Death of guitar shops?

reaching hands

Off i went into to town today in search of a new pedal to boost my gain on my amp.

Leeds has one decent guitar shop (who sell alot of relic fenders and gibsons etc on ebay for mega bucks) and so i thought i'd try and see what was on offer.

I went in and asked about ts9's and boost pedals, they pulled out a maxon od9, spoke very fondly of it and left me alone with a tele and a voxac30 ( i have the laney clone) to try it out (very good of him!), it was just what i was after until he mentioned price, £110. NOW, i KNOW this pedal is well worth the money but with many cheaper internet options available it becomes expensive. I had £80 cash in my pocket ready to part with, they were not intrested, so neither was i.

I came home 2 hours later and bought the maxon online for £80 with free postage.

where do we go from here?, surely the shops know that people like me (on a set tight budget) are going to walk in, try what they need to and then if the price isn't right then they'l go and get it from internet companies.

now....if i was spending a decent amount of money on a guitar, i wouldn't buy one from the net and want to have it handled by shop staff that i have met so i could make sure it was ok before i took it home., but as regards to pedals and amps i bet their sales have dropped massively!.

anybody else finding this?

MLC2006

what does #110 equal to in US dollars? because I think that pedal is about $150US on MF.com.

but yeah, my local store generally charges 20-30% higher than online, so I gotta go where the price is best. even the strings are about $3 more at the store than online. the amps and guitar prices seem pretty comparable, but the smaller things like pedals, strings, and accesories seem to be overpriced.

surferdude

I think you have to support your local store. Where the prices are out of line show them the internet price. Don't forget that we don't want to get to a point without stores to try out the equipment. I never begrudge a store making a decent profit.

Jooooosh

Most of the guitar shops around here use musiciansfriend prices or maybe a little higher, except strings are 2-3 times more in the stores.
You could try showing them the internet price, I'm sure they'd be willing to go down a little.

DeLukin

A good middle point might be to use the internet to find things smaller guitar shops are selling. I bought a guitar last year that I found on an ebay store that was run by a small shop in Georgia. I got a better deal than I would've locally and supported a mom & pop, so I guess it was a good thing...

reaching hands

surferdude wrote:

I think you have to support your local store. Where the prices are out of line show them the internet price. Don't forget that we don't want to get to a point without stores to try out the equipment. I never begrudge a store making a decent profit.

i agree 200%, lets support the local shops but when you are on a budget with a pedal etc, i will go where the price is, its sad fact.

£110 is around $215 i think.

this particular shop do trade on ebay with there relic stuff but when you try and buy smaller stuff they have 20-30% mark up, i tried to get em to knock the price down to fit my budget but they didn't want to know.

most of the pedals in there cabinet are the same ones that were there 4 months back, what pisses me off to with the shops pedal cabinet is its behind 4 guitars and you can't see any prices, which is not good for a pedal freak like me who wants to browse at my own leisure instead of asking them for prices every two minutes.

dunno, maybe its just this shop but you don't get made to feel comfortable about asking for prices and help, fair enough they'l tell you about the product and set you up with it to play but your made to feel as welcome as a fart in a spacesuit when you walk in or taking a close look a product and as soon as they realise you haven't got the readies to match their unmarked prices they run like your a lepar!.

when i lived down in warwickshire there was a great shop i used to go to called 'regent guiatars' in leamington spa, they were excellent at offering help, useful after care, caring for the budget man and you could find bargains, this shop in leeds is charging full internet prices for battered manky pedals, theres no such thing as a bargain with their pedals, on the flip side, strings, guitars, leads, great prices cos its like theres no fuss with those products.

the ebay seller i bought my maxon off is a proper guitar shop, so that to me is supporting the shops too.

i miss going into a shop and walking away satisfied, i feel like i can't browse in as shop anymore unless my cash is green enough

reaching hands

surferdude} I never begrudge a store making a decent profit.[/quote wrote:

me neither, but when things are priced so high they'l never sell unless a non-plussed person walks in and parts with cash; why can't they be competative?

surferdude

reaching hands wrote:

i agree 200%, lets support the local shops but when you are on a budget with a pedal etc, i will go where the price is, its sad fact.

