Taylor Supply vs. The rest of the world...

[TDavis]

Has anybody but me noticed that there is a severe shortage of available quality guitar inventory at practically every retail location from every manufacturer...except Taylor? Seems every dealer I go to...locally here in Springfield, and even the two I went into in a recent St. Louis trip had the wall hangers in their Taylor section (or new hotshot humidified "Taylor rooms") filled with almost every available model...where the walls were almost empty elsewhere.

Is the fact that Taylor spits out so many guitars from their industrialized plants...more than anybody else in sheer numbers, the reason? I thought the Taylor factory was shut down for several months due to the pandemic like everybody else. Is Martin so far behind in their ability to satisfy their dealers that they are unable to play catch up? I am told it's a 60-180 day wait for almost any Nazareth-made Martin...but I can get any Taylor model (or the vast majority) pretty much right away.

[LakewoodM32Fan]

So they definitely were closed during the worst of the pandemic. Now they have a limited amount of staff per the State/County/City rules. San Diego and surrounding areas have had more relaxed rules as opposed to say Los Angeles county where I live. Without looking up SD's rules, I know many places in So Cal are allowing around 20% occupancy. I have no idea to what extent their Mexico factory slowed down. The number that often floats around for Taylor is they make 160K guitars a year. So 20% of that is 32,000 guitars. Given how the small builders often make less than 1K a year...it's unsurprising that Taylor guitars are still arriving.

[alnico5]

Originally Posted by LakewoodM32Fan

160K guitars a month.

You must mean per year.

[LakewoodM32Fan]

Correct, will fix my original post

[boneuphtoner]

Bob Taylor in the December Taylor Primetime podcast on youtube said they had a 150,000 backlog of orders. Perhaps the dealer you saw had the stars align for all of his orders to come in while stock on everything else is depleted.

The bottom line is if Bob is to be believed, I don't think Taylor's situation is all that different from anyone else.

[TDavis]

Originally Posted by boneuphtoner

Bob Taylor in the December Taylor Primetime podcast on youtube said they had a 150,000 backlog of orders. Perhaps the dealer you saw had the stars align for all of his orders to come in while stock on everything else is depleted.

The bottom line is if Bob is to be believed, I don't think Taylor's situation is all that different from anyone else.

It was actually a total of four different dealers...and I sure don't think Missouri is the mecca of the guitar industry. Every dealer I walked into, had their Taylor stock filled...and one store, that I've seen a great selection of Martin guitars in a couple of times before, had none in stock. It was to the point where I even asked if they were still a Martin dealer or not.

I'm pretty sure Taylor is hedging on the numbers they release to the general public. This is, after all a hyper competitive business...and it's all business.

[charles Tauber]

Causation versus correlation: https://graphpaperdiaries.com/2016/0...ion-confusion/


It might simply be that buyers don't much like Taylor guitars. Hence, all the others are sold out, leaving only the unwanted Taylors.

Lots of possible causes of your observed phenomenon. That Taylor has aliens, who don't take coffee breaks, on COVID-free Mars making them and shipping them to Earth is but one such possible cause explaining the over-abundance of Taylor guitars.

The stuff of conspiracy theories.

[Earl49]

Many Taylor dealers have had to drop out since they have long required keeping a LOT of inventory on hand, or risk their authorized dealer status. Maybe this depth is an unintended benefit right now?

[B. Adams]

Taylor owns a couple forests at least one sawmill, which probably gives them a small advantage over other manufacturers, since they have direct control over a portion of their lumber supply.

It's been a couple months since I've been in a guitar store, but they weren't flush with inventory at that point, Taylor or otherwise.

[UncleJesse]

Originally Posted by Ozarkpicker

Has anybody but me noticed that there is a severe shortage of available quality guitar inventory at practically every retail location from every manufacturer...except Taylor? Seems every dealer I go to...locally here in Springfield, and even the two I went into in a recent St. Louis trip had the wall hangers in their Taylor section (or new hotshot humidified "Taylor rooms") filled with almost every available model...where the walls were almost empty elsewhere.

Is the fact that Taylor spits out so many guitars from their industrialized plants...more than anybody else in sheer numbers, the reason? I thought the Taylor factory was shut down for several months due to the pandemic like everybody else. Is Martin so far behind in their ability to satisfy their dealers that they are unable to play catch up? I am told it's a 60-180 day wait for almost any Nazareth-made Martin...but I can get any Taylor model (or the vast majority) pretty much right away.

Which STL Dealers? Music Folk still had a few Martins when I was there a couple months ago.

[Nick84]

Same here in the UK lots of Taylor’s from the USA factory, not so much the Mexican Taylor’s. Montana Gibsons seem in short supply here.

[bitterorca]

From what I understand, Taylor managed to very quickly pivot their production to shift work, meaning they could produce almost as many guitars as they did previously even with social distancing in place in the factories. It’s actually really amazing that they managed to make it work so well.

[The Growler]

Originally Posted by bitterorca

From what I understand, Taylor managed to very quickly pivot their production to shift work, meaning they could produce almost as many guitars as they did previously even with social distancing in place in the factories. It’s actually really amazing that they managed to make it work so well.

Yes, they did go to shifts to keep it up.

I stopped in a store a week ago that had one fifth of the entry level guitars they normally have, lower numbers of mid range and higher end from all manufacturers, but they had Gibson, Martin and Taylors in stock above ~2,500.

I think all the manufacturers have had challenges, but record sales across the board is a good problem for them to have.

[Macpage]

My favorite local shop is packed with Taylors, and I got to play about 8 or 9 a few weeks ago. Our local GC currently has or recently had an 814, 414, and a two or three of the series below. Perhaps its regional, but they do seem to be doing a good job in some places. Not sure about Martins. I only encountered a couple of the Standards over the last month or so. Of course, I made sure I played one!

Best,

Mac

[M19]

Martin is getting back in the swing of it. Willcutt Guitars has like 25 of the new Martin SC-13e models: https://willcuttguitars.com/collecti...w-case-2374457