Guitar Shops are Closing - Do players care?

it's the one two punch why all your small mom and pop shops are going bye-bye [Music] Baxter here and Jonathan Casino guitars coming at you hard and fast one more time today thanks for joining us um we're talking there's a lot of shop closures has been happening this recently we've seen some on Facebook some shops we didn't know we knew some shops it's definitely a huge bomber yeah and people are like Baxter Jonathan why are these shops closing and when are you guys going to close them why aren't you well we're fortunately doing really well still yeah wood I was trying to find wood anywhere I think I'm sitting on wood too that sounds wrong but um no it's it's really it's a it's sort of a one-two whammy there's two things um a there's the mega sellers that they're competing with in a whole different way Sweet Water not GC in the same way it's mainly Sweet Water but um yeah and then on Beast the manufacturers now the direct competition and so that's a huge huge issue people like oh it's only a small percentage of their sales that's not the way business works unfortunately it changes and as you build your business plan for the future you have to adjust to that and be ready for what's coming yes and so we've already done it we sort of we're okay but a lot of shops have not prepared for it so we'll dig into a little bit Sweetwater is the reigning King yes absolutely and they are the reigning king for a reason they are fantastic at what they do they have great efficiency the you order a product it's usually shipped and out the door that same day or the next day at the latest it seems the customer service is pretty good we've noticed a little bit of a dip in it from our consumer-based talking just ever since the transitions have happened from you know the original founders passing off to the equity of privacy um but there's a cost to this efficiency too it's not just in in the it's it's akin to Walmart I'd say I think so I think that's good we all sort of we all sort of wanted that you know we want it easy we want cheap we want it fast okay we win so with Walmart which is great I was at Walmart the other day I had to buy a guy I guess I couldn't get down to the drugs I mean the hardware store in time before it closed I finished work and it was closed when I finished work but I need to get a wet dry back yeah so Walmart's open 24 hours but you know we've sacrificed um our American manufacturing for this so we it's all Chinese build products usually in there we have a fact we sacrifice all the mom and pop shops that used to be in our small towns for those big Mega concrete cinder block and you've we've started to see that with guitar shops the small ones closing and then people will complain like well my mom pop doesn't have any good stuff they can't afford to carry it anymore right you know it's just it's not because they're they have to buy all that it's not like the company gives it to them this warehouse sell you pay under this until you sell it when you say I want to have like you know five gifts and Les Paul's you buy five gifts unless Paul's if you you know and you have to hope that those will sell to your customers yeah otherwise they're sitting there collecting dust and breaking strings and customer coming chippending them I mean that's and I'd say you know like uh Walmart's great and it's very convenient and like I you know we go to Walmart all the time but I think most people don't even realize what they've lost at this point like because we're a generation past that no because I remember when Walmart came to my small town when I was like I was the biggest thing like oh my God Walmart like I showed up dressed in a suit with a clipboard and walked around acting like I worked for Walmart when I was a teenager clearly they must have known I was I was like going out of the great job Sam yeah I just it's because of the big deal is that you Walmart came to town I was excited no but it's we've all we've all sort of traded in oh it's like it's like Pink Floyd it's just like you know wish you were here those lyrics we trade a little bit in well there's and to be fair like there probably were I know there were little like downtowns or Walmart there was a void you know it wasn't like they in every town they came in and you know some places they they brought some they brought some great things there was a void there and so I think the same thing is true with Sweet Water but I do think we're to the point where it used to be GC that closed down all the little mom and pop shops in a place well GC is in a lot of trouble right now so they're right but now and I don't think necessarily it's a Sweetwater's aim but they're probably the ones driving out a lot of a lot of small mom and pop well it's just tough there's more coming so now the other aspect within Sweetwater that you know is part of all of our businesses now but financing yeah financing was not a thing for a long time in the guitar universe and during the um I guess the pandemic is when it kind of went Hyper Speed financing right right money was free race dropped like nothing you're getting 48 months free finance zero interest yeah now we're down to 24 months we've noticed it's all dropped across the board