Guitar shop

Neil-Nitro

Hey guys.

So a friend of mine is looking into starting his own guitar shop/musical instrument shop.
Does anyone have any ideas on which places he could call to have them supply him?

Thanks in advance!

AlanRatcliffe

I gather he has no experience in the field then? Or done any research yet?

Main ones to worry about are:
Tuerk Music Technologies: http://www.tuerkmusic.co.za/
Bothner Group: (Musical Distributors, Feedback): www.musicaldistributors.co.za
Marshall Music Group
MIDI (TOMS)
Global Music if he wants Yamaha (I think they are www.yamahaproaudio.co.za, IIRC), Tradelius for Pearl and a couple of others).

Those cover most of the major brands between them, but there are lots of other, smaller distributors around - like TI Distribution (Matt is a regular here) for Beyerdynamic, Vintage, Fret King et.al.

studmissile

What would be nice is a guitar shop with actual parts and spares. A local stewmac, if only!

Nitebob

studmissile wrote What would be nice is a guitar shop with actual parts and spares. A local stewmac, if only!

Shibbibilybob

geez I would love a local Stewmac, but I just don't see the market really. Are there enough folks needing to buy the things they stock?
I'm not sure how feasible, but ya, would be awesome.

AlanRatcliffe

We've had local agencies for both WD and Allparts before (actually, I think Music Connection are AP agents now?). Andre Meyer (ex-Tonerider guy) looked into expanding his range into spares too. In the past, I've been approached by a few companies to represent them locally. But upshot is it's not worth the investment to carry as wide a range as you really need to do it properly. There's simply not a large enough market to make it viable.

Bob-Dubery

Alan Ratcliffe wrote We've had local agencies for both WD and Allparts before (actually, I think Music Connection are AP agents now?).

Indeed they are.

warrenpridgeon

X-rated Bob wrote
Alan Ratcliffe wrote We've had local agencies for both WD and Allparts before (actually, I think Music Connection are AP agents now?).
Indeed they are.

And they wanted R200 for a footswitch for my tonebone trimode.... *cough*...

Big-G

Even if the market was big enough, we would just end up in the same arguments over distributors costs/profits etc, which of course they have to add to make it worthwhile, with the end result being people importing their own kit from Stewmac etc anyway, so I'm not surprised there's no agent for parts here.

Regards
G!

RobbieZ

Nitebob wrote
studmissile wrote What would be nice is a guitar shop with actual parts and spares. A local stewmac, if only!
+1

+1
If the prices are compareble, in dollar terms, it might actualy work. I for one like to stay local, but cannot find the stuff I need localy at the same prices elsewhere. That basicaly mean that you have to have a mail order department as well.
Good luck and let us know of the progress.