Who are the biggest guitar retailers in the UK?

EricTheWeary

Whitecat said:

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

Interesting. My local guitar shop has been going for a number of years on bugger all stock but it took the model that it was a community hub giving lessons, place for ads,etc, and has survived on that. Obviously GC have been looking at the music shops of Dudley for inspiration! 

Tenebrous

EricTheWeary said:

Whitecat said:

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

Interesting. My local guitar shop has been going for a number of years on bugger all stock but it took the model that it was a community hub giving lessons, place for ads,etc, and has survived on that. Obviously GC have been looking at the music shops of Dudley for inspiration! 

That just seems to be the future of the high street/local stores in general. There's no way indie stores can compete with the likes of Andertons & PMT for music technology, Overclockers & Scan for PC technology, or Amazon/eBay for... Well, anything, so the survive their best bet is to likely switch some focus on becoming a service outlet rather than just a store that sells a few bits & pieces you can find a lot cheaper elsewhere.

Shrews

pintspiller said:

Shrews said:

Thomann (although that's Ireland)

Germany, man. They're German.

Yes Germany, no idea why I put Ireland. Brexit probably. 

guitars4you

Interesting how the guitar shop/music store has evolved

Every town had its traditional family business - Often a selection of pianos was mixed with sheet music and sometimes records, along with traditional band instruments (brass/woodwind) - late 50's and early 60's they slowly added some guitars to the mix, a few amps, along with just 2/3/4 drum kits - My dad called on many of these type of stores as a rep and I dare say you suggest the town and he'll tell you the name of the store that was there - Slowly but surely nearly all these stores have gone - A few big names included Kitchens in Leeds - Greenhalls in Exeter - E Moors in Bournemouth - McCormacks Glasgow etc etc etc - But all the small 'family orientated' general music shops have nearly all gone

By the time we got to the late 60's then the dedicated rock shop was open - Denmark Street and Charring Cross Road was full of them, but early pioneers included Carlsbro at Mansfield -Full shop for the rock band, including drums, pa, lighting, amps guitars etc - this grew and grew and included Kingfisher, Rock City, Free n Easy Music, Sound pad in Leicester, Musical Exchange in Brum etc etc etc - Again most towns eventually had its own rock shop in some size or another

Maybe Denmark Street started it, but by the time we got to the 80's we had the new shop, that took just a segment of the rock shop and majored on only one section - So a dedicated drum shop, dedicated acoustic or electric shop and we even got a dedicated bass shop - Acoustic Centre, Bass Centre, The Synthesizer Centre, Thatched Cottage  etc etc etc

Then WWW took over

Interesting that Andertons came out of the family band instrument business - Founded by Harry Anderton (Lee's granddad) and have now re-invented them selves twice - Pete (Lee's dad) came along at the right time in The Beatles boom and converted Andertons to more of a 'rock shop' - Lee did his apprenticeship and re-invented the store again with the WWW. boom - Very few have this history, if any

randella

EricTheWeary said:

Whitecat said:

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

Interesting. My local guitar shop has been going for a number of years on bugger all stock but it took the model that it was a community hub giving lessons, place for ads,etc, and has survived on that. Obviously GC have been looking at the music shops of Dudley for inspiration! 

Long may it survive too, my local place appeared to be trying the same and is now an aspirationally-priced deli and coffee shop.

Mrs R. reported back the other day that they do nice lunch - I never got the set of D'Addario tens that I asked for though.

Paul7926

I have two local shops to me. The first is a small business that has been around as long as I can remember which tends to sell either entry level or expensive guitars, does trade ins and has it's own repair sections for guitars and amps. They seem well liked by the local gigging bands that I know well enough to chat to. I got my tutor recommendation from their. 

On the other hand I have a big absolute music store as well. Much more stock and lower prices and to be fair the guys in there are nice enough.  

It's difficult as I'd like to support the smaller place but as a noob I'm not their target audience I don't think.

terada

Paul7926 said:

tends to sell either entry level ... does trade ins and has it's own repair sections for guitars and amps ... I got my tutor recommendation from their. 

as a noob I'm not their target audience I don't think.

Genuine question, how come you came to that conclusion?

darthed1981

terada said:

Paul7926 said:

tends to sell either entry level ... does trade ins and has it's own repair sections for guitars and amps ... I got my tutor recommendation from their. 

as a noob I'm not their target audience I don't think.