you know Sweetwater's offering like you know 10 back if you use the sweep water card as well so they get you on that because they're gonna make interest rate points as well because you know they're they're betting on you that's all credit card groupings are betting on you to not pay your bill on time yeah thanks for the interest in it you know I have friends that work in that industry and that's that's the customer they want they don't want you to pay your bill they don't like me I pay my bill on time immediately I don't like to pay any interest rates yeah I just put them on auto so it's just there I don't understand I'm horrified of it you know the guitar boom like with the cheap money free money financing everywhere it happened in a sort of it sort of helped hyper fuel like these shops are losing a huge percentage of their sales now yeah the small guys it's just it changes and I mean I know how it is you know like when you you need something when you want something like that and you're you're it's a little tight and you're like wow I could afford this thing sixty dollars a month for three years or whatever that is really tempting when the other option is having all the cash in hand or or whatever and walk into a place and and do it so I I get a new one like we've all financed stuff like it's not not in the spiritual it's just it's just changed the way business has done that we have people Finance with us but it's not at all the same rate most of our customers do actually pay for the the guitar like themselves they don't do Financial like the large percentage like 90 something percent you know I checked with most other shops a lot living there some of the other bigger Indies have a higher level of financing but that's you know that's just part of the nature of the business as you approach sweet waterness do you think it's also as you approach like those like bucket list kind of instruments like what we're not talking about Squires or like you know standard fenders we're talking about custom shops some Murphy labs and vintage you know Private Stock yeah like most of the customers buying those can't afford to pay for them immediately they just it just works better for them to do it or do it through a credit card private financing and because they're getting points or it just makes sense to spread it out Aid and not piss off your wife or B just to be financially Savvy yeah now it's um now the now the number two whammy besides like the Behemoth that is Sweetwater which again we all shop there we're part of it too like we like we just bought a bunch of mic stands from Sweetwater that's what we do because we like this is where else I know it just it just makes sense you know it's like we're we're part of it it's not but the other one to Miami is the manufacturers yeah they're all guitar makers and the pedal makers and the ammakers that we work with have all started going direct and this is that file one two way for a lot of shops that have not built an online presence and like well and then the manufacturers and I've heard this at these music well if you didn't do it it's your fault I'm like because this shop helped build your business for the past 40 years and it might be an older team that's been running it but there's a outlet the old and with the new which is us not us but I'm talking about the manufacturers what they're talking about and you're probably thinking well not that many people are buying direct they're not going to the website but we've looked and once people realize like they are literally guitars on certain websites that are cheaper than we can buy them for wholesale that you can go and buy well that that's that's the problem with like right now like we'll get in I'll talk about Fender right now I'm particularly they did they had their over manufacturing problem we've talked about it whereas like you know they let you know Guitar Center sweetheart and Tome and ordered a tundra in the pandemic we have a whole video on this then they cancel all those orders because like hey we see it slowing down and then there's like crap we've committed to build these overseas already these guitars have now hit the shores and warehouse is full of them they gotta dump them I guess they're away there yeah yeah so they're offering on their website so if you want like a fender anniversary Squire like go to fender.com I mean I'm telling you to go like to The Devil in a weird way as far as because it's not what we want well the problem is is there's a mentality all of the guitar manufacturers that it's every man for themself yes so it's the there should never be a mentality of of offender or anybody else and well if you didn't hop on board with the internet then that's on you right there's supposed to be our partners they're supposed to be doing things to help us Thrive if they're not they should be training guitar shops in how to stay ahead so that they don't get into this I mean nobody it's not good for any brand when you have a fender dealer or a tailor dealer or a Martin dealer that closes down and then a new one pops up 10 miles down the road that's not good for the brand well constantly open and close well I think you made a good point too you know that's Derek behind the cameras um the guitar