A buddy sent me a video earlier, he was walking through London at about 10:30pm (so the pubs are closed) and the streets are literally packed with people on a night out, like walking through a mid day festival with no distancing and very few masks. I'm in Wales, everything is on "local" lockdown here and we're not allowed to really mix at all as per the rules, meanwhile in London the most densely populated area in the country they are partying like tinned sardines.

If anyone is in need of some levity, South Park's Pandemic Special might be worth watching. It's free, it's ridiculous, and it's funny enough. There is also "Make Love, Not Warcraft" which is always fun and free.
https://southpark.cc.com

Does Wales have to adhere to the “Rule of Six” and 3-Tier System of rules? Forgive my confusion, I just know there are variations of the rules depending on where you live.

We didn't have a tiered system but all of South Wales has been on "local" lockdown for a while, you're only allowed to leave your county for work or school but you're not allowed to shop or eat in other counties. We had a rule of 6 but also not allowed to mix households, at pubs/restaurants no mixing between different households at the same table. As of Friday this week they are increasing restrictions though, two weeks of effectively full lockdown again with non-essential businesses closing.

Unsure if the tiered system will happen in Wales, I've not seen anything about it but our restrictions have for a while already been much more strict than those in England.

Thank you for the clarification. I hope the 2 week full lockdown accomplishes its goal.

Has COVID Created Another Guitar Boom?

Brian T. Majeski
Editor
Music Trades

One unanticipated consequence of COVID is the biggest mismatch between supply and demand in the guitar market since the Beatles made their US debut in 1964. With entertainment options limited, a growing number of consumers have decided “this is the right time to take up guitar.” However, these first-time buyers are beginning their musical journey at a time when guitar production is slowly recovering from government enforced shutdowns earlier in the year. Although most guitar makers in the US and abroad are back in production, social distancing and sanitation requirements have significantly reduced their production levels. Fewer people allowed on the factory floor, means multiple shifts and inefficiencies with output still lagging pre-COVID levels. Retailers report that they are turning away eager customers due to limited product availability. Eventually, supply and demand will reach a better alignment, but will the current shortages have a longer lasting impact? We think the answer is yes.

As long as we can remember, retailers from the smallest mom and pop to the biggest national chain have made improving inventory turns a priority. And why not? Cranking out more sales with less stock is a time-tested strategy for building the bottom line. This explains why for years, seminars on Gross Margin Return on Investment analysis (GMROI) have been a routine fixture on the programs of m.i. retailer gatherings. Lean inventory strategies make perfect sense in a market where merchandise is readily available and orders can be filled on a timely basis. It doesn’t work so well when products are in short supply and there are lengthy back orders. Now that retailers are declaring in unison, “he who has the inventory gets the business,” will a well-stocked back rooms take precedence over maximizing inventory turns? Hard to say for sure, but we suspect there will be newfound interest in maintaining “inventory reserves,” especially with products like guitars that retain their value.

Closely related to the security offered by higher inventory levels, is the security provided by improved liquidity. Most retailers we know tend to be P&L focused, placing a priority on sales growth. In the current climate, many are starting to pay more attention to their balance sheet. A stronger current ratio and less in the way of loan obligations make it possible to carry more inventory, not to mention get bumped up on the backorder list from cash strapped manufacturers. In an up market, debt financed inventory can accelerate growth. In tough times it can also accelerates problems. As Warren Buffet quipped, “You find out who’s swimming naked when the tide goes out.” We suspect that balance sheet quality will have a lot to do with who can manage through the pandemic.

COVID is prompting guitar manufacturers to rethink their strategies as well. Over the past three decades, they have developed a sophisticated global supply chain that has made “country of origin” increasingly ambiguous. An instrument labeled as “Made in America” might have tuning machines from Germany, Chinese-made pick-ups and truss rods, metal fasteners from Taiwan, plastic components from Canada, and a Mexican-made case. Guitars sourced from China or Indonesia are similarly cosmopolitan. Tapping the expertise of producers around the world has led to steadily improving product values. However, COVID has demonstrated that this type of far-flung sourcing is not without downsides. A single government enforced lock-down coupled with snarls in the transportation network can and does bring production to an abrupt halt: a guitar with 99% of the component parts is 100% unsaleable. Will COVID prompt guitar makers to shorten their supply chains and bring more production in-house to become more resistant to the next disruption? It certainly won’t happen overnight, but over the next five years product sourcing and supply chains will unquestionably look different.

