Is Guitar Center really an official Guild retailer?

SteveT

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I have heard great things about some of the new Guilds coming out of Oxnard or Asia and just wanted to try some out. On the Guild website it showed me a map of local official retailers and the closest one to me in Sacramento was Guitar Center. Since my favorite local music store doesn't carry any Guilds, I drove down there only find that they hardly had anything. Only two vintage Guilds and one Jumbo Junior Bass acoustic. The acoustic area was basically a Taylor and Martin museum.

Questions -
Have others had similar experiences?
Does Guild now have a business model of selling most of their new guitars online through places like Sweetwater and Reverb?
How is it that I live in the capital of California but I can't easily get my hands on a guitar made in California?
Is it hard to buy a Honda in Tokyo?
 

walrus

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I have seen Guild electrics at a Guitar Center near me, but no acoustics.

But my local "mom and pop" has both a selection of both Guild acoustics and electrics! They have carried Guild guitars for years...

walrus
 

Guildedagain

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I have seen Guild electrics at a Guitar Center near me, but no acoustics.

But my local "mom and pop" has both a selection of both Guild acoustics and electrics! They have carried Guild guitars for years...

walrus

Cool. I've never been to a music store that was Guild dealer, unless you count GC, but that doesn't count for me, can barely even stand being in one.
 

SteveT

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I just copied my post and sent it directly to Guild. If I get a reply I will let you know. I know the company is starting all over from scratch and I really want them to do well. They may be frustrated too. I know in retail that "shelf space" is brutally competitive.
 

PittPastor

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My local GC has begun stocking the MIC Guilds. They don't carry any of the Oxnard Guilds. They will have some vintage Guilds if they have taken them on trade, but not many. One of those sold pretty quickly once I took it into the "Inner Room" to play it and accidentally left it there. I got a MIC to move once the same way. When put in the room with the Taylors, Martins and Gibsons, they seem to do quite well. When left out with the Yamahas, Alvarez and Epiphones... not so much. Interesting. It's not a scientific study, of course. Just anecdotal.

But I am not sure that it would be a motivator for GC to know that. If a Guild in the Martin/Taylor room sells, that probably means a Martin or Taylor didn't. And my guess is that they would prefer to move the Taylor and Martin guitars than the Guild.
 

fronobulax

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The relationship between Guild and GC has always been murky. Maybe there will be some clarification. First Musician's Friend has an authorized Guild Dealer badge on their website. So presumably they are an authorized dealer. Their stock seems to include MIA, MIC and MIK instruments. GC either owns MF or they have a common corporate parent (was not clear in 30 seconds of searching). So a GC store could certainly broker a transaction through MF if they wanted to and it may be that GC is an authorized dealer because of that. In which case is what instruments does Guild expect an authorized dealer to actually have in stock? During the NH days there was a time when my local dealer was required to have Guilds from all product lines and factories in stock. In order to get the NH models and the Arcos models that sold well in his market, he also had a minimum stocking requirement for the MIC acoustics and the then new MIK electrics. He was willing to stock one or two MIC Guilds because it got him access to the NH Guilds but he could never sell them. In his market that price point was owned by Taylor. Before the end of the NH years, Guild revised the "authorized dealer" agreement and he was allowed to specify which factories were making product that he wanted access to. So he could still be an authorized dealer but only stock NH and Newark Street lines. This was good for his bottom line but it left some customers confused because they would go to a Guild dealer and not see they models they hoped to see.
 

Guildedagain

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During the NH days there was a time when my local dealer was required to have Guilds from all product lines and factories in stock.

That's how a manufacturer instantly loses a small town music store. This area prob has a million people in it, and the only Gibson dealer is GC. The biggest local music store with a long history in the area had to tell Gibson goodbye ten years or more ago over the same ridiculous p00p...

The guitars were so overpriced and the quality wasn't there anyway, good riddance.

Maybe the acoustics were better, I don't know, but gone forever.

Unless you want to go to GC and hear a shaky intro to Enter the Sandman, a few times...
 
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SFIV1967

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GC either owns MF or they have a common corporate parent.
Musician's Friend, Inc. is a subsidiary of Guitar Center Holdings, Inc.. From various sources:
"In 1999, Guitar Center purchased...Musician's Friend for $33.5 million. Musician's Friend became a wholly owned subsidiary headquartered in Westlake Village, California."
Ralf
 
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SteveT

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Just goes to show you how important the marketing department is to a company. Bob Taylor gets most of the credit for the success of Taylor yet he started the company with Kurt Listug who handled the sales so Bob could focus on building quality guitars. They were, and still are vital to the success of that company. Since we are talking business, I once had a friend who owned a Baskin and Robbins ice shop. Corporate office told him had to now start sell high quality coffee and forced him to buy a very expensive machine that made fancy drinks. He told them it was a bad idea especially since there was a Starbucks located next door to his store. They didn't listen and made him buy it anyways. Needless to say, he didn't sell a lot of coffee.
 

