Gutiar Shop Philosophy

[noodleplugerine]

Just reading this:

http://www.sevenstring.org/forum/general-music-discussion/69757-music-shops-suck-when-youre-16-a.html

So what do you think?

Should guitar shops treat everyone as customers, to improve service at the risk of the merchandise, or should they put the well being of the guitars first, at the risk of the sale?

[rohlfo]

I remember when I was 16 I did spend quite a bit of time messing about in guitar shops trying out all-sorts even though there was no chance I was going to buy anything...... so in that sense I can see why some sellers could get board, you know, putting up with teenagers playing really badly and with no intent of buying! lol
The trick is to say you've just saved up and with rich relatives help have about £1000 to blow on a guitar - best way to try out decent gear 

The thing which pisses me off the most with guitar shops etc. is the lack of range. I don't have a car liscence so I'm limited to where I can go to try things out.....I understand why shops do it, but it still pisses me off....

[WezV]

whilst its nice to try a guitar before you buy... would you want to be the poor fool buying a guitar played by every teenager in birmingham.  

The fact is running a guitarshop is not the most profitable business to be in... if your goods are shop soiled you are expected to give discount.  so a group of teenagers turn up and you know they will play everything and buy nothing...

i can understand that being frustrating for a guitar shop that is struggling to compete with cheaper prices from internet shops where you know you wont be buying something that has been on the shop floor played by everyone.

its not an age thing, it an 'are you a buyer?' thing.  

[FELINEGUITARS]

whilst its nice to try a guitar before you buy... would you want to be the poor fool buying a guitar played by every teenager in birmingham. 

The fact is running a guitarshop is not the most profitable business to be in... if your goods are shop soiled you are expected to give discount.  so a group of teenagers turn up and you know they will play everything and buy nothing...

i can understand that being frustrating for a guitar shop that is struggling to compete with cheaper prices from internet shops where you know you wont be buying something that has been on the shop floor played by everyone.

its not an age thing, it an 'are you a buyer?' thing. 

+1


I always like to be courteous and helpful - irrespective of age but I usually judge the nature of the person
I want to feel that they have an interest in the guitars for real - even if they cant afford them (yet)
I found that I needed to do this at the LGS a lot - sometimes you were dealing with hordes of kids who weren't interested in my brand per se - just any guitar that they could muck about on.
I would usually chat to them to help inform them about what they were looking at but frankly some didn't want to know - they just wanted to fool about on the guitars . It was like dealing with Kevin and Perry occasionally.
Those that blanked me in conversation didn't get to try out the gear.

I did have to have a couple of guitars refinished after the show as somebody hadn't been as careful as they should have, and that was costly. So I can understand shops being reluctant. And the situation being posted about was in the West Midlands where money is pretty scarce and 16yer olds are even less likely to be buying than in many other parts of the country.

Whilst I would like to have a showroom for all my guitars I would hate to have a regular guitar shop  and have to face that situation day in and day out.

[Woogie]

I think I mentioned this before but my friend went into a local shop and asked how much one of the Les Pauls was and the guy said "Too much for you". His mum went ballistic haha.

[Will]

If you owned a guitar shop, would you want to fork out the expense of polishing and restringing more times a year than neccesary (= more ££)
Vs the extra business gained from letting everyone play

minus the 10% you would ask of the list price

[tomjackson]

Over the last 15 years I have mainly gone to Sounds Great in Cheadle, they know me by name and I have always felt I can just pick up anything.  Even when I was 16 and just starting playing they would let me pick up anything.  I might only be looking at an epi Les Paul but it was always good to pick up a Gibson to compare.
The result is that I have spent thousands there over the years.  The irony is that now I have kids and no money, I swan in like a teenager, play a custom shop tele and then buy a pack of string and go home!

I appreciate the point about the hoards of teenagers not intending to buy anything but in some music shops the staff are just plain ignorant.  If you set up a guitar for a customer don't play shite shredding for 10 min, just let me play and go away.
If you have a shop it's pretty vital you let your customers look at what they are intending to buy, just make sure they take their coats off.  I mean Sound Control -  shite service, rude staff, wank website and then they go under.  Maybe they should have let more of the 17 year olds play.......

[Twinfan]

I think asking to 'play' a guitar is likely to get a 'no, get lost' answer.  Asking to 'try' a guitar, and adding some extra info about what you're looking for/what you've saved for is more likely to get a decent response.

I wouldn't allow someone in a shop to play guitars just for fun if I felt they were just there to waste time, no matter what their age, although older players are more likely to be careful with the gear.

[AJDS]

It's stories like that which make me glad to have Bonners round the corner and Gak half an hour away. Gak had no qualms about me going in when I was 13 and trying a LP standard through a Mesa F-50. I can sympathise with the guitar shop owners about letting people come in and just play, but if people receive customer service like that when they are trying to buy, its a wonder shops sell anything at all.

[FELINEGUITARS]

I definitely think that there is and always has been something wrong with a lot of guitar shop staff.

