What will happen, if you continue to buy from them?

You will probably succeed in putting most of the small Mom & Pop stores out of business.  Won't that be Fun !!!!

Then the Superstores will raise their prices even higher!!  You will be forced to pay their higher prices.  Ha Ha

It won't bother me either way, I specialize in products that you can't buy at those stores anyway. 

So the next time you stop into that big chain store to buy a set of strings, remember, you will only be screwing yourself and all your friends in the long run.

I write many less than flattering articles about corporate mega stores!!

Some people may read those rants, they may assume that I was just sour grapes on superstores for self serving reasons.  I have thought about it long and hard, I have assured myself that my own agenda is truly unaffected by these stores.

Naturally I stand to gain when they lose sales, I just think the world would be better off without large corporate entities trying to control more than the entire market.

Ed Roman
1999

Some major mass market department stores are selling cheaply manufactured guitars of questionable quality to unsuspecting consumers who have no idea what they are buying.

1. Come into a town with a big splash!!!!
2. Hire all the competition's best salespeople by offering them top dollar.
3. Open up a cool new store with every possible product and accessory in stock.
4. Promote a large advertising campaign which will also get the newspapers and radio stations to promote it for free.  Any Price Policy".
5. Open earlier, close later than the competition.
6. Stay open 7 days.
7. Often there will be a sharp, hip store manager who will be charismatic and a great musician to boot. He will have all kinds of great Rock & Roll war stories to tell to all the young gapers who will be amazed when they hear he was a roadie for Kiss or that he did lights for Metallica. He will seemingly be everywhere in the store making friends, making deals, gaining your trust. You will run into him at a concert. He will always have a backstage pass, it seems like everyone knows the guy and you say to yourself  "I gotta' align myself up with this guy". So you start sending your friends in to see him. You remind your friends, to make sure and tell him that you sent them. (Starting to sound familiar?).

Remember, Mom & Pop stores like to close on Sundays. They also need to make a profit to pay their rent and presumably make payroll. It becomes very hard when one of these superstores opens. They can't compete with the big city hype and hoopla that these mega superstores start up with. They can't afford to stay open the same long hours. They certainly cannot afford to advertise anymore so the radio stations and the magazines shun them and do articles on the superstores or have live in store broadcasts etc etc.  You know the drill.

Ok, so lets say that your local family owned and run music store bites the dust.  It usually takes a long time for it to happen because they are usually musicians and musicians have big ego's, and the last thing they would ever want to do is admit defeat. Like Meg Ryan did to Tom Hanks in the Movie "You've Got Mail". By the way the owners of the superstores are usually not musicians, they couldn't give a s#!t about the Van Halen tour with David Lee Roth and they certainly don't care if the guitar you bought won't stay in tune after the warranty has expired. In fact, one of these Superstores is publicly traded on the stock market.

The large publicly traded ones, constantly open more & more stores. This way they can continue to show growth (falsely) for the investors who are just too stupid to see that they are a house of cards waiting to tumble.

Most of the little stores are already out of business, they just don't know it!!  There is a small dirty little grimy, mildew smelling, health hazard of a music store in my town owned by a guy so stubborn he has hung on for more than 35 years. (Let's call him Maurice) Maurice has had the same 20 or 30 guitars in his store for over 15 years. He survives by taking on a small new line and simply not paying his bill.
Most of the manufacturers write him off as a bad debt and don't bother trying to collect from him. The cost of collection on a $3,000.00 debt can be $5,000.00 so the manufacturers just don't bother. So between giving a few guitar lessons and Bulls#!tting some of the newer smaller companies who don't have credit managers, Maurice manages to keep his doors open.  Of course Maurice never has anything good and he probably never will.  He has been there nearly 40 years. I worked for him when I was a kid. Maurice had really cool stuff then, he always had Marshall's, Gibsons, Hagstrom's, and all the other cool things from 40 years ago.

In any case Maurice is of no importance and certainly will never affect the local music market ever again.

1. The first thing is the prices will start to creep higher & higher.
2. The selection of product will dwindle as their computers have indicated what 85% of the locals like & buy.
3. Those original high paid employees will start dropping like flies and in their place you will see minimum wage commissioned snot nose high school kids who would probably work for free just to work in a big music store.
4. The radio advertisements are fewer now, the sales are much farther apart (I mean, who do they have to compete with- Maurice???)
5. The store will usually get a new manager. The old one is sent out to open another store in another town.
6. The new manager has a whole new way of doing things.  All the good will the original store manager created is no longer attainable because the new guy (Usually a Lower Paid Cretin Idiot) is usually sitting in the back office drinking coffee and trying to think of new ways to cut costs and/or figure out how he can work less hours and make more money.
7. The new manager will cut costs by closing earlier, opening later and in some cases I have heard they even close on Sundays.  After all who are they competing with? Maurice????  I think not.
8. They will usually still offer the beat any price deal, but it will mean that they will beat any local price. Yup you guessed it Maurice doesn't carry it. If by some small chance he happens to have one in the store, they will still weasel out of it because they will simply say to you that Maurice isn't a factory authorized dealer.
9. These stores sell what I refer to as Christmas Guitars all year long.

Ed Roman
September 2000

This article is probably a waste of my time.  I am a realist, and I know that if every musician in the world actually took the time to read this it would probably make no difference anyway.

Chain Stores and Super Stores are here to stay.  And it's already too late to do a thing about it.  California for example is so driven by Chain Store type Music Stores,  it's almost impossible to buy a cool guitar out there any more.  Great for me,  Bad for people who live in California, they are forced to deal with it. 

