their business paradigms. The rest of our country's street corner guitar and Main Street music stores are failing, with more falling victim to change...change that came summarily so fast most were simply unprepared for it...certainly not on its present scale.

I suppose I'm writing this so that the next time you're on Reverb or in a Guitar Center you think twice about the purchase you're about to make. Sure, some of these little stores are of little consequence in the grand scheme of things but, when donning your special "See Reality More Clearly" glasses, go into that little music store and look around. Is there not something in there that you could buy to help out that struggling retailer? Chances are his or her staff's collective knowledge will blow your typical Guitar Center child "salesperson" out of the water and you'll share communion together in talking guitars. However you look at it, knowledge is always a good thing. Why not be willing to pay the extra 5% to 15%, depending, to have a harmonious buying experience while leaving your anonymous self behind to watchover your computer? Our nation's economy relies on better judgement and making "informed" and wise purchases. Who do you want as your neighbor, the "Hey, dude" sales child from Guitar Center or the extremely gifted guitarist who's cobbling together a living as a highly knowledgeable and altogether great guy sales rep for Guitar Shop #12345 by day and gigging at your favorite watering hole by night?

It's time to make a stand a spread business revenue out in a way that helps many and not just the few. It has become a matter of principal.

So, I'd like to hear some of your points of view. I signed-on to AGF because I did my homework and found it to be what I believe is the best, most informed forum out there. I'd love to hear that others feel as strongly about helping out small business owners while starving the corporate giant's at least to a point where regulation need not be the only answer...gosh forbid.
Online everything stinks. It gives us convenience at the expense of interaction. Imagine future man, no body, just a brain in a tank of fluid, ordering intra-arterial injections of nutrients, binge watching Netflix!
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Old 02-17-2019, 01:55 PM
SpruceTop SpruceTop is online now
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In defense of online music stores: If you know what make and model of guitar you want, you can often view several guitars of that same make and model online and choose by sight, the guitar that at least meets your visual values. Sweetwater comes to mind. If you order the same model from a local Mom & Pop dealer because it's not in stock, you may feel obligated to buy the guitar that comes in even though you may dislike something about it such as the wood-grain characteristics of its top.
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Old 02-17-2019, 01:59 PM
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Quote:
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Online everything stinks. It gives us convenience at the expense of interaction. Imagine future man, no body, just a brain in a tank of fluid, ordering intra-arterial injections of nutrients, binge watching Netflix!
Man, that is going to make riding my exercise bike I bought online this week really difficult!
  #30  
Old 02-17-2019, 02:00 PM
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whomever gives me the best deal gets my money whether it is a coffeemaker or a guitar. my wife gets 30% off at kohl's so she goes there and buys from the clearance area. she comes home with tons of clothes and shoes for very cheap.

i've only purchased one guitar in a store and that was GC. all my others were online. most of the small guitar shops are gone so the best you can do is to educate yourself on what is available, where it is and what the cost is. i usually do my music related purchases around black friday/cyber monday. this past year, at that time, i purchased an apogee element 46 audio interface at half off. sure couldn't do that in a store.

play music!
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