And we wonder why the high street is going down the tubes...

prowla

I was chatting with someone a while back who has closed his shop and focuses on the guitar fairs and internet.

diap

steven70 said:

.... these days most of the places I have visited are staffed by morons who couldn't give a toss ....

I was half way down the first page thinking that people complain about shop prices but moan when the staff are bad, and then you moaned about staff being bad!

Even in 'hobby' type retail jobs such as music, cycling etc most of those who have the abilities will get bored of being paid minimum wage before too long. If you want capable, knowledgeable, enthusiastic and experienced staff you need to pay them a fair wage, and that just makes shops even less competitive.
But that's what the 'market' decides, and everyone loves the 'market'!

thebreeze

guitars4you said:

impmann said:

Paul7926 said:

In the case of guitar shops they will only exist on the back of in house experts for set-ups, custom work and amp repairs and small second hand selections of higher priced instruments/amps/pedals.  

Interestingly, though... most amp repair engineers are a similar age and are getting close to retirement. What happens then? And to be honest the costs of running a repair shop out the back of a high street shop are expensive. Very expensive compared to a small industrial unit or a domestic garage...

Plus... secondhand. Its not selling. None of it is. Its a dead market and everyone buying seems to think they can get it cheaper elsewhere and everyone selling seems to think that something is 'vintage' if its more than 15 years old and therefore prices it accordingly... to use an industry term "the channel is full". There is now more equipment available for sale than could possibly all find homes - hence "mega blow outs" of bad selling new stock (such as that EHX Overdrive pedal that nobody bought at full price - and now just £34 delivered) and then that affects the ability to sell secondhand stuff. Why would you buy a secondhand pedal for £40 that sounds incredibly similar to one thats £34 new...? And there are HUNDREDS if not THOUSANDS of secondhand overdrive pedals for sale today.

Knowing what I know from the inside of the industry, I imagine that Hans Thomann has bought a lot of those Gretsch guitars for below cost price as a blow out from Fender (who own/distribute Gretsch). The margins on anything from Fender are tight at best, so I'm guessing that this guitar is end of life - that means they won't be making any more, not that its dead - and so they have blown them out to a big store to free up some funds/warehouse space ahead of the run up to NAMM in January. If so, its got very little to do with the death of the High Street but more to do with how much product is in the market, and how few people are buying it. 

You are pretty close to a number of big issues here - There are other factors and it is not an easy answer, certainly to resolve in a few words on a guitar forum - But some key points here

I'm not trying to be clever here Mark, I'm genuinely interested.  In the past you've nearly always said something along the lines of, "I hear people saying these things but I (and Peach, Coda, etc) have had record sales in 2016/17/18, people keep on buying even at these higher prices."  Has that now stopped or have you noticed a change in the rate people are buying guitars and musical equipment generally?  

guitars4you

thebreeze said:

guitars4you said:

impmann said:

Paul7926 said:

In the case of guitar shops they will only exist on the back of in house experts for set-ups, custom work and amp repairs and small second hand selections of higher priced instruments/amps/pedals.  

Interestingly, though... most amp repair engineers are a similar age and are getting close to retirement. What happens then? And to be honest the costs of running a repair shop out the back of a high street shop are expensive. Very expensive compared to a small industrial unit or a domestic garage...

Plus... secondhand. Its not selling. None of it is. Its a dead market and everyone buying seems to think they can get it cheaper elsewhere and everyone selling seems to think that something is 'vintage' if its more than 15 years old and therefore prices it accordingly... to use an industry term "the channel is full". There is now more equipment available for sale than could possibly all find homes - hence "mega blow outs" of bad selling new stock (such as that EHX Overdrive pedal that nobody bought at full price - and now just £34 delivered) and then that affects the ability to sell secondhand stuff. Why would you buy a secondhand pedal for £40 that sounds incredibly similar to one thats £34 new...? And there are HUNDREDS if not THOUSANDS of secondhand overdrive pedals for sale today.

