“We needed to have much better product in our stores. We’ve changed that”: Guitar Center CEO claims the days of seeing stores stuffed with budget guitars are over
Guitar Center CEO Gabriel Dalporto says the retailer’s focus is on providing “high-quality, premium” instruments in an environment that’s facing an ever-increasing need to evolve and adapt.
The interview with YouTuber Phillip McKnight on his Know Your Gear podcast [via Guitar World] discusses Guitar Center’s ongoing strategy to maintain its status as the United States’ biggest music store chain, and how it is combating competition from mainstream online retailers like Amazon.
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Following the closure of all of Sam Ash’s brick-and-mortar stores last year, executives at Guitar Center knew they needed to adapt in order to survive and stay competitive.
“We’ve made mistakes in the past,” notes Dalporto. “They’ve almost inevitably just been forgetting who your customer is and forgetting how to deliver a really amazing experience for your customer.”
As McKnight explains, Guitar Center was previously keeping all of its premium products out of sight on the top shelf, meaning being able to physically walk into a store, pick up a high-end guitar, and play it was limited.
“We’ve unlocked all of our guitars, and I can walk in and grab a really nice guitar off the wall, plug it in to these brand new massive pedal tables,” Dalporto says. “Actual time spent in our stores is up 25% because of that.”
“Amazon is ineffective in every way at selling high-end guitars,” McKnight adds. “Fender used to try and sell high-end guitars on Amazon but they don’t even do that anymore, because no-one’s buying a $1,800 guitar on Amazon.”
Dalporto agrees, but says Guitar Center doesn’t try to compete with what Amazon does better. “When you think about what we can uniquely provide for the musician, low-end, cheap, toy-like instruments, that’s not where we’re going to win.
“It really is the premium product where people are going to take that time and care a lot and want to experience it. That’s why it’s important to us. We are leaning into that really high-quality, premium product where experience matters. That’s where we can win against Amazon.”
Making those premium products more accessible and carrying a wider range is something Dalporto says Guitar Center has been heavily focused on. “We needed to have much better product in our stores. We’ve spent the last year and several months driving relentlessly to get better product in the stores. We had way over-indexed on beginner, and we had way under-indexed on the mid and premium tiers, and the really drool-worthy products. We’ve changed that.”
The conversation between McKnight and Dalporto stemmed from a critical video posted by McKnight, which Dalporto responded to in a letter inviting him to chat about the issues raised.
In the original video, titled Why Guitar Center’s New Plan Is Going To Fail, McKnight brought up issues around buying guitars without being able to handle them, locking up the premium products out of reach, and the experience of buying from the Guitar Center website being slow and arduous.
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Source: www.guitar-bass.net
