No Wonder Guitar Center is going down the tubes????

[Hawaii Islander]

There was a Covid outbreak at a FedEx hub in Tucson a while back. These are hitting FedEx and UPS, so shipping gets backlogged sometimes. I live in a remote location and buy nearly all my music gear online. Several orders were delayed due to Covid. That is just a fact of life today. I'm just glad they are still in business at this point. Patience is a virtue.

 

[Wambemando]

What tubes? Where are these tubes and where do they go?


And why is there more than one tube?

OK, Mr. Carlin. Lol.

 

[MustangWally]

Any they send you candy with your order!!!

Well why didn't somebody say that earlier? Far outweighs everything else IMO!

 

[mojomike001]

It seems their problem is that the positions there are very low-paying and they’re not getting great help. In their favor, though, is that you can buy used products nationwide sight unseen with total confidence being able to check them out for 45 days before you decide if you like them. Then if you don’t, you just walk it in to a local store and tell them you don’t like it and turn it in for a refund.

 

[cataract]

Another GC bashing thread? Why not right? It has been a few days since the last one.

Came here to say this. I worked for GC for a while as a sales associate & had a great time. My coworkers & customers really appreciated my seemingly endless knowledge and overall nice attitude.
YMMV with your local employees but all the peeps I worked with were pretty decent humans.
I really miss my discount. Will probably work there again at some point!

 

[levis76]

I keep hearing about the possible upcoming demise of Guitar Center. Sad. But I can share a reason why.

Been trying to deal on a used 2019 Rickenbacker 4003 with a store in Winter Park Fl. They finally gave me a sort of decent price, not the best, but decent.

I bought it on Monday morning June 15th with my Mastercard. Paid for taxes, shipping, and etc. I have the sales receipt.

So far no shipping date, no tracking number, no nothing. Call there, and get some kids on the phone, after the phone is on hold for over 20 minutes. And that the phone rang for over 10 minutes before it was answered.

They have no idea of shipping, and don't seem to care. You can't talk to a person that knows or even cares. And this is during regular business hours.

Guess my over $1700 purchase is not important to the kids that work there. Guess they'd rather sell $30 strings and talk on their cell phones to their friends.

In the midst of this COVID crisis, I kinda doubt there is a land-office business going on in Winter Park, Fl. And after they get your money, maybe no one cares.

I am sad that Guitar Center has allowed such careless business practices to take place in it's franchises.

And sad to say, Musician's Friend is the online partner with GC.....

Kind of makes one wonder.

Not surprised, GC doesn’t do the used market thing well at all. As you found they have a pretty strict pricing policy that does not allow the managers to negotiate price, you just have to wait them out and hope someone else doesn’t buy it before you. I would never advise buying used from a GC not close enough to drive to. They do not pack the used inventory they ship well at all.

 

[brushfirewolf]

Not surprised, GC doesn’t do the used market thing well at all. As you found they have a pretty strict pricing policy that does not allow the managers to negotiate price, you just have to wait them out and hope someone else doesn’t buy it before you. I would never advise buying used from a GC not close enough to drive to. They do not pack the used inventory they ship well at all.

on the flip side, if you know what you’re looking at you can find great deals because their employees a lot of times do not [know what they’re looking at].

 

[darwin-bass]

And that's just the beginning! Now Sweetwater will stay in touch weekly for the rest of your life.

Which is a big reason I avoid Sweetwater.

 

[darwin-bass]

I just spoke to them today... no shipping info yet. Guess the Florida store must have a real backlog. All I can say is that is BS.

In the middle on the Pandemic, I have to disagree. They still have not shipped. Right... and $1700 customer... Anybody see the issue here????????????????

All I can say is I payed my dollars to play, and I am getting such poor service.
And it was well over $1700....... pitiful.

Maybe GC needs to go out of business. Especially since they don't seem to care about customers.

Try ordering something online with IKEA these days if you think GC's service is bad. The effect of shutting down a business for a couple of months is huge and ramp-up efforts are slow. My guess is you're seeing the COVID-19 effect amplifying already less than ideal customer support from GC.

Probably a low-point for GC and in the coming months they'll recover to their usual level of customer support.

 

[jmattbassplaya]

Sweetwater is the best company out there right now. They care and don't tack on extras to try to get your money. At GC that extra coverage is all they want to sell.

Agreed. I don't mind not getting 10-15% off because all my experiences both pre and post buying have been excellent.

I purchased two Keeley pedals from them. One was squealing no matter where I put it in the chain. I explained the situation and my sales guy asked if I wanted to return it or speak to tech support. I went ahead and returned it and he even reviewed pictures I had taken of my packing to ensure I wouldn't be charged a package and handling return fee.

That said, I wouldn't mind them offering a 5% discount once in a blue moon, but I get that they don't discount because they try to do everything else right for both the customers and their team members.

 

[Plain Old Barry]

Which is a big reason I avoid Sweetwater.

What's funny is that has never happened to me after many SW purchases. My advisor is Drew.

In fact, I recently bought an item that's been backordered for months. The only contact I got was availability date updates, which kept moving out, and instructions to call if I didn't want to keep waiting. I call that excellent service!

I'd also like to plug GC in Manchester, CT. I've never had anything but good experiences there.

