Members Freeman Keller Posted February 5, 2015 Members Share Posted February 5, 2015 http://www.ericgarland.co/2015/02/03/end-guitar-center/ GC is owned by Bain Capital, apparently hundreds of millions in debt and struggling to make interest only payments. There is some relationship with MF but I'm not sure what it is. When you stop to think that one quarter of Fender's production is designated for GC the ripple effect could be huge. My little mom and pop music store looks better all the time Discuss Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members nice keetee Posted February 5, 2015 Members Share Posted February 5, 2015 http://www.ericgarland.co/2015/02/03/end-guitar-center/ GC is owned by Bain Capital, apparently hundreds of millions in debt and struggling to make interest only payments. There is some relationship with MF but I'm not sure what it is. When you stop to think that one quarter of Fender's production is designated for GC the ripple effect could be huge. My little mom and pop music store looks better all the time Discuss Discuss most business models are changing...I don't have any answers but times are changing again.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members 1001gear Posted February 5, 2015 Members Share Posted February 5, 2015 According to this, http://www.ericgarland.co/2015/02/03/end-guitar-center/ , the debt is a deliberate con skewz me, ploy. Regardless, there's no market for the inventory and turnover required to clear it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members SDHB Inc. Posted February 5, 2015 Members Share Posted February 5, 2015 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members MDMachiavelli Posted February 5, 2015 Members Share Posted February 5, 2015 It will be interesting to see how this all works out, GC has been very beneficial to where I live so I hope the best for them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members 1001gear Posted February 5, 2015 Members Share Posted February 5, 2015 Isn't this from last year? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members rhancox Posted February 5, 2015 Members Share Posted February 5, 2015 Isn't this from last year? The article isn't, but the problems have gone on so long that it's beginning to sound old. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Idunno Posted February 7, 2015 Members Share Posted February 7, 2015 GC is on the edge. I expect Ares to snuff them very soon. I'm guessing the small shop owners are looking on with predator's eyes at the aspect of picking up GC's foot traffic. I know I would. I'd also contact the brands GC carries and let them know I'm ready to deal. Meanwhile. Sam Ash is just around the corner from the local GC and they're probably just as stoked about GC's fate. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members katopp Posted February 7, 2015 Members Share Posted February 7, 2015 GC is dead. Tandy/Radio Shack is dead.And no, it wasn't Amazon that killed themIt was us, the people.Or, to be more precise, it was the top 1% odf the people. Those who own more than the lower 99% combined - thanks to the money printing FED.Because the people by and large are broke. Who can afford to buy a nice American-made guitar anymore. A few lucky individuals can. Talk about me. But I already have too much, I will not buy a 27th guitar. I will rather consolidate and get rid of 8 or 9 guitars.But elasticity has gone down. And the relative value of handmade music has decreased, too. Just look at the underprivileged. Two, three generations ago, they took on the guitar, the piano, other instruments - even a harp or a banjo - and that was their way out of misery. Today, it's a baseball cap, a microphone and a sampler.Handmade music is far from dead, but it is no longer the realm of the masses, it's for the intelligenzia and as we all know - look up Idiocracy - the intelligenzia is fighting a losing war.Enimen, Piff Duddy and Tocrack Shackurn will win over Lennon/McCartney, Bob Dylan and Joan Baez.And yes, there is scientific proof:http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/...etting-louder/ So, GC is doomed to fail because of its customers failing, because of the general populace being broke. What about the suppliers? Fender might have done the smart thing. Getting rid of Ovation and Guild might prove itself right over the inevitable crash of GC and GC's crash might also negatively affect other players like Sam Ash.Other suppliers might have to write off a lot of stock and even if they only sold it on commission, a lot of that stock will be B-grade at best after being man-handled by the kids. It will hurt the mom-and-pop store, too. First the masses of equipment being fire-sold will trash prices even more. Second banks will look even closer at those small shops, saying that if a huge distributor that can leverage a lot of scaling effects can't do it, how can a small mom-and-pop shop do it? GC will go down and I fear that it will take a lot of players with it, going down. I fear that the impact will even be felt - negatively - on this side of the pond. Happy days... