A sad day shopping

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sawdust123

sawdust123

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Nov 10, 2006
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Ventura County, CA
I was out running errands yesterday and found myself near the local GC with extra time. It has been years since I stepped inside so I figured, why not. I was hoping they may have some small digital mixers on display. I was very disappointed. The place felt like a going-out-of-business sale was in progress but they couldn't afford the signs telling me so. There was very little stock of anything. No working displays, almost no staff present, lots of empty space and most importantly, almost no customers. The demise of GC has been long in the making. Pressures from online sales, vulture capital ownership, the pandemic, inflation and more have all added up. When this location first opened, I could spend hours there while my ex was shopping nearby. The pro-audio manager was a friend of mine and local DJ but he left 5 or more years ago. Yesterday I was in and out of the store in about 2 minutes having felt that I had seen everything worth seeing. I blame a lot of their demise on their VC owners but it is still sad to see.
 
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I agree. The ones near me all seem to have the speakers they carry in the store in stock. Guitars seem to be well stocked...at least on display. Plenty of drum kits on display.

However, when you go into the "Pro Audio" room, it seems that there is less and less of everything. The DJ Controller room has a number of broken controllers on display most of which have not been changed out in over 2 years. They don't have much in stock of those particular controllers either. The used gear area use to have LOTS of used stuff for sale. Last few months there are only a handful of used items for sale, and the prices are sky high on those used items as well where it makes sense just to buy the product new if the product is being sold new there.

One of the locations is always well stocked on speaker and microphone cables. However, the other location has practically a bare cables wall. It just looks sad. Also, when it comes to light effects, they only have like 1 of that item in stock....MAYBE 2 of them. That has been how lighting has been in the GC stores for the last few years though. I suspect that light effects sell REAL SLOW out of the stores so they just don't keep much inventory of them, and if something is not in stock on the store they tell customers to just go online and buy it.

Guitar Center has been in massive debt for a long time. I have been wondering for the last 2 years how much road the company has left to travel before they have to shut things down or close down most of their stores.

Wit that said, All of my major speaker purchases in recent years has been at Guitar Center. I also recently purchased a light from Musiciansfriend.com (Guitar Center had a higher price for the light even though they are the same company)
 
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It's been reported that some of the GC's would be closing for good. I know that sucks but what can be done? These things happen. I would have never thought Toy's Are US would be out of business. Other businesses that you thought would remain for ever would go out of business. A big one was Sears. How many would have even suspected they would be out of business?
 
sawdust123 said:
. . . . It has been years since I stepped inside so I figured, why not.
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Therein lies the issue. You haven't been in the store because like everyone else you shop online now. The stores inventory reflects the small number of local musicians who still walk through the door.

Just review the boards here at OurDJTalk and you'll find nearly all references to gear shopping referring to online shopping.
 
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TES3S said:
ya, that one is prob the worst one out here, and it amazes me it still is there. With that said, I train/teach a lot of the PA employees at the other locations in Southern CA, and every time I am in GC, it makes me wonder....
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I agree. It used to be the closest store to GC HQ until they opened up the one in WLV. BTW, what are you doing these days that has you in a training role?
 
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Proformance said:
Therein lies the issue. You haven't been in the store because like everyone else you shop online now. The stores inventory reflects the small number of local musicians who still walk through the door.
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These days, I normally buy through my direct connections with the manufacturers. However, I used to stop into that GC because I was friends with the pro audio manager and he always treated me well. He left when upper management made his life unbearable. That left one other worker in pro who knew his stuff. He was the son of one of my Harman/JBL buddies but he was out the door a year or so later. After that, they had complete idiots in pro (but at least they still had bodies there). They then opened a store about a quarter mile from their corporate HQ. It was a better store because corporate mgmt would drop in on them all the time. However, even that store was trending downward before the pandemic.
 
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Guitar Center is doing most of it's business online via various site names. In addition to online sales being the new norm - there really isn't that much musical equipment to be sold anymore.

GC's primary customers have always been the casual musicians and that segment now works with essentially a computer and an interface. That's a full studio right there! With respect to instruments - Guitar center was pretty much Walmart in terms of range and diversity of product.

The music retailers that specialize in quality, diversity, or vintage product lines are still doing quite well with outstanding inventory. In fact, they probably had a boon during covid due to so many people staying home, picking up their instruments, and sharing online. Guitar center's line is best suited to the Christmas shoppers who don't delve to deep. I'm surprised they still operate any stores at all.
 
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I stopped by the more well stocked GC location yesterday. I purchased a new ADJ F4 Park Bag because one of Chauvet par bags, the zipper broke. Gave the bag to my son. He is using it for storing his RC parts in now.

Anyway, Here are some pics I took while I was there.

Notice that they only had TWO Controllers on display. One was a broken Numark Mixtrack Premium. Everything else was just a box on display
20231108_140752.jpg
No controller cases were in stock.


Lots of Harbinger Speaker for sale on CLEARANCE. The Bluetooth VARI 2408 and 2410 are both on sale for $199 and $249. They are trying to clear them out since the new 3000 series is out. Numark has a presentation desk set up here, but no controller on it. Disappointing. Also, they did not have any of the lighting effects going. I am sure they are trying to conserve energy, and keep the energy bill as low as possible. They use to have the lights going all day long!
20231108_140656.jpg


They just stocked all these speakers in the last month since I had been in there. They have geared up for the holidays. I also noticed in the Keyboards area that that have 4 different models of keyboards stacked about 5 to 6 feet high! That area to the right in this picture is their USED gear area. Not much was there. Only a sub and 5 different speakers, and the prices on all the used stuff was sky high.
20231108_140716.jpg


I also noticed for speaker stands, they are only keeping their Pro Line house stands in stock. There was nothing else in stock from another brand. Most of the lights on display only had 1 or 2 in stock on the shelf. Some of the lights on their truss were not in stock for sale or at least not on the shelf with a price tag. Also, I noticed only 3 employees were in the store, BUT they had a line of 8 or 9 people at the register. I used to see 4 to 5 employees in the store, and the pro audio area had nobody at the counter the entire time I was there. There use to always be someone there. Could be someone called out, OR they are choosing to have bare bones staffing levels.

I hope they stick around though. There are no other DJ equipment stores in my metro area besides the 2 guitar center locations.
 
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sawdust123 said:
I agree. It used to be the closest store to GC HQ until they opened up the one in WLV. BTW, what are you doing these days that has you in a training role?
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Bose sends me to many of the GC and Sam Ash locations throughout Southern CA. I train/educate/teach the Pro Audio sales employees on anything Bose-related. As you know, they make a commission from sales so the more they know, the easier they can sell.
 
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