Hugs n kisses babe. Btw, I bought some new shoes.
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Guitar Center Screwed Me Again
- Thread starter rogerbmiller
- Start date
Hugs n kisses babe. Btw, I bought some new shoes.
Had more luck than not with their online sales. Helps to have a nearby store to return stuff to.
My current gig rig is more than 50% from GC online, so I guess I gotta say in general things work out. NEVER had an issue with returns. Yeah, there's probably a theoretical better way to handle it but it works well now.
My current gig rig is more than 50% from GC online, so I guess I gotta say in general things work out. NEVER had an issue with returns. Yeah, there's probably a theoretical better way to handle it but it works well now.
This sounds like bad business to me. If they accept the order and take your money, that's a legal contract.
They owe you some retribution. Did they offer you anything else - a similar item at a lower than normal price?
They owe you some retribution. Did they offer you anything else - a similar item at a lower than normal price?
They don't owe any retribution. They refund your money, say sorry for the mistake, and that's it.
Clearly, most people don't understand what's involved in running a business. Stuff happens, you apologize, and it's over. This whole "they owe you" mentality makes me scratch my head.
You pay, they provide. If they can't provide, you get your money back.
There's no "owing" involved whatsoever, he bought, they didn't provide, they give his money back. There's no more to it than that.
Clearly, most people don't understand what's involved in running a business. Stuff happens, you apologize, and it's over. This whole "they owe you" mentality makes me scratch my head.
You pay, they provide. If they can't provide, you get your money back.
There's no "owing" involved whatsoever, he bought, they didn't provide, they give his money back. There's no more to it than that.
Second time in a week this information seems relevant...
Terms of Use | Guitar Center
"Because prices, product descriptions and availability can change quickly, Guitar Center does not warrant the accuracy or completeness of the information provided on the Site. Also, Guitar Center may make changes to the information contained herein, including to the products and prices described in the site, at any time, without prior notice to you (including after you have submitted your order). Information at this Site is periodically updated, but it may not be current or complete at the moment you visit this Site and may contain errors or inaccuracies. In no event shall Guitar Center or its service or product providers be liable to you in any manner whatsoever for any decision made by you, or for any act or failure to act by you, in reliance upon information provided at this Site. If a product you purchase does not match the description on the Site, as your sole and exclusive remedy you may return the product, unused, to Guitar Center and receive a refund of your purchase price."
How hard would it really be for GC to get a system going that links their in store computers with their online sales/website?.. So when someone buys a piece of gear in person and they scan the item and sell it, it simply marks the item as "no longer available" on their website automatically. Their website does get updated in some manner of time as it is now, so it's not really a stretch to make that update just happen faster so they don't upset so many of their customers. If I was the CEO of Guitar Center, I would have thought of this years ago and hired an IT company to make it happen. Seems like anything less than that is just excuses excuses.
As a business owner, really fricken hard, and really fricken expensive.
How expensive would it be then, to have one or 2 actual people in charge of updating the website in real time for all the stores. When a store sells a used item, the system sends these people a simple email or even a text message telling them which item sold, they update the site say every few minutes, and done. If there's a will there's a way. They already have a system in place to update the site, they just need to streamline it.
I agree their system is not the best even some GC people have told me they're not too happy with it themselves but revamping it will be costly - probably not something they'd like to spend money on right now.
It really was bad before when there were basically two databases a few years back, those in the "know" would go to the right one as items would normally appear on that first before appearing on the main online purchase page.
It really was bad before when there were basically two databases a few years back, those in the "know" would go to the right one as items would normally appear on that first before appearing on the main online purchase page.
They probably forgot to take it down before and you reminded them.
I used their 'used section' to get a quote on selling my gear before I drive 4 hours. They never responded.
I used their 'used section' to get a quote on selling my gear before I drive 4 hours. They never responded.
Their system to update the site seems to be a data feed between a mainframe or midrange system which holds the inventory and sales data to an open systems database which supports the website. There isn't a convenient way to hire people to manually do things in parallel to this process. Generally speaking you would have a data synchronization nightmare. At the moment there probably isn't a manual way to do this so you likely couldn't just throw bodies at the problem.
This also does nothing to solve the problem when two buyers both buy the same item online, which is the apparent problem the OP had.
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If you were the CEO of GC you would have been so broke your company basically was taking out payday loans to meet payroll until you handed over ownership to your creditors. You wouldn't have had the money or the will to modernize your computer systems.
This is a tiny nuisance of a problem with a big price tag associated with it. If you were CEO of GC and had a list of all their problems and challenges and had to stack rank them, I highly doubt updating your website to reflect real-time inventory would be anywhere in the top 10.
Honestly?
They have 270 stores, essentially open 24/7.
