PMT and Gibson Guitars - Big news and changes

Jez6345789

Its all cyclical who were the top 20 selling Albums before appetite for destruction its was all Kylie and Jason and middle of the road pop. Chris Rea Road to hell Dad Rock. 

Ultimately stuff comes and it goes current rap and dance music is reaching a plateaux the novelty of so called Ghetto bad boys calling each other the N word and woman bitches and Ho's and what ever latest put down is starting to run its course.

The fact is these days there is a mountain of good guitar related  music more available through the internet than ever before. 

Everytime someone post something here I always try to check it out see it i like it

As has been said before for me there are only two types of music and I dont really care if its guitar heavy or a banging piano a good song is a good song. 

fandango

andyp said:

The whole way this Gibson deal seems to work seems like the tail wagging the dog to me.

Surely they should just supply and sell what the customers want, rather than tell the customers what they want and nobody buys them? I know it's not that simple but it must be a better business model to supply and sell as many of the ones that people are buying as possible over trying to manipulate people into buying something.

Apple tells their customers what they want. The iPhone was/is a prime example. No-one knew they wanted an iPhone (or an iPad) until Apple told them.

Bridgehouse

fandango said:

andyp said:

The whole way this Gibson deal seems to work seems like the tail wagging the dog to me.

Surely they should just supply and sell what the customers want, rather than tell the customers what they want and nobody buys them? I know it's not that simple but it must be a better business model to supply and sell as many of the ones that people are buying as possible over trying to manipulate people into buying something.

Apple tells their customers what they want. The iPhone was/is a prime example. No-one knew they wanted an iPhone (or an iPad) until Apple told them.

Having said that, the number of threads on here that start with a variation of "what guitar for an x sound" or "why do I need an x guitar?" etc. etc. seems to suggest that a lot of players genuinely don't know what they want until they try it..

Dave_Mc

I dunno about this supposed mid-late 90s golden era of guitar. I was at secondary school then and most of the people wanted to listen to dance music, from what I can remember. Maybe it was different in NI.

Whitecat

Back to Gibson, interesting backlash brewing by dealers across the pond as well. They must have changed something for the next "ordering" year -

https://www.thegearpage.net/board/index.php?threads/psa-gibson-les-paul-custom-shop-price-blowout.1802214/

guitars4you

Whitecat said:

Back to Gibson, interesting backlash brewing by dealers across the pond as well. They must have changed something for the next "ordering" year -

https://www.thegearpage.net/board/index.php?threads/psa-gibson-les-paul-custom-shop-price-blowout.1802214/

nice to get the heads up on this - I think Dave has done this before around 5-10 years ago - Maybe it is a threat from the dealer and Gibson then edit a policy and the dealer comes back - we'll see

ICBM

nickb_boy said:

I know there was a trend for tie dye finishes at NAMM but if Gibson are hoping this unicorn vomit colour scheme is going to be their savior and the best way of helpng to sell a historic 1959 model priced  at £4299 then good luck to them.  



PMT probably saw they had 3 out of the 50 run of these already on their order sheets and thought they'd be better off out.

I actually quite like that .

Or at least, I like it more than a boreburst one. I wouldn't pay four grand for it though…

This brings us on to the next problem for the traditional makers. While it's true that there are still many young musicians who play guitars, a guitar that costs more than a fairly decent second hand car is not even on their horizon. They don't care, and rightly so - if the chap from Coldplay can play Glastonbury with a Mexican Fender, why pay more?

The £1K+ market is dominated by aging classic rock fans who buy multiple guitars, and that market *is* going to die - literally.

SteveRobinson

guitars4you said: 

nice to get the heads up on this - I think Dave has done this before around 5-10 years ago

Yes he stopped selling Gibson when they banned dealers from advertising prices on the web.

professorben

fandango said:

andyp said:

The whole way this Gibson deal seems to work seems like the tail wagging the dog to me.

Surely they should just supply and sell what the customers want, rather than tell the customers what they want and nobody buys them? I know it's not that simple but it must be a better business model to supply and sell as many of the ones that people are buying as possible over trying to manipulate people into buying something.

Apple tells their customers what they want. The iPhone was/is a prime example. No-one knew they wanted an iPhone (or an iPad) until Apple told them.

But those are mass market items which require little or no skill to use. 

english_bob

ICBM said:

The £1K+ market is dominated by aging classic rock fans who buy multiple guitars, and that market *is* going to die - literally.

I suspect  the passing of the Baby Boomer generation is going to shit up the music instrument retail industry seriously, in so many ways.

WezV

Just imagine a Gibson company that made less instruments, more consistently, with a super clear range.

Juniors @£1k.  SG's @£1.5k.  Les Paul's at £2k and 335's from £2.5k.  Plenty of room for special editions within that, limited to 50-100 pieces each, but 3 weeks of the month should be focused on the standards.

