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What would YOU like from Guitar Center?

#161
MonkeyBass said:
I'm not going to read this whole thread. I'm a busy man. So I may be repeating things that have already been said in the last 5 pages.

Full discloser: I worked for GC for a few years in the late '90's early '00's

I know how the company operates and they have the wrong priorities.

They sell cheap, junky gear because it has the highest profit margin. This is a fine business plan when it comes to keeping the business alive but they neglect the pros. It's a store for beginners, plain and simple. Pros go to GC to buy accessories and generally not instruments. Mom and Dad go to GC to by Jr. a beginner Squire Pack.

High-end instruments should be stored away from the general public. I can't tell you how many times I've seen a nice high-end bass with all the knobs stolen or some big gash in the finish. Have some pride in the stock! When I worked at GC we'd keep the nicer instruments on the top hooks so that people would have to ask to play them. This way we could get the punk kid to take his wallet chain off before he scratched it.

Maintain the stock. It's not hard. We did it when I was guitar manager at my store. Just have a system down. Choose a section of the wall and work on it all day during slow times.

Commission is fine so long as the company honors it. I'm not sure how they run the business now but they used to set sales goals and then give you a commission check only if you reached the goal. Then they'd raise the goal the next month. Eventually you never got a commission. Totally lowered morale in the whole store. It caused a lot of employee turnover.

GC also needs to pay their employees better. At least pay the management better. I was a manager working 45 to 55 hour weeks and could barely afford my bills every month. Again, too much work for the amount of pay. Caused a lot of employee turnover.

Another thing that was always frustrating as an employee was not being able to send back or repair defective equipment. Instead they'd make me throw a sale tag on it and try to pawn it off on some poor person who's trying to get a deal only to find the gear is defective and has "all sales final" written on the receipt.

I should be able to request a piece of gear into a store to try it without having to purchase it. GC has lost many many sales because of this we-can't-order-special-gear-unless-you-buy-it policy. It's stupid, and bad business. If you order it in and the customer doesn't want it... send it back! See above.

More basses. Not more Fenders, there are too many of those anyway, more BRANDS and more stock. If I ever need a MIM Fender, Ibanez, Warwick, or Schecter I know where to go but how about ANYTHING else?

The pro audio section is usually in pretty terrible shape. Just a bunch of expensive outboard gear shoved into a rack and not hooked up for demo. There's always an employee that has no idea how a signal flow works. Usually there's a set of Mackies or KRK's with the dust caps poked in. Again, take some pride in the stock. Have a demo room that works, has a decent demo set up (like a small multi-track song on a Pro Tools session or something), and most importantly is LOCKED and only open to serious buyers. And train someone so that I don't have to teach the employee how to patch a compressor into a console.

That's all I can think of right now.

I hope this is constructive.
Click to expand...

Good post ... good honest info.
 
#162
Luckie said:
When there's no one behind the service desk and all of the salespeople are hiding in the acoustic corral, getting a cable is tough.
And it shouldn't be tough to try gear I might buy. It's in their interest to make things hassle free.
Now I agree that having to ask for a cable/help isn't a problem, but not having someone to ask is.
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+1

I hear a lot of people complain about GC employees being 'too' eager to help in order to make sales, but more often than not I find myself alone in a bass room with maybe one instrument cable in the whole lot and a ton of amps with no speaker cables. I shouldn't have to hunt for an employee. That stuff should already be available/handled before I even walk into the store.
 
#163
I really don't have any problems with the sales people hovering.

Here's what I do:
* When they come up to me, I automatically ask for them to find me a patch. And just pick out an amp to try at random.
* Be curt ... not rude ... just curt. The shorter the answer the better. (nobody wants to hover around someone who's obviously not feeling them)
* When they give you some silly sales pitch ... Look at them like ... "No s**t Sherlock. Anything else you'd like to waste my time with."

These steps ward off the bothersome employees pretty well.
HOWEVER, if the salesperson is a bassist, or cool, and is honestly trying to be helpful, I'll humor them ... however I'll still ask for them to find me a patch. :smug:
 
#167
251 said:
The OP is what do you want from GC? So, please tell us what you find & like at those 2 stores that GC could offer, too.
Click to expand...

1) Selection:

[Invalid or Expired Link Removed]

[Invalid or Expired Link Removed]

I'd venture to say you're probably not going to find this kind of selection at any GC.

