Alan Ratcliffe wrote
Tokai SA wrote
I remember 3 1/2 years ago (before the recession 'really' hit SA) when I was giving music stores consignment stock everyone thought I was crazy...at that time hardly any guitar distributors were doing it, today they're all doing it.
Funny thing is, back in the mid 90s, my first boss managed to get just as much consignment as paid-for stock. Plus half the shipping charges, as well as half the cost of newspaper ads featuring a distributor's brands (plus a number of questionable "tricks" I won't go in to).
Of course it's scary giving music stores brand spanking new guitars on consignment and then hoping they'll look after them.
Well if it's broken or damaged, it's on them. As the adage goes: "consider it sold".
Can actually be an effective way to move stock. ?
lol, good plan. ?
It's only happened once so far where I invoiced a damaged guitar...and eventually got paid. ?
I was in a store and couldn't find one guitar.
So I called one of the salesman and asked where it was or if it was sold.
He gave me an Oscar winning performance telling me he hasn't a clue where it is, he said perhaps the other salesman who's on leave sold it.
Anyway, two weeks later I'm back in the store.
So I ask the other salesman who's back from leave if he perhaps knows where the guitar is.
Oscar winning performance number two, puzzled look, deep in thought, hmmm, I'm not sure.
Just then salesman number one joins us, now I've got them both together, they're trapped. ?
Turns out salesman number one dropped it off the wall many weeks ago and broke the headstock.
It's at their tech being repaired.
C'mon guys, you're not really going to repair it and put it back on the wall are you?
No no, you can invoice us for it, our tech wants to buy it for himself, which he did. ?
Remember the very fancy LS200 5A models I had that caused a debate around here, they were 25K guitars?
Anyway, I sold all 3 of them to US & Euro buyers.
Two of them had been in music stores on consignment, both were damaged.
One had a dent on the back of the neck, obviously the guitar was rested/pushed against the edge of an amp, too hard, and that caused a dent.
The other one had a nice scuffed section where someone had scrapped the edge of the body against something, paint scrapped off to the wood, and a nick off the edge of the headstock.
Wayne (Neon Gecko) fixed both for me before I shipped them...the music stores got away with those two. ?
And finally.
Another big store, the salesman was hanging a Tele, sometimes Tele headstocks slip through the wall hanger, the guitar came crashing down onto an amp, then onto e pedalboard and finally hit the ground.
This thing was damaged all over the place, including a huge dent on the body.
Of course total silence, not a word, until many weeks after it happened I saw the guitar.
The salesmen is a cool guy and I didn't want to get him into trouble with the manager, so I kept quite...I told him to try sell it at a discounted rate.
Two Saturday mornings ago another salesman in the store, not the guy who damaged it, phoned me to say he has a possible buyer in the store can I give the store an additional discount because it's damaged. ?
Of course I said yes, why not...the guy bought it.