Knowing what I know from the inside of the industry, I imagine that Hans Thomann has bought a lot of those Gretsch guitars for below cost price as a blow out from Fender (who own/distribute Gretsch). The margins on anything from Fender are tight at best, so I'm guessing that this guitar is end of life - that means they won't be making any more, not that its dead - and so they have blown them out to a big store to free up some funds/warehouse space ahead of the run up to NAMM in January. If so, its got very little to do with the death of the High Street but more to do with how much product is in the market, and how few people are buying it. 

You are pretty close to a number of big issues here - There are other factors and it is not an easy answer, certainly to resolve in a few words on a guitar forum - But some key points here

I'm not trying to be clever here Mark, I'm genuinely interested.  In the past you've nearly always said something along the lines of, "I hear people saying these things but I (and Peach, Coda, etc) have had record sales in 2016/17/18, people keep on buying even at these higher prices."  Has that now stopped or have you noticed a change in the rate people are buying guitars and musical equipment generally?  

I'm probably different to other stores - based on size as well as me and my age - I'm 60 now and no longer feel the need etc to keep driving a business forward - I dare say in 2/3 years I will move from a shop to home - Far less stock - used only and handle Reverb, a web site and the shows - similar to @prowla 's comments above - 2015 and 2016 were my best 2 years

I hear stories within the trade that sales are still okay for select dealers, but profit margins have never been so low - But chasing sales is vanity, chasing profit is sanity

Stores like Peach have invested £100,000's and will be driving the business as hard as possible - John is nearly 1/2 my age - I hope he has a good long innings

But as an overview the trade is far more polarised now, with the bulk of the business handled by 10 or so large accounts - Certainly with regards to new products and the more well known, best selling, brand names - The number of high street music store closures is a regular occurrence , with 2 well known established UK names in the last month alone (for whatever reason)

I can't recall my exact comments with regards to the exact OP/blog regarding record highs - I do recall passing comments regarding Fender Custom Shop relics, in that Fender have been expecting a down turn in demand for  a few years now, yet 2016/2017/2018 were 3 of their best years regarding sales - So yes high end guitars are still selling - But equally the market place is pretty saturated, with no were near the injection of youth buying guitars today, compared to the youth market 10/20/30 years ago

I still feel there is not one specific problem to high street retail and/or the guitar industry - But a host of issues, some more severe than others - Some issues are connected some are specific to our trade, and/or similar 'high cost hobby trades' 

Just an additional point - Thomann achieved something like $800 million sales in 2017 or 2018 - In our trade that is vast - That compares to something like $40/50 Million at Andertons - Thomann alone will probably dwarf the combined sales of the 10 largest UK stores

WildWayz

Hmmm I guess it varies from location to location. You see the 'big name' stores doing well - especially those with an online presence ie Andertons, GAK etc

In Huddersfield, we had 3 guitar shops; one I can't remember the name, Dawsons and Keith Dawson's Music. Only Keith Dawson's Music is still there. Whenever I go in, he's always talking about retiring and wants his son to take over the business, but I don't think his son is interested. He tells me he'll beat Andertons, GAK etc on prices - and can get in almost anything I want... yet I still rarely use him as ordering online has certain perks; get a dud, easy to return. Not what I expected, return it. Can't do that with a shop if they have to order in for you.

Guitar Center in Halifax just closed down their Halifax store.

Music shops are shutting down so fast as they are finding it hard to compete with online sales

SNAKEBITE

For me the tracking stuff down, driving to the shop and buying it is all part of the experience.

I can remember the days out where I purchased certain items, and these memories form part of the experience with said item, however I have no recollection of anything that happened around the times I have bought online.

noisepolluter

SNAKEBITE said:

For me the tracking stuff down, driving to the shop and buying it is all part of the experience.

I can remember the days out where I purchased certain items, and these memories form part of the experience with said item, however I have no recollection of anything that happened around the times I have bought online.

