Who are the biggest guitar retailers in the UK?

NelsonP

....ranked by turnover?

designerseye88

Do auction houses count?

Tenebrous

I watched a video a while back by the guy from "Richard's Guitars" I think it was, talking about a three company consortium that had been set up by Andertons, PMT, and either Guitarguitar or GAK to secure exclusive UK dealership rights for G&L guitars.

So I'm guessing it's those three. In what order, I'm not sure, but I'm pretty sure I remember hearing elsewhere that Andertons does a lot more online than the other companies.

Edit: It's GuitarGuitar that makes up the trifecta with Andertons & PMT.

terada

What about Gear4music or DV247?

Whitecat

DV isn’t technically British anymore - they are part of Musicstore.de so hard to apportion their sales. 

Gear4Music is publicly traded so they may have their numbers available. 

iseverynamegone

Harryseven?

skunkwerx

I dunno but they all bloody reckon theyre the Uk's number 1....

Shrews

Amazon?

When looking around for my first electric a few months ago the most popular sites appeared to be Andertons, Guitar Guitar, GAK, Gear 4 Music, Thomann (although that's Ireland), Bax, Dawsons

But in terms of volume sold, I would guess at Amazon

skunkwerx

Surely its peach this year... 

fastonebaz

I am friends with the sister in law of the owner of gear 4 music.  She tells me how loaded they are,  driving round in Porsches and fancy holidays etc.  They are loaded. 

Strat54

Gear4music have twice the turnover of GuitarGuitar at £56,000,000 ! 

guitars4you

in no particular order the big UK companies are

PMT
Andertons
GAK
Peach
Dawsons
Gear4Music
Absolue Music
Coda
GuitarGuitar
Reidy's

But with a healthy turnover include
Guitar Village
Promenade Music
Mansons
Red Dog
Richtone
Soundaffects

Will be a few others but can't recall immediately

Take into account some of these are dedicated guitars stores like Peach and Coda, others sell hitech, pa, drums etc as well

pintspiller

Shrews said:

Thomann (although that's Ireland)

Germany, man. They're German.

mbe

Argos?

BBBlues

If it’s a public limited company their accounts will be published. You can find them online.

Musicman20

Strat54 said:

Gear4music have twice the turnover of GuitarGuitar at £56,000,000 ! 

Shame their customer service takes about 4 days to respond. 

maltingsaudio

Slightly off topic but what struck me about this thread is we haven’t had a major go pop in the last  
5 years, like it seemed to happen so regularly in the preceding 20 years

EricTheWeary

maltingsaudio said:

Slightly off topic but what struck me about this thread is we haven’t had a major go pop in the last  
5 years, like it seemed to happen so regularly in the preceding 20 years

Waiting for Guitar Center to go pop, I think they are the biggest ( or at least one of the biggest) guitar retailers in the USA. They got very big and very in bed with just a few manufacturers ( as I understand it) so lessons to be learned there maybe, the UK businesses mentioned above seem to have much more diverse portfolios now ( the recent GAP deal with G and L for example).

I suspect the UK businesses have done well out of the poor pound and Brexit as thomann were looking huge in terms of online presence and the cheapest option for many things but they aren't as competitive here anymore.

guitars4you

EricTheWeary said:

maltingsaudio said:

Slightly off topic but what struck me about this thread is we haven’t had a major go pop in the last  
5 years, like it seemed to happen so regularly in the preceding 20 years

Waiting for Guitar Center to go pop, I think they are the biggest ( or at least one of the biggest) guitar retailers in the USA. They got very big and very in bed with just a few manufacturers ( as I understand it) so lessons to be learned there maybe, the UK businesses mentioned above seem to have much more diverse portfolios now ( the recent GAP deal with G and L for example).

I suspect the UK businesses have done well out of the poor pound and Brexit as thomann were looking huge in terms of online presence and the cheapest option for many things but they aren't as competitive here anymore.

can't remember the debt level it got to, something like 1.4 billion - So bad that if it went under then it would have taken down many big names with it

Was owned for a while by the same venture capitalist/group that owned ToysRUs

Whitecat

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/guitar-center-was-once-on-a-precipice-now-its-growing-faster-than-ever-751787/

guitars4you

Whitecat said:

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/guitar-center-was-once-on-a-precipice-now-its-growing-faster-than-ever-751787/

will read that so thanks - I've read most of the previous doom/gloom reports over the last 5 years so will be interesting to see how it turns itself around

Need to update a bit as still unsure if they still own Musicians Friend that use to be the mail order arm of GC