Tuesday, August 29, 2017

Keeping it local

SECOND STRING MUSIC is now officially a Fender dealer. We approached this cautiously and will start with Squire guitars, Affinity basses, Fender amplifiers and go up from there.

Fender, of course, is the bomb when it comes to guitars. I bought a USA Fender Stratocaster 12 years ago and it's still a workhorse and plays like a dream. I would love to have a wall full of American-made Strats and Telecasters, but Fender's business model makes that impossible for a small retail store like Second String Music, so we'll do the best we can with our first order and small business finances.

It's the same thing with Martin, Taylor, Gibson and Epiphone. They make incredible guitars, and I understand the brand loyalty. But they also make it impossible for us, the little guy, to afford the buy-in and yearly sales commitments.

Instead of being bitter about it, let me tell you a story about a guitar player I know who came in a few days ago and started strumming a beautiful Takamine acoustic. He fell in love with it right away, but he made the wise decision to hold off on an impulse buy and continue his search for that next guitar.

He went down to St. Louis and a large retail store, and played a bunch of acoustics. Yesterday he came back and purchased the Takamine from us, saying he just could not forget how great it sounded. We couldn't be happier.

He shopped locally and he bought locally. He didn't go online, he compared guitars out of town but decided to drop his hard-earned money at his local music store.

Sheryl and I are immensely grateful. We love what we do and we plan to do it for a long time, and I pinch myself every day for living the dream. Customers like this keep us optimistic there is a place for a small retail music store in a small city like Quincy, Illinois.

We'll let you know when the Fender guitars arrive, and, as always, we strive to be the best business we can be for our local musicians and customers. Keep on rockin' Quincy.

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