At what point do you NOT support the small local shop?

[Jaden]

I’m not sure about the idea of “throwing money away” - there are two local shops about a 30 minute drive from me that each have in stock a revolving selection of Martin, Gibson, Taylor, Yamaha, Godin family acoustic guitars, Fender telecasters, stratocasters, Fender amplifiers, Marshall etc.

This kind of shopping experience is worth every penny and I will support these shops and their employees without concern for and in disregard of cutthroat online pricing.

[Silly Moustache]

I live in a small affluent city, in the south -east of England whicvh, again, is probably the most affluent part of England apart from specific parts of London.

When I moved here in 1980, here were four three good music shops in town.
One largish one was mainly a piano and organ shop but did guitars and a few brass and woodwind stuff.
They closed down at it became a restaurant (lie we need another restaurant in our city!)

We had a small place in the centre which was primarily a guitar shop. It disappeared over night some time in the early '90s.

We had a tiny guitar shop which was largely the base for one of the local drug dealers. Guitars were incidental, a front. Run by "Honest John" (!)

About three years ago two young guys took over a large shop unit by one of the city gates. They were young, hard working, open seven days a week, and knew how to sell. A couple of people I know bought Taylors or Faith guitars from them.

The shop closed down at the end of February. Now we have a long established "music" shop which is largely about classical music sales, and beginners orchestral instruments, and the "drug" shop.

Ours is a Roman walled city, and traffic is always virtually gridlocked. Traffic Wardens roam around giving out parking tickets all the time during working/shopping hours. Business rates and leases are ridiculously high.
Car parking is inadequate, and about to get worse.

We are seeing independent shops of all kinds closing down. We have probably a dozen watch and jewelry shops, and apart from the banks and other finance hours, and two "vaping" shops, chain "fashion" stores and seemingly chain coffee shops and patisseries every other shop front, and at least four "sports" jobs.

We have two universities - one is mainly drama, stage, and music!

[Onemanband]

Internet shopping is okay..........until something goes wrong!!
Refunds, returns, hassle, hassle, hassle!!

I would always prefer to deal with a shop as my first point of call, personal service, get to view and try or inspect your proposed purchase and any issues, you can return the item directly; most will match online prices too!

As a “City Boy”, I realise it’s easy for me to say this as one who has easy access to two or three of the largest, most competitive retailers in the UK.; for many others, it may be more difficult!

The only issue I have is that I sometimes come away with something that I had no intention of buying, sneaking it into the house past my wife, and then explaining the black hole in the bank balance!!

[Quickstep192]

I just went to my local shoppe to buy banjo finger picks.

They have two cases with about 100 different finger and thumb picks to choose from. I really wanted to try the different types to see how they fit and felt on my fingers. I also wanted them “right now”. That’s something I can’t do online, so I’m glad to have a shoppe where I can. I wouldn’t have minded paying extra, but luckily they’re price competitive. I hope they’re around for a long time...

[jdag]

I just bought a Martin 000-28 from a large online retailer, and was thrilled with the experience. I've purchased several guitars from that retailer, and they've always given me great service when I had issues/returns.

But, when shopping for the 000-28, I wanted/tried/hoped to buy locally. I went to 2 different shops and spoke with owners. I was given their email addresses, and a couple of days after stopping in I emailed both people in separate emails.

I received a quote from 1 of them using the full MSRP as the starting point, then showing a discount from there. They quoted me several models, and in every case the MSRP less discount was still higher than the price shown on the online retailer web sites. In fact, they quoted different prices based on payment method.

I never received any response from the other dealer.

I very likely will not go back to either of those stores again.