Once upon a time, I worked in a local music store, a friend's dad started and ran another for 50 years. I truly miss local shops, especially NYC Music Row, but I also appreciate the ability of the larger companies to offer a far greater selection and delivery to places that probably had very little choice in the past.

 

[Arie X]

Not surprised, GC doesn’t do the used market thing well at all. As you found they have a pretty strict pricing policy that does not allow the managers to negotiate price, you just have to wait them out and hope someone else doesn’t buy it before you. I would never advise buying used from a GC not close enough to drive to. They do not pack the used inventory they ship well at all.

their online representation of used instruments needs work and they admit that. from what i understand from corporate, they just don't grasp the concept of used online sales and prohibit employee social media posting of inventory. internally, they've tried several initiatives but unfortunately those didn't gain traction.

i've never haggled with them on a used purchase because i know the market pretty well and i know my instruments and i do my comps beforehand.

regarding selling to them, the last time we did a "street buy", they gave me $100 more than i expected for the guitar. i certainly didn't turn it down.

my wife bought me a used sight unseen charvel online last year and it was delivered from the mid-west in top shape to a local west coast store in the most annoyingly robust packaging i've seen in a while. i had to whip out my edc knife and hack at it for a good 10 minutes to liberate it before i could go try it out.

 

[mojomike001]

I have made several exceptional used purchases from GC. Most met or exceeded my expectations. A couple I turned back in within the grace period, no problem.

 

[Wasnex]

Maybe not so much. I bought a bunch of stuff from my local music store (Fullers Guitar Home here in Houston) a couple years back on the recommendation of my guitarist buddy (and yeah, he got me some discount) but the interaction with the owner and staff was kinda weird, they were sort of dismissive generally, I felt like I should apologize for taking up their time. I know that Billy Gibbons shops there, perhaps I just wasn't famous enough for them to pretend to be interested in what I wanted.

OTOH I do find most music stores intimidating so perhaps it was just me, although there is a GC real close by and they are always friendly and easy to deal with.

Yep! Local music stores have not failed solely because of online sales. Many music stores were dishonest and provided bad service for decades before online became a thing. Many of them use the same manipulative high pressure sales tactics as car dealers. Many of them also tend to stock only low-quality high-volume items.

I rarely buy locally because they don't provide a useful service and they rarely have anything worth buying. It's true matters have gotten worse since the beginning of online sales, but it's not like it was all that great back in the old days IMHO.

Actually I would say that online sales initially improved the quality of service and selection from some local music stores. But eventually online has made it virtually impossible for local stores to compete. The irony is the only level where brick and mortar can compete is customer service, and this is usually the first thing to go because it is very expensive.

For the record I own 28 amps and about 12 basses. Most of my collection was bought used and only a few items were purchased locally. Guitar Center Used provides incredible bargains from time to time and in my experience shipping has been incredibly cheap. I had one nice item damaged in shipment because it was very poorly packed. But I have a local Guitar Center so returns are easy.

 

[groooooove]

kids getting minimum wage have no incentive to care unfortunately.

 

[JW56789]

It's unfortunate that chain-wide they can't enforce a single, strongly adhered-to set of policies that would serve them better than the hodge-podge of preventable problems they so often degrade into. Consistency is so very important, and unless smartly and strongly demanded of every one under the roof, it leads to all kinds of problems that tarnish your reputation and runs off prospective customers. Especially hazardous given their overall financials.

 

[cataract]

Ugh. Rereading OP’s original post I’m pretty much done thinking about it, so I guess I’ll just say if anyone’s so worried about being treated unfairly due to the total dollar amount of their purchase and expecting special treatment due to that, maybe cut the “middleman” out & buy a used 4003 for a few hundred bucks less in the classifieds here or direct from Wildwood next time.
Seems like an overall moot thread at this point- do the work. GC employees aren’t out to do harm. If your expectations are so high and you are in need of your hand being held due to how much you’ve decided to spend on a very common mass produced instrument, you’ve obviously got plenty of better buying options available.
Good Yelp review though!

 

[fourstringburn]

And that's just the beginning! Now Sweetwater will stay in touch weekly for the rest of your life.

Not only that, you get a little candy bag with your order, how "sweet" is that!

 

[bobdabilder]

Cancel your order. Move on.

 

[IamGroot]

I keep hearing about the possible upcoming demise of Guitar Center. Sad. But I can share a reason why.

Been trying to deal on a used 2019 Rickenbacker 4003 with a store in Winter Park Fl. They finally gave me a sort of decent price, not the best, but decent.

I bought it on Monday morning June 15th with my Mastercard. Paid for taxes, shipping, and etc. I have the sales receipt.

So far no shipping date, no tracking number, no nothing. Call there, and get some kids on the phone, after the phone is on hold for over 20 minutes. And that the phone rang for over 10 minutes before it was answered.

They have no idea of shipping, and don't seem to care. You can't talk to a person that knows or even cares. And this is during regular business hours.

Guess my over $1700 purchase is not important to the kids that work there. Guess they'd rather sell $30 strings and talk on their cell phones to their friends.

In the midst of this COVID crisis, I kinda doubt there is a land-office business going on in Winter Park, Fl. And after they get your money, maybe no one cares.

I am sad that Guitar Center has allowed such careless business practices to take place in it's franchises.

And sad to say, Musician's Friend is the online partner with GC.....

Kind of makes one wonder.

They dont focus on strings very well, as the more popular brands are sold out.