Buying online

boogieman

Peach were great when I bought my Martin a few months back. Wouldn’t hesitate to buy from them again. 

Sevenof9

Mixed bag for me - as said before Peach - top-class, market leader in my view
music Street - a close second - Very helpful
guitar guitar and PMT - I have had a mixed bag of experiences.
Latterly I have been doing my business with small businesses really, and for the most part building and selling their own stuff 

fretmeister

I've been very impressed with Peach for my recent PRS purchase. It was beautifully set up.

bacchanalian

Living in Northern Ireland, there is a limited choice, so most of my purchases or trades have been at a distance.

The small details, like neck dimensions and weight, that some deride as time wasting or frivolous are important to minimize the chance of an unsuitable purchase followed by a return.

I recently had a great trade in and purchase experience with @DougCoda. Very helpful and offered other advice that was not related to that deal.
Have bought one guitar from Peach and they were very good. Disappointed they are not doing part-ex at the moment but better off in the long run

Mark @guitars4you has also been very helpful in the past. 

Snags

I've only ever bought two online 'blind', one from Guitar Village and one from Coda.

Both were utterly painless transactions, and both guitars arrived absolutely fine. With GV there wasn't a huge amount of communication, but it all worked. I honestly can't remember if there was any indication they'd checked over the guitar or not, but it was fine either way.

With Coda there was a comfortable level of communications and updates, and always very prompt responses to idle queries on my part. The guitar arrived having obviously been checked over, possibly re-strung (pretty sure it's got D'Addario on it, and I'd expect a Squier to come with Fender-branded from the facotry) and ready to go bar some minor tuning adjustments (bearing in mind this was without a case).

The fact that the purchase from GV was a grand, and from Coda was £350, and that Coda obviously put the extra effort in was with GV I honestly couldn't tell, well, it inclines one to Coda

dunstanmus

All good with the companies mentioned here. Bought a 2nd hand guitar from Sound Affects, explained how I want it set up to be told we probably can’t put it through the workshop again. Active circuitry. Wh3n it arrived it was dead, batteries totally dead. Safe to say they took it in a trade and didn’t even look it over never mind put it through a set up in the first place. 

hyperben

Coda and @guitars4you all the way, hands down the best service I’ve experienced buying guitars unseen

Sync

lincolnblue said:

Given the current COVID situation there is a possibility of buying a guitar online, which I’d not normally do.
What stores are best for buying online, not just price but communication, providing extra photos of the actual instrument etc etc? 

My top 3 for guitars are:

Peach, Coda and World Guitars. They all get a joint 1st since you know it's going to be perfect and exactly what you want especially after some communication. They also genuinely enjoy chatting through the options and communicating with you.

This is covid or pre covid where travel time wasn't practical. 

My view is if buying a guitar online you need absolute certainty or there is simply no point in buying. 

You definitely need to have the honest conversation with them especially you have very specific requirements, since this makes sure expectations are met all round even in the event of a return. 

For amps and ancillaries then the above plus the usual box shifters depending on pricing.