Genuine question, how come you came to that conclusion?

I suspect arrogant twats as shop assistants.  We have all been there in guitar shops at one time or another.

Fretwired

Tenebrous said:

That just seems to be the future of the high street/local stores in general. There's no way indie stores can compete with the likes of Andertons & PMT for music technology, Overclockers & Scan for PC technology, or Amazon/eBay for... Well, anything, so the survive their best bet is to likely switch some focus on becoming a service outlet rather than just a store that sells a few bits & pieces you can find a lot cheaper elsewhere.

Not sure. I have a small supermarket 5 mins walk from my house owned by a friend British-Indian family. On the face of it Tesco's and Sainbury's should have killed them stone dead but they are part of a buying group setup by an Indian businessman back in the early 1980s. They have more branches than Tesco's and their collective buying power ensures their prices are competitive. They also own a small share of the buying company. The store is modern clean and we use it a lot. Each store is a separate business which is free to buy local produce (our local store buys bread from a local baker so its fresh every day).

This model would work for the music industry - 50+ independence stores in a buying group could get a good deal from Gibson and provide a local presence and service in towns up and down the country. It just needs some initiative to get going.

terada

darthed1981 said:

terada said:

Paul7926 said:

tends to sell either entry level ... does trade ins and has it's own repair sections for guitars and amps ... I got my tutor recommendation from their. 

as a noob I'm not their target audience I don't think.

Genuine question, how come you came to that conclusion?

I suspect arrogant twats as shop assistants.  We have all been there in guitar shops at one time or another.

To be fair that is why I tend to prefer the larger stores - I'm not accosted by arrogant twats the moment I walk in. 

If this is the case for @Paul7926 it makes perfect sense, but small stores should really be aware of it and try to avoid that type of 'service'.

Paul7926

terada said:

Paul7926 said:

tends to sell either entry level ... does trade ins and has it's own repair sections for guitars and amps ... I got my tutor recommendation from their. 

as a noob I'm not their target audience I don't think.

Genuine question, how come you came to that conclusion?

It's mostly based on their inventory to be honest. 

The have a few of the 'starter' options like the Squirer Bullet Strat and Affinity Strat (£125 ish) but then we very quickly jump to things like Squirer Classic Vibes (£430) and then the prices just go up the Fender line with not much choice in brands.  The range tops out at some beautiful looking PRS Customs with a £3K price tag.  There are a few cheaper PRS in there, notably the PRS SE Standard 24.

Now when you weigh that up against my personal preference and circumstance you get a mismatch.  I'm much more a 'Gibson' than a 'Fender' man in terns of wanting humbuckers rather than single coils so the vast majority of their range being Squirer / Fender doesn't really interest me. I'm also not as rich as I'd like so despite having an envious eye on the PRS SE Standard 24 I can't actually afford it.  I mean I guess I could but I'm trying to be a responsible adult and that means there are things that are higher priority.  Their pedal range is also on the expensive side.  That's not to say anything against the pedals they stock but it's outside of my personal ability to consider buying them.  They would not be of much use really in a home set up through a practice amp I suspect.

Layer on a little insecurity in that I can't really play and I know that shop is small and frequented by actual musicians.  That is not to say that the staff there are elitist or in any way unpleasant.  This one is my issue not theirs.

In comparison the larger store has the 'advantage' of having a much bigger range including Epiphone which is where a clueless 'Gibson' fan tends to start looking when picking up a first guitar.  It's much more impersonal in that they have little rooms where you can hide away and test play a guitar and at least pretend that nobody can hear you.  The staff may or may not be knowledgeable but they do tend to actually ignore you most of the time.   Maybe not totally relevant but they also offer finance

Sadly neither stock ESP and I would quite like to try a ESP LTD EC-256FM but that's another story.

At the moment I'm more comfortable being an anonymous shopper at a place that has a bigger inventory at the lower end of the price bracket that I might be able to afford.  Maybe one day I'll be a musician and require the personal expertise and networking of the smaller shop.  I just hope if that day ever comes they have not been forced out of business.

guitars4you

Fretwired said:

Not sure. I have a small supermarket 5 mins walk from my house owned by a friend British-Indian family. On the face of it Tesco's and Sainbury's should have killed them stone dead but they are part of a buying group setup by an Indian businessman back in the early 1980s. They have more branches than Tesco's and their collective buying power ensures their prices are competitive. They also own a small share of the buying company. The store is modern clean and we use it a lot. Each store is a separate business which is free to buy local produce (our local store buys bread from a local baker so its fresh every day).