£110 is around $215 i think.

this particular shop do trade on ebay with there relic stuff but when you try and buy smaller stuff they have 20-30% mark up, i tried to get em to knock the price down to fit my budget but they didn't want to know.

most of the pedals in there cabinet are the same ones that were there 4 months back, what pisses me off to with the shops pedal cabinet is its behind 4 guitars and you can't see any prices, which is not good for a pedal freak like me who wants to browse at my own leisure instead of asking them for prices every two minutes.

dunno, maybe its just this shop but you don't get made to feel comfortable about asking for prices and help, fair enough they'l tell you about the product and set you up with it to play but your made to feel as welcome as a fart in a spacesuit when you walk in or taking a close look a product and as soon as they realise you haven't got the readies to match their unmarked prices they run like your a lepar!.

when i lived down in warwickshire there was a great shop i used to go to called 'regent guiatars' in leamington spa, they were excellent at offering help, useful after care, caring for the budget man and you could find bargains, this shop in leeds is charging full internet prices for battered manky pedals, theres no such thing as a bargain with their pedals, on the flip side, strings, guitars, leads, great prices cos its like theres no fuss with those products.

the ebay seller i bought my maxon off is a proper guitar shop, so that to me is supporting the shops too.

i miss going into a shop and walking away satisfied, i feel like i can't browse in as shop anymore unless my cash is green enough

I hear you. I have a good relationship with my local small store. He treats me fair but he's told me he can't stay in business matching internet prices. He understands depending what I'm buying that I may go other routes. But I'd feel like a shithead using his shop as the demos ground then purchasing elsewhere for price when he's provided all the customer service.

keeponrockin

I use my local shop, and hell, most of the time the prices are at or below internet prices on the big items, so I don't mind paying more for strings and what not.

lucylespian

Yeah this is hard. The big problem for me is that too many times when I try to support a local shop, the giuys arwe too lazy to be helpful.
I recently wanted to bulk buy my Dunlop Gator Grip licks , cos I chew through them. I tried 3 stores to see if they could get me the 6 dozen bags. All I got was 3 blank stares followed by a reluctant shuffle through the catalogue and a "we don't have those".
What I wanted was a snappy , "no problem, we can order those, be here next week, and we'll do a reasonable price"
So, back to ebay stores, and the things were here in a week for the US, at an excellent price, so I bought twice as many as planned.
I do like to support local stores, but you guys here know way more than most guys I deal with in shops.
The shop right next to my work just relies on people being lazy and not knowing prices, and just charges the earth.
It has a Mexican strat on the wall gathering dust with $1700 on the tag. Now I bought my Jap one for $800, and another shop near me has one for $1100 new stock. So, some sap walk in remembering how "expensive" and glamourous strats are from when he was a kid, and gets suckered.
Most shops around here have few pedals, so there is bugger all service there too. They are all relying on moving lots of low end stuff to newb players, and actaully, nost of em survive by selling stuff for school violin and piano. that's where their real bread and butter is.

reaching hands

lucylespian wrote:

Yeah this is hard. The big problem for me is that too many times when I try to support a local shop, the giuys arwe too lazy to be helpful.
I recently wanted to bulk buy my Dunlop Gator Grip licks , cos I chew through them. I tried 3 stores to see if they could get me the 6 dozen bags. All I got was 3 blank stares followed by a reluctant shuffle through the catalogue and a "we don't have those".
What I wanted was a snappy , "no problem, we can order those, be here next week, and we'll do a reasonable price"
So, back to ebay stores, and the things were here in a week for the US, at an excellent price, so I bought twice as many as planned.
I do like to support local stores, but you guys here know way more than most guys I deal with in shops.
The shop right next to my work just relies on people being lazy and not knowing prices, and just charges the earth.
It has a Mexican strat on the wall gathering dust with $1700 on the tag. Now I bought my Jap one for $800, and another shop near me has one for $1100 new stock. So, some sap walk in remembering how "expensive" and glamourous strats are from when he was a kid, and gets suckered.
Most shops around here have few pedals, so there is bugger all service there too. They are all relying on moving lots of low end stuff to newb players, and actaully, nost of em survive by selling stuff for school violin and piano. that's where their real bread and butter is.