I'd also say that GC was never meant to offer this kind of selection. They cater to a different audience. Which is one reason I wouldn't shop there for boutique instruments.

2) Excellent customer service. These places always answer their emails promptly and they know their stuff.

3) No pushy sales folks.

4) Condition: Gear has not been abused and set-up is just about perfect on every instrument.

Again, GC attracts a different type of clientèle and they have a corporate structure with different goals.

You wouldn't go to Wal-Mart with the expectation of buying an Armani suit, so why would you go to GC and expect a Dingwall Super J?

---------------------

Edit: I predict that if GC corporate is actually reading any of this right now, one of them is gonna search for a Dingwall Super J because they don't know what the hell it is. lol
 
#168
metallicafan18 said:
Have all the gear set-up and ready to play. This includes, all the action on guitars and basses, keeping them in tune, and have cables at the amps to be used.

Also, better trained employees.
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+10000000000 That`s my only gripe with GC, really. My location has a pretty good selection of gear, but it`s all so horribly unplayable, you can`t possibly evaluate any of it. Nothing more frustrating than being alone in a room with about 70k worth of gear and all of it unusable. That 2k MM isn`t so cool with the strings 3/4" in off the FB, and the neck has enough bow in it to shoot arrows with. I have no pretentions; I don`t go to GC looking for a Dingwall...but is it too much to ask for a Squier with a decent setup ?:mad:
 
#170
phillipkregg said:
1) Selection:

[Invalid or Expired Link Removed]

[Invalid or Expired Link Removed]

I'd venture to say you're probably not going to find this kind of selection at any GC.

I'd also say that GC was never meant to offer this kind of selection. They cater to a different audience. Which is one reason I wouldn't shop there for boutique instruments.

2) Excellent customer service. These places always answer their emails promptly and they know their stuff.

3) No pushy sales folks.

4) Condition: Gear has not been abused and set-up is just about perfect on every instrument.

Again, GC attracts a different type of clientèle and they have a corporate structure with different goals.

You wouldn't go to Wal-Mart with the expectation of buying an Armani suit, so why would you go to GC and expect a Dingwall Super J?

---------------------

Edit: I predict that if GC corporate is actually reading any of this right now, one of them is gonna search for a Dingwall Super J because they don't know what the hell it is. lol
Click to expand...
All good points. OTH, I am not likely to get on an airplane to shop for a Bass. I might travel long distance, if I know what I want will be there when I arrive but ...
 
#171
What I'd like to see at GC is the same thing I'd like to see at any guitar shop: more selection.

There's a huge lack of basses in the Portland metro area it seems. There's only one guitar shop that's less than a 45 minute bus ride away and it's one of the smallest music shops in the state. They have pretty good selection for their size, but it's just not enough. GC actually has decent selection, but could have more. (Surprisingly, it doesn't have a whole lot of fenders, it has mostly Ibanez).

Between work, school and church, I don't really have the time to ride the bus for an hour to get to a shop I plan on spending maybe a half hour at, only to spend another hour riding home.
 
#172
I think you (we) have to understand/remember that *we* are not the guys GC makes their money from: They make their money from Mom and Dad who are buying Sonny boy his first or second guitar. That pro/semi-pro guys like us walk into a GC, and that GC sometimes carries nice gear just gives them cred to their real customers, the parents. The margins they make on those cheap made-in-whoknowswhere guitar and amp combos is MUCH greater than that of new EBMM, USA Fender or any other desirable axe they carry. Additionally, at the $150-$400 they move much quicker, so again, they make more margin.

I do *not* fault GC for being that way. It's a business model, and they make money for their parent company. What I *do* fault them for is driving stores that carry GOOD gear out of business. A GC moves into the are, drives the other stores out, and *then* your stuck with the gear THEY carry, period. It stinks.

That and all the other stuff (what good gear they have is abused, etc).

So really: You wanna fix GC for guys like us? Carry better gear that is in good shape and tell the kid on the Jackson/Marshal half stack playing Metallica to TURN DOWN!
 
#173
This is probably not a feasible idea at all. But one solution to the problem of people playing to loud, if it were possible/feasible, would be to limit the output of all the amps so that they couldn't go above a certain decibel level.

Although honestly, I haven't been to any music shops where people were playing so loudly that it bothered me. I remember one time an employee was showing off an amp at one store (a local shop, not GC) and that was a bit on the loud side. However, he played for maybe 5 seconds, that's how it should be.

