Sad to see them go

[Pillendreher]

Originally Posted by GuitarLuva

I totally agree with this no doubt a sticky situation for both sides. Ultimately the store in question would like to keep their guitars in pristine condition so that they can sell them for full price. I'm also willing to bet there's lots of people constantly playing guitars with no intention of ever buying them. They should make people take off jackets, belts or anything else that could potentially scratch the finish, I would be totally fine with this.

This isn't uncommon in Germany. Hell, one store clerk even handed me a cloth to put under my strumming arm so I don't touch the top directly. And I wasn't even playing expensive instruments.

[DCCougar]

Originally Posted by Pillendreher

I have no issue with buying locally whatsoever. But I do think it's naive to romanticize the whole thing.

Yeah, I'm afraid the horse is already out of the barn. As the OP said, "I went to one of the small town stores last month and the Guitar stock was thin." On the other hand, the guitar stock online is practically infinite. I may not be a typical buyer, but I prefer getting a good deal on a used guitar rather than buying a new one. And 95% of my guitars came from reverb or ebay. The internet has indeed massively changed things.

Come to think of it, I found my wife of 20 years on the internet, too, LOL!

[FrankHS]

Originally Posted by GuitarLuva

That is sad indeed. To add to what you said, some music stores will no longer let you play a guitar, how insane is that. I haven't had that happen yet but I can only imagine my reaction. I'm interested in buying a guitar...I want to test some...but you won't let me play any...interesting. Pretty soon there won't be any music stores except for online. That'll be great for shipping back guitars that you don't jive with.

My rant following is only tangentially in line with topic. But many guitar buyers unabashedly disclose their shopping technique. Like this: try out a guitar (or try out a mic, amp, whatever) in a brick-n-mortar music store, and then find a better price online, and eventually purchase the (hopefully!) same thing online. This tactic (obviously) contributes to the demise of the scope, kind, and quality of local guitar shops.

My idea for turning around the immorality of the above shopping tactics is simple. PAY TO PLAY. So, to just play a $2000 guitar in a real, physical guitar store, you ought to be charged $3.00. To play a $200 guitar on a real guitar store, you ought to be charged $1.00. After you buy a guitar at that store, they will be glad to refund some reasonable amount of your "trying out" fees.

Don't like that? Fine, go online and roll your dice. But be willing to pay return postage if you don't like the result. And THEN, you get to start all over. And then, continue to observe the decimation of the local guitar shop, courtesy of guess who?

(I have no financial relationship with any retail store. This is
merely my moral sense as a lowly consumer, while pining for the good ole days.)

[Jaden]

Originally Posted by Terry_D

That's why I don't buy from Guitar Center. Every time I go into the acoustic room there are two to four kids just banging away on guitars. Some times cheap ones and some times expensive ones. I have to consider anything in that room is essentially used. I would love to have a local store other than GC that carries higher end guitars but there just aren't any. Therefore I purchase everything online, mainly from Sweetwater and I can test the guitar in the environment it's going to be played in.

This kind of thing does happen at times at the shops I frequent, and more often than not it’s people not being careful with sharp clothing, scratches to the finish, and plain old dirty hands. Almost no guitars are locked behind glass, and customers are free to run the racks in search of that special ‘one’. I guess it’s the price to pay for convenience.

[whvick]

Originally Posted by FrankHS

My rant following is only tangentially in line with topic. But many guitar buyers unabashedly disclose their shopping technique. Like this: try out a guitar (or try out a mic, amp, whatever) in a brick-n-mortar music store, and then find a better price online, and eventually purchase the (hopefully!) same thing online. This tactic (obviously) contributes to the demise of the scope, kind, and quality of local guitar shops.

My idea for turning around the immorality of the above shopping tactics is simple. PAY TO PLAY. So, to just play a $2000 guitar in a real, physical guitar store, you ought to be charged $3.00. To play a $200 guitar on a real guitar store, you ought to be charged $1.00. After you buy a guitar at that store, they will be glad to refund some reasonable amount of your "trying out" fees.

Don't like that? Fine, go online and roll your dice. But be willing to pay return postage if you don't like the result. And THEN, you get to start all over. And then, continue to observe the decimation of the local guitar shop, courtesy of guess who?

(I have no financial relationship with any retail store. This is
merely my moral sense as a lowly consumer, while pining for the good ole days.)

I think it is a great idea, but would get expensive to try many guitars. But if someone would pay go play games at
An arcade why not pay to play. Maybe have a cover charge of 5 or 10 dollars per hour.

[Skip Ellis]

Our local stores are pretty much gone and the big box stores hire people who really have no clue about what they're selling. When I had my retail store in the 70's and 80's, all my employees new EVERYTHING about EVERY item that we sold or they didn't wait on customers....period. Another thing that steams me, is both Sam Ash and Guitar Center play rock background music so loud you can't hear yourself think. I'm not a rocker and have absolutely NO interest in hearing a metal band played as background music over the in-house sound system. I've walked out many times for this very reason when, otherwise, I might have made a substantial purchase. The employees in, especially, the big box stores, know absolutely nothing about any style of music except rock and pop but they should realize that there are players out there who are into other things (jazz, classical, etc.) who are forced to take the chance of buying online to get the instruments and supplies we want. I've ordered two >$1000 guitars from Sam Ash in the past year and have returned them both because they were unplayable - there seems to be no QC from anybody but Sweetwater these days and they don't really carry things I'm interested in, so I mostly go to Reverb.com for acoustics and, fortunately, I've been building my own Teles for 30 + years and don't buy electrics. I buy recording gear from Sweetwater but that's about it.

