Guitar Center - are you kidding me?

[walrus]

So today I went to a local Guitar Center to kill some time while other family members shopped somewhere else. In the past I have bought a case there and some strings. Not my favorite music store, but better than looking at clothes...

So I'm looking around, and a saleman asks me if I need anything ("Need help, man?"), so I say "No, just looking at your guitars, particularly the vintage stuff. No Guilds, huh?".

And he says, completely serious, "Guild? Never heard of them...".

So I left.

walrus

 

[ac1dt3st]

So today I went to a local Guitar Center to kill some time while other family members shopped somewhere else. In the past I have bought a case there and some strings. Not my favorite music store, but better than looking at clothes...

So I'm looking around, and a saleman asks me if I need anything ("Need help, man?"), so I say "No, just looking at your guitars, particularly the vintage stuff. No Guilds, huh?".

And he says, completely serious, "Guild? Never heard of them...".

So I left.

walrus

that was the correct move at that juncture. man... :shock:

 

[twocorgis]

So today I went to a local Guitar Center to kill some time while other family members shopped somewhere else. In the past I have bought a case there and some strings. Not my favorite music store, but better than looking at clothes...

So I'm looking around, and a saleman asks me if I need anything ("Need help, man?"), so I say "No, just looking at your guitars, particularly the vintage stuff. No Guilds, huh?".

And he says, completely serious, "Guild? Never heard of them...".

So I left.

walrus

True dat. I went to the one near my office the other day to get a new pegwinder, and there wasn't a single Guild in the store. I mentioned it to the guy behind the counter and he looked at me like I had two heads. :shock:

 

[Taylor Martin Guild]

The kids that they hire are very wet behind the ears.
I once took my Guild 12 string to our GC to see what kind of deal they would make on a trade.
The kid that first waited on me had heard of Guilds but wasn't very up on them.
He had the store manager come to talk to be about a possible trade.
Only the manager can give a price for trades.
He was very aware of what I had and was willing to give me $1200.00 in trade value on a Taylor 410 6 string.
The deal breaker was that they would not come down on the list price on the Taylor and it would have cost me $400.00 to trade down to a Taylor 410.

I later sold the 12 string to a friend for the same $1200.00 and got my D-55.
That was a great trade!

 

[chazmo]

Didn't know Guild, huh. Unbelievable.

This is, unfortunately, the future of guitar retailing. Massive ignorance and extremely poor maintenance. Sigh. Selection of lowest-common-denominator stuff. Double sigh.

Support your locally owned stores, people.

 

[kyguild]

Didn't know Guild, huh. Unbelievable.

This is, unfortunately, the future of guitar retailing. Massive ignorance and extremely poor maintenance. Sigh. Selection of lowest-common-denominator stuff. Double sigh.

Support your locally owned stores, people.

+ 1 to that statement!

 

[Jeff]

Support your locally owned stores, people.

Amen my brother,

I'm lucky, my town has a family run shop that's a cut above. Conveniently located, with knowledgeable, long term, adult employees.

Noise level in every Guitar Center I've seen is almost painful.

 

[kevin the bass man]

I went to guitar center and asked about a set of tuners for my B301. The guy at the counter said: have you tried contacting guild and seeing if they can help you? I had to keep from laughing really hard. I told him Guild was bought out by Fender in the mid 90's, that Fender offers no factory suppor for Guilds, and pretty much doesn't acknowledge the existance of their electric guitars and basses. He looked at me funny and said : Oh!? uhhh... Needless to say, he was confused.

 

[Treem]

Go to Guitar Center.com and click on USED and search Guilds there! 8)

 

[killdeer43]

And just up the road a bit from Jeff, we have 2 locally-owned and operated music/guitar stores that have both been around for over 25 years.
One is an authorized Guild dealer and the other leans more toward Martin because, as I mentioned once before, he said that Fender is too difficult to deal with.
But I did get my D-50 from him 21 years ago, and he still remembers what a great guitar it was/is. :wink:

Buy local if you can,
Joe

 

[NEONMOONY]

I don't think you can really blame the kids or even call them ignorant because they don't know about Guilds. I mean, Fender has the brand and they don't even push 'em. It's hard to find many places that sell them although plenty of Fender dealers, like Guitar Center, sell the Fenders and Gretches. I always found Fender's strategy on Guilds a little confusing to say the least.