Well, maybe it's not that bad after all, my prices are pretty low on all new guitars, and there is that huge tax savings to consider when you buy mail order.  A few companies like myself, are doing extremely well in the onslaught of price wars, and white bread, bland, blah merchandise that the chain stores are shoveling down people's throats.  (That's why I ship so many guitars into California) My prices are always lower than the Chain Stores and there is no sales tax if you buy it from out of state.

I recently visited several large chain store operations. In one of them I counted 247 guitars on the wall. Then I  figured out that there were really only about 17 different guitars in assortments of colors.  For example there were 54 American Stratocasters in approximately 5 different colors.  Not very impressive when you compare to my inventory of over 450 different choices of guitars with 5000 in stock.

Incidentally it took about 7 to 10 minutes for me to count and absorb what was on that wall. During that time I was expecting someone from the Store to approach me as a potential customer.   NOT  A CHANCE !!!!

The other thing worth noting here, it took me less than 30 seconds to ascertain that there were about 4 guitars out of 247 that even slightly piqued my interest.  Most of what they had was production made crap. There were the usual 5 PRS 1998/99 22 fret customs which of course the average high end customer would have ascertained as the best they had to offer.

I feel especially bad for Mom, Dad and little Johnny, who have absolutely no clue.

When they go in a chain store the young dweebe in the guitar department will surely steer them into the nice safe, middle of the road, white bread, honky, bland, Megacaster.  And life goes on.... AAAAAAAAAAGGHHHHHHHH. 

They will get it at about 20% off list price and think they are getting a deal,  EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEKKKK.   You poor hapless fools!!!!!

When the Larry the Lawyer, Dennis the Dentist or Doug the Doctor types walk in,  they are steered to those 5 PRS guitars.  Educated affluent people are typically told that PRS is the last word, The Top of the Heap, The Creme de la Creme. 

Well of course it is, if the heap happens to be the usual pile of s#!t that they have available.

So Larry Dennis and Doug naturally will buy a PRS. They will assume incorrectly that they have just bought the best there is.  Well I have sad news for them,  but that's another story for another day.  (Click here to see, The Worlds Best Guitars)

I don't like chain stores of any kind. I don't like snot nosed 17 year old clerks who think they are "Oh So Cool"  because they work in a large music store.  I don't like going to a chain operated burger joint and trying to explain that I don't want tomato's on my whopper,  to some 16 year old moron kid who doesn't speak a word of English, and doesn't even care if he ever learns a word of it either. 

Looking for a non chain-owned diner is a real adventure these days.  I remember not too long ago there were small family owned restaurants where you could go get a decent meal for a decent price.  Today it's a real challenge trying to find a freakin' place to get something to eat. The truck stops are still somewhat real life but the smoke is enough to gag a maggot. The jukebox leaves a real lot to be desired also.  As I said above, this article is probably a waste of time.  I'm just venting, or spewing,  whichever way you want to look at it.

When McDonalds and Burger King set out to rid this planet of small family owned restaurants they had 15 cent burgers and they bragged about "Change back from your Dollar"  Does anyone remember that?

Now that they rule the world, their prices are substantially higher than normal restaurants. Be aware that you can go to a steakhouse and have a great lunch for usually less than the price of McDonalds or Burger King.  As long as you don't order a cocktail. You will spend less almost every time.  Plus no McDonalds breath, or McDonalds smell on you for several hours after you eat.

You may wonder what the Hell this has to do with Chain Music Stores etc.  If you can't see the parallel I am attempting to create here you should be working at McDonalds yourself.

I don't like the fact that, excepting in rare cases of loss leader merchandising, the prices aren't really that good.

I don't like the limited models they always seem to carry.  Chain stores always subscribe to the bean counters 80 - 20  inventory concept. They only carry the 20% of all the products available. The 20% that appeals to 80% of all the unwitting consumers.  What about that other 80% of the products. You know the high quality low production stuff. The stuff that it doesn't pay to teach your sales staff how to sell because there never seems to be enough of it around.  What about the knowledgeable consumer who wants to buy something cool?  What about the player who wants an especially nice instrument?  Good Luck !!!  In my opinion, I believe that Chain Stores just naturally assume that everyone is pretty stupid and reads the magazines and has no mind of their own and wouldn't know a quality instrument if it hit them right between the eyes.

After all, the magazines won't give any credence or review any of the new low production high quality stuff because, there is no potential advertising revenue. Plus these smaller companies could potentially harm the sales of one of their big advertisers, making it harder for their advertiser to make a profit which in turns makes it harder for the advertiser to pay his advertising bills. Which boils down to lesser advertising budgets and less money for the magazine.

If people had gone out of their way to deal only with specialists this problem would not exist today. Of course a specialist may cost a little more and in the consumers attempt to save a few dollars he has screwed himself again.

I confess, I also am guilty.  I patronized several large office supply superstores for convenience and lower prices.  Today those stores are all higher priced and rarely is there a clerk who can answer even a basic question.  It's too late to go back to my old supplier, he long ago went out of business. These days he works as one of the carbon based units at Home Depot.  (Home Depot,  Oy, Don't get me started)

Incidentally, Mark Begelman, the entrepreneur who owns Music & Recording Superstores (MARS), used to be the owner of Office Depot.

Depot.... What is the fascination with the word "Depot" ?

Coming Soon to your Town -  "Music Depot"

In Closing I would just like to say:
"If all people spent all their money at Taco Bell, all stores would be Taco Bell."

Think About it !!
Ed Roman
04/01/99
April Fools Day
How Appropriate Is That