[phcorrigan]

Originally Posted by Skip Ellis

Our local stores are pretty much gone and the big box stores hire people who really have no clue about what they're selling.

The local GC stores seem to hire people who are at least musicians, but I really don't get my purchase advice there.

I buy strings there sometimes, and I bought my used Gretsch and my Bugera V22 there because of the 45-day return policy and I can return in person. I also took advantage of the recent 15% off sale when I bought my V22.

Most of my purchases are online (Sweetwater and Amazon, mostly) because I rarely find what I want in any of the local stores.

[Kitkatjoe]

Originally Posted by DCCougar

Yeah, I'm afraid the horse is already out of the barn. As the OP said, "I went to one of the small town stores last month and the Guitar stock was thin." On the other hand, the guitar stock online is practically infinite. I may not be a typical buyer, but I prefer getting a good deal on a used guitar rather than buying a new one. And 95% of my guitars came from reverb or ebay. The internet has indeed massively changed things.

Come to think of it, I found my wife of 20 years on the internet, too, LOL!

The internet has helped connect the seller and the buyer.
Id rather deal with sellers on the net.������

[Kitkatjoe]

Originally Posted by whvick

I think it is a great idea, but would get expensive to try many guitars. But if someone would pay go play games at
An arcade why not pay to play. Maybe have a cover charge of 5 or 10 dollars per hour.

Man this is some great guitar mash or is it hash?

[whvick]

Originally Posted by Kitkatjoe

Man this is some great guitar mash or is it hash?

You pays your money
You takes your choice!

[Mr. Jelly]

I don't bemoan change. I try to find the positive aspects about it and take advantage of those. If it wasn't for the internet we'd be paying full retail prices on guitars and have far fewer choices. Fewer teaching aids even.

[GuitarLuva]

Originally Posted by Pillendreher

This isn't uncommon in Germany. Hell, one store clerk even handed me a cloth to put under my strumming arm so I don't touch the top directly. And I wasn't even playing expensive instruments.

I think that's a good idea actually. That proves the store actually cares about the condition of their instruments.

Originally Posted by FrankHS

My rant following is only tangentially in line with topic. But many guitar buyers unabashedly disclose their shopping technique. Like this: try out a guitar (or try out a mic, amp, whatever) in a brick-n-mortar music store, and then find a better price online, and eventually purchase the (hopefully!) same thing online. This tactic (obviously) contributes to the demise of the scope, kind, and quality of local guitar shops.

My idea for turning around the immorality of the above shopping tactics is simple. PAY TO PLAY. So, to just play a $2000 guitar in a real, physical guitar store, you ought to be charged $3.00. To play a $200 guitar on a real guitar store, you ought to be charged $1.00. After you buy a guitar at that store, they will be glad to refund some reasonable amount of your "trying out" fees.

Don't like that? Fine, go online and roll your dice. But be willing to pay return postage if you don't like the result. And THEN, you get to start all over. And then, continue to observe the decimation of the local guitar shop, courtesy of guess who?

(I have no financial relationship with any retail store. This is
merely my moral sense as a lowly consumer, while pining for the good ole days.)

I agree with this also. That will eliminate most people pretending to be interested in buying a guitar when they have no intention of doing so while also help to protect lower priced instruments (which probably sell better in most stores). I'm not against buying guitars online, I think the idea behind it is fine and will work for some people, but it certainly is a gamble. I personally like to test drive a guitar before I buy it but unfortunately that isn't always possible.

[Larry Mal]

I don't miss a lot of the stores in my area. A lot of them would take advantage of kids and sell things for a lot higher than they really should have... before the internet you didn't really know what a good price was.

The good stores here are hanging on, though.

I am very happy to see that online sales are subject to the same sales tax that they always should have been, it's ridiculous to think that brick and mortar stores should have had to compete with free.

That should level things out for a lot of people. I probably won't be one of them, though. If there's one thing I don't have any of it's time, and I do not have time to be driving around to guitar stores.

To be honest, I am totally on board with having things delivered to me and that's the bulk of my purchasing these days. When they figure out a way to get my groceries to me where I'm at, I'll be doing that too, along with hardware items, books, clothes, and musical instruments and supplies.

[KevWind]

It is a change, probably for both the better and the worse and is happening across a broad spectrum of niche markets .
My brother is an independent manufactures rep. in the skiing and sporting goods apparel industry and the loss of small specialty shops has been staggering.

The reasons being many, but one sometimes overlooked is the fact that the Baby Boomer generation was a major force in helping many niche industries become profitable. Like music, sports, recreation , etc which expanded greatly during the 60's - 90's But as this (my) generation has aged, our buying habits have also dramatically changed and slowed. Which has also contributed to the demise of many small shops not being able to compete in shrinking market potential.

[Earl49]

I suspect that similar discussions took place around the wood-burning pot belly stove in the old general store when quill pens and buggy whips were displaced from the market more than a century ago.

I try to patronize my local independent music store(s) as much as possible, but the handwriting may be on the proverbial wall, so to speak. The only guitars I have bought on-line were inexpensive imports that no one carried locally like my Alvarez baritone, or the hand built Emerald carbon fiber guitars from Ireland. Those are direct-buy only - not sold in stores.