No Gibsons

Neil

stickyfiddle said:

Neil said:

professorben said:

Neil said:

Perhaps he is going the Rolex route?

You can buy any number of watches in H.Samuels etc etc but Rolex are only stocked at a few high end stores or their own boutiques.

Similarly Rolex dealers get what Rolex want you to have, don't ask for any Daytonas.  

It doesn't hurt luxury brands to take themselves out of the hoi polloi. 

Very sensible when you have a legendary build quality to back it up. 

Rolex are not better built than most other much cheaper watches but are far more expensive - the legend sells.

I simply thought that Gibson may be eyeing up the Rolex merchandising method. 

You may well be right, but Gibson sells maybe 10% of the number of units that Rolex does each year (i'm assuming ±1m watches and 100k guitars). And Gibson will only ever (generally) sell to people who already have half a clue how to play guitar. ANYONE can buy a Rolex, because you don't need any skills to use it, other than having arms and eyes. Add to that that Rolex has a huge market in the Middle East and China where it can throw diamonds at a watch and multiply the price by 5 (and margins by 10), Gibson has tried that a number of times and got laughed at. 

All true.

Simply interested conjecture on my part. 

stickyfiddle

Neil said:

stickyfiddle said:

Neil said:

professorben said:

Neil said:

Perhaps he is going the Rolex route?

You can buy any number of watches in H.Samuels etc etc but Rolex are only stocked at a few high end stores or their own boutiques.

Similarly Rolex dealers get what Rolex want you to have, don't ask for any Daytonas.  

It doesn't hurt luxury brands to take themselves out of the hoi polloi. 

Very sensible when you have a legendary build quality to back it up. 

Rolex are not better built than most other much cheaper watches but are far more expensive - the legend sells.

I simply thought that Gibson may be eyeing up the Rolex merchandising method. 

You may well be right, but Gibson sells maybe 10% of the number of units that Rolex does each year (i'm assuming ±1m watches and 100k guitars). And Gibson will only ever (generally) sell to people who already have half a clue how to play guitar. ANYONE can buy a Rolex, because you don't need any skills to use it, other than having arms and eyes. Add to that that Rolex has a huge market in the Middle East and China where it can throw diamonds at a watch and multiply the price by 5 (and margins by 10), Gibson has tried that a number of times and got laughed at. 

All true.

Simply interested conjecture on my part. 

I'm not arguing with you at all. I think Gibson (or rather Henry J) *is* trying to move towards that position. But he's doing it while having to maintain cashflow to service the debt, which requires selling loads of low-end stuff, which makes it impossible to exist at that "Rolex" point in the market. 

xDottore

Apparently there's a new Gibson shop opening in Denmark Street in September, up on the corner at the Hanks end. 

uksaint7

Dottore said:

Apparently there's a new Gibson shop opening in Denmark Street in September, up on the corner at the Hanks end. 

Any idea who is opening it?

fretfinder

Neil said: Rolex are not far far far better built than most absolutely all other much cheaper watches but are far more expensive - the legend quality and exclusivity sells.

Corrected that for you. 

Skipped

PhilKing said:

Sounds like it's going back to what it was like when Rose Morris used to be the distributor back in the 70's.  I ran JSG in Bingley and they wouldn't let us be dealers because Kitchen's objected.  Now Kitchen's couldn't sell a Gibson to a younger guitar player, because they wouldn't let you try it unless they thought you had the money to buy and wanted full price for everything.  We would let anyone try anything.  We also set up all the guitars when they came in (Gibsons shipped with medium gauge strings and a high action).  We ended up doing a deal with a large Gibson dealer to take a lot of their stock, which we sold at a big discount.

btw.  Breitling are nicer than Rolexes, and you can get them at discount!

@PhilKing
Didn't JSG open a shop pretty much right opposite Kitchens and then start discounting? (Before he opened up in Bingley).
Maybe that is what triggered the miffdom.

aord43

Guitar Guitar in Camden have been advertising on buses recently that they are the only Gibson and Epiphone dealer in Central London.  Which surprised me at first but not after reading this thread.

NelsonP

Flanging_Fred said:

In 12 - 18 months time, you might not be able to buy Gibsons anywhere if Moody's projections about the company are to be believed. It ain't looking rosey.

....in the meantime there is always Amazon :-(

NelsonP

Flanging_Fred said:

In 12 - 18 months time, you might not be able to buy Gibsons anywhere if Moody's projections about the company are to be believed. It ain't looking rosey.

Good piece on that here....
https://www.google.co.uk/amp/www.ericgarland.co/2016/09/27/gibson-rating-moodys/amp/

JayGee

PhilKing said:

Sounds like it's going back to what it was like when Rose Morris used to be the distributor back in the 70's.  I ran JSG in Bingley and they wouldn't let us be dealers because Kitchen's objected.  Now Kitchen's couldn't sell a Gibson to a younger guitar player, because they wouldn't let you try it unless they thought you had the money to buy and wanted full price for everything.  We would let anyone try anything.  We also set up all the guitars when they came in (Gibsons shipped with medium gauge strings and a high action).  We ended up doing a deal with a large Gibson dealer to take a lot of their stock, which we sold at a big discount.

btw.  Breitling are nicer than Rolexes, and you can get them at discount!

