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Oh Henry, Just STFU


diablo175

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Yup. That's the problem. :rolleyes: Music stores aren't figuring out new ways to separate  people from of their hard earned cash for over-priced, often shitty quality Gibsons. Yup. Totally the fault lies with music retailers.

http://ultimateclassicrock.com/gibson-boss-blames-guitar-stores/

 

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Yeah, what a jackass.  

How about good, consistent quality?  How about more reasonable pricing?  

And, does he really think Apple doesn't have security measures for all the stuff in their stores? 

Crap, maybe that's his next money pit - he'll open Gibson stores!  :lol:

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It's just simple math.

How many guitars have been built in the last 60 years? With very few exceptions, they are all still floating around out there.

How many new guitarists are entering the market? Not as many as it would take to keep up with current production plus the hundreds of thousands of used instruments available.

The majority of avid players are 45 to 70 and have what they want (or are selling off).

All new guitar manufacturers could cease production tomorrow and there are enough electric guitars for all of "us".

Bubble meet burst.

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8 minutes ago, gtrdaddy said:

 not to mention price themselves out of the market with all of the "True Historics."

No doubt they've got silly with the TH stuff, tho it's worth having products at the very top of the market for people with more money than sense. 

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1 hour ago, scottcald said:

And, does he really think Apple doesn't have security measures for all the stuff in their stores? 

Sure, you can walk into an Apple store and just pick up their products and play with them.  And when you decide to buy one, they walk in the back and get you one that hasn't been played around with.  That's not how it works with guitar stores - and that's something I'd expect the head of a frigging guitar company to know.

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Apple makes all of the stuff in their stores. None of it has to be sold and it can all be written off as a business expense.  A guitar store makes none of what is in their stores.  All of it must be sold.  This fucker runs a business?  Either he is a dumbass or he thinks everyone else is.

 

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While he broad brushes and overstates his case quite a bit, I do think he makes some salient points about music instrument retailing in general.  Too many stores during my youth were downright hostile to beginning players. They are almost all vanished, too.

Now what he fails to admit is his own firm's design and QC failures, ridiculous MAP pricing, and--most importantly--the retail-hostile six-figure dealer inventory requirement. Want your culprit, Henry? Check your mirror. 

 

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Who was it that pushed small music stores out of their Gibson franchises with ridiculous buy-ins?  Gibson. 

Who whored themself to mail-order catalogs and big box music retailers?  Gibson. 

Henry Juszkiewicz did his part to make it harder for independent music stores to sell his products.  If Gibson fails, he must have a golden parachute.  It will be amazing if anyone hires him to run anything else. 

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Yes, It is their fault that they sell guitars that are not Gibson guitars. If only they would be good little obedient stores and have bought into the Jimi Hendrix Guitar, Dusk Tiger, and Firebird-X, none of this would be happening.

He's now threatening the direct to customer crap again. Even though Gibson currently has no distribution network, or any setup to handle direct to customer orders, direct to customer support, etc etc.

What a jerk.

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2 hours ago, Biz Prof said:

While he broad brushes and overstates his case quite a bit, I do think he makes some salient points about music instrument retailing in general.  Too many stores during my youth were downright hostile to beginning players. They are almost all vanished, too.

Now what he fails to admit is his own firm's design and QC failures, ridiculous MAP pricing, and--most importantly--the retail-hostile six-figure dealer inventory requirement. Want your culprit, Henry? Check your mirror. 

 

Not to derail the topic, but man, I used to take shit from music stores as a teen. As a lefty, I wasn't exactly pulling guitar off the hangers and abusing them...it was pointless to even hold them upside down. But boy did I get ignored, attitude, and snotty remarks like, "Why can't you just play the proper way". It was like I was torturing them, by asking what models they could order lefty, or getting a price on a special order.  

I had my day when my guitar buddy and I had my parents credit card and a 2K budget to pick out whatever gear I needed. This was for 2 missed Christmas' and graduation rolled into one. We headed over to Vancouver and spent the day having different music store employees slowly realize a couple of 18 year olds had a couple grand to blow. Loved how their demeanor changed. We ended up blowing the budget at Mainly Music, cuz those dudes were great from the get go. Not that it helped them in the end....they where gone by the early 2000s, along with almost all the other stores we went to that day.

Now I walk into the remaining chain stores, and the children working there now call me "sir". Father Time is a undefeated motherfucker.

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I think there's a little truth in there too.  My local mom and pops made everyone feel welcome and a few had little "living room" areas with couches and chairs, stuff to read, etc. while kids were taking lessons.  I shopped GC and Sam Ash, but I only bought from non-chain places.  All of the ones I shopped at are now gone and GC and Sam Ash are still standing (for now).  I absolutely despise going into either of them and get in and out as fast as I can.  Along with Henry's oblivious approach to (mis)management, the demise of the mom and pop music store has had an effect on electric guitar and other instrument sales I'm sure.

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12 hours ago, Steve Haynie said:

Who was it that pushed small music stores out of their Gibson franchises with ridiculous buy-ins?  Gibson. 

Who whored themself to mail-order catalogs and big box music retailers?  Gibson. 

Henry Juszkiewicz did his part to make it harder for independent music stores to sell his products.  If Gibson fails, he must have a golden parachute.  It will be amazing if anyone hires him to run anything else. 

Henry's theme song must be "Sad But True" from Metallica

"It will be amazing if anyone hires him (Henry Juszkieicz) to run anything else."