This model would work for the music industry - 50+ independence stores in a buying group could get a good deal from Gibson and provide a local presence and service in towns up and down the country. It just needs some initiative to get going.

I know what you mean - I have a good hardware store down the road from me - Good stock, prices and service and can match/beat many of the big out of town stores in certain areas

There have been one or two such buying groups in the past in the MI trade - To be honest I'm not sure what caused them to cease operation - The cartel first or the dealers them self - Yet I can see a host of issues in part due to the huge band width of makes, models, and options within this that doesn't make 'multiple' buying  easy 

Should or could every music shop in the UK have a selection of say Squier Strats, Mex Fender Strat Stds,  Epiphone LP Stds, Boss Pedals and Marshall practice amps, then we'd probably say yes - But how many dealers in the UK do you need to have that stock a selection of R9's, Masterbuilt Strats, HD28's coupled with a host of other boutique models 

Take Gibson alone and when they had a UK distribution channel (Rosetti) that serviced 200 plus accounts, then most dealers had access to Gibson/Epiphone - Granted some dealers purchased/stocked more than others - But most towns had access to the brand - Today all such lines are handled on a factory direct to the dealer basis and the factory wants far less dealers - In return the appropriate dealer has to make a larger commitment to the brand

A buying group could work for the 'small town independents', but I think it is to late now - The Top 10-15 dealers in the UK account for 70/80% of the turnover in our trade - Even if small town dealer gets some additional stock, he won't get the web site/media hits required on google, etc to compete with Andertons

Everybody needs bake beans and rice in some guise or another - Only a few need an Epi LP Std and even less need an R9

Fretwired

guitars4you said:

Fretwired said:

Not sure. I have a small supermarket 5 mins walk from my house owned by a friend British-Indian family. On the face of it Tesco's and Sainbury's should have killed them stone dead but they are part of a buying group setup by an Indian businessman back in the early 1980s. They have more branches than Tesco's and their collective buying power ensures their prices are competitive. They also own a small share of the buying company. The store is modern clean and we use it a lot. Each store is a separate business which is free to buy local produce (our local store buys bread from a local baker so its fresh every day).

This model would work for the music industry - 50+ independence stores in a buying group could get a good deal from Gibson and provide a local presence and service in towns up and down the country. It just needs some initiative to get going.

I know what you mean - I have a good hardware store down the road from me - Good stock, prices and service and can match/beat many of the big out of town stores in certain areas

There have been one or two such buying groups in the past in the MI trade - To be honest I'm not sure what caused them to cease operation - The cartel first or the dealers them self - Yet I can see a host of issues in part due to the huge band width of makes, models, and options within this that doesn't make 'multiple' buying  easy 

Should or could every music shop in the UK have a selection of say Squier Strats, Mex Fender Strat Stds,  Epiphone LP Stds, Boss Pedals and Marshall practice amps, then we'd probably say yes - But how many dealers in the UK do you need to have that stock a selection of R9's, Masterbuilt Strats, HD28's coupled with a host of other boutique models 

Take Gibson alone and when they had a UK distribution channel (Rosetti) that serviced 200 plus accounts, then most dealers had access to Gibson/Epiphone - Granted some dealers purchased/stocked more than others - But most towns had access to the brand - Today all such lines are handled on a factory direct to the dealer basis and the factory wants far less dealers - In return the appropriate dealer has to make a larger commitment to the brand

A buying group could work for the 'small town independents', but I think it is to late now - The Top 10-15 dealers in the UK account for 70/80% of the turnover in our trade - Even if small town dealer gets some additional stock, he won't get the web site/media hits required on google, etc to compete with Andertons

Everybody needs bake beans and rice in some guise or another - Only a few need an Epi LP Std and even less need an R9

In that case perhaps Gibson would allow the likes of Anderton to sell to small dealers where there is no competition. It would help everyone.

I expect you are right - food is something you need now. A Gibson is something you can order from Anderton's via the internet.

