The Emeryville GC is awesome and I've always gotten better deals than an web store...It would really suck... I try and buy anything I need there that they stock.  Spent all day there, trying out dozens of basses, plugged into my krk headphones... and walked out with 2 Ibanez at a huge discount.  Would sorely miss them.  So much software is on-line only but all my hardware I get there.  It is always busy and the person I deal with is fantastic...
 
edrummist, thanks for bummin' me out! better get my Forte replaced soon!
 
better link to the news, NOT PAYWALLED
 http://online.wsj.com/new...1304579411721994020500
 
What makes me angry is the gist of this article reveals that most of the debt impacting GC is from BAIN CAPITAL'S leveraged buyout, and not poor sales... Corporate raiders skimming money from the company and leaving it in debt for no good reason than to make rich aholes richer, destroying companies/plundering their value right and left.  This destroyed many newpapers... these people suck!

mumpcake
 
I recently got a "thank you for shopping here" coupon from them where they excluded virtually every item in their inventory from the discount.  Way to show some customer appreciation.  Maybe things will be better under the new management.

Actually, this mandated by the manufacturers' of the gear.  Brands like Taylor, Gibson (and a lot of others) have restrictions on the discounts that can be offered on their merchandise.  They do this to preserve the value of the brand.  GC (and other retailers) are not permitted to discount those brands any further by contract.
Other retailers have similar restrictions.
 
GC certainly has its flaws, but this isn't their doing.

I replaced the link in my original post to one that goes to a music industry insider blog that can freely be viewed by everyone.

I suppose one of these days I will have to accept the fact that the world has changed... in the meantime I reserve the right to be a curmudgeon on certain topics, and this would be one of them.

I shop locally when I can. I can't imagine buying a guitar, or microphone, or stomp box or amplifier without spending time with it. Video and audio demos only go so far - and with most folks publishing audio demos in compressed formats it's a lost cause before it starts.
 
When I was younger, and there was such a thing as a local pro music store, I'd take gear home and spend some time with it, then I'd make my decision and pay the nice folks. And, I never paid more than typical web deals, and sometimes I even paid a little less.

The big deal for me was the ability to audition sample libraries. Might sound silly, but when I was able to actually use them before buying them it was a lot easier to make my choices.

Now for some reason the GC here (suburban Philly) is amongst the worst stores I've ever entered. The sales staff is remarkably clueless. It's been years in fact since I've set foot in there. I was there last week to pick up strings, figured they can't screw that up. And they didn't... but everything else was a nightmare. I was playing a Breedlove in their acoustic guitar room and the sales weasel walks in. After a bit I admitted that I had enough guitars for the moment, but that I needed a pickup for my Santa Cruz dread. The guy wanted to know if Santa Cruz was one of those awful Chinese guitar companies. I thought he was joking but he wasn't. If you are going to sell Martin, Taylor and the like you probably ought to know who Collings and Santa Cruz are. Then he wanted to sell me a plywood guitar as a step up. I mean I hate to sound like a snob, but that's pretty clueless!

So I finally got him back on track, the pick up... remember I want to buy a pickup? He recommends one of those in-the-sound-hole magnetic pickups. Why?? Well then your guitar will sound almost like an electric guitar.

WHAT?????????

If I want to sound like an electric guitar I'll pick up, oh I don't know, an electric guitar, and then it will sound EXACTLY like an electric guitar. And what does an electric guitar sound like? Does a Les Paul sound like a Strat sound like a Tele sound like an ES-335 sound like a Country Gentleman sound like a ...
 
Not that it matters, because if I put a pick up in my Santa Cruz I want it to sound like my Santa Cruz... only louder. He really didn't understand.

At which point I left...

Now I'm certainly happy to hear that not every GC is like this, but I know I won't head back there again for a very long time.

I think it depends on the area... Oakland/bay area... Emeryville store is mainly working artists/musicians/small studio folk who offer great advise and eagerly solicit mine.  The guy I bought my Ibanez 5 string from has the 4 string version...spent all day auditioning for necks/sounds and he checked in every so often and I was surprised when my own independent choice was his also...
 
We've had great discussions on interfaces, mixing tools and such...he does studio work, engineering mixing school...and beat the internet price by a hundred bucks...
 
Kansas, no... I imagine

edrummist
 What are everyone's thoughts?  When was the last time you went to a physical music store and do you prefer GC and big chains with huge buying power or local independent shops?

1. Last time I went to the local music store was about 3 months ago, but I did buy from that same store as they had on-line stock but not in-store stock.
It is a big chain though.
 
2. Do I prefer big chains or local independents?
Both actually.
I'd be much more inclined to stop in at the small local independent guy more often, but he just doesn't carry anything new or even relatively new.
Most of his stuff is old trade in stuff.
I'm not even sure how he stays in business, because other than guitar strings, I just don't see anything in there worth purchasing.
 
A lot of his stuff is even older than the stuff that I myself would consider trading in.
But it wouldn't be considered vintage or collector stuff by any means.
 
I feel bad for the guy, but I don't think he's doin' himself any favors with what he stocks, [although he may be somewhat limited - or even hand-cuffed there], when there's a popular well known big chain store just 3 blocks away that's got [or can get] anything anyone wants within a day or 2.

The other thing is, many manufacturers have a minimum annual buy requirement which freezes out the smaller stores from carrying their lines.  I think Taylor is one of these and it wouldn't surprise me if Gibson and Fender also had this requirment.  It really pushes the mom and pop stores into off brands, used equipment and doing instrument repair and modification.
 
I'm pretty lukewarm on GC.  Some of the stores I've been in have been ok for the stuff that I am looking for, but usually I know exactly what i want before I walk in and they either have it in stock or they don't.
 
I also have other choices in my area.  I am lucky in that respect.

The GC here doesn't frequently doesn't have what I'm looking for and the service is really hit and miss.  I usually buy from Sweetwater or Amazon because I can generally find what I'm looking for and the prices are pretty good (unless I'm looking for a guitar and then really like Carvins which I order online anyway).