Post NAMM aftershock

ICTGoober

ICTGoober

New member
One of Wichita's oldest guitar stores was a Gibson dealer since its inception in the early 70's... Electrics, flattops, banjos, mandos, amps, strings, straps, and accessories - the works.

When the bankruptcy was announced, they dumped all Gibson stuff on the net and said we'll talk again in Anaheim with the new CEO. Apparently, Gibson wanted all dealers to up their orders by a large percentage. The store owner walked, saying NO WAY.

That leaves Ninth Circle of Hell Music the only Gibson dealer in town, and their prices were usually higher than the older store. I have 3 clients who ordered multiple Custom Shop Gibsons each down through the years, and they are not happy about this sea change. This is personal for them, having established decades long relationships with this store.

I hate to start another Gibson bashing thread, but I'd like to hear about the aftermath from any of you in the retail business. I had high hopes for the new management team, (edited for politics).... and I think that bodes ill. No guitar buyer cares about all that crap - they care about quality instruments. I didn't hear much talk about that. He talked about sweeping the floor in the plant, and putting in new lightbulbs (paraphrasing), which is all well and good.

What say you?
 
Re: Post NAMM aftershock

At this point, I am sick of hearing people talk about it. YMMV.
 
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"Meet the new boss; same as the old boss."

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The people I know who talked to the new CEO at NAMM said he was a good guy, with a good plan. We'll see in a year or so. This NAMM was too early to tell.
 
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Any meaningful change will take time at this point. A lot of people have a bad taste in their mouth right now.
 
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I'm not in the retail business, but I did attend NAMM, and I can report that the Gibson booth was *packed*. People are interested. It was to the point where one could hardly move. Lots of people trying out stuff, which is always good, though the few guitars I tried, while set up well per NAMM expectations, felt pretty much like any other Gibsons I've played.

What actually got me excited there were the subsidiaries - Steinberger and Kramer aren't dead, as they each had a small selection on show, and Epiphone had what seemed like a strong showing. The lowly Dot will be available in a cool new finish (the Sheraton, too, next to it, and you can spy the Kramer Nightswan (!) in the background):

epiphone.jpg
 
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Steinberger just had cheap overseas Spirits, and despite my questions, no one knew of any other plans for the brand. Silly, as headless guitars are more popular now than ever.
 
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At least until this year, maybe Mincer can elaborate on what he saw this year with the new guy -but traditionally in the last decade at NAMM, Gibson puts on a good show of being only a premium guitar and guitar accessory maker to retain respect in the industry.... guitars are almost a loss leader for the larger bradn goals -BUT if you go to the CES show in Vegas a few weeks before NAMM each year, you will see their real corporate goals in the last decade on display

.... basically to be an end to end sh*t lifestyle brand.... with guitars being a just a small portion of their corporate portfolio of clothing, DJ equipment, blenders, toasters, sunglasses, stereos, solutions for modern living etc..... they bought Philips, Magnovox, Teac, Stanton, Onkyo, etc etc -that's all fine and their business if they want to go the ubiquitous conglomerate route like Harley Davidson which tried the identical lifestyle bullsh*t route in the late 90s which then imploaded spectacularly around 2010, but most guitar players don't have any interest in supporting a Walmart corporate everything operation for guitars -they move on to companies that are up an coming...

Maybe this new CEO will kill a lot of those distractions and go back to making Guitars -especially a damn 1960 LP TV DC Special -that they seem to have abandoned the idea of making for 23 of the last 25 years.

I hope they go bankrupt again, or out of this current re-org a guitar company emerges that wants to make awesome guitars and make guitars available to mom and pop/local guitar store without holding them financially hostage....
 
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Well, the Gibson room was constantly packed and hard to navigate. What I saw was a 'back to basics' approach with their models. I think they listened to the most common complaints from the most common customers, and gave them exactly what they expected. Not a lot of archtops or even thinlines, but rows of LPs and SGs in the most common sunburst colors. Not really my thing, however.
Their other brands consisted of low-cost imports for the most part. There is no sign of reviving Steinberger. Kramer fared a little better, but the new instruments are not near the quality that USA Kramers used to be. It was the 'khaki pants' of booths, this year.
 
Re: Post NAMM aftershock

Mincer said:
Well, the Gibson room was constantly packed and hard to navigate. What I saw was a 'back to basics' approach with their models. I think they listened to the most common complaints from the most common customers, and gave them exactly what they expected. Not a lot of archtops or even thinlines, but rows of LPs and SGs in the most common sunburst colors. Not really my thing, however.
Their other brands consisted of low-cost imports for the most part. There is no sign of reviving Steinberger. Kramer fared a little better, but the new instruments are not near the quality that USA Kramers used to be. It was the 'khaki pants' of booths, this year.
Click to expand...

Any Gibson "Lifestyle" crap -like clothes, sunglasses, consumer electronics, bluetooth speakers, and such? or were they focused on instruments?
 
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lifestyle bullsh*t
Click to expand...

EXACTLY one of the things JC Curleigh was talking about that was pulled from my post. Guitar buyers don't GAF about lifestyle marketing, or other politically correct takes on marketing. They want a kickass guitar for the money from Gibson, AND THAT'S IT.
 
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NegativeEase said:
Any Gibson "Lifestyle" crap -like clothes, sunglasses, consumer electronics, bluetooth speakers, and such? or were they focused on instruments?
Click to expand...

I am sure there were shirts, etc, but I just saw rows and rows of sunburst LPs.
 
Re: Post NAMM aftershock

ICTGoober said:
EXACTLY one of the things JC Curleigh was talking about that was pulled from my post. Guitar buyers don't GAF about lifestyle marketing, or other politically correct takes on marketing. They want a kickass guitar for the money from Gibson, AND THAT'S IT.
Click to expand...

Agreed. a few years ago at CES -which I know they were there to show off their "electronics portfolio", it was hard to tell that they made Guitars at all. They were in the back left corner of their giant "Gibson Tent" -and every guitar had those damn Robo tuners except 2 -The Billies (Gibbons and Keliher)
 
Re: Post NAMM aftershock

ICTGoober said:
EXACTLY one of the things JC Curleigh was talking about that was pulled from my post. Guitar buyers don't GAF about lifestyle marketing, or other politically correct takes on marketing. They want a kickass guitar for the money from Gibson, AND THAT'S IT.
Click to expand...

1000 thumbs up
 
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It takes a lot of water to turn a ship as big as Gibson. I wish the new crew the best of luck
 
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I youtubed a vid from Namm and was excited to see Kramer displaying a Swan and Sambora model!

Im not a dealer, but I know that in the past, the excessive minimum order requirement drove most of the mom and pops out of dealing with Gibson. Its sad to hear that hasnt changed. The online store that I got my Explorer from a few years back stopped selling them for that minimum order thing.
 
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If Gibson had their own stores, (like Harley), I think they would be happier. The current dealers would be happier, too, and I bet so would the customers.
 
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