shops believe it or not we actually all do communicate like we actually we are like this cohesive sorry we don't have like a unionized thing we've talked about doing it and we're sort of working on some things but we do communicate and we see what the problems are we try to help each other other we send customers to other shops every day it's part of literally every day every day you're like nah of course you know but no we don't really in other shops and customers to us sometimes it's part of it I met some of my dear friends through I remember Paul Tobias said Tobias music up in Downers Grove Illinois great shop has sent one of my dear friends Zee the dolphin trainer to us back when like sharing guitars were like a thing like that's right that's how we met I forgot that that's it we got to stay in bunk bed together in Anaheim oh he's so soft and spelled but no like we do all communicate it shouldn't be like you know well Fender's doing this and Gibson's doing this and Taylor's doing this and Martin is doing this like they need to understand like what's good for the goose is good for the gander and like the whole industry like it used to be that way like I do I do remember like you know when when like Bob Taylor would help out other guitar manufacturers like Martin you know or like you know or like Loudon or Breedlove like that dude is awesome like whatever you think about Taylor Guitars or not like Bob Taylor's he's kind of a saint in the guitar game yeah he really is like he's an environmentalist he's saying like African communities he helps all the guitar companies he built some of the best guitars ever made you know bring back Bob bring it back just always keep them around keep them in your house It's Tricky and that's the thing a lot of these shops have to see when they're manufacturers are now decide to go against them directly they see the right on the wall we don't because we're kind of stupid we like to run through those walls no but we we've built this thing and we're we look we like a challenge we're different you know we are built a little differently I don't know I just I think we can beat them we're gonna we're gonna because like I still look at them as our partners and they're just having a moment of temporary insanity and they will come back to the proper thinking one day like wow you know it's was that one that's where he did that was that one percent sales of our entire like overall Market was it worth alienating our entire dealer Market upsetting this you know I don't know I I was laughing but then maybe people don't care though because I was looking at the forms of the Taylor Guitar forums and that's why people more people were upset raising Helen Raising Cane over they changed the DIA Dario's strings versus when Taylor decided to go direct it's a big deal that was more like oh well that's not a big deal it doesn't affect me not much sympathy for a shop this been around and selling Martins and selling tailors that had to announce that they were closing there's very little no are you talking about the one the one in Arkansas yeah it's very surprising how little people sympathize and paired with a snake business and I don't post on Facebook at all you guys like because I've I haven't find Facebook funny sometimes but I posted on that one because I was like man what a great job that shop had been there for a long time a beautiful shop a flagship Taylor store where they're like you know it just doesn't make sense for us to continue and they're in a great Fayetteville Arkansas wonderful place check it out um no it's it's a strange moment right now and that's why live shops are closing now what you're going to see we talk about four is you're going to see a lot of this happen the strong shops Will Survive that the ones that choose to fight through this the manufacturers might come back to understanding like this is a really bad choice for us to get like a tiny bit of that market share and cost us everything right because it you know it's just it's just a whole different game I was thinking what else you think Johnny I do not know I just think it's a strange time to be to be in the game of moving guitars but it's okay but see the sad part is like we still really love it like we kind of work every day a new guy just started today too that's going to be like part of the team we don't really know what he'll do I think we're gonna have him work on Plumbing primarily and like in and fix the pipes and things but no it's we love it we love helping people find guitars we had a great gentleman come in yesterday from a few hours away you've had a great custom shop I remember I got to spend personal time with him at least an hour to two hours of hanging out with him it was the best part of my day yeah it was so much fun because you spent hours on the phone yesterday yes meeting new people across the country we've shipped multiple guitars across the world in the past you know a few weeks meeting people everywhere I mean I think that's the hope there is that just people love guitars too much for it to devolve to where it's just all impersonal and all the line like people they they build communities around this stuff so there is a community eventually I believe it'll all come back around I think