its true, they expect to sell those overproced items to some one with no clue. I tried out a blues driver 4 months ago and they wanted to charge me 75 quid with a straight face (45 on ebay shops).

we have a real lack of guitar shops here in leeds, my most local shop has closed and the owner now works through the net, he does all my set ups and fret dressing etc in a private workshop

lucylespian

reaching hands wrote:

its true, they expect to sell those overproced items to some one with no clue. I tried out a blues driver 4 months ago and they wanted to charge me 75 quid with a straight face (45 on ebay shops).

we have a real lack of guitar shops here in leeds, my most local shop has closed and the owner now works through the net, he does all my set ups and fret dressing etc in a private workshop

I'm pretty lucky with shops. I get around a bit with work and surfing, and Brisbane is only a couple of hours away so Within an hour of home, I have access to about 8 shops of varying size and quality, including a big Gibson shop, and a Mesa dealer, who does a big range of gits, and stuff like Bad Cat ( though he could not sell my amp at full price, and I scored a major bargain there by wiating for it to come down).
Then in Brisbane there are a heap more, including another Gibson Pro shop, and a couple of big GC type chains.
Having said that, the US is so cheap for so much stuff, I can have gear delivered for less than it costs to get in my car and go looking.
We only pay tax on stuff over $1000, so pedals etc are so much cheaper direct over ebay from the US. So are most GIbson guitars, though prices have come down here a lot as so many guys are mailing them in. I saw a really nice standard not sell teh other day at ony $2500, which is about half shop retail.
I guess people are still nervous of buying sight unseen, but I have had no problems. I have only picked one of my guitars off a rack. My two ESP's were both ordered at a shop and delived direct, and the other 2 straight off ebay, with no problems.
Ebay sellers have a feedback rating they need to protect, bricks and mortar shops have no such problem.

ianvomsaal

I typically won't deal with my small local shops anymore because they're all such arrogant pricks.
Most seem to think that they know everything about gear, and most are such boutique gear snobs[\u].
I don't care what gear they own themselves, I don't care who they know in the music business .
All I want is to be able to buy the gear that meets my needs at the BEST PRICE . . . period.
I'm sorry, but my local shops don't seem to care if I'm happy, they just seem to want my $$$.
They see an affulent buisnessman walking in, and they'll do backflips for them because they're
gonna sell some expensive gear to someone that doesn't really seem to care about price.
I plan to keep using places like Guitar Center for as long as I can - I might use the little stores for
things that I can't get at GC, but most likely I'll just use the Internet for those kinds of purchases.
Lets Put It This Way . . . I don't have a day job that makes me CHA-CHING cash!!!
I'm a musician . . . and this is all I do. I make music for a living, which basically means that it's
all about me trying to get the Best Price for the gear that I need to "make my living".

- Ian

reaching hands

ianvomsaal wrote:

I won't deal with my small local shops anymore because they're all such arrogant pricks.
They all seem to think that they know everything, and most are such gear snobs.
I don't care what they own themselves, or who they know in the music business.
All I want is gear at the BEST PRICE . . . period.
I'm sorry, but my local shops don't seem to care if I'm happy, they just want my $$$.
They see an affulent buisnessman walking in and do backflips for them because they're
gonna sell some expensive gear to someone that doesn't seem to care about price.
I plan to keep using Guitar Center for as long as I can - I might use the little stores
for things that I can't get there, but most likely I'll just use the Internet.
I don't have a day job that makes me cha-ching cash!!!
I make music for a living . . . Which basically means that it's all about me getting the
Best Price for the gear that I need to "make my living".

