Saturday, November 29, 2008

Goodbye "Guitar Zone"

I got some kinda sad news this week. The guitar store called Guitar Zone where I bought my Taylor guitar is going out of business. There are several things I liked about this particular store that I'm really going to miss. First, it is the closest guitar store from my home. Second, I got to know the owner and most of the guys who worked there pretty well. Third, they sold more than a dozen of my Guitar Player's Friend books on consignment. It is also disconcerting that this is the 3rd guitar store in the north suburbs to go out of business in the past year or so. The closest one left on this end of town is in Andover which is less than 5 miles away, but they are relatively new and pretty small. They also don't carry any major guitar brands like Gibson, Martin, Fender, or Taylor. I wonder if they will still be around by this time next year. I think there are a couple of major developments that have become a major problem for the smaller independent guitar stores. The internet has made it very easy to buy accessories and sheet music online cheaper than they can be found in the guitar stores. The other thing is that the competition from the Guitar Center chain, and now Best Buy stores, makes it difficult to compete on price and availability of the major brands. Both Gibson and Martin have priced the cost of distributorships so high that a small shop cannot afford to carry their current product lines. It is sad that these guitar manufacturers can't make accomodation for the smaller guitar stores. And it is hard to believe that it would hurt them to have their products displayed in the small stores without charging nearly $100K per year for the privilege.

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