Well, there's already a couple online dealers that specialize in boutique offerings. However there doesn't seem to be a fully stocked 'bread and butter' type of retailer. You know... Boss, MXR, regular grade cables and pickups, stuff like that. Musicians Friend type stuff.

 

If there's a store that would offer them, would you consider buying online. Since they're usually easy to find at your local stores ?

The price would make a difference...So, at even price would you go for the local store or the online for the convenience ?

 

If there's a store that would offer them, would you consider buying online. Since they're usually easy to find at your local stores ?

The price would make a difference...So, at even price would you go for the local store or the online for the convenience ?

The catch is that a lot of those items aren't really available at a local store. They'll carry a small selection of frequent sellers, but they won't stock the entire line and special ordering may take weeks (or never actually get ordered at all).

Factor in that a lot of Canadians are rural and face a long drive to the nearest guitar store, which may or may not actually stock what you're looking for...

 

Thanks, that's a great insight...I guess I don't think about that fact too much...Thanks again..If you have any other suggestions let me know.

 

I have a hard time finding GHS Nickel Rockers. Is that too specific?

 

a place like guitarfetish or guitarheads that offers good bang for your buck pickups with reasonable shipping

 

a place like guitarfetish or guitarheads that offers good bang for your buck pickups with reasonable shipping

If you have any builders or brands you'd like to see let me know...It's appreciated.

 

I have a hard time finding GHS Nickel Rockers. Is that too specific?

No that's great. Thanks !

 

I wouldn't mind a place where I could bulk order picks. For instance, it's a real pain in the ass to find Dunlop Ultex picks.

And when I was using Jazz IIIs, I used to hate going into a store and only being able to find Jazz Is and IIs.

Or when you want a slide they have a crappy selection AND none of them are the right size.

Big Bendz Nut Sauce.

9V power cables with right angle connectors on them.

Pickups other than a JB/Jazz or an EMG 81/85.

 

I would greatly appreciate a good online store up here! I grew up in the US, and was used to all of the great sites and deals, and there is nothing like that up here. I live in Calgary, and it is easy to get to a number of great guitar stores, but even then, they often don't have what I'm looking for, and would take sometimes weeks to bring in a special order. I think you are on to something, there is definitely a market.

Actually, I would first off mention it would be great for it to be a professional site, that is easy to navigate. And with reasonable shipping rates. For gear: Pedaltrain pedal boards. I was shopping around, and of the 4 different chains I checked locally, only one actually carried PedalTrain, and they only had the PTpro in stock (the PT2s have been on order since June!) Of course the standard brands would be good: Boss, Digitech, Visual Sound, MXR, Fulltone, Tech 21... and good pro cables - some of the stores stock Monster and Planet Waves... but not much beyond that (besides their own brand or yorkville...) Hope this helps.

 

a place like guitarfetish or guitarheads that offers good bang for your buck pickups with reasonable shipping

Ya, I guess this falls under a different category than a general online store but I would love to see a store like this as well. BezDez on eBay is pretty good, and I think a lot of the pickups they offer are likely manufactured in the same place as GFS's. But there are practically no descriptions (never mind anything like sound files) for anything they carry. I'd love to see a story carry some of the styles of pickups that GFS carry like Filtertrons, humbucker sized P-90's, Dearmond knocks off etc. If the prices were competitive with reasonable shipping, and sold from a well designed web site, I would be thrilled. I think that is a completely different business type than a general online guitar store. But man, would I ever love to see a Canadian version of GFS.

As for what I'd like to see at a more general online guitar store? I live in a rural area, and the closest stores with any real selection are about 40 minutes away. The local stores have very little variety when it comes to things like picks, patchcords etc. And as someone else mentioned, if the store carries a line, they carry very few items in it. EG if they stock Danelectro pedals for example, they only carry 3 models. If they carry Planet Waves patchcords, they only have 10' and 15' ones and nothing in between.

Price is a factor for me, but convenience is just as big a factor. I do not want to have to special order items from a store and wait 6 weeks. If that is the case, I will order the items online. And if there was a decent Canadian online vendor, I would go to them first.

Others have mentioned this, but a site you can easily navigate and reasonable shipping would be huge selling points for me.

 

The music stores nearby are a bit out of the way, for me, and selections are limited in each one, so if I want something in particular, I need to choose a specific store and plan for that journey.

