Unfortunately, GC's problems at this stage have much less to do with how much gear they sell than dealing with the terms they have with Bain Capital who acquired it and subsequently passed the majority onto a partner, Ares Capital. Ridiculously complicated, especially if one is trying to find some aspect that has to do with music hardware sales since there's practically none. But the short of it is that GC was bought by a private equity firm, so they have only one product and that is money. The whole idea of a private equity firm is NOT to run a successful company. Their sole reason for existing is to get investors to fill the pot, which is used to buy a suitable company, which gets a short term new coat of paint and fairy dusting, which can be many things but is usually simply cost cutting measures made by people who not only don't know the specific business they're dealing with, but don't care. They don't care about the market of the company and they don't care that they don't care. Their job is not to make GC successful. Their job is to make short term money for the equity firm. In short, it's a losing battle. I'm not saying GC is going out of business or anything like that, but they are owned by a company who is waiting to flip them, and that's not done here by increasing sales, it's only done in that world by cutting costs.
So vendors went X months without getting paid, and then it was twice as long, and some said we can't survive if you don't pay the invoices, and it's killing us to send you more stock. This and how the communications went over that period caused some manufacturers to simply pull out. Much has been smoothed over since then but it hurt GC. Haven't kept up on the details, but it's supposed to be a bit more on track now. If you've been to one and the mood was somber it also might have been due to a visit by the Union buster that Ares pays to make the rounds and squelch the recent attempts by employees to get fair wages and paid for past labor abuses.
Also Musician's Friend is a sister company, and had a liquidation of a large amount of slow moving stock that was characterized harshly in the financial press, who delight in writing obits early so they can say I told you so when it happens, whether it happens in 2 years or 200 years.
So if GC makes it or doesn't make it through this it won't be because of anything gear related. It's just the ugly part of finance referred to as "Vulture Capitalism".
