Ignored Member
Neutered male
Dear Lord... a banjo uprising... we would be forced to bring in the harmonica militia to save us.
Will Guitar Center actually fold?
- Thread starter Mark Wein
- Start date
Dear Lord... a banjo uprising... we would be forced to bring in the harmonica militia to save us.
reverend1
Kick Henry Jackassowski
How so, I doubt the vendors are self financing GC's inventory. If they are they deserve to go under. I guess they could have around 90 days worth of receivables, but that should be it.
reverend1
Kick Henry Jackassowski
One drummer would turn them around.
Ignored Member
Neutered male
War is hell.
Help!I'maRock!
Mediocringly Derivative
One of the reasons the Fender IPO didn't happen was because of the large amount owed by GC.
It could be nothing, or it could be a house of cards.
reverend1
Kick Henry Jackassowski
Interesting, I can't believe Fender would do that. Not very smart at all.
Denverdave
Resident Ragamuffin
No one....which is why they will ultimately survive. Despite all the great deals in the online world, people still want to touch and hear when it comes to musical instruments. At least a decent number of people do. Though I wounder what percentage of guitars sold each day are in person as opposed to the internet....
Gary Blanchard
beloved, local musician
Without GC, where will 16 year-olds go to play poorly and loudly on instruments they will never be able to afford?
Help!I'maRock!
Mediocringly Derivative
Once Gibson and Fender changed their dealer contracts to amounts well above what most independent stores could afford, they made their own bed.
rsadasiv
Burnin' Daylight
I worked in Private Equity in the mid-2000's. Once the lenders have taken control of the board you cannot trust any top line P/L numbers. Depending on the buyout if you get down into EBITDA you might be able to see something, but basically the lenders are going to be taking as much cash out of the company as they can - they do the buyout so they can own essentially super-senior-debt, and get their money before any of the other senior debt-holders. Junior debt-holders, like suppliers, are at the very last people to get paid - so yeah, Fender and Gibson are whining in the press but there's really nothing they can do outside of not shipping GC any more merchandise.
I don't have any insight into the real accounting at GC, and I don't work in the industry any more so YMMV. As an uninformed civilian I would agree that things don't look good for GC.
I don't have any insight into the real accounting at GC, and I don't work in the industry any more so YMMV. As an uninformed civilian I would agree that things don't look good for GC.
reverend1
Kick Henry Jackassowski
We have a lot of small Fender dealers around here. The mom & pop where I take lessons has been a fender dealer since 1953.
Help!I'maRock!
Mediocringly Derivative
They had to move quite a bit of inventory to stay that way. Gibsons minimums were even higher that Fenders.
Jbird
Kick Henry Jackassowski
I know Elderly's stopped selling Gibson electrics some time ago, but they still sell Gibson acoustics, mandolins, & banjos.
Does Gibson have different rules for the different instruments?
reverend1
Kick Henry Jackassowski
That's the thing since I'm there every week, I see what gone and the new stuff that comes in. It's not a very high volume. I suppose they could be special ordering stuff for folks that I never see. If I had to guess, I would say they have around 15-20 at any time. They probably sell more Martin's than anything else.
Help!I'maRock!
Mediocringly Derivative
I know Elderly's stopped selling Gibson electrics some time ago, but they still sell Gibson acoustics, mandolins, & banjos.
Does Gibson have different rules for the different instruments?
At the time, you had to buy everything to stay a dealer. They may have relaxed the rules since.
dmn23
Duller than cardboard
See Ken Brawley, Brawley guitars, and MARS Music.
I met Ken and sold his guitars for a short while when he was getting started. It was amazing how fast he went from "NEVER WILL MY INSTRUMENTS BE IN GC" to a GC employee with his designs rebranded as a GC house brand once they showed him the money.
Also, I worked for a Fender dealer here locally for many years before I opened Premier Music. The deal 10 years ago was that he had to move $35k worth of dealer cost inventory every year or lose the contract. a couple of months before the holidays you'd have the rep here shoving an additional $10k work of shit we could never sell to our core demographic to move last years shit before the new stuff came out at Winter NAMM. At one point I think the buy-in for Gibson was $160k and $80k a year. Thats why some places would quit selling Gibson for a year or two at a time. When we were planning Premier in 2002-2003 we got to see Sam Ash and Mars enter the local market and I saw the pressures i put on the mom and pop I worked for and how thin the commissions became as soon as we had to compete with the three way price war that ended with Mars Music leaving a giant crater in the ground at the Block of Orange. That was why I set Premier up to never do what I consider "any retail with a serial number". I'd be out of business right now if I hadn't of been through that experience, too.