📚🎸 From Bookshop Bust to Boom: A Playbook for Re-imagining Guitar Retail

By Lee Alexander

Well, it's been wall-to-wall doom-scrolling for UK guitar retail (and beyond) these past few weeks: first GAK, then PMT slipped into administration, and the “death of the high street” chorus has cranked to eleven. 😬

Rather than join the doom mongers, this Fret Not Friday looks at an industry that faced its own extinction and bounced back—the bookshop. 📚✨

⏪ A quick rewind

Amazon.co.uk launched on 15 October 1998 promising a vast range and keen prices. 

Within two decades the damage to the high street was brutal: UK independent bookshops fell from 1894 in 1995 to just 867 by 2016, a 54 % wipe-out. 📉 

Borders disappeared entirely and Waterstones flirted with insolvency.

Yet the obituary was premature. From 2017 indies recovered, topping 1072 shops in 2022 and holding 1063 in 2023. Waterstones, steered by James Daunt, reported a £32.8 m post-tax profit on £528 m sales in FY 2024. 📈

So, what changed? Bookshops fought back with ruthless curation, experiential spaces, community events and a clicks-plus-mortar mindset. The clues are clear enough to guide guitar retail.

Nine lessons worth stealing

1️⃣ Curate like a bookseller 📚 Waterstones turned round its fortunes by letting branches choose stock for local readers. If your stock is identical to everyone else’s, players have no reason to visit. 

Guitar takeaway: carry the models your town’s players actually want. A Glasgow indie might push offset electrics for the post-punk crowd; a market-town store could major on parlour acoustics and mandolins for folk sessions. Also if you can find brands that are not quite mainstream but in demand, the margins will normally be better and the competition less.

2️⃣ Make your space a third place ☕🎶 Author talks, book clubs and in-store cafés turned book-shopping into an outing, not an errand. 

Guitar takeaway: host micro-gigs, pedalboard clinics, luthiery Q&As and yes half-decent coffee. When people linger, they buy and then tell their mates.

3️⃣ Embrace clicks + mortar 🔗🏪 Successful bookshops let online and offline feed each other: click-and-collect, local bike delivery, live-streamed launches, unboxing new stock deliveries. 

Guitar takeaway: ensure real-time stock on your website, home-demo loans, scheduled video consultations and TikTok tone tests keep the shop floor buzzing after hours.

4️⃣ Community over commodity 🤝 Indies survived by staying fiercely local, sponsoring school prizes, partnering with festivals and knowing customers by name. 

Guitar takeaway: back youth-music charities, rehearsal rooms and venues. Consider sponsoring the town’s battle-of-the-bands.(If there isn't one then start one!) Reward lessons taken or gigs played, not just pounds spent.

5️⃣ Subscription and membership magic 🎟️✨ Book-of-the-month clubs and premium loyalty cards give steady revenue. 

Guitar takeaway: string-change subscriptions, pedal-test memberships or a gear-concierge tier flatten those lulls.

6️⃣ Celebrate pre-owned ♻️🎸 Bookshops never sneered at second-hand; margins are better and the stories richer. 

Guitar takeaway: pre-owned in the MI world is growing massively (shameless nod to www.reSound.Market 😉). Trade-ins drive footfall, margin and eco-cred.

7️⃣ Data-lite, insight-heavy 👀 Booksellers notice which table sparks chat without needing Big Tech. 

Guitar takeaway: note what players pick up and rave about, not only what scans through the till.

8️⃣ Empower the enthusiasts 🔥 Waterstones let passionate staff run with ideas such as zine racks, themed windows and midnight launches. 

Guitar takeaway: give your guitar geeks authority. If your shop manager Sarah wants a doom-metal evening, let her craft it and support her. Saturday guy Simon wants to do a delay pedal afternoon? Make it happen!

9️⃣ Speak to your suppliers 📞⌨️ When tills go quiet, conversations should not. Suppliers can often extend terms, bump margin on hero lines(not always but it's worth the ask), supply free point-of-sale or release ex-demo gear if you ask. 

Guitar takeaway: keep the dialogue open. At JET, Spira and Flight we would rather field a frank SOS than read a closure notice.

🚀 The encore

The book trade’s revival came from experience, community and adaptive retail. Guitar shops already have two of those baked in: instruments you must feel and a tribe itching to gather. 

Let's not forget, people are still buying guitars and other instruments; they’re just not doing it the old way, and we need to adapt or die 🙄