The Gibson that sell well are always the ones closest to the archetype.... just focus on making those as good as possible and spend less time making unprofitable models that don't sell.  It needs to be a smaller company with less staff who can then be trained and paid better.


i live innovative guitars, I don't think that means Gibson need to be innovative.  

Bridgehouse

WezV said:

Just imagine a Gibson company that made less instruments, more consistently, with a super clear range.

Juniors @£1k.  SG's @£1.5k.  Les Paul's at £2k and 335's from £2.5k.  Plenty of room for special editions within that, limited to 50-100 pieces each, but 3 weeks of the month should be focused on the standards.

The Gibson that sell well are always the ones closest to the archetype.... just focus on making those as good as possible and spend less time making unprofitable models that don't sell.  It needs to be a smaller company with less staff who can then be trained and paid better.


i live innovative guitars, I don't think that means Gibson need to be innovative.  

That's a great approach. It would work, and would stabilise their business.

If only they had a management team that thought like that huh?

dindude

WezV said:

Just imagine a Gibson company that made less instruments, more consistently, with a super clear range.

Juniors @£1k.  SG's @£1.5k.  Les Paul's at £2k and 335's from £2.5k.  Plenty of room for special editions within that, limited to 50-100 pieces each, but 3 weeks of the month should be focused on the standards.

The Gibson that sell well are always the ones closest to the archetype.... just focus on making those as good as possible and spend less time making unprofitable models that don't sell.  It needs to be a smaller company with less staff who can then be trained and paid better.


i live innovative guitars, I don't think that means Gibson need to be innovative.  

I'm in, WezV for chairman I reckon. 

crunchman

Bridgehouse said:

WezV said:

Just imagine a Gibson company that made less instruments, more consistently, with a super clear range.

Juniors @£1k.  SG's @£1.5k.  Les Paul's at £2k and 335's from £2.5k.  Plenty of room for special editions within that, limited to 50-100 pieces each, but 3 weeks of the month should be focused on the standards.

The Gibson that sell well are always the ones closest to the archetype.... just focus on making those as good as possible and spend less time making unprofitable models that don't sell.  It needs to be a smaller company with less staff who can then be trained and paid better.


i live innovative guitars, I don't think that means Gibson need to be innovative.  

That's a great approach. It would work, and would stabilise their business.

If only they had a management team that thought like that huh?

The problem is that they have hundreds of millions of dollars of debt.  Selling that number of guitars won't make enough money to pay the interest on that debt, let alone pay it off.

Until there is a chapter 11 bankruptcy and they can write off the debts, they can't go to a model like that.  They have to try and sell multiple tens of thousands of guitars per year so that they can spin a story to the banks that they have the means to service the debt.

WezV

i didn't say it was possible, or even plausible, but its the Gibson I hope we will eventually see  

crunchman

WezV said:

i didn't say it was possible, or even plausible, but its the Gibson I hope we will eventually see  

 I think we will when the current incarnation of it goes to the wall.

RocknRollDave

They could sell considerably more guitars with one simple design change: Give Epiphones a proper Gibson headstock.

Squier and MiM Fenders do well, I believe. Purely anecdotal and based only on my own suppositions, but I don't feel there is the same love out there for Epiphones. The headstock certainly doesn't help.

The SE range from PRS is taking business that Epiphone could be taking, IMO

Jez6345789

Following on and reviving this thread a little I noticed this the other day from Willcut guitars in the US may have been a while ago now but see they posted it next to some guitars they were selling off. It would seem the UK dealers are not alone in there displeasure of Gibsons dealer programs. 

*This is a brand new item, never sold.  We  received it directly from Gibson, but are no longer Gibson authorized dealers.  May or may not come with Gibson warranty.** 

HAL9000

ICBM said:

 ...if the chap from Coldplay can play Glastonbury with a Mexican Fender, why pay more?

Hadn't realised this, but would agree that an MIM Fender is a perfectly giggable instrument. Not only that but you could upgrade pickups etc and (depending upon the upgrades) still have something that costs significantly less than a US Fender.

darthed1981

HAL9000 said:

ICBM said:

 ...if the chap from Coldplay can play Glastonbury with a Mexican Fender, why pay more?

Hadn't realised this, but would agree that an MIM Fender is a perfectly giggable instrument. Not only that but you could upgrade pickups etc and (depending upon the upgrades) still have something that costs significantly less than a US Fender.

Epiphones are perfectly giggable instruments as well, I've seen loads of small event and pub bands using Epiphones.

Oh, and of course lots of bands starting off are still on Epi's (Oasis for example if you see early video footage) and of course Josh Homme sometimes uses an Epi Dot live.