adorshki

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Before the end of the NH years, Guild revised the "authorized dealer" agreement and he was allowed to specify which factories were making product that he wanted access to. So he could still be an authorized dealer but only stock NH and Newark Street lines. This was good for his bottom line but it left some customers confused because they would go to a Guild dealer and not see they models they hoped to see.
Let's not forget that when Fender revamped the dealer network shortly after opening New Hartford, GC was specifically off the list for MIA models because their volume requirements were too large for NH's capacity.
I doubt that's changed in Oxnard, although GC's purchasing policies may have,
In fact at the beginning I seem recall a lot of surprise that CMG/Oxnard didn't seem all that interested in signing up GC and I suspect it may have had more to do with GC's credit woes than their volume requirements.
GC was ALWAYS authorized for MIC product and that's what they primarily stock.
My local GC has begun stocking the MIC Guilds. They don't carry any of the Oxnard Guilds. They will have some vintage Guilds if they have taken them on trade, but not many. One of those sold pretty quickly once I took it into the "Inner Room" to play it and accidentally left it there. I got a MIC to move once the same way. When put in the room with the Taylors, Martins and Gibsons, they seem to do quite well. When left out with the Yamahas, Alvarez and Epiphones... not so much. Interesting. It's not a scientific study, of course. Just anecdotal.
Also remember that at that time Fender specifically WANTED to stay out of big box stores with the MIA guitars and WANTED to market the MIA product through smaller shops that would give the brand more attention as "near boutique quality" builds.
Finally, there's been complaints about the difficulty of finding new MIA guitars to test drive ever since the close of Tacoma.
That in itself has created a "Can't win" scenario : can't sell guitars without a test drive, can't get a test drive without a guitar.
I've seen several reports here that authorized dealers (including GC now) are happy to order one for you to try but it's not the same as being able to try at least a couple of a given model or A/B different models when one is
simply exploring options to narrow down the search.
Finally CMG seems to be much more comfortable with the online marketing model with partners like Sweetwater and MF; apparently it's being successful so do they really need GC?
Probably not.
But I am not sure that it would be a motivator for GC to know that. If a Guild in the Martin/Taylor room sells, that probably means a Martin or Taylor didn't. And my guess is that they would prefer to move the Taylor and Martin guitars than the Guild.
Interesting question, one would think a sale is a sale and the unit generating the most profit would be the preferred sale, BUT:
I'm reminded of volume threshold rebates that were available to dealers when I was in the car biz (sell 50 units of a given model in a month, get $200.00/unit back), so it wouldn't surprise me if similar deals are offered to them by makers like Taylor and Martin.
 
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SteveT

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One business practice Guild may consider is something like the Taylor road show. A number of years ago they had a road show here in Sacramento at a local store (not GC) and Doyle Dykes played and talked about Taylors. After seeing him half of me never wanted to pick up a guitar again because he is so good, and the other half wanted to buy a Taylor to be just like him. I also went to a large music festival once and Taylor had a booth with about 10 of their latest guitars for anyone to pick up and play. No pressure to buy anything but just answering questions. I am noticing a lot of car companies following this model too. There are so many huge vacant box stores in California suburbs right now it is alarming. Business models always change. Just ask Kodak, Sears and ToysRUs.
 

mavuser

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Oxnard Guilds are in the Guitar Center catalogs, and ive seen them in the Guitar Center store in Times Square
 

SFIV1967

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One business practice Guild may consider is something like the Taylor road show.
Guild in New Hartford did this in 2012 and 2013 with Doyle as well. It was moreless a Doyle event. Just in selected locations like Austin Bazar or Daves Guitarshop or Sweetwater:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jytomzpoOOs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oa4b6WNgaVY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43P54akiN38

Taylor and Martin do those events all the time, almost every year both are in many stores in Germany for instance. They have to move a lot of guitars...

Ralf
 

SteveT

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Two days ago I took SFIV1967's advice and emailed Guild directly through their website for some clarification about how their guitars are sold at Guitar Center. This morning, I received a really good response back from Patrick at Guild/Cordoba. We had a nice correspondence about guitars (and the California coast near Oxnard) and it is good to know that the legacy of the Guild brand seems to be in good hands. I asked his permission to post his response on this forum and he said yes. Here it is.

"Happy to clear it up. Yes, Guitar Center is an authorized Guild dealer. They can get any product we make. In fact, we recently created a Guild guitar exclusively for them. Guitar Center has many "levels" of stores, and each level has a different set of inventory that they stock. So the smaller stores may only carry a couple Guild guitars, while the biggest ones carry quite a few, including our Guild USA California made guitars.
Unfortunately we don't get to decide what a dealer stocks. They place an order with us based on what they feel they have the market for. If it were up to us, every store would carry everything we make. So if you're looking for Guild USA in stores, asking for them at your favorite local independent dealer is the best thing to help them gauge the interest. If they are constantly being asked for Guild USA, they are more likely to carry it."
 

merlin6666

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My local luthier is an authorized dealer and I think he signed up because Guild does not have outrageous minimum requirements. He has most of the Westerly Series in stock and I think a D20 and D40 that are not moving. He feels that the US models are overpriced and is reluctant to order another though I'm prodding him to get a 12 string. So the local GCs are probably just ordering what they like as well.
 