Oooooh!

It's not often you run across someone responsible for a large chunk of your mis-spent youth.

I spent a lot of time in my early-to-mid teens exploring the old JSG shop in Bingley, and when I say exploring I mean it quite literally, I swear that every time I went through that fairly ordinary looking shop front I found another room or space in the warren behind it...

I can testify to the long term effectiveness of the "let anyone try anything" policy too byb the way - I got to try a *lot* of guitars, amps, and pedals in JSG which would have been utterly inaccesible anywhere else and while it sometimes took a while a number of quite significant sales eventually came of it over the years.

I'm sticking with my random collection of vintage watches by the way (a handful of Omegas, an inexplicable number of '50s/'60s Bulovas including a couple of Accutrons, a whole bunch of funky old stuff which just happened to push my buttons, a Girard Perregaux Gyromatic, my personal favourite 1954 Universal Geneve Polerouter, and a lovely old late  '40s Le Coultre "bumper" self winder) -  they were a heck of a lot cheaper to buy (assuming like me you're not too hung up on perfect cosmetic condition and the odd non-original part), they're more fun, and you're a lot less likely to find the bloke next to you in the bar wearing the same thing on his wrist. :-)

Neil

JayGee said:

I'm sticking with my random collection of vintage watches by the way (a handful of Omegas, an inexplicable number of '50s/'60s Bulovas including a couple of Accutrons, a whole bunch of funky old stuff which just happened to push my buttons, a Girard Perregaux Gyromatic, my personal favourite 1954 Universal Geneve Polerouter, and a lovely old late  '40s Le Coultre "bumper" self winder) -  they were a heck of a lot cheaper to buy (assuming like me you're not too hung up on perfect cosmetic condition and the odd non-original part), they're more fun, and you're a lot less likely to find the bloke next to you in the bar wearing the same thing on his wrist. :-)

Nice,  I'm a vintage watch collector myself. 

Neil

fretfinder said:

Neil said: Rolex are not far far far better built than most absolutely all other much cheaper watches but are far more expensive - the legend quality and exclusivity sells.

Corrected that for you. 

Expert are you? 

crunchman

NelsonP said:

Flanging_Fred said:

In 12 - 18 months time, you might not be able to buy Gibsons anywhere if Moody's projections about the company are to be believed. It ain't looking rosey.

Good piece on that here....
https://www.google.co.uk/amp/www.ericgarland.co/2016/09/27/gibson-rating-moodys/amp/

That's a year old.  Their debt was downgraded again to a yet lower level last month.

rainer2859

Neil said:

JayGee said:

I'm sticking with my random collection of vintage watches by the way (a handful of Omegas, an inexplicable number of '50s/'60s Bulovas including a couple of Accutrons, a whole bunch of funky old stuff which just happened to push my buttons, a Girard Perregaux Gyromatic, my personal favourite 1954 Universal Geneve Polerouter, and a lovely old late  '40s Le Coultre "bumper" self winder) -  they were a heck of a lot cheaper to buy (assuming like me you're not too hung up on perfect cosmetic condition and the odd non-original part), they're more fun, and you're a lot less likely to find the bloke next to you in the bar wearing the same thing on his wrist. :-)

Nice,  I'm a vintage watch collector myself. 

Cue, show us your vintage watch thread ;-)

mbe

Has anyone else been watching the new detective series, "Strike"?

The protagonist is a downbeat gumshoe with an office in Denmark Street above a guitar shop callen 'No.Tom'.

Neil

rainer2859 said:

Neil said:

JayGee said:

I'm sticking with my random collection of vintage watches by the way (a handful of Omegas, an inexplicable number of '50s/'60s Bulovas including a couple of Accutrons, a whole bunch of funky old stuff which just happened to push my buttons, a Girard Perregaux Gyromatic, my personal favourite 1954 Universal Geneve Polerouter, and a lovely old late  '40s Le Coultre "bumper" self winder) -  they were a heck of a lot cheaper to buy (assuming like me you're not too hung up on perfect cosmetic condition and the odd non-original part), they're more fun, and you're a lot less likely to find the bloke next to you in the bar wearing the same thing on his wrist. :-)

Nice,  I'm a vintage watch collector myself. 

Cue, show us your vintage watch thread ;-)

There was a watches thread on here some time back but a vintage watch thread with some pertinent facts would be very interesting. 

OilCityPickups

Whitecat said:

Yup - not only a huge buy-in but no say in what you actually get to carry - Gibson sends you what they want you to sell and you have no choice but to try to shift it. Then you'll have a kick in the nuts when Amazon starts undercutting you by 30% and the only way to get rid of the stale inventory is to slash and burn your prices, so in the end you make almost no money anyway. 

Gibson knows that a lot of shops still want the "halo effect" being a stockist brings... 

It's a model that's had its day but with Gibson apparently still sitting on a stadium full of unsold inventory I can't see it changing under the current management. 

This was the same when I owned a music shop 30 years ago, and not just Gibson, Fender and Marshall told you exactly what you had to have in stock. If you add the 'Amazon factor' into the modern situation I'm surprised any smaller music shops exist at all these days.