Taylor Martin Guild said:
I understand that for a dealer to carry Guilds, they have to fill a minimum order. That may be too many guitars for smaller shops to be able to handle.
Does anyone know if this is true?
If this is true, I can see why there are no Guilds in the Shops that I visit.
They cant afford to order more than one or two at a time.
I don't think Guild dealers are required to place minimum orders.
The dealer network was discussed at LMG III and a few points seem relavent. First Guild admitted that they had lost a lot of dealers and the associated confidence by "starting and stopping" the brand several times. Those days seem to be over but the "wait and see" attitude definitely effects dealer enthusiasm for stocking Guilds. Second there are only 120 US dealers, IIRC. One of the reasons given for that is that Guild has a vision for its dealer network and not all shops fit into that vision. I believe the network is being built by word of mouth rather than someone from Guild visiting shops and saying "please sell our guitars". Given the limited production it is a good thing that the dealer network is not growing significantly faster than production. Finally, if you use a rule of thumb that the dealer has to buy the guitars and thus invest something close to 50% of the MSRP in inventory, stocking 5 American Guilds ties up something like $10,000 in inventory. There are shops that cannot afford that and there are shops that could get a bigger or faster return by stocking different inventory items.
Since we don't have retailers who are owned by Guild, it is safe to say that stores are in business to make money and not in business just to sell Guilds.