“There's a sucker born every minute.” - P. T. Barnum 

Hamerica

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I also like how it never occurs that because of their massive overpricing and squeezing the people in their channel, that maybe those people and companies aren't so excited to move his product.   I'd actually love to see him try to go direct and then understand that it ain't free.  Then you're also relying on UPS or FedEx to get your products into people's hands.  I think everyone here knows that can be a nail biting experience.  Can you imagine how awful Gibson would be to deal with for every single guitar that gets mangled by a carrier?

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Yeah poor poor mom and pops like daddy’s junky music who grinded customers on trade ins when they were the only game in town.    Not shedding a tear because we wised up.     And f amazon too.   Think that’s the reason everyone pays 70 to ship a guitar when it used to be $40.   We are subsidizing Jeff Bezos under market deal with ups.    And Henry screwed up in 2015 taking a massive loss on metal nuts and mini tune.  Hubris the sin of pride. Pretty much behind every cluster f in human history.     Rant over for now lol.    

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I suspect that the brand will survive.  My expectation is that, after any number of machinations and ploys, the husk of the company will be bought for peanuts (relatively speaking) and the brand will undergo an extended "dark ages" period that will make the Norlin era look pretty tame, much as the current Marantz brand is but a shadow of the Marantz product that was put out when Saul was driving the bus.

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50 minutes ago, gtrdaddy said:

You do realize, that that’s how every single guitar gets from Gibson to the dealers now? Every Gibson in a store or online has already been handled by UPS.

Yeah, but the end customer isn't the one dealing with it.  Now, it's a B2B deal.  I'm sure Gibson sucks to deal with for the shops.  But, can you imagine the FB and Twitter posts to Gibson when they start taking that over?  How many "Hey my guitar showed up with sharp frets like it was made in China" posts there will be?  I'm sure contracts with dealers forbid this sort of thing.  He has no idea the Pandora's box he's looking to open here.  

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17 minutes ago, gtrdaddy said:

Definitely more of a hassle for Gibson I would think. They’d need to quintuple their receivables staff, and they’d be shipping to hundreds of additional addresses each day! Logistics in changing that business model would be overwhelming, you’d have to hire dozens for customer service  and sales among other things! 🤦‍♂️ 

This^^^^

Vertical integration is never as easy as most companies assume it will be. 

 

 

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He makes some valid points. Besides marketing, I also head client experience (CX) where I work, and we take that very seriously. CX should span...

  • Initial brand awareness
  • Reputation control
  • Social media exposure
  • Outbound marketing
  • Website, marketing materials
  • Initial in-person contact
  • The physical space (from signage to location to furniture to drinks to parking)
  • Attitude and knowledge of sales staff
  • Welcome and onboarding
  • Immediate follow-up
  • Making customer feel special, like family
  • Upsell/cross-sell experience

That's just the tip of it. Our CX chart is a freakin' wall of map, and we have a CX suggestion box and monthly all-staff updates.

I think Gibson has done a pretty weak job on aspects of CX: crap quality control, the 2015 innovations, and outrageous prices. Then, shafting small dealers to sell to big boxes ended up leading to even worse CX, because no way is someone gonna get "the Gibson Experience" buying an oft-handled, poorly set-up instrument with sharp frets and wobbly paint in a big store.

But retailers do need to figure out how to be competitive, and you cannot compete on price. You must offer experience: jam sessions, couches and sodas, clinics, great attitude... all the CX things that ordering online don't provide. Sweetwater, despite being online, KILLS in CX... their stuff is the same price as everyone else's but they spend fifty cents on some candy in the box and a buck on a phone call after sale, and earn phenomenal loyalty.

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3 minutes ago, polara said:

Sweetwater, despite being online, KILLS in CX... their stuff is the same price as everyone else's but they spend fifty cents on some candy in the box and a buck on a phone call after sale, and earn phenomenal loyalty.

This.  :)

 

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Regarding vertical integration: In grad school, I got a plum opportunity to earn three credit hours working as one-third of a team that took on a consulting role with a local small business. The business was selected from a file of "help me" pleas from the regional Small Business Technology and Development Center--a variant of the local SBA office, but aligned with the local public university. Our client was a commercial cabinet manufacturer that designed, built, and installed the cabinetry that you find in convenience stores and fast food restaurants. Because it was mostly customized, job-shop work, it paid handsomely and the firm had gotten pretty damn good at it--even to the point of ordering a $250K (in 1992 dollars) custom-built CNC panel cutter from a German tool maker.  

We were solicited to advise the owner on his emerging venture to open up a pre-fab residential cabinet business aimed at serving remodelers and residential GCs. Despite weeks of our efforts poring over his capital investment and analyzing his employee base, "Bill" was convinced that our analyses would not trump his wife's interest in this flavor of vertical integration. We concluded that the strengths his company demonstrated in custom fabrication for Fortune 500 customer/franchisees would not translate well to selling other people's stuff to local contractors. 

Even though we were 22-year-old, snot-nosed college kids, we were correct in our thinking. Bill's retail cabinet venture failed miserably. He took it on the chin and up the ass on that venture, and he lost some of his main line business due to being distracted by the retail store. There were already a few local cabinet stores, and then Lowe's and Home Depot virtually exploded in market share in the remodeling sector. 

Moral of the story: If you're really, really good at making goods to the specifications of a market niche, don't distract yourself with selling stuff you didn't' actually make to an audience you don't know and cannot relate to. 

ETA: Technically, what Bill did was not vertical integration in its purest form. At first glance, it looks more like horizontal integration, but in fact, it was more of a vertical movement based on how he was using his core business' personnel and capital. 

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