Sam Ash dumps Gibson brands?

Re: Sam Ash dumps Gibson brands?

the sam ash here in san antonio has'nt been carrying new gibsons for the three years its been here
 
Re: Sam Ash dumps Gibson brands?

Wattage said:
SD97 when I was down in Clearwater last month their stock was sad. They have tons of stuff, tons of Carlo Robelli and Brownsville and 2 racks of cheapo Strats that were turned into clocks. It filled up a lot of floor space indeed. Now I know not all the Robelli stuff is crap but there were maybe 4 or 5 good electrics in the whole store and the guitar dept was a pretty dismal looking overall.

I can't imagine that store is long for this world, it is an awfully large rundown building and it looks like consolidation might be a good thing.

The Clearwater store sucks! Tampa store doesn't....I always drive to the Tampa store...Ex-owner of Thoroughbred Music(Eliott of Dean Corp)rents that building to Sam Ash....
 
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Re: Sam Ash dumps Gibson brands?

Didn't they merge with Manny's Music? I think they joined together to be more competetive against GC. In Hollywood, it's called Sam Ash/Manny's.....I think.
There's so many music stores in the L.A. area, that the used market is filled with good stuff, even cheaper. I find it difficult to bring myself to buy at a superstore, because a local search on www.recycler.com will bring up almost anything you see at GC.
 
Re: Sam Ash dumps Gibson brands?

I know it's too much to ask, but wouldn't it be awesome if GC AND Ash dumped Gibson for their crappy internet policies, jacked up prices, and stale old re-issues ? Then Gibson snivels over to the Mom and Pop store and begs them to sell at decent prices on the internet ??? Then I woke up.
 
Re: Sam Ash dumps Gibson brands?

What the hell were you on when you dreamed that MVI, must have been something pretty strong...:jester:
On a serious note yeh gibsons quality control is getting worse... oh thats right they dont have any quality control anymore so it can't actualy get worse.
 
Re: Sam Ash dumps Gibson brands?

The difference is Guitar Center is a publicly traded company that must answer to shareholders. Guitar Center raised alot of capital to expand, buy Musicians Friend, and try to become part of pop culture- I hear their ads on the radion all the time. They are very good when it comes to business, marketing, and making sales.They are motivated to make money for their shareholders, and by being a successful business, they acheive that goal by trying to keep customers happy, and making them repeat customers.

Sam Ash is still a family business, provately owned. They bought Manny's because it was the best music store on 48th Street, and was basically in the middle of the 2 Sam Ash stores. It was competition, and they bought out the competition. Why did Manny's sell? They sold alot of boutique gear and I assumed couldn't keep up with the sales Sam Ash had of their Carlo Robelli type stuff. Bottom line? The Ash brother can run the chain into the ground without worrying about answering to shareholders.

Once Guitar Center went public, Sam Ash tried to do the same but it never fell through. Guitar Center had grown and expanded, Sam Ash has failed by not keeping competitive.
 
Re: Sam Ash dumps Gibson brands?

Trilogy said:
How do you figure?....

Furthermore, they don't have to answer to the customer, they could not care less about customer service or quality control.
You may say, "fine I'll just go somewhere else" ... ahhha, there IS NO other competion because the smaller Mom and Pop stores don't have the resources to compete.

You answered your own question. Because of GC’s resources and high cash flow, they have a lot more room to wiggle under the price than a smaller mom and pop store. There’s also more room for negotiation. The trade off is that you probably don’t get the personal attention that you get when buying from a smaller store. But if price is your bottom line, you can’t beat buying from big box stores.
 
Re: Sam Ash dumps Gibson brands?

kmcguitars said:
I hear it was the other way around. Gibson dumped Ash.:13:


Yeah. Thats the way I remember it too. Sammy got a little too ****y with them and they pulled all the product back.

I haven't bought much stuff there in years. Its hard for us older guys to deal with the uninformed sales personnel that work there. I find it amazing that any Kid off the street can be in there "selling" guitars and assorted merchandise without any product training. It just amazing that they can't explain the difference between a Studio and a Standard!:laugh2:
 
Re: Sam Ash dumps Gibson brands?

Gearjoneser said:
My local Sam Ash, Canoga Park, has been going steady but the stock has dipped in quality. I think they try to tailor their stock to the profile of the clientele.

However, that Sam Ash is in trouble now, because Guitar Center just opened a new store next to the Northridge mall. I'm actually happy that I've got one a few blocks away! That's gonna hurt Sam Ash's business badly.

For those two companies, it's been a game of checkers, and it looks like GC is winning. I buy everything used though, so they get my string'n'pick money.

That's too bad. I haven’t been there in a couple of years, but I did buy a few SD pickups there, & my friend got a good deal on a EC Strat, so I always liked 'em a bit better that GC. I'll have to check out the GC next time I in NR. I'm sure it's MUCH different that the one here!;)
 
Re: Sam Ash dumps Gibson brands?

kmcguitars said:
I hear it was the other way around. Gibson dumped Ash.:13:


Does this mean they're not going to the prom together?
 
Re: Sam Ash dumps Gibson brands?

Trilogy said:
Unless the corporation is a person or a city or a housing cooperative, it’s usually a ravenous profit-maximizing machine that stops at nothing to increase its share’s value. It’s answerable to its shareholders - and all they want to see is their share’s value go up.