fronobulax

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Back in the NH days I had a long talk with my local dealer about stocking and the local market. There were definitely Guilds that he could not sell even at 40% off MSRP. The competition at the price point was deemed to be better and/or that price point was not what his customers were looking for. So he was glad not to have to stock one of everything :)

Tangentially I saw a picture from them on Facebook recently of several tastefully arranged Gibson, double cutaway, hollow body electrics (i.e. Starfire clones) that were available and in stock. What amused me is that there were at least four clearly identifiable Guild acoustics in the background and the bottom half of a Guild banner was visible.
 

fronobulax

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Two days ago I took SFIV1967's advice and emailed Guild directly through their website for some clarification about how their guitars are sold at Guitar Center. This morning, I received a really good response back from Patrick at Guild/Cordoba. We had a nice correspondence about guitars (and the California coast near Oxnard) and it is good to know that the legacy of the Guild brand seems to be in good hands. I asked his permission to post his response on this forum and he said yes. Here it is.

"Happy to clear it up. Yes, Guitar Center is an authorized Guild dealer. They can get any product we make. In fact, we recently created a Guild guitar exclusively for them. Guitar Center has many "levels" of stores, and each level has a different set of inventory that they stock. So the smaller stores may only carry a couple Guild guitars, while the biggest ones carry quite a few, including our Guild USA California made guitars.
Unfortunately we don't get to decide what a dealer stocks. They place an order with us based on what they feel they have the market for. If it were up to us, every store would carry everything we make. So if you're looking for Guild USA in stores, asking for them at your favorite local independent dealer is the best thing to help them gauge the interest. If they are constantly being asked for Guild USA, they are more likely to carry it."

Thanks.

My takeaway is that an Authorized Guild Dealer can order and sell any new Guild but that does not mean or guarantee that they will stock and display any Guilds. The advice to call and express disappointment if something is not available for inspection seems to be good advice that may encourage stocking in the future.
 

PittPastor

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I've seen several reports here that authorized dealers (including GC now) are happy to order one for you to try but it's not the same as being able to try at least a couple of a given model or A/B different models when one is simply exploring options to narrow down the search.

Not only that, but I wouldn't ask them to get something in just to try it. And, I'm not sure how others buy a guitar, but I usually sort of "sneak up" on the purchase. I don't decide: "You know, I think I will buy a $3K guitar today." Nor do I just drop in to GC while my wife is at the mall, see a guitar and think: "Wow, I'm taking that home with me today!"

I start by thinking about a guitar. Maybe I've seen it somewhere. Maybe I am thinking about some future performance, and I am needing a new sound. And I start looking at things online. Ask for advice on forums. Read reviews. Then stop by some place to play it. That might go on for a couple of visits while I alternate between talking myself out of it and talking myself into it. Then I make up my mind and buy it. Or not. And that's the problem, not knowing for sure that I actually will buy it, I can't justify asking them to get it in, and maybe be stuck with it.


But I am not sure that it would be a motivator for GC to know that. If a Guild in the Martin/Taylor room sells, that probably means a Martin or Taylor didn't. And my guess is that they would prefer to move the Taylor and Martin guitars than the Guild.

Interesting question, one would think a sale is a sale and the unit generating the most profit would be the preferred sale, BUT:
I'm reminded of volume threshold rebates that were available to dealers when I was in the car biz (sell 50 units of a given model in a month, get $200.00/unit back), so it wouldn't surprise me if similar deals are offered to them by makers like Taylor and Martin.

I would think there are spiffs and kickbacks when you are moving high end brands. And I would think that Guitar Center also gets a group volume discount that is helped by all stores trying to move certain models. I could be wrong.

What I would do (I think. IDK. I'm no guitar manufacturer!) Is offer stores a "Premiere Guild Dealer" option. To those stores, I would offer two types of guitars: Guitars for the show room, and guitars for the stock room. The showroom guitars would come with a 90 day return guarantee. (Or some timeframe...) If you didn't move them and wanted to return them, send them back, we pay for freight. No hassle. If you ended up selling them, they would have a lower profit margin than the stock guitars. This encourages, one for show, one for go. But if you wanted to stock Guilds and see what would happen, you would have limited risk. The returns I took back from dealers, I would work out a deal with MF or Sweetwater to sell for us under the "slightly used" category, and give them a chance to grab attention with special deals.

For the Premiere dealers, I would have more than just a banner. I would do what Apple and Samsung are doing in Best Buy stores, I would stage a mini store front. I'd have a flat screen TV playing the "Guild Story" videos, and I would have beautiful 4 color brochures available (like car dealers do) that let people take home something while they are trying to talk themselves into a $3K purchase.

But like I said, I know nothing about the actual business of selling guitars. What I do know is that it is rarely a question of: "May the best guitar win." And people tend to be brand loyal. "I'm a Taylor guy," "I've always liked Martins," whatever. You need to work to get people to try your models out.
 
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