Few recognized that World War II would revolutionize health care by providing the catalyst for the mass production of penicillin. It also wasn’t immediately obvious that the oil shortages of the 1970s would radically change the way people thought about “fuel efficiency.” Similarly, the long-lasting impact of the Corona virus remains to be seen. Remote working, the rise of the Zoom meeting, the flight from densely packed urban centers, the suspension of public gatherings, and an increased emphasis on home entertainment are a few of the more obvious COVID inspired transitions--a lot of change in nine-month time span, but probably only the beginning. That said, we remain optimistic that human ingenuity and resourcefulness will prevail and that opportunity awaits for those who can ride out the near-term challenges.


Dimarzio was closed for so long production delays from pickups alone have driven restocking new production into next year, sometime next year.

Interesting, thanks for sharing.

What a year for guitars, either way. From 2019-now has certainly been a wild ride, eh?

I'd love to be optimistic, but I don't truly see an overwhelming amount of good coming out of this in the long-term. It's hard not to be cynical.

Ultimately, I see a lot more of the same in the coming few years in a frantic scramble to meet investor goals and make up for lost revenue. Can't argue with the extra life breathed into the sector as a whole, or with the extra spots at the table opened up for local/domestic operations--but how long will any of these things truly last? Money talks and big money listens to big money.

As years pass, smalltime interests are simply going to get devoured again by the cycle. It is what it is. At best we can hope for the the lucky winners to live on and become the next made men at the table (or, more likely--absorbed into the existing bigdogs, at best--which also has some upsides, to be fair).

Thanks for sharing Rich, was an interesting read.

I've seen things predicting "onshoring" as the trend to replace off-shore for a decade now.. But we're still reliant on far east manufacturing for now. I wonder if Covid really will accelerate it.

Localised manufacture can be much more nimble and reduce delivery times.. We've seen it with fast fashion where they could out manoeuvre retailers who were trying to predict fashion months in advance for manufacture in Bangladesh etc..

For guitars CAD/CAM & CNC has gotten good enough US based manufacturing must be cheaper than it was too as it could be done in a much less manual fashion..
Possibly more short runs, custom finish options too etc.

Ultimately all the big consultancies who were pushing just in time, ultra lean, super optimised supply chain and leveraged expansion just got found out byCovid (In UK add hard Brexit on top of that mix and we'll really see some fireworks next year...). They optimised all the resilience out of everyone's business as they thought it was a cost.

Cynical = distrustful of human sincerity or integrity.
We have been given many reasons to be cynical. I called it the news. The problem is human sincerity and integrity does not make the news so it is almost impossible to be optimistic about anything unless you witness sincerity and integrity firsthand. That is just my experience.

Honestly, it's just the facts of business. Integrity and sincerity exist, and we can find shining examples of goodness in even the darkest corners. Even still, it's an uphill battle, usually.

Most of the lockdown-drives guitar sales will probably disappear soon, once the vast majority of buyers move on to a new hobby, give up, plateau, get bored, etc.

This likely just isn't going to be a long-term model.

There will certainly be some small % of 2019-2020 "covid guitarists" who stick with it, but it's certainly a short-lived trend. I'd even consider using the word "fad", to be honest--inasmuch as a lot of this was driven by social media and novelty for 1st-time musicians/players--how many of the kids who got a guitar for their birthday this year will ask for another one for Christmas, or next year? Not as many as we'd hope, probably. Likewise, how many of the adults who decided to pick up guitar this year will be purchasing themselves another one next year? Again surely some, but in all likelihood, not nearly enough to generate self-sustaining momentum for long-term projections.

The profits/numbers that are so exciting now won't be maintained next cycle at a level high enough to truly be reliable. On that note, will a vacuum from GC create space for small-business retailers to step in and usher in a new wave of local family-owned guitar shops to crop up and play a vital role in ensuring that a more localized supply chain/production flow is allowed to propagate/perpetuate?

