Good article in Acoustic Guitar on the state of the independent music store

Stuball48

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MLBob:
Informative and very good article. Thanks for making it available to those of us who are not Acoustic Guitar subscribers.
 

walrus

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Nice post - interestingly I visited one of my local independent music stores today! And I've been in the Music Emporium that is in the article, they are more of a "boutique" store, but that may be why they have been successful.

BTW, random nitpick with the article - I've never heard shopping in a store and then buying on line called "showcasing" - only "showrooming". The opposite is "webrooming", where you do your research on-line, then buy in a store (very common in auto sales).

walrus
 
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dreadnut

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I love to go to Elderly because you can try so many new and vintage instruments. What's not to like about a whole rack of vintage mandolins, and an acoustic guitar room full of new and vintage Taylors, Martin, Guild, Huss & Dalton, Collings, Froggy Bottom, Santa Cruz, Gibsons...

Having said that, I bought my DV-52 sight-unseen online from a pawn shop in Huntsville, AL. Go figure.
 

walrus

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I love to go to Elderly because you can try so many new and vintage instruments. What's not to like about a whole rack of vintage mandolins, and an acoustic guitar room full of new and vintage Taylors, Martin, Guild, Huss & Dalton, Collings, Froggy Bottom, Santa Cruz, Gibsons...

Agreed! That's why the Music Emporium is cool! I went there to look at a Benedetto Benny, which I ended up not buying, but man, lots of great guitars there to check out!

walrus
 

GAD

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99% of the guitars I own were bought sight unseen but that's usually because I'm chasing a very specific model. Some of those I've seen only one for sale in 10 years so I'm probably not a normal customer. Hell, I'm probably not a normal anything at this stage in the game.

My Taylor, though, is special and I traveled to every authorized Taylor dealer within 100 miles looking for a completely different guitar. When I picked this one up (because it was so pretty) all other questing stopped. Sometimes there's no substitute for an in-hand tryout.
 

Quantum Strummer

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I love to go to Elderly because you can try so many new and vintage instruments. What's not to like about a whole rack of vintage mandolins, and an acoustic guitar room full of new and vintage Taylors, Martin, Guild, Huss & Dalton, Collings, Froggy Bottom, Santa Cruz, Gibsons...

Yup. Elderly accounts for a good % of my guitar stash, including four of my Guilds and all my uke & mando stash (one each). Good thing I live further away from them nowadays. :)

-Dave-
 

Westerly Wood

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I love to go to Elderly because you can try so many new and vintage instruments. What's not to like about a whole rack of vintage mandolins, and an acoustic guitar room full of new and vintage Taylors, Martin, Guild, Huss & Dalton, Collings, Froggy Bottom, Santa Cruz, Gibsons...

Having said that, I bought my DV-52 sight-unseen online from a pawn shop in Huntsville, AL. Go figure.

Elderly has a great brand too...
 

marcellis

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I tried to put a MiM Fender Jazzmaster on layaway at a local store. It had been deeply discounted from around $1k to $699.(Nice price for a local store.) He wouldn't do layaway. So I asked Sweetwater to match & bought it online.

I think the local one played a little better than the one I got. But that's life.

Local stores can survive, even thrive. But they can't compete on Gibsons or Fenders unless
they also go online & go big - like Elderly or Wildwood. They get really screwed over if they don't.
 
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