| TJ- you're right. You know I've never seen a musical retailer that managed to piss off their suppliers so much, time and time again. Rickenbacker, Moog, Electro-Harmonix, etc... all of them have been on again, off again with GC because GC screws around with the companies.
To others, Guitar Center won't just accept "any offer" but they will almost always accept an offer if it's over their "cost". If you don't haggle when you go in there, then you are a moron, because that's the name of the game. I've always thought it funny that people got excited over their "sales" because 99% of their products can be had at that price any day. If you are on here, you probably own a studio, and probably spend enough money to have a good relationship with a salesperson at some company enough to get killer prices if you just ask.
At the same time, Guitar Center's "Cost" that they have listed in the system always has some built in markup on it. Part of this is so that GC always makes money, even on employee purchases. I've known the actual dealer costs on a few items (knowing that GC was probably getting an even better price due to volume) and GC's was normally in the computer as higher than that. They claim internally that it's basically a "shipping and handling" type charge, and that it covers their raw costs on the item for marketing and such. It gets really funny on used items however and sometimes just doesn't make sense.
Also GC can't normally give price breaks on certain items that have a "min" on them. Monster Cable, Mogami, Apple products, etc... |