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Guitar Center Chapter 11 Imminent

#81
From Musician's Friend:

Thank you for being a loyal customer of Musician's Friend. We genuinely appreciate your business.

I'm pleased to share that our parent company — Guitar Center, Inc. — has announced an agreement to strengthen their financial structure which will allow us to serve you better for the long term. During this time there is likely to be press coverage, so we wanted you to hear from us what to expect.
  • Our website and call centers are open and available to you as we continue to operate our business as usual.

  • We will continue to serve your needs as usual, therefore customer service, Musician's Friend Rewards, financing and Gold Coverage remain unaffected.
To facilitate this financial restructuring, we will voluntarily file for restructuring under Chapter 11. During this time, we will have ample financing to continue all of our operations without interruption.

Most importantly, we are staying focused on helping more customers make music. We continue to have the gear you want and need, with new gear arriving regularly and we are here to support your musical needs as we have exciting Musician's Friend holiday promotions ready for you!

If you have questions or concerns please feel free to email us at [email protected] or call us at 877-880-5907.
 
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#82
And there it is:

6C82A90A-AF4F-49DE-8803-A05697A44683.jpeg
 
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#83
Koshchei said:
That's not what bankruptcy means. In this case, they'll put a lot of employees out of work, close a bunch of locations, give the previous C-Suite morons golden parachutes, and then hire a "lifestyle brand" CEO who will bleed the company dry over the next decade for the sake of short-term gains to appease creditors and shareholders.
Click to expand...
Sad, but likely true.

Just got an email from Musician's Friend saying they're open for business normally during GC's Chapter 11.
 
#87
Wood and Wire said:
Both Gibson, and Fender have stated that 2020 has been the best year in their respective companies histories, in terms of guitar sales.

That being the case, where are people buying their guitars, if one of the biggest box-shifters is about to go out of business?
Click to expand...

I haven't read through the responses, but the smaller shops I've dealt with in the past couple years for guitar, bass, and other purchases have all matched or beaten GC/MF prices hand over fist. Like, hundreds of dollars difference in a couple instances. If you pay close attention you'll notice the smaller shops who also sell on Reverb or eBay are raising their prices on those platforms to cover the seller fees. Because of this, I've had great success going directly to them to cut out the middle man and I've really found some excellent deals and equally as great customer service because of it. So where are people buying their guitars if not at GC? EVERYWHERE!
 
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#88
At the end of the day, their problem has always been along these lines:

- in a few select stores, they have some amazing gear
- in most of their stores, they have gear ranging from low end that is unplayable off the wall to fairly decent stuff
- as you move up the quality scale, the selection goes from decently diverse to you have only one choice
- the prices aren’t any better than anywhere else
- the service is often worse than elsewhere
- you can often find something “special” elsewhere, and they rarely have anything that is special and unique

Frankly, I enjoyed going in less and less over the years. I’ve ended up either patronizing local chains, local independents, or well respected online operations.

They have had some cool ideas over time - I thought GC Studios in SoCal was awesome.
 
#89
I’ve only had luck getting used gear at guitar center. Most instruments at the GC by me are geared towards beginners. There’s usually only 3-5 American fenders, usually topping out at the AM pro, and the amps are ok. I’m excited for them to close. We’ve got a Sam Ash here which has a better inventory and honestly they ran some good local stores out of business, so I’d like to get some local stores back
 
#92
There are THREE GC stores in Kansas City area....how is this possible? Lots of lessons? The gear selection is not bad considering the age of the internet....but yeah, the 'used gear' GC section has to be doing well (you would think)

Let me say that their business model leaves a lot to be desired...back in the day you had stores that sold say Gibson and Fender (my little town did for years) that also sold other music gear, sheet music and gave lessons, otherwise you want to a Dept store or catalog for 'private brand' gear etc.

To me there needs to be a way to draw in the general public; a restaurant, coffee shop or something to anchor the GC to...used records? I dont know.....But my gosh, with all of the supposed 'expertise' of corporations, you would think they could figure out something.

With a lot of mom and pop stores closing in 2020, i am guessing GC will come out ahead in the long run
 
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#96
I do owe GC a bit of thanks, I was shopping for my first bass amp in over 35 years and having trouble making up my mind, so many choices. Almost bought a TE ELF rig. Then I noticed at GC an Ampeg PF-210HE cab floor model marked down to $199.99. One tiny mark on it, missing only the screws and washers for the flip top, the casters were present. I bought the cab and ordered a PF-50t head after reading the reviews and comments on TB. Couldn’t be happier with my choice. When I was buying the cab the salesperson said “I'm paying you to take this out of the store”. Always thought the stores could have been better run. I’m no economist, but if you can’t be in the black after the last 10 years of a great economy, cheap money to borrow, perhaps you don’t deserve to be in business.
 
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#98
The one time I had a tech do some work on a bass, he managed to break a screw holding the bridge on. It held enough that I didn't notice it until I got home. Not a word from him that there was a problem. I ended up having to drill it out, fill with a dowel, and redrill the screw hole. And all this on a brand new bass. Good riddance.
 
#100
I read somewhere that Fender knows 90% of the guitars they sell end up in the closet within 3 months. That’s a lot of guitars waiting for the zombie apocalypse. When will demand sag? Not yet, evidently. Meanwhile, GC suffers from having big stores with big inventory, slow turnover, low profit margins and low-paid apathetic employees. The very factors that make it a place where you can hang out & play everything all day and make a purchase only rarely. That is, it adjusted all these factors to become what the customer wants. For that they are perpetually on the brink of collapse. Got a better idea? (I don’t).
 
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