The Next Chapter for me...High End Boutique Guitar Shop

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King Guitar

King Guitar

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Hey Fellas,

Thought I would leak a bit of news from my world to all my friends on RT.com

I have sold my portion of the large mechanical contracting business I was a partner in and I am now fortunate enough to have been able to pay off the mortgage on my home and get in a good position for the next adventure in my life...

I seriously contemplated moving myself and my family to Southern California as I love it there and I also had some offers to do a private security company with some high level military guys who will be transitioning out of the service in a few years. After much thought though I decided to stay on the East coast so I don't uproot the family.

While all of that seems interesting and appealing I have come to the decision that I want back "in" to the guitar shop and gear business full time as it is my consuming passion. As some of you may know as a younger guy I owned and operated one of the countries larger Vintage Guitar Shops and sold all over the world in the Pre-Ebay days and had a great time doing it.

So to that end I have begun to lay out the vision for my version of a cool guitar shop which will be located in New England where I reside.

It will be http://www.KingGuitar.com featuring Premium Guitars and Amplifiers and I would like your feedback and brainstorming as a focus group per se as to what you love in a cool guitar shop and what you don't like.

My vision includes lots of cool used and vintage gear and lots of the best current gear in the world just like you find on my forum here and in Premier Guitar magazine.

This will be a very laid back chilled out boutique shop that you can actually visit and hang in the vein of Wild West Guitars, Rudy's Music, Tone Merchants, Make N Music etc... although I realize 80% of business will be via the internet.

I plan to have professional photography and professional clips of the gear similar to Pro Guitar Shop.com and a easy to use website for those of you that cant get up to New England to come see me in person.

I will be at NAMM this year shopping for the brands I want to represent, their are several I know I want to have for sure and they are members here.

I am breaking this here first you guys, the membership and my friends and have not contacted any manufactures yet but you guys know my tastes and what the best gear in the world is. I will do my best to have all of it represented.

More to come but thats what is on my radar going forward as well as continuing to build the Rig-Talk.com membership and keep this place humming for you guys.

More to come as it develops... :rock:

Merry Christmas Week!
Brad
 
Sounds killer Brad,I can only imagine whats you gonna have in there :lol: :LOL: :rock: Good luck :thumbsup:
 
congratulations on making such a large decision in your life - to support music and support your heart's passion. you deserve alot of respect to do such a thing and i know i speak for everyone here on the forum when i say you have all of our unwilling support to help you to get there :rock:

i know CA is the place to be for music, but is there any chance you could do something for us east coasters as far as a location goes? i know its alot to ask, but im just wondering if it will be CA/internet based only. it would be nice to be able to make a fair drive to demo some suhr guitars, andersons, and other top end gear on the east coast and not have to make a flight to CA to take advantage of all of the major stores like tone merchants over there.

are you doing gear reviews like pro guitar shop of amplifiers and guitars? what about pedals? any interest in monthly news articles we can subscribe to with gear interviews from top artists? maybe contact that one guy that did interviews for eddie van halen and get a monthly article out with him? just pushing some ideas.

thats all i have for now. good luck Brad :thumbsup:
 
That sounds awesome. Wishing you all the best.

Regarding guitar stores... I have a few suggestions, which could work well in my opinion.

1: Put in a nice sink, so people can (and maybe this should be enforced for people trying out guitars) wash their hands before entering. Not only would this minimize the amount of string changes (because there is nothing worse than trying a 3k guitar, with rusty strings), but it would also be welcomed by players with cold hands (I have lived close to New England, and damn it, it gets cold!). I know this might sound a bit silly, but I think it would be a win/win.

2: Have sample rigs set up so people can try amps and guitars with some standard effects. Maybe a few pedal-boards that people can just plug in. I often find that when being in guitar shop, and given an amp that's bone-dry, I don't find the experience enjoyable. Maybe a few pedals to simulate how the amp would sound once you start sprinkling it, would inspire some confidence in the products, and hell... You may even sell a few pedals that way too :D

3: A padded room to try out some the gear in context with a whole band. Some sort of mp3 player, going through some half decent studio monitors, playing some good backing jam tracks. This way people can get a feel for how the gear responds to how they actually play, and not how they play in guitar stores. (Some don't give a damn, and can work it out by themselves with or without all these things, but most guitar players aren't all that brilliant :D )

4: For the online videos of the products... It would be great to see some that are recorded properly, in and out of context with a band, and with and without effects. Just quick snippets, but to the point. It bugs the hell out of me when a video has a 5 minute introduction stating that this amp has this and this and this... Anyone interested, will either know this, or gather by looking at pictures. You could simply run photos of the amps features, while clips are playing, and text describing the current setting.

5: Maybe introduce a "weight-graph" displaying where the amp would fit. i.e. an Ibanez TSA15H is extremely light, and a Mesa Roadster is really heavy... Where on the scale would the test amp fit? I know a lot of gigging musicians tend to look at weight as something of great importance.

Can't think of any more right now...

Good luck with it all :thumbsup:
 
that's great man, good luck with everything.

kasperjensen those were very good suggestions!
 
Best of luck in your new venture, Brad. Let us all know when the site is up!

Steve
 
Congratulations and the best of luck on your business endeavors.

The #1 thing you should have, that maybe one gear shop in the whole damn world has, is a room that is well acoustically treated/designed that has a few demo cabinets that sound great and will ALWAYS be there, and a wealth of guitar amp heads so they can be heard in a proper environment. If you want to reach out to everyone, you want to have a boost pedal handy for the demo-er to use on the amps, industry standard gear available, and the right attitude about business, which I'm sure you have, considering your success so far. :rock:
 
Well as it's 80% internet business I could share some 2c of my past experience managing a major online info site and shop (not guitar related, but electronics).

-Basic priority order for potential customers surfing the web for product is Price Info > Picture/Vid/Audio > Features/Description > Conditions and shipping cost => all of these must be immaculate

-Biggest downer is if a shop has gear listed but price only on demand. I know there are several reasons to not show certain prices, but it's a no-no as you lose the most potential buyers at this stage.

-Stay away from flash and fancy stuff. Bad for browser usability and SEO/searchability, but I guess you know these anyways, running a site like this

-Don't hide any sections that users want. Obviously you don't want people to just search the clearout section, but also look at the higher priced/new items. However if you force them to look at any stuff that YOU want them to look at, they will get pissed off - i.e. less happy - i.e. less likely to buy

-A good customer data base with information about the personal interest (music style, usual budget, preferred brands, ...) and based on it "Meaningful" email communication, not too often, e.g. every 2-4 weeks

It's great to start from scratch, because it means you can do everything right from the start rather than starting wrong and having to clean everything up afterwards.

Good luck for all Brad, you'll make it!!!
 
Awesome!! Let me know when the shop is up and running. Id love to come out and see ya! :rock:
 
Hell yeah, very cool indeed. Good luck fine sir. Merry Christmas. :rock:
 
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