I think you could make something work with the frequent maintenance items like strings and picks.

The problem would be shipping costs.

If a pack of strings costs about $6 in a store, I'm not likely going to want to pay another $4-5 to have them mailed to me.

If you can find a way to make that $6 pack of strings appear in my mailbox for $7, you've got a business, I think.

Same for the picks I use all the time. About $4 a dozen in the store. If they arrived in my mailbox for $5 a dozen, I think I'd likely go that route. If it was $9, probably not.

On a higher-end scale, most of the retailers seem to be chained to specific distribution houses, or product lines. For example, my local store chose Yorkville over Peavey, so they have Traynor amps and Yorkville mixers and speakers, but you can't find a Peavey Classic 30 anywhere in the store. Peavey, like Gibson, wants a shop to carry the whole product line - PA stuff, drums, etc - and that particular store already has the majority of that stuff covered through Yorkville. They don't carry EHX either, not sure of the reasoning there.

If you did some research into which lines the majority of stores are carrying, you might find some holes in the market that you could fill.

Pricing is a major concern, too. One of the bigger Canadian online shops is Axe Music, and I often check their site when I'm looking for a commodity item that doesn't need a play-test (a pedal I've already tried, or a Line 6 device, or similar). Their pricing is sometimes HIGHER than my local shop, though, and it would be a very rare day that I'd be ready to pay a higher price, plus shipping, to get something I can buy from a real live person, face-to-face.

One spot I'd stay away from is speakers, but that's just because there's a GREAT source for speakers online - Q-Components loudspeakers & audio products

Friendly guys, very helpful, efficient, good selection, fair prices, quick shipping, in my opinion one of the best online experiences I've had. You might want to take a look at them as an example of how it ought to be done.

 

The music stores nearby are a bit out of the way, for me, and selections are limited in each one, so if I want something in particular, I need to choose a specific store and plan for that journey.

I think you could make something work with the frequent maintenance items like strings and picks.

The problem would be shipping costs.

If a pack of strings costs about $6 in a store, I'm not likely going to want to pay another $4-5 to have them mailed to me.

If you can find a way to make that $6 pack of strings appear in my mailbox for $7, you've got a business, I think.

Same for the picks I use all the time. About $4 a dozen in the store. If they arrived in my mailbox for $5 a dozen, I think I'd likely go that route. If it was $9, probably not.

On a higher-end scale, most of the retailers seem to be chained to specific distribution houses, or product lines. For example, my local store chose Yorkville over Peavey, so they have Traynor amps and Yorkville mixers and speakers, but you can't find a Peavey Classic 30 anywhere in the store. Peavey, like Gibson, wants a shop to carry the whole product line - PA stuff, drums, etc - and that particular store already has the majority of that stuff covered through Yorkville. They don't carry EHX either, not sure of the reasoning there.

If you did some research into which lines the majority of stores are carrying, you might find some holes in the market that you could fill.

Pricing is a major concern, too. One of the bigger Canadian online shops is Axe Music, and I often check their site when I'm looking for a commodity item that doesn't need a play-test (a pedal I've already tried, or a Line 6 device, or similar). Their pricing is sometimes HIGHER than my local shop, though, and it would be a very rare day that I'd be ready to pay a higher price, plus shipping, to get something I can buy from a real live person, face-to-face.

One spot I'd stay away from is speakers, but that's just because there's a GREAT source for speakers online - Q-Components loudspeakers & audio products

Friendly guys, very helpful, efficient, good selection, fair prices, quick shipping, in my opinion one of the best online experiences I've had. You might want to take a look at them as an example of how it ought to be done.

I wouldn't follow their example with the web site though. It's pretty bad. Same with Axe Music's site. The web site seems to be an afterthought with most of these places.

 

If a pack of strings costs about $6 in a store, I'm not likely going to want to pay another $4-5 to have them mailed to me.

If you can find a way to make that $6 pack of strings appear in my mailbox for $7, you've got a business, I think.

That's where Mike McLeod impresses me with The Acoustic Guitar Store. I work in 2 different music stores yet I still think he's the best place to get strings. I haven't talked to him in a while now since I was actually patient enough to order a couple of cases of strings through work, but anyone opening a store should look at him as an example of what to do.

 

Thanks for all the comment, please keep them coming...It really helps. Thanks again!