Will Guitar Center actually fold?

If GC folds, it (along with e-commerce I suppose) will have killed off basically all the decent guitar stores anywhere near me, and then after folding, have left a void of any sort of bricks and mortar guitar stores in Idaho.
 
Anyone know what percentage of instruments and accessories GC and their related companies comprise in the us?
 
Short term, they'll buy time with re-organization. The fact that they are trying to spend their way out of the hole by opening new stores will just result in mass layoffs later this year. But in the next few years, the brick and mortar GC's will be a thing of history. They'll liquidate ll of that and pull back to online only (GC/MF/M123/WWBW/etc.).

National box stores are dying from the "race to the bottom," chances are Best Buy stores will go in the next few years as well.
 
Wyatt said:
National box stores are dying from the "race to the bottom," chances are Best Buy stores will go in the next few years as well.
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Which if that is in fact true, will annoy me, as that box store helped to take down cool stores like this: http://www.yelp.com/biz/old-boise-guitar-co-boise

that had found a niche previously. Other than Chesbro's over in Idaho Falls, there is no full service music store that specializes in guitar in the whole state that I can think of.
 
Mark Wein said:
It seems like companies like Gibson and Fender would be severely impacted if GC were to go away.
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Well then MAYBE Gibson and Fender will start doing business with Ma and Pa shops again.
Hey, they put themselves into this possible situation....
Get back to small shops and the people just might support you again...

Will GC fold...? GOD I HOPE SO!
 
I avoid Guitar Center as much as humanly possible.

While I hate to see GOOD music stores go out of business, I don't qualify Guitar Center as being a "good" music store in any sense of the word.

With any luck, they'll go tits-up, and the privately-owned smaller shops will make a comeback.
 
Paints a picture of a company pursuing a relentless growth and market dominance strategy and going deeply into debt to do it. I guess the idea was that eventually they would have essentially no competition.

Wins big if it works. Fails spectacularly if it doesn't.
 
Help!I'maRock! said:
i think that given the nature of the internet marketplace, the traditional M&P will never again be the way it was.
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Agreed...but a lot of people who have no compunction about buying strings/effects/gadgets online still insist on going to a shop to try out a guitar or amp that they're buying. I've seen a few smaller stores do alright, and one smaller regional chain (Alto Music, who started with 3 stores in the Hudson Valley) do waaay better than alright.
 
MojoFilter said:
Agreed...but a lot of people who have no compunction about buying strings/effects/gadgets online still insist on going to a shop to try out a guitar or amp that they're buying. I've seen a few smaller stores do alright, and one smaller regional chain (Alto Music, who started with 3 stores in the Hudson Valley) do waaay better than alright.
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Alto also does a ton of online business. They've been written up in Music Trades and Retailer magazines as an example of how to do business today. but the small hole in the wall store like the one i teach at? gone within 5 years. either by choice, force, or starvation. with or without GC.
 
Help!I'maRock! said:
Alto also does a ton of online business. They've been written up in Music Trades and Retailer magazines as an example of how to do business today. but the small hole in the wall store like the one i teach at? gone within 5 years. either by choice, force, or starvation. with or without GC.
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Alto's stores always seem to be busy, and there are plenty of Guitar Centers in Westchester, Rockland and Northern Jersey, not to mention Sam Ash.

Point being: I think that there are always going to be places that do alright with a physical store presence. Buying gear isn't as big of an expense as say, buying a car, but if the place is smart, hip, carries decent gear and have reasonably knowledgeable salespeople, people still want to try before they buy...especially with Musician's Friend no longer being any sort of a bargain for anything, at all.

I've bought a guitar online before; I don't know that I'd do it again...it was too much of a crap shoot, and it's a pain in the ass if you don't like what you end up with. I don't have the same issues buying a pedal online, though.
 
MojoFilter said:
Alto's stores always seem to be busy, and there are plenty of Guitar Centers in Westchester, Rockland and Northern Jersey, not to mention Sam Ash.

Point being: I think that there are always going to be places that do alright with a physical store presence. Buying gear isn't as big of an expense as say, buying a car, but if the place is smart, hip, carries decent gear and have reasonably knowledgeable salespeople, people still want to try before they buy...especially with Musician's Friend no longer being any sort of a bargain for anything, at all.

I've bought a guitar online before; I don't know that I'd do it again...it was too much of a crap shoot, and it's a pain in the ass if you don't like what you end up with. I don't have the same issues buying a pedal online, though.
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Alto would not be able to survive without their online presence. Take that away, and they fold tomorrow. Do they need the stores? Of course. but you can no longer only have a physical presence. it has to be accompanied by an online presence as well.
 
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