Paul7926

8terada said:

darthed1981 said:

terada said:

Paul7926 said:

tends to sell either entry level ... does trade ins and has it's own repair sections for guitars and amps ... I got my tutor recommendation from their. 

as a noob I'm not their target audience I don't think.

Genuine question, how come you came to that conclusion?

I suspect arrogant twats as shop assistants.  We have all been there in guitar shops at one time or another.

To be fair that is why I tend to prefer the larger stores - I'm not accosted by arrogant twats the moment I walk in. 

If this is the case for @Paul7926 it makes perfect sense, but small stores should really be aware of it and try to avoid that type of 'service'.

I'd just like to point out that it's not the fault of staff at the smaller shop. I did reply earlier but it took me so long I think it got lost.

I'm only saying that because whilst I've not named the smaller shop people could figure out who They are and it would be unfair on them if people thought that I'd had a bad experience with the staff. 

guitars4you

Fretwired said:

guitars4you said:

Fretwired said:

Not sure. I have a small supermarket 5 mins walk from my house owned by a friend British-Indian family. On the face of it Tesco's and Sainbury's should have killed them stone dead but they are part of a buying group setup by an Indian businessman back in the early 1980s. They have more branches than Tesco's and their collective buying power ensures their prices are competitive. They also own a small share of the buying company. The store is modern clean and we use it a lot. Each store is a separate business which is free to buy local produce (our local store buys bread from a local baker so its fresh every day).

This model would work for the music industry - 50+ independence stores in a buying group could get a good deal from Gibson and provide a local presence and service in towns up and down the country. It just needs some initiative to get going.

I know what you mean - I have a good hardware store down the road from me - Good stock, prices and service and can match/beat many of the big out of town stores in certain areas

There have been one or two such buying groups in the past in the MI trade - To be honest I'm not sure what caused them to cease operation - The cartel first or the dealers them self - Yet I can see a host of issues in part due to the huge band width of makes, models, and options within this that doesn't make 'multiple' buying  easy 

Should or could every music shop in the UK have a selection of say Squier Strats, Mex Fender Strat Stds,  Epiphone LP Stds, Boss Pedals and Marshall practice amps, then we'd probably say yes - But how many dealers in the UK do you need to have that stock a selection of R9's, Masterbuilt Strats, HD28's coupled with a host of other boutique models 

Take Gibson alone and when they had a UK distribution channel (Rosetti) that serviced 200 plus accounts, then most dealers had access to Gibson/Epiphone - Granted some dealers purchased/stocked more than others - But most towns had access to the brand - Today all such lines are handled on a factory direct to the dealer basis and the factory wants far less dealers - In return the appropriate dealer has to make a larger commitment to the brand

A buying group could work for the 'small town independents', but I think it is to late now - The Top 10-15 dealers in the UK account for 70/80% of the turnover in our trade - Even if small town dealer gets some additional stock, he won't get the web site/media hits required on google, etc to compete with Andertons

Everybody needs bake beans and rice in some guise or another - Only a few need an Epi LP Std and even less need an R9

In that case perhaps Gibson would allow the likes of Anderton to sell to small dealers where there is no competition. It would help everyone.

I expect you are right - food is something you need now. A Gibson is something you can order from Anderton's via the internet.

I believe that in the past, in the USA, a major Gibson Grade A dealer would service  a smaller Grade B dealer at a small cost - Not sure this still happens - Doubt it, as WWW. as taken over much of the need for a small Grade B dealer to be in business at all, as far as the big brands are concerned

Furthermore if you formed a buying group of 25 dealers and each had to provide £10K to buy Gibson alone - That is only a £250K collective order and Gibson already get far more than that from their top 15 dealers - On top of that 10K will only buy you 5 to 15 guitars, subject to the cost of each guitar - So any potential buyer goes to visit your Grade B showroom - Your offering is so small and limited that it is barely worth the customer paying you a visit - The Gibson product range is so vast, add colour options and the chances of you having the right model in stock, in the right colour, is more miss than hit

Spend 10K with Heinz and you can fill an aisle in a small 'corner shop'

Go back 5-10 years, before we had factory direct to store accounts, to the days of the distributor and 200/300 dealers had access to Gibson/Epiphone and ditto Fender etc - I recall Marshall alone went from something like 400 UK accounts to 100 accounts and that was only 5 years, or so, ago