 

[wileypickett]

When John Hammond died some years ago, a friend of mine who wrote a music column for his town newspaper decided that some article extolling Hammond's lifetime of accomplishments was in order.

He got approval for the article from his editor, and called Columbia / Sony in NYC for some background and commentary.

He was put on hold and transferred 10 times (10 different people) before he got someone on the line who knew who Hammond was!

Glenn//.

 

[stclrob]

I went into a Guitar Center on Saturday to buy a channel footswitch for my amp. Very common item. They didn't have one.

 

[Bikerdoc]

I have never been into a Guitar Center. I'm thinking that the closest one would be in Toledo or Dayton; both 80 miles away. I'm afraid that I might have been a bit irate if I was told, "..never heard of 'em". Went to a Harley dealer once lookin' for a part for an old Panhead. Young dude at parts counter says, "What's a Panhead?" For a second I was a madman but then realized it wouldn't do any good and I almost understood the poor soul. But geeeeeeeeesh!! A Guitar Center dude nevering hearing of a Guild? Makes ya wonder how he got his job. I have my theory. :?

Peace

 

[walrus]

Oh yeah, Jeff, I forgot about the noise level! There were two different kids playing very loud bass guitar riffs right near me, plus the piped in store music (heavy metal). Whew!

As I've said before, I am lucky to have several nice locally-owned music stores within an hour of me, the closest is my favorite, which also happens to be a Guild dealer.

walrus

 

[fab467]

I guess if your store doesn't carry Guild, there's little reason to learn about them... :roll:

BTW, great avatar wileypickett!

 

[NEONMOONY]

stclrob wrote:

I went into a Guitar Center on Saturday to buy a channel footswitch for my amp. Very common item. They didn't have one.

When it comes to parts and such, Guitar Center seems to work on the ordering system. You will actually get it your stuff faster if you order it online yourself, from them or someone else such as MF or American Musical . Depending on the price, you might have have to deal with shipping costs, however.

 

[6L6]

The noise level in the high end acoustic area at the San Francisco GC is very low and is fine for playing acoustic.

As for GC & Guild, I think they stopped carrying Guild products 5 or more years ago. I'm not surprised that youngsters know little or nothing about Guild guitars. Hell, there were some young kids interviewed on TV the other day who had never heard of The Beatles!

I'm not sure how much I would have known about Guild acoustics if I hadn't grown up in the acoustic/folk music heyday of the early 60's (I'm 64). As for their electrics, the only guy I recall playing Guild that I distinctly remember doing so was Zal Yanovsky in The Lovin' Spoonful.

I'd cut the kids working at GC some slack.

6

 

[adorshki]

A Guitar Center dude nevering hearing of a Guild? Makes ya wonder how he got his job. I have my theory. :?

Peace

Hi Doc: I actually applied for an assistant manager job at a Guitar Center about 18 years ago, when Zenith decided to get out of the retail computer store business (the old "Heathkit" stores). Music product knowledge wasn't even a factor in their screeeing process, it's all about inventory management and turns (how many times can you sell $10,000 worth of inventory in a month, regardless of what that inventory is?). These issues ARE at the heart of any retail or wholesale business, but it sure shows you the emphasis is on sales/management skills first and product knowledge second, or even third or fourth. Same thing applies with cars, I've been a salesman there too. The whole dang world is just about moving boxes now and no one young enough to be dumb enough to hire even has a clue about what used to be relevant. Like service and product knowledge. :evil:

 

[walrus]

Right, adorshki, Guitar Center salespeople work on commission - IMHO, a very strange way to run a music store. But apparently, it works for them. The Wal-Mart of musical instruments!

Most members of the younger generation don't know what customer service is, not their fault, they haven't been exposed to it. Shopping malls, Target, Wal-Mart, all cookie cutter stores, and even cookie-cutter restaurants are what they are used to.

Don't get me going on standing in the snow pumping my own gas, remembering when I used to have a friendly attendant pump the gas, check my oil, wash my windshield, etc. - for signifiacntly less per gallon! Customer service is hard to find today...

Guitar Center is just a symptom of the way society has changed.

walrus