It may be that some guys able to deal with minimum wage aren't the brightest bulbs in the chandelier of life, add in some unhealthy ego, and having to face that situation over and over and I guess you have a formula for rudeness.

I think that you should treat youngsters with courtesy and dignity as they will be tomorrows customers.
I have quite a few loyal mid-20s customers who were 15 year olds when they first came to me.
But I am luckier as i run a repair workshop and not a simple retail shop, so the dynamics are different.

[PhilKing]

I used to work in music retail in the 70's and we would let everyone try gear, however we would watch them with anything expensive!  Our philosophy was that the parents might be getting a gift for the kids, so if we let them try things, then they would talk the parents into spending more!!  However this was in the days before the internet, and we were one of the original discount mail order shops (JSG), and we were in a small town which was reasonably affluent (Bingley, West Yorkshire).  I think it worked for us becasue of the time and also the bigger stores wouldn't let kids try things and both the owner and myself (the manager), hated that from when we were younger.  We also did repairs and so could answer questions!

[Sifu Ben]

Thing is what is the thing people always say in guitar shop vs internet discussions? "You can actually try it". If, in fact you can't actually try it, people are going to take the cheap option where they don't have to deal with some hungover teenager on minimum wage and a superiority complex.
 I have seriously walked out of shops not having got something I've actually wanted because the staff were assholes. I remember one place where I was trying a floyded pointy and the guy asked me not to use a pick!?! FFS!

[Ted 'N' Leo]

I always found Sound Control in Glasgow so be among the rudest people on earth. I remember i asked a guy if a could try some schecter, and was adding it to my mental list to buy soon. So to check if it was neck heavy (which i've had a problem with, with guitars in the past) i asked if i could try it with a strap for a moment. You'd have thought i'd asked for a go of his sister the way he moaned about it, as if it was such an inconvienent to try a strap on a guitar for half a minute.

Most other guitar shops were ok with this though. There was a small one in a nearby town me and a friend used to frequent, and the guy was always happy to let you play stuff, because he said "if people like it, they'll probably come back", but we never took the piss, playing Gibsons for example, and always kept it within reason if we were just wanting a go of something.

[dave_mc]

its not an age thing, it an 'are you a buyer?' thing.  

i agree. though i should add that often you can try something which you weren't considering buying, but like it so much that you decide to go for it. so not letting people try can end up with you shooting yourself in the foot.

I think the big problem is that shops (or the people working in them) often don't try hard enough to differentiate between someone who's a buyer (or even extremely interested in the instrument, as i am even when i'm not buying), and someone who's just there with 5 friends to kill 10 minutes before their school bus arrives. It's not that hard! I've been in a shop where 4 or 5 school friends were just making a racket with pointy guitars through roland cubes with the gain on 11 (to be fair to the shop, it seems to always let everyone try stuff, so it's not one of the ones i'm complaining about), and it was pretty obvious that they weren't buying anything. then what happens is that something like this happens a couple of times, then suddenly no teenagers are allowed to try out any gear, which is ridiculous.

unfortunately too many people think that age automatically equals wisdom, and nothing could be further from the truth. i know that most people wise up a little when they get older, but if you're an idiot at 16 there's a good chance you'll always be one...

i should add that i've had similar guff to that (in the linked thread) pulled on me in shops, and i'm quite a bit out of my teens. i suspect (though it doesn't exactly help now) is later, when you're older and have all your nice gear, go into the shop which pissed you off with photos of it (on your phone, say), and show them all the nice gear which you didn't buy from them because they pissed you off when you were young. or just do nothing and buy elsewhere (that's what i do).

Thing is what is the thing people always say in guitar shop vs internet discussions? "You can actually try it". If, in fact you can't actually try it, people are going to take the cheap option where they don't have to deal with some hungover teenager on minimum wage and a superiority complex.
 I have seriously walked out of shops not having got something I've actually wanted because the staff were assholes. I remember one place where I was trying a floyded pointy and the guy asked me not to use a pick!?! FFS!

exactly! what you often find is that the ones complaining most about the internet stores stealing "their" business (  :roll: as if they have some right to your business), are the ones who offer the least to actually entice you away from the internet. I mean, if you can't try anyway, you might as well get it cheaper and one which hasn't been hanging on the wall for 2 years, with the original strings, and which has been tried by forty 13 year olds straight from mcdonalds...

[38thBeatle]

I was suited and booted in Guildford last week in preperation for a job interview and I found myself with 1.5 hours to kill and so went into Andertons. I was wondering around just idling and had quite a few of the staff ask if I needed help.One guy said that I could try anything if I wanted. Nothing remarkable in that I guess except that they do seem to be a good bunch in there. I was there a few months ago and overheard a boy of about 15 ask to play a Les Paul. They didn't hesitate to let him try and he took the guitar and had a play( wasn't bad a player actually) and left him to it. A short while later his father came into the shop and found his son who evidentally loved the Les Paul enough to say he wanted it.