GC closing stores?

[charvelguy]

I know one of the new policies Bain is implementing at all GC stores this year is they will no longer haggle on prices. In other words, you pay what the price tag says. The days of them dropping their pants to make a deal, even if they only made $5.00 on the sale, are over.

That blows, as that is the one reason why I even went to GC. Depends on who you haggled with tho, but it rarely went down to or under cost.
Oftentimes they would not cut w/o a manager approval anyways, salespeople really couldn't as the price had to be manually altered. Used gear, now that was 'shoot me an offer' deal.
Possibly this also explains some of the inventory I saw recently on sale at GC now appearing on MF's site?

[fr0sty]

Looks like 4 in MN, and they are all right in or around the twin cities:

http://gc.guitarcenter.com/locations/cities.cfm?state=Minnesota

That is pretty crazy, and it falls right in with what Matt said about them just opening stores to show growth when they were a public company.

I hit the maple grove one from time to time. Not too far a trek from St. Cloud.

[Shibs]

The way I understand it, this company also bought Toys R Us and did the same to them..... Not sure if that is true, but a friend of mine stated that they closed all of the stores that did not show a profit.... I can understand that move, why keep a shop open that is too costly to run, they will either have a closing sale or send all the gear to the profitable stores.... It will be interesting how this plays out, I am lucky... I don't have a GC within 30 miles of me!

[Bri]

I know one of the new policies Bain is implementing at all GC stores this year is they will no longer haggle on prices. In other words, you pay what the price tag says. The days of them dropping their pants to make a deal, even if they only made $5.00 on the sale, are over.

They didn't really haggle with me last fall. I asked them to just get close to MAP. They asked for an add showing Jacksons at MAP. I told them I'm not going to play the bidding war game, they either come up with a good number on the spot or I move on. You got the order West LA Music was even worse. They wouldn't tell me a price other than "better than GC".