I can still quite clearly remember the experience of buying what is now one of my oldest pieces of gear - must be about 18 years ago - from Turnkey on Denmark Street, which is long gone.

Got two of my guitars from Peter Cook’s - also closed. Can clearly remember the days I bought those too. 

guitars4you

I suspect the Thomann deal is either down to their own stock clearance , be it old stock, return, or excess - Or a 'bomb out' courtesy of Gretsch and again moving out old models or similar - Without either of these options then I'd only expect maybe a £50 variation between THomann's price and your local dealer 

I recall when I worked at Acadamy of Sound - we had 10 stores and at the time I was buying a large proportion of the guitar based stock - I had a chance of buying the remaining stock from Yamaha of an AES model - Can't recall the model number but a twin humbucker, singlecut LP influenced

Yamaha had 200 in stock - The current suggested retail was over £400 - Granted not a best selling model, but nothing actually wrong with the guitar - If Yamaha offered these on the open market, to any account, large or small, at a vastly reduced price, they would sell them in 2's or 3's over the next few months - I purchased all 200 - For Yamaha that is one sale, one invoice, 1 payment so far easier admin, albeit 10 delivery locations to our branches - We sold them all for £200 which was a bargain - Granted this was just before the days of www. but imagine a customer searching the web and finding a 50% differential between our price and his local store

In the days in the USA when Mars Music, Sam Ash and Guitar Centre were competing with Spectre for global domination. The amount of exclusive FSR special runs that they had built by the likes of Gibson/Fender etc was vast

TINMAN82

My R8 came from Thomann in 2014. Haggled them (easily) from £3300 to around £2550. They sent me detailed photos and weighed it before I bought. It’s one if the few guitars I’ve owned that hasn’t required any attention to setup out the box. To this day just one or two truss rod tweaks as seasons change.

Lewy

axisus said:

If you go to shops and try 10 strats, LPs, whatever, there is invariably one that is sweeter. Order from the box shifters and you get the top box. Enjoy saving a bit of money for your (on probability) lesser guitar!

To play devil's advocate (and also because it's what I think...) - just because it's the best one in the shop doesn't mean it's probably better than the top box at the box shifters. I've seen so many cases of guitars in shops with crappy played out strings, or that are kept in poor environments from a temperature/humidity point of view that the "best" one could just as easily just be the "least badly kept". And any of those ones that didn't stand out could have been a total gem with a bit of attention. 

downbytheriver

Lewy said:

axisus said:

If you go to shops and try 10 strats, LPs, whatever, there is invariably one that is sweeter. Order from the box shifters and you get the top box. Enjoy saving a bit of money for your (on probability) lesser guitar!

To play devil's advocate (and also because it's what I think...) - just because it's the best one in the shop doesn't mean it's probably better than the top box at the box shifters. I've seen so many cases of guitars in shops with crappy played out strings, or that are kept in poor environments from a temperature/humidity point of view that the "best" one could just as easily just be the "least badly kept". And any of those ones that didn't stand out could have been a total gem with a bit of attention. 

Super wise as ever Lewy. I’ve had plenty of success with mail order guitars, some have needed some attention but most respond well. If they don’t, back they go! 

Lewy

downbytheriver said:

Lewy said:

axisus said:

If you go to shops and try 10 strats, LPs, whatever, there is invariably one that is sweeter. Order from the box shifters and you get the top box. Enjoy saving a bit of money for your (on probability) lesser guitar!

To play devil's advocate (and also because it's what I think...) - just because it's the best one in the shop doesn't mean it's probably better than the top box at the box shifters. I've seen so many cases of guitars in shops with crappy played out strings, or that are kept in poor environments from a temperature/humidity point of view that the "best" one could just as easily just be the "least badly kept". And any of those ones that didn't stand out could have been a total gem with a bit of attention. 

Super wise as ever Lewy. I’ve had plenty of success with mail order guitars, some have needed some attention but most respond well. If they don’t, back they go! 