the manufacturers do come back around everything sort of works in Cycles anyways I do but stay strong like and help those local shops we're not bitching to us like if there's a local shop that you don't want to see going to business don't go in there and like you know price check them in Sweetwater and like and just like well I'm gonna buy for Sweetwater if you do do that give them a chance to match that you know just to help them like help them survive these shops have been there for you for 30 40 years sometimes like just support them it's awesome like I go to Every local guitar shop when I'm in a different town I I yeah I usually make that to practice to go in like and then it came out and I at least to say hello and maybe hopefully buy a little something too buy a t-shirt buy a hat every little bit helps and just support the community and like have fun with it like shops can be really really really fun even the big ones you think are scary like Chicago Music Exchange is not as super cool and fun they're super cool and everything's amazing and you just want to live there and they can actually let you live there if you work there oh they have cots in the basement they all sleep there and we do here I should just sleeping with a little demo rims you know no they don't let you do that's that's for the um the guests more that's fine so what movie you're watching this week we've already talked about tip toes the other day let's watch that with Derek we got some more movies coming up have you seen the new Dune trailer yet I have I'm very excited about that one decide to actually drop them out this fall I hope okay a lot my son is very excited about the new spider-verse move oh yeah it's gonna be good I don't know if I'm not that excited about it for some reason the first one was cute it was he was cute I just you know and then Derek just saw the flash that was pretty darn good too he said you know was his favorite he said it was better than the the reviews have made it out to me because they're pretty abysmal Guardians of the Galaxy was great the third one it was a great movie good little wrap up you know that's kind of also on the template right now but we're gonna check out tiptoes later this week I need therapy oh God I'm gonna get a a full report of how how good Diablo 4 is from Baxter I've been definitely doing it James just finished the campaign yeah I mean I haven't let him tell me much about it the ultimate battle between like you know Lilith and the other Angel yeah some some crooked angels in this thing but it's a funny I got a lot of hours now and I'm wasting a ton of time dungeon crawling I need to stop I'm so I'm so I don't even really know the don't do it the uh just wait the story arc it's amazing you fight demons is it the same through all the games like it's a continuation no any kind of yeah yeah yeah it does it's definitely in the same world it is fun but hey that's all we got thanks again for joining us thanks for like spending time with us every day that you do it means a lot especially if you're on the bathroom on your way to work that means a lot too because it's dangerous in both situations bathroom time is like prime time if anyone gives us like their poop time yeah I mean like there's a lot of things behind for you hats off to that one yeah no that makes me feel good yeah tick tock on Facebook no you're gonna have Johnny and back you're if you're gonna sit there take your time well the turtle comes to say hello to the side hey man I know it is no it does mean a lot thanks if you've ever shopped with us like thank you very much have you ever shop with any of her like I'm gonna call them partner friends out there from Wildwood guitars to Sims to Tobias music to music Villa to Chuck Levin's to all these great shops across the country I just met a new one in Minneapolis I believe where did I have that oh my God Twin Town guitars when 2000 that shot looks amazing it does look look at the outside of it it was like that it reminds me a lot of our shop like the owner is super cool if you're ever anywhere near Twin Town guitars check it out his family were works there where is it again oh I think up in Minneapolis let me pull it up Minneapolis Minnesota you're right there yeah and they're open right now they close at six o'clock hence the twin town I get it now I get it no but it's it's like we were talking about this whole music Union thing a little bit too like in I love there's a bunch of us that want to like do something to make sure like you know this this community survives not just the business the community of it we love it and I love meeting these cats I can't wait to when I'm in Minneapolis I'm going there he's gonna buy me all the Minneapolis corn fritters I want nope don't I don't know if that's the thing I sold it up that's it I'm done that's all I got thank you again peace be with you all see you next time good night foreign

Channel: Casino Guitars

Views: 80,943

Keywords: guitar center, guitar care, guitar store, guitar center tour, guitar career, guitar store forbidden riff, guitar store stereotypes, guitar store stories, guitar shop prank, guitar center fails

Id: MJK-QZBsbmM

Length: 19min 14sec (1154 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 22 2023