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Idunno Posted February 7, 2015 Members Share Posted February 7, 2015 I did not factor in the glut of auctioned off new abused gear to the market. That would definitely soften its attractiveness to lending institutions for the short term; especially since most of them have zero expertise in that market. But, we can't completely void the forecast for post mortem recovery. Behringer was cited in the article as having recovered market share after severing relations with GC and utilizing M&Ps. They are now on the upswing. Lot's of small retail stores versus fewer large stores makes sense if exposure is key. Behringer recognized the sheer weight of numbers of small stores as a value-added move to their product line. Smart. A big name association isn't necessarily good marketing if it means turning off the myriad of M&Ps who reach a larger market. Anyway, your point about hand-made music strikes home hard with me as a person who takes more from writing than covering. Your "baseball cap, a microphone and a sampler." profile is perfect. It plays into the other thread I was attempting to paint about the demise of the acoustic guitar - in the larger music industry context - that got the hackles up amidst the proletariat. But, I won't conscript your statements for my defense of venial abuse of membership here. Good points and post. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members bigald18 Posted February 7, 2015 Members Share Posted February 7, 2015 I have no love for guitar center. They have always been a rather incompetent organization to deal with. My only problem is that they will take musicians friend down with them and I've always enjoyed dealing with them. BigAl Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Idunno Posted February 7, 2015 Members Share Posted February 7, 2015 Al, competency in anything is a subjective observation and I have to say I suffer from it as well. The store is populated by kids or kid-like perspectives and let's face it, no self-respecting person will expect to be taken seriously by wearing a red mohawk and displaying himself as an example of a highly frequented pin cushion for the local skin ink fetishist. Can't have it both ways. Every picture tells a story, don't it? Most of the people I've spoken with over the years at GC are competent. They just aren't coherent (per the above). They know their stuff but they don't know me. Somehow I felt that they, being of the same musical interest, should be sensitive to my preferences but music is a very broad subject and my respect for a particular musical instrument isn't necessarily shared by my red-mohawked, skin-camouflaged and pierced misfit seeking sanctuary at his nearest GC. On a more sober note, it's easy to hear the marketing-speak coming from them in their scripted store-policy spiel. "Let me ask my manager when" is probably on a wall in the employee break room regarding customer questions. That's for deal-making. Gear-wise, they are pretty much up on it because they live it. Being around it all day long you're gonna pick up on it in a very short time. So, I do hear competency from them in that regard and that's really all I care about from a store clerk. On a more soulful note, I do hope they all have a golden parachute because they're gonna need it soon. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Neal Posted February 7, 2015 Members Share Posted February 7, 2015 As much as some hate the idea of GC, they'll still shop at Sams and Walmart and Starbucks. I think the first big box was McDonald's back in the '60s, taking biz from the locals Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Neal Posted February 7, 2015 Members Share Posted February 7, 2015 And yes, they seem competent if posed with a question. They really missed the Uke boat though. Córdoba? Eh. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Idunno Posted February 8, 2015 Members Share Posted February 8, 2015 Starbucks gives me a bellyache. Walmart is a patron-watching bunch of fun and I haven't dusted McDonalds with my DNA since 2003. Everyone misses the Uke-boat though. My son has one I bought at a local M&P. I'm cursed with huge hands and fat fingertips so I can't play with small nuts. Did I print that out loud? I wonder what the folks in Sam Ash's front office are thinking about GC's fate. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Tony Burns Posted February 9, 2015 Members Share Posted February 9, 2015 I will miss the occasional visit ,a couple times a year -for the yearly t-shirt buy and to check out the cheap guitars and play the occasionalun-played upper end model ( they keep hidden away -which is smart ) but the 15 year olds beating on a Les paul showing off the run they just learned-I will not miss -nor the abused Martins and Gibbys hanging on the wall - that look like their twenty years old ( when their only a month old ). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Idunno Posted February 9, 2015 Members Share Posted February 9, 2015 And this place, unless someone takes it up privately, will probably disappear. For the curious wondering where this site fits into GC Holdings, scroll down to the listing of companies under its banner. This is not a current statement for the company's financials. It's just to show where Harmony Central sits in the mix. http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/da...-14720_1s4.htm Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members EdBega Posted February 10, 2015 Members Share Posted February 10, 2015 I go there just to smell acoustic guitars. Dang those mom and pop shops for driving them out of business ... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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