Sure, in theory...except for the fact that Amazon isn't going anywhere anytime soon (in fact, with ever-improving drones, AI, and IoT technology, and with ever-increasing number of desperate laborers forced into untenable position by the re-onset of 2008 recession PtII:Covid-19, being worked to death alongside their machine companions in warehouses and driving delivery trucks, ecommerce will continue to dominate every aspect of business, especially in America). Nor Sweetwater, and the supporters of boutique retailers probably tend be much older and have much more disposable income than the majority of demographic that picked up playing->shifted sales during covid quarantine, so I doubt many existing local shops, or specialized high-end sellers like ibanezrules, saw earth-shattering benefit from any of this (although rich could correct me on that--for example, I'm sure there wasn't *only* new/young guitarists boosting sales this year--probably a noticeable number of pre-existing local/small guitar business supporters who maybe bought an extra guitar this year instead of something else, with money that didn't get spent on some other thing that lockdown made unavailable--maybe airplane tickets, concert and brewery tour passes, vacay hotel/dinner fund, etc).

Anyway, it's no more of an indictment on human nature than to say that fossil fuels or plastics aren't going away anytime soon. There's plenty of good out there, even in the cold world of money and business, and I don't think that people are completely subsumed by self-interest. It's just that the income/wealth distribution inequalities are only increasing, and people and corporations have to do what they have to do. Big-picture sustainability is very rare to find successfully applied when there's endless overwhelming pressure toward a race to the bottom, and it tends to require some truly visionary leadership and very charismatic/forceful convincing (and producing numbers to back it up) on the part of executives and bullish investors to make the magic happen. That's not so difficult in sectors like tech or industry, but when educational music programs are slashed, physical retailers are gasping for air...oof.

I simply don't see a lot of the prerequisites for explosive independent growth coming to fruition for the guitar industry, which especially after GC's final death throes is finally sinking in, has basically never recovered yet from 2007-8 (much like many other sectors), and without any promise of global economy suddenly improving to pre-recession state (in fact, more the opposite--it's most likely only going to continue getting worse and worse for all but the top income brackets in the coming years), the whole picture just looks pretty sad. Honestly, the passing of Eddie in a way marks the final chapter of guitar/rock's golden age this year. It's been in the shadowed era for a very, very long time, but much like the fall of Rome, if there's one particular point which historians will likely assign as the arbitrary watermark when it finally "happened"....GC Ch11 and EVH is probably going to be it....

GC isn't going anywhere, it's chapter 11, not 7. Just like they did the last time.

last one didn't seem quite so dire though, eh?

The last one was far worse before Aires bailed them out. It's always going to be bad. Bain screwed them royal, and themselves buying at 27x EBITDA. Their debt load will always be unsustainable until they chapter 11 enough times to butcher their debts to the manufactures that they owe, who are the ones that are really going to get hurt in this whole debacle.

I see what you mean now.
The good news is people wanted to buy guitars at the most unusual time. It means people care about music enough to potentially learn an instrument. This is a good thing. I would tend to agree that this will be short lived, however, I am just going see how events unfold. Too many weird circumstances have occurred to do otherwise. That does not mean your assessment of the situation is more or less spot on.

Yamaha is the biggest big-dog in the musical world. They have a long history but in the recent past, they bought 2 companies: Bösendorfer in 2007 and Line 6 in 2013.

Bösendorfer is a Viennese piano manufacturer. Handcrafted Austrian pianos are expensive but also some of the best pianos in the world. At the time (2007), Bösendorfer was owned by an Austrian bank, Bawag, that was being taken over by Cerberus, a U.S. hedge fund. Bösendorfer was being auctioned off so Yamaha stepped in and won the bidding not just by offering the highest price but also through its commitment to keep Bosendorfer’s current operation intact. I see this as an upside.

Line 6 was acquired by Yamaha in 2013. The next new product Line 6 made was the Helix which came out in 2015. If you compare the Helix to everything Line 6 had previously made, there is a noticeable quality difference. Line 6 got the same deal as Bösendorfer (company remained intact) but gained access to Yamaha's R&D which turned Line 6 into a Fractal competitor. Yamaha gained a guitar modeling company that they were able to make competitive in the high-end digital-modeling space in 1 year. I see some upside.

In the world of money and business, it might be cold and if the business revolves around music, it tends to be really ugly, but it might not need to be this way. Your comment made me think of this.

Also, I did not know Guitar Center would be dragging guitar manufacturers down with it. That is too bad.