When you think about it, mail order is the quintessential guitar buying experience isn't it? Kay, Harmony, Silvertone, National - all essentially catalogue guitars ...and of course how did anyone get hold of a Fender in the UK in the early days? Either it was the only one in the shop or it was ordered in (I imagine only after a non refundable deposit was made but I don't know for sure). 

Whitecat

Lewy said:

axisus said:

If you go to shops and try 10 strats, LPs, whatever, there is invariably one that is sweeter. Order from the box shifters and you get the top box. Enjoy saving a bit of money for your (on probability) lesser guitar!

To play devil's advocate (and also because it's what I think...) - just because it's the best one in the shop doesn't mean it's probably better than the top box at the box shifters. I've seen so many cases of guitars in shops with crappy played out strings, or that are kept in poor environments from a temperature/humidity point of view that the "best" one could just as easily just be the "least badly kept". And any of those ones that didn't stand out could have been a total gem with a bit of attention. 

Yes... and very few shops have more than a couple of the same model in stock, especially if it’s a higher end guitar. So if your mail-order version turns out to be a dog a swap probably has a higher chance of returning a good one...

guitars4you

So hard today for any medium/small sized dealer to handle the vast quantity of stock that is offered by the supplier, to meet the needs of the buyer, who has access to all 'n' sundry via www - The model/colour options is now so vast on most brands - I recall in the late 70's when the only option on a Strat was colour, maple/rosewood, trem or non trem - In short if you had 10-15 Strats on your wall, then you had a good selection that would suffice for many customers - Look at the options today on a Strat alone, let alone all the other models within the Fender range

Likewise, when I opened Guitars4You in 2004, I thought long and hard about my business, stock profile and who I could compete with - Better to be a big fish in a small pound was my plan - As such, as a PRS fan, I majored on PRS Guitars - I started off with an opening order of 30 USA Guitars (trade cost around £45K) - That instantly ensured I was one of the largest PRS dealers in the UK, probably the largest - I actually hit the #1 spot, one year, for UK sales - At the time the PRS product range was far smaller than today - By the time I closed down my PRS account around 2015, I had over 80 USA models in stock (trade cost over 150K) and was struggling to compete with other dealers - The cash flow issues it caused me was immense and I ended up chasing vanity - PRS product range had increased plus they had opened up more accounts - Add to that the stock level that a few other dealers carried and I was getting dwarfed - I closed down a £250K account and felt so much better off for it - But the bottom line was I could no longer compete to the level I wanted to with other players - This makes the Fender, Gibson, Marshall, Martin accounts so hard to handle for any 'local' based store 

The bottom line is that the local based dealer has no chance of competing with the offering of www. on the selection of products available and little chance of competing on price with 'box shifting operations' - Today I include Andertons and Thomann as box shifters and that is not meant to be a derogatory comment, as they both have excellent showrooms - But today the showroom supports the warehouse with regards to revenue

jpfamps

guitars4you said:

Just an additional point - Thomann achieved something like $800 million sales in 2017 or 2018 - In our trade that is vast - That compares to something like $40/50 Million at Andertons - Thomann alone will probably dwarf the combined sales of the 10 largest UK stores

The number quoted in reports about price fixing was £500m for the whole UK instrument market, which if correct is less than Thomann's annual turnover.

My understanding is that Thomann ship £20 million pounds worth of product just to London.

guitars4you

downbytheriver said:

Lewy said:

 I've seen so many cases of guitars in shops with crappy played out strings, or that are kept in poor environments from a temperature/humidity point of view that the "best" one could just as easily just be the "least badly kept". And any of those ones that didn't stand out could have been a total gem with a bit of attention. 