I've actually experienced very few of the things that people complain about most at GC, but I think it's just because I'm lucky. I'm almost always the only person in the bass area, the guitar amps are just far enough away that unless they really blast em it doesn't bug me, and the drums are on the opposite side of the store in an enclosed room. Plus, it's pretty rare that I find a bass on the wall that needs a setup very badly.
 
#175
onlyclave said:
Hence the argument in favor of commissioned salespeople.

If you pay a kid 10 bucks an hour with no commission then he gets paid 10 bucks whether you buy something or not. He doesn't care.
Click to expand...

True.

I've often thought about setting up a music store (should I win the lotto...). I wouldn't have a huge store like GC, but no matter the size, I would pay my folks based on A) customer sat and B) sales. Sales is easy to determine; Customer Sat is a whole nuther thing... Simple example: I bought a used keyboard a the GC in Pasadena a few weeks ago. The transaction went smoothly, no hassles and the salesguy even carried it out to my car... But he could barely form a cohernet sentence and had to have his "manager" answer my questions... When he spoke, he said things like "uh... dunno... it...uh..." and looked at the ground. Now, I know teens are kinda that way, but Geez - - can I have someone to talk to who isn't gripped by teen angst and ennui? Him, I wouldn't hire. But I shouldn't bitch overmuch - I got a good deal (after grinding them) and got in and out with minimal ear damage. However, the keyboard dept at that store was a MESS - half the speaker/amp pairs were dorked up, and some fire alarm keep beeping like it needed a new battery... Hardly the environment to shop for a musical device... But that's GC.
 
#176
Well this is why commission should work right? If the employee is on commission he'll try to help the customer, keep his stock playable, make sure the amps are working etc... because he's motivated to get the sale every time. No commission, lazy workers. What's the point otherwise?

That's what happened to me when I worked there. They chiseled away at my commission until I just didn't have any motivation to sell, or clean, or say "hi" to customers. I got paid the same either way.
 
#177
BigOldHarry said:
The margins they make on those cheap made-in-whoknowswhere guitar and amp combos is MUCH greater than that of new EBMM, USA Fender or any other desirable axe they carry. Additionally, at the $150-$400 they move much quicker, so again, they make more margin.

I do *not* fault GC for being that way. It's a business model, and they make money for their parent company. What I *do* fault them for is driving stores that carry GOOD gear out of business. A GC moves into the are, drives the other stores out, and *then* your stuck with the gear THEY carry, period. It stinks.

That and all the other stuff (what good gear they have is abused, etc).

So really: You wanna fix GC for guys like us? Carry better gear that is in good shape and tell the kid on the Jackson/Marshal half stack playing Metallica to TURN DOWN!
Click to expand...


YOU may be incensed by the apparent lack of care that things get at GC - but you know that there's no way that GC can be held responsible for people stealing knobs, batteries and switch-ends from the gear.

What you've said is somewhat assumptive and drawing to a conclusion that imputes poor or badly formed motives on me and a lot of other people.

I once watched in total awe as a guy stuffed a Flying Vee down his pants - and thankfully the salesmen and video cam saw it too. That takes gombies to do something like that. Knobs have a nasty habit of spiriting away.

I saw another guy stealing the fuse out of an Ampeg amp. He got nabbed too - but the security cams again. A FUSE fer cryin' out loud!

So - a lot of what you said is true - the part about things missing on gear, but I've never seen anyone go away with them not being replaced from parts off the wall to make the unit complete and whole again when it gets bought. A few times a buyer is cash-compensated for a missing knob or piece.

The biggest problem with a retail store is that people actually have to touch (eek!) and play (double eek!) the very guitars/basses they want to play - that or GC can just slam the doors and go completely on-line.

The losses to damaged gear is very high for a store like GC. I think the last time I was there I saw a brand new PRS SE with a cracked neck (the head was hanging off) for sale on the carousel for $150.00.

I buy almost everything at GC as I find their gear is top notch - not boutique enough like you perhaps, but I am satisfied with the basses and gear I/they have.

About missing knobs - ibid:: I mean - how many times can someone steal something that's already missing? I think leaving knobs off once they get stolen is a better deterrent to theft. If it ain't there, chances are it can't be stolen again.

Somehow, though - I think I have been insulted.
 

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