Torment Leaves Scars said:
I don't particularly care for GC. While I love the selection of gear and just the idea of going in there to play with stuff, I don't buy anything. The employees are absolute idiots and getting any type of help for anything would be an absolute miracle. I don't care to associate myself with idiots, nor speak to them.
GC is the K-Mart (low-budget department store, for those unfamiliar) of the musical instrument/paraphernalia world. They do have a little room with some better guitars, but you'd be insane to buy them there. For the most part, it's blister-pack "value leader" stuff from J. A. Pan, K. O. Rea and C. H. Ina that they can make monster margins on.
They're managed by Bain Capital, which is one of Mitt Romney's companies. A brief description of how the company operates is available
via the Wiki...
Bain Capital was founded in 1984 by Bain & Company partners Willard M. Romney, T. Coleman Andrews III, and Eric Kriss. In addition to the four founding partners, the early team included Fraser Bullock, Robert F. White, Joshua Bekenstein, Adam Kirsch, and Geoffrey S. Rehnert. Bain Capital's original $37 million fund was raised entirely from private individuals in mid-1984.
The firm includes a large group of investment professionals with consulting or operating experience, and takes an intensive, analytical approach to the investment process. This allows the firm's teams to pursue a wide range of equity investment opportunities, and to conduct extensive diligence, to do a fact-based analysis of the business and competitive industry dynamics, and to identify a winning business model. Thus, Bain Capital turns a profit on floundering corporations by buying them at low cost, stripping away any projects that aren't profiting or that lack potential, and laying off any excess workers. One of the fund's first start-up investments was Staples, Inc., the $15 billion office supply retailer. The funding enabled Staples to expand from one store in 1986 to over 2000 stores in 2011.
More than 25 years after its inception, Bain Capital manages approximately $65 billion in assets, and has founded, acquired, or invested in hundreds of companies including AMC Entertainment, Aspen Education Group, Brookstone, Burger King, Burlington Coat Factory, Domino's Pizza, DoubleClick, D&M Holdings, Guitar Center, Hospital Corporation of America (HCA), Sealy, The Sports Authority, Toys R Us, Unisource, Warner Music Group and The Weather Channel.
In 2011, Bain Capital employed around 80 managing directors and approximately 400 professionals who most have prior experience in consulting or other related businesses.
So, a little (very little) reading between the lines will tell you why they are the way they are. They're not into music, musical equipment, or musicians. They're all about large profits on small investments in a popular market, as well as spyware, fast food, Chinese clothes, abusive media, etc., all of which are basically legal crimes. As a result, you end up with underpaid employees, low investment in inventory and rapid turn-around of goods and personnel. Past that, they couldn't care less what's going on.
I'm fortunate in that I live in a major market, so GC hasn't taken over
everything. They mostly just put the mom & pops out of business over the last 10-15 years. But, we still have places like Huber & Breese, where they think nothing of having entire rooms dedicated to Mesa Boogie, and walls are full of Custom Shop guitars from your usual suspects.
