Fender and Gibson, the cost is it worth it...Discuss amongst the group.

[Simon Barden]

Had an interesting conversation in a music shop today. Apparently Gibson are in a very shaky financial state. The music shop has just stopped being a Gibson dealer because they could no longer ask Gibson for what they wanted to sell - they had to take what they were given. Previously to be able to get the guitars they wanted to sell, they had to take £35k/A$57k per month of Gibson products (and obviously sell them at a higher price). This is just one shop, not a chain. So rather than simply take what Gibson gave them - what Gibson thought they should sell rather than what they knew they could sell - they've dropped Gibson altogether.

Apart from some poor management of guitar designs (feedback on their new products from NAMM seem to be rather negative by all accounts), the company had been and still is involved in a large number of acquisitions of other companies, often just to simply close them down shortly afterwards and loose vast sums of money in the process. Whilst some of these companies were guitar related, most haven't been, and the general reaction of the people working for the taken-over companies has been to leave and take their expertise with them, making them unviable businesses.

[JB RETRO]

Had an interesting conversation in a music shop today. Apparently Gibson are in a very shaky financial state. The music shop has just stopped being a Gibson dealer because they could no longer ask Gibson for what they wanted to sell - they had to take what they were given. Previously to be able to get the guitars they wanted to sell, they had to take £35k/A$57k per month of Gibson products (and obviously sell them at a higher price). This is just one shop, not a chain. So rather than simply take what Gibson gave them - what Gibson thought they should sell rather than what they knew they could sell - they've dropped Gibson altogether.

Apart from some poor management of guitar designs (feedback on their new products from NAMM seem to be rather negative by all accounts), the company had been and still is involved in a large number of acquisitions of other companies, often just to simply close them down shortly afterwards and loose vast sums of money in the process. Whilst some of these companies were guitar related, most haven't been, and the general reaction of the people working for the taken-over companies has been to leave and take their expertise with them, making them unviable businesses.

Gees Simon that sounds so very similar to selling push bikes. A lot of bike shops here had to buy a certain amount of pushies to sell what they wanted. Couldn't just order what you wanted. The corporate bottom line!.