- Ian

amen

if i can pick up a cheap pedal on ebay in a private sale i will, but my two biggest investments in pedals (maxon od9 and DD6) have come from shops that have an actual shop and deal online.

i mentioned a shop in warwickshire earlier, they used to do most of their dealings online and that made it more pleasant for the small time local buyer like me who went in to spend his few pennies because they weren't relying on me spending stupid money

lucylespian

I went into teh shop near work today, to get a guitar box to post teh STrat in.
No boxes !
One guy is serving me, and I'm asking about drum kits as well, another dude wanders past and syas to my guy " this guy giving you teh run-around hey?" Probably because their prices are crap and I don't buy much there, but I'm looking right ?
Anyhoo, he don't know much about drum kits, but on teh way out I see a Hiwatt amp. I go and look, but it solid state. I say I'm only interested in tubes.
Oh he says we got some nice Rivera amps her. I go and have a look, he shows me a Pubster.
I ask, is this Class A ?
Old mate gives me the rabbit in the headlights look, you know, frozen terror cos suddenly he is on the thin ice of actually having to know shit about something for sale.
What's Class A he says ??

You know, Class A, not A/B.

Oh, he says these are really high quality, probably almost certainly possibly definitely Class A. What does that mean agian ??

Ho hum, I htink I'll look else where for the drum kit, somehow, even thiugh they had some OK stuff cheap, the snare sounded like shit.

Yokel no 2 slides by again, "those haven't been tuned by a drummer, that's why they sound crap".

OK, so why have it on display? Is there another shop type where there is stuff out on show that is not put together right ?
I dunno, it's hardly rocket science, it a fucking drum kit.
Shit , even drummers can put one of those together.
Even Bonzo could manage that !!

This was an independent store, not a corporate chain.

westsidepie

ianvomsaal wrote:

I typically won't deal with my small local shops anymore because they're all such arrogant pricks.
Most seem to think that they know everything about gear, and most are such boutique gear snobs[\u].
I don't care what gear they own themselves, I don't care who they know in the music business .
All I want is to be able to buy the gear that meets my needs at the BEST PRICE . . . period.
I'm sorry, but my local shops don't seem to care if I'm happy, they just seem to want my $$$.
They see an affulent buisnessman walking in, and they'll do backflips for them because they're
gonna sell some expensive gear to someone that doesn't really seem to care about price.
I plan to keep using places like Guitar Center for as long as I can - I might use the little stores for
things that I can't get at GC, but most likely I'll just use the Internet for those kinds of purchases.
Lets Put It This Way . . . I don't have a day job that makes me CHA-CHING cash!!!
I'm a musician . . . and this is all I do. I make music for a living, which basically means that it's
all about me trying to get the Best Price for the gear that I need to "make my living".

- Ian

Competely agree. I spend a lot of money on gear (shh! don't tell my wife), so ultimately what I care about is getting the best deal. I still use Guitar Center for two reasons. I really like to play the guitar. I have not been too happy with buying guitars sight unseen. Second, I ALWAYS deal with the GC sales people and never pay the price they are asking for equipment. I build up a relationship with the sales people and ask for discounts. I have not find local shops willing to budge an inch on things, and they always try to pull off that botique crap to justify their prices. Half the time they if you really question them on equipment, they don't really know what they are talking about. I buy most of my recording equipment online from Sweetwater. You can get yourself assigned a sales rep, so you can work out some nice deals.

...pie (now I want to buy something)

All Those Yesterdays

Fortunately in Toledo, we still have one really great private ran store, who has a great selectin, and stil pretty much match the local guitar centers prices. Even if they get it close I'll buy from them over guitar center.

They already survived when Mar's went came into town years ago. Now Mar's is gone and Guitar Center is here. I'm sure they will survive this wave too.

Remember to support your local music shop just like your local original music scene!!!!!

lucylespian

There is a very good local shop I end to go to, but it's further away. In a quick lunch break, the one I wen to today is right there, but hopeless.
Ah fuck, who am I kidding. I've sold the strat, so now I have shopping money. It's straight to ebay for me, cos the ZVEX pedals I want are standard 9V plugs and only availabe to me on-line, so US ebay for me.
I'm feeling clairvoyant. I see a fuzz and rock box in my future.
Ooooooooooooom !!!!

That or a BBQ. Holy shit, I can get one of those on-line too.

westsidepie

I should say there is one local shop that I always go to called Sound Source. They are not just a guitar shop, but all around store, hence the name. I think one reason they have a big following is they act as a clearing house for local musicians. You can always trade gear for new gear, and you can find rare pieces you won't find anywhere else, or if you find them on ebay, they are way overpriced.

...pie