You Are Not Your Customer. Stop Buying Like You Are

Retailers are no longer the main tastemakers.

That role has been slipping away for years and, in many cases, it now belongs to creators.

A player sees a guitar on TikTok. A YouTube demo makes it feel exciting. An Instagram reel gives it context, attitude and identity. By the time that customer lands on your website or walks into your shop, they are often not starting from zero. They are arriving with a preference already forming.

That matters, because too much of MI retail still operates as though demand begins in the shop.

It does not. At least not in the way it used to.

The shop is no longer the starting point

For years, retailers had real control over the buying journey. The customer came in, looked around, asked questions, and the shop helped shape the decision. The wall mattered more. The staff recommendation carried more weight. The retailer had genuine influence over what was seen, understood, and ultimately bought.

Now a lot of that happens earlier, elsewhere, and much faster.

Products are being discovered through feeds, not just shop floors. Through short videos, not just sales conversations. Through personalities, aesthetics and playing styles, not just brand heritage or spec sheets.

None of this means retail no longer matters. Far from it. Good retailers still add trust, expertise, reassurance, finance options, setup, service and human judgement. But more often now, retail is not creating the first spark. It is either helping convert existing demand, or losing the sale because that demand is not reflected clearly enough in stock, merchandising or presentation.

Where retailers still get it wrong

Too many shops are still buying through their own taste. Backing what they personally rate. Assuming the customer will eventually come round to their view.

Then when something does not sell, the conclusion is often that the product was wrong.

Sometimes it was. But sometimes the product was fine and the retailer simply failed to understand why customers wanted it in the first place. Because what drives interest now is not always what impresses the trade.

A guitar/amp/pedal/ukulele does not need to win a room full of industry veterans. It needs to stop the right person scrolling.

That may sound brutally simple, but it is increasingly how demand is being shaped.

The products that move are often the ones that already have visual pull, social proof and creator-led momentum. They feel current. They feel seen. They feel easy to understand.

Meanwhile, plenty of good products with weak presentation and no compelling story sit there waiting for a customer who increasingly buys on instinct first and detail second.

Not because the product is bad. Because the product has not been made relevant enough.

Brands cannot leave demand generation to retail

Brands are not off the hook here either.

A lot of brands still think trade approval is enough. It is not.

If a product looks flat online, if the story is forgettable, and if nobody is making it feel desirable before the customer starts shopping, retail is being asked to do too much of the heavy lifting. And when the retailer cannot manufacture that interest from scratch, the product sits, sell-through disappoints, and everyone quietly blames the market.

The most switched-on brands understand this. They do not just launch products. They seed visibility. They build recognisable identity. They work with players and creators who can make the instrument feel relevant before it ever reaches the shop floor.

That gives retailers something far more useful than a catalogue and a price list.

It gives them momentum.

And momentum matters. Because when a product already has attention, context and credibility around it, the retailer is no longer trying to build that interest from nothing. They are stepping into a conversation that is already happening.

That is a much easier sale.

The real buying question now

Retailers who are getting this right have quietly changed how they think about buying.

They are asking not just whether they rate a product, but whether it is already starting to move in the culture.

What finishes and formats are getting attention?

Which creators are genuinely influencing buying behaviour, not just generating views?

What are players sharing, saving and talking about?

What is already in the customer's world before they ever set foot in a shop?

Those questions matter just as much now as margin, heritage and personal preference. Maybe more, given how early the decision is now being shaped.

Because customers do not arrive untouched by influence. They arrive with preferences already forming, expectations already shaped, and desire already triggered elsewhere.

The retailers who understand that will buy better, merchandise better and sell better. The ones that still think the wall is doing the selling may find the decision was made before the customer even stepped through the door.

Has your buying process kept up with how your customers are actually being influenced?

I'd be interested to hear where your range decisions come from now, and whether the old instincts are still serving you as well as they used to.