And if you owned their stock, you would want to see the stock go down?

Trilogy said:
Large corporations gobble up the competitors thanks in part to their enormous resources and the great lengths they will go to keep costs low and sales high, e.g., sweatshops.

Small corporations and privately owned businesses (like Sam Ash) also gobble up competitors when they can -- as do Mom and Pop stores if the opportunity presents itself to them. Is Sam Ash using sweatshops?

Trilogy said:
Furthermore, they don't have to answer to the customer, they could not care less about customer service or quality control.
You may say, "fine I'll just go somewhere else" ... ahhha, there IS NO other competion because the smaller Mom and Pop stores don't have the resources to compete.

You buy only what is offered at whatever price they choose.

Then why is it that their prices are lower than Mom and Pops? Don't you think they would be higher if it was whatever price they choose? But they can't choose to do that or sales and stock price would go down.

Small businesses are not as helpless as you think. They do compete and they do survive -- if it were always the case that small businesses cannot compete with big business, there would be no small business at all because they would have all been gobbled up long ago. We would have the same companies at the top of the heap that were there 150 years ago. Yet 75% of all American workers are employed by small business. And how often do you hear about an established big company getting its lunch eaten by smaller, leaner competitor that completely out-maneuvers it? Sears effectively had a monopoly for years, then got clobbered by Walmart. IBM was king until Microsoft came along. It's endless...

The smart small businesses find ways to compete by giving customers something they can't get from the big boys. Maybe they can't give a lower price, but they can give either better service or unique aspects to service. And yet sometimes they CAN compete on price: Centre City Music (San Diego) is small, yet they are able to compete with GC and Sam Ash on both service AND price -- and on Gibsons. How do they do it? I don't know, but Saul (the owner) found a way. I recommend anyone in the So Cal area go see Saul if you're in the market for a new Gibson. You will NOT be sorry.
 
Re: Sam Ash dumps Gibson brands?

jmh151 said:
Sam Ash is still a family business, provately owned. They bought Manny's because it was the best music store on 48th Street, and was basically in the middle of the 2 Sam Ash stores. It was competition, and they bought out the competition. Why did Manny's sell? They sold alot of boutique gear and I assumed couldn't keep up with the sales Sam Ash had of their Carlo Robelli type stuff. Bottom line? The Ash brother can run the chain into the ground without worrying about answering to shareholders.

Ummm...not really but you're sorta close.

Actually, The Ash Brothers bought Manny's for pennies on the dollar because Manny's was bankrupt and about to go under. At the time they owed everyone money...well into the millions and most of their staff hadn't been paid in months. They bought Manny's to "save" the Manny's name and had the idea of opening a chain of Manny's stores to "bring the 48th Street experiece to everyone around the world".

They're gonna pay homeless guys to piss all over the sidewalk and front door? :rolleyes:

48th St has a totally different vibe now then it did 15 years ago or even five years ago. Most of the block is owned by Ash with the exception of Rudy's and some small keyboard joint. I hadn't been over there for a few years and last year I was staying in Times Square and had an afternoon to kill, so I figured I'd head over to 48th Street Custom & We Buy Guitars and found that both of 'em are long gone! I think it's Ass Drums & Ass "Pro" audio now. I wanted to grab some new stompboxes and needed a Hot Plate or Power Break for the session I was on and the guys in Scam Cash & Mannys either had NO idea what I was talking about or didn't have one in stock.

It's sad really.

Thankfully there are bunch of REAL guitar shops in NYC like 30th St, Ludlow, Matt Umanov and others that I'm forgetting at the moment.
 
Re: Sam Ash dumps Gibson brands?

Manny's always had cool gear before Sam Ash took over, though I was disappointed with one thing I saw. They had one of those Washburn Paul Stanley models- like the iceman. There was a crack running in the middle of the ebony fretboard the full length if the fretboard, and they were still charging $1800 for it.

48th Street is no big deal anymore. I went into Rudy's music one day and met Rudy Pensa. Hell of a nice guy, though I'm convinced all his guitars are made by Warmoth
 
Re: Sam Ash dumps Gibson brands?

In my experience, Sam Ash is a cut or two above GC, at least at the West Hollywood and Canoga Park stores I've been to. The people I dealt with were far more knowledgeable about the gear and didn't ever try to pull anything on me.
 
Re: Sam Ash dumps Gibson brands?

That's interesting.

Because Gibson put a stop to online pics of
their products(the actual guitars) last year.
This is one of the many reasons why companies like Dave's guitars, Wild West, and Willcutt stopped dealing or displaying actual Gibson guitars on their sites.
 
Re: Sam Ash dumps Gibson brands?

callous_frigid_chill said:
sweetwater.com has that for some of their models(mostly sunburst finishes)

Those are just generic pictures from Gibson -- they are not actual photos of guitars in stock, which is what Gibson is banning.
 
Re: Sam Ash dumps Gibson brands?

Zhangliqun said:
they are not actual photos of guitars in stock, which is what Gibson is banning.

Which is what M.F. is doing. Showing the actual guitar. Even a shot of the serial number on the headstock.

The Sweetwater pics do look like actual shots. Not just generic Gibson shots. But, the don't show a close up of the headstock serial. They do mention it though.

Maybe they found a loop hole?
 
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