How much would it cost to monitor it in real time, while that inventory is also available to be picked up by a buyer each local store at a any given moment, you'd need dozens of people.
I dunno, several hundred thousands of dollars a year at least.
And for a company that is already losing money, that ain't going to happen.
If I was CEO of GC, my 1st order of business would be bringing back price negotiating with customers, which in my opinion, hurt the company more than anything else when they went to no more wheeling and dealing. It took most of the fun out of going there for so many of us. My 2nd order of business would to put the main focus back on the working musician, not 80-90% of the focus on the entry level player, like it has been for years now. Those entry level players go there once or twice and the majority of them get bored and stop playing, and they're done with GC. I feel GC has largely turned their backs on the people who really could make/keep them profitable. When I walk in there now, I don't feel like they are catering to people like me (the guy who has been playing for a 20 some odd years, and has money to spend on mid-high level gear - and will keep coming back). Instead they're catering a lot more to the kids who want their first $200-300 guitar/amp combo package. That bores the real customers (aka musicians) to death. But I can tell you when they stopped bargaining with customers, that was the main thing that made me lose interest in their store completely, and since then I haven't bought so much as a spare cable or 2 from them in the last 10-15 years... and I know so many others who feel the same way... as well as several former employees that would say the same thing (including even the former vice pres of sales for GC).
Those of us who remember how they used to operate, can also remember a time when it was so busy in the average store on a daily basis, you could barely get anyone's attention for the first half hour you were there, just to ask a question about a piece of gear. Business used to be booming for them. And they had much better selection on average if mid-high level gear. I think it could happen again if they put the right people back in charge (although they probably never will). But if they changed their business model back to what worked so well for them for the first several decades, and at the same time put in the effort required to make their online game as strong as it should be, then the little things like getting a website that worked better and updated automatically would be something they could afford to pay attention to (and drum up a lot more business from). In all honestly, I don't care about GC anymore or what they do... I'd rather support smaller, locally owned shops, and even major retailers like Sweetwater who have their online act together so much better than GC's hokey system. But I think they're truly their own worst enemy. They have so much infrastructure in place, if they had the right attitude, they could be awesome. Problem is, greedy money guys in suits aren't going to see that, and that's who runs them nowadays.
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wintremute
mediocrity at its finest
- Oct 16, 2014
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I don't agree that it would take dozens of people. 270 stores aren't selling that much used gear that a few people couldn't keep up with it if they were updating all day. And I don't know of any GCs open 24/7. As a matter of fact, I remember when they were all open until 9-10 pm every weekday night, and now they're done at 7pm at most stores... I honestly think they just need more people with "can do" attitudes instead of people who assure them it can't be done and this is why, blah blah.. Really, the world needs more of that. We as people of this planet seem to have lost that attitude. Our grandparents generation would slap us silly.
Don't be surprised by being screwed by GC. They constantly screw their employees so what makes you think that customers are special or immune to it?
I don't disagree with much of what you're saying. But I would add that haggling has been eliminated from many retail verticals with the abundant pricing information available online these days. My guess is that the new players are more likely to buy for the first time in person so they can get advice and be able to better understand some of the basics that experienced players all take for granted. Experienced players seem more equipped to buy most of what they need online fairly easily.
It is fair to say GC gets far less than 10% of my business these days for any number of reasons, but I don't hold anything against them. It just happens that I choose the best option available for whatever it is, and that more often than not is not GC.
However, calling the challenges they face with their website "little things" couldn't be further from correct. In order to have real-time inventory online would most likely require that GC modernize all their major backoffice systems. This could very well be the single most expensive project in GC history. I know many large retailers who are stuck on backend systems running on mainframes or midrange computer systems that are many decades old.
Should they modernize? The easy answer is yes, of course they should.
Can they afford to? Probably not. Can they afford not to? Also, probably not.
Having real-time inventory on their website would clearly be to their advantage as a business. If it were easy then they would have already done it. The fact that they have not done it shouldn't be used to infer anything other than the fact that it will be expensive and hard to do.
It is a non-starter. You can't throw bodies at this problem. The problem needs a real fix. You have imagineered a process that may not possible on their systems. The people you would task to do this can only do things that their computers have been programmed to allow them to do. I don't think it is ten times more complex than you imagine. It is probably a thousand times more complex than you imagine.
(Plus your solution still doesn't solve the OP problem when two different people buy the same item online)
It does, and they do and if you buy something online it goes out of stock immediately, and I bet the store abides by that too.
Works the same if it's in the process of checking out and has been scanned, but if some guy's holding it in his hands (or the store's holding it for someone to check out, perhaps) then that's different.
It's as instant as it can be, which is to say not immediate but close enough. And sometimes two people go for something at the same time. Not sure, again, how this is GC"s fault. People just can't be happy, I guess.
