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Guitar World
Guitar World
Entertainment
Matt Owen

“That’s where we can win against Amazon. We’re not going to compete with the factory direct-from-China stuff. It’s not a winnable space”: How Guitar Center plans to beat its online competitors and safeguard the future of its physical stores

View of Guitar Center, Johnny Hallyday's favorite Guitar store, on Sunset Boulevard, on December 6, 2017, in Hollywood, California. He was a legend in the French-speaking world but in Los Angeles, the city of Hollywood celebrities, Johnny Hallyday was a discreet star who still "devoured life". / AFP PHOTO / VALERIE MACON.

The guitar world is well and truly in the midst of a digital market boom, and as the online space becomes a more important battleground for retailers, traditional brick-and-mortar stores are struggling to survive.

Over the past few years, several physical guitar stores have closed down. Retail giant Sam Ash, for example, officially closed all of its stores in March 2024, a mere two months after it attempted to weather the storm by closing 18 of its 44 locations across the US.

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