Super wise as ever Lewy. I’ve had plenty of success with mail order guitars, some have needed some attention but most respond well. If they don’t, back they go! 

agree with your comments about how stock is displayed/maintained in many stores - I disagree with such a policy so much - IN my view the guitar itself is the actual salesman - If it is presented in the right format, plays well, feels, nice etc then you are in with a chance of a sale - Dirty strings, poor set-up and grubby fingermarks are IMO an instant no no and could well ensure no sale, or at best a request for a decent price reduction - Neither options are retail friendly IMO - Never seen a Rolex, or BMW presented in such a poor condition, so why are so many guitars presented this way ?????????????

guitars4you

jpfamps said:

guitars4you said:

Just an additional point - Thomann achieved something like $800 million sales in 2017 or 2018 - In our trade that is vast - That compares to something like $40/50 Million at Andertons - Thomann alone will probably dwarf the combined sales of the 10 largest UK stores

The number quoted in reports about price fixing was £500m for the whole UK instrument market, which if correct is less than Thomann's annual turnover.

My understanding is that Thomann ship £20 million pounds worth of product just to London.

First of all that £500m is based on new product alone so no used sales - And generally from the recognized big accounts like Fender/Yamaha etc - Granted those accounts are the major players - But it won't include imports like Tokai, G&L that aren't handled via the major importers - It might only account for trade costs for suppliers that are part of the MIA and disclose such trade info as required - I know when asked I have never disclosed any such activity to trade bodies

But agree that Thomann's turnover could easily be in excess of most/all of the UK now

jpfamps

guitars4you said:

jpfamps said:

guitars4you said:

Just an additional point - Thomann achieved something like $800 million sales in 2017 or 2018 - In our trade that is vast - That compares to something like $40/50 Million at Andertons - Thomann alone will probably dwarf the combined sales of the 10 largest UK stores

The number quoted in reports about price fixing was £500m for the whole UK instrument market, which if correct is less than Thomann's annual turnover.

My understanding is that Thomann ship £20 million pounds worth of product just to London.

First of all that £500m is based on new product alone so no used sales - And generally from the recognized big accounts like Fender/Yamaha etc - Granted those accounts are the major players - But it won't include imports like Tokai, G&L that aren't handled via the major importers - It might only account for trade costs for suppliers that are part of the MIA and disclose such trade info as required - I know when asked I have never disclosed any such activity to trade bodies

But agree that Thomann's turnover could easily be in excess of most/all of the UK now

Yes that was the quoted new sales, not used.

However, Thomann's sales are also new products, so at least it is comparing like with like.

Not sure how big the used market is. I suspect most of it is private sales now.

guitars4you

jpfamps said:

guitars4you said:

jpfamps said:

guitars4you said:

Just an additional point - Thomann achieved something like $800 million sales in 2017 or 2018 - In our trade that is vast - That compares to something like $40/50 Million at Andertons - Thomann alone will probably dwarf the combined sales of the 10 largest UK stores

The number quoted in reports about price fixing was £500m for the whole UK instrument market, which if correct is less than Thomann's annual turnover.

My understanding is that Thomann ship £20 million pounds worth of product just to London.

First of all that £500m is based on new product alone so no used sales - And generally from the recognized big accounts like Fender/Yamaha etc - Granted those accounts are the major players - But it won't include imports like Tokai, G&L that aren't handled via the major importers - It might only account for trade costs for suppliers that are part of the MIA and disclose such trade info as required - I know when asked I have never disclosed any such activity to trade bodies

But agree that Thomann's turnover could easily be in excess of most/all of the UK now

Yes that was the quoted new sales, not used.

However, Thomann's sales are also new products, so at least it is comparing like with like.

Not sure how big the used market is. I suspect most of it is private sales now.

Agree a large part of used sales is now private via the likes of e-bay, reverb etc etc - So for many smaller local based stores then e-bay and reverb are the big competitors - So many struggle to compete on new and used now - But how big used is then who knows

I can't recall the article now, but a few years ago Guitar Centre in the USA accounted for around 50% of the business in the USA for many suppliers - Which considering the debt liability at GC is/was a major worry to the big players in our trade - something like 1 billion debt 

thebreeze

Thanks @guitars4you - I think we're so lucky to have you on here and to get the benefit of your perspective and experience.