Elderly Instruments -
The fountain of youth in a vintage guitar store
published in The Music and Sound Retailer, June 2002
By Adam Remson
If you type "musical instrument store" into Google's search engine, Elderly Instruments is the second store on the list (after Ellaway's Music in Australia). Sam Ash is the only large chain to appear (in the fourth position). Mars doesn't appear until page nine and Guitar Center and Musician's Friend are nowhere to be found. If you search for "vintage guitars," Elderly Instruments posts respectably on the second page, again with no super-stores or large chains ahead of it.
Owner Stan Werbin will tell you he doesn't know how he fares so well on one of the Internet's most important search engines (Google also powers Yahoo's search function). But if you ask him how often he updates his Web site (www.elderly.com), he doesn't miss a beat. "Every day," he answers. As a result, people check it every day (and daily updates is how he lands on Google's first page too). And although his web site has only been around for a fraction of the time his store has been operational, Werbin's philosophy about his site translates into how he runs Elderly — keep it fresh and give people a reason to come back.
Naming his store from some odd phrasing in a classified ad that employed the word "elderly" rather than "used" or "vintage," Werbin opened his store 30 years ago. Admittedly without training or a business degree, Werbin did what a lot on mom 'n' pop stores did at this time — he winged it. Not knowing any better at the time, the store started carrying books and records — a practice that continues today and incorporates videos, DVDs, software, and CDs. Today his store employs almost one hundred people in a 35,000 square-foot location. Elderly Instruments is recognized nationally as one of the preeminent dealers in vintage guitars and services in Michigan with a combo store handling new and used gear. In addition, Werbin runs a small wholesale business and a successful vintage catalog. So after 30 years of doing all that, Werbin was ready for some reflection...
The Music and sound Retailer: What percentage of your business is new gear versus vintage versus wholesale?
Stan Werbin: 65% new, 25% vintage, 10% wholesale.
The Retailer: Would you take a stab at breaking down your employees by department?
Werbin: Ten to 15 teachers, 10 in repair, nine in purchasing, five in appraisals, three layout artists, five or six in shipping, five in receiving, and the rest in sales. At any given time, there are approximately ten salespeople on the floor.
The Retailer: With five people doing appraisals, you must have a lot of gear coming in. What's your source?
Werbin: It's local people. People who bring instruments right in to the store and people who send them in through the mail. But we also spend a lot of time on the phone. We give a lot of free appraisals and nothing ever comes of it.
The Retailer: So you don't have some great clearinghouse that you contact regularly? Most of this business just comes from Joe and Jane coming into your store?
Werbin: By and large. Certainly, we sometimes have collections that get filtered through us but most things come from individuals with one, two or three things.
The Retailer: How do you get the word out to the average person that you are one of the best places to go to sell a collection or individual piece?
Werbin: Certainly, a lot of what we do is word-of-mouth but beyond having a website that is updated every day, we send out a vintage instrument list every six weeks. It goes to subscribers and we send them out promotionally when we fill a mail order. Whenever we send out a catalog to someone for the first time, we send that person a copy of this list. Also, I know many people check our web site every day for newly listed vintage gear.
But the thing that we do more than anything else is be good to people. We treat people right. We try to be fair to them. As a consequence, a lot of people come back and a lot of people send their friends.
The Retailer: Regarding the books, DVDs, and CDs that you sell, are those mostly instructional?
Werbin: We certainly sell a lot of that but we also sell quite a bit of music CDs. We stick almost exclusively to independent labels. We deal with the major labels as well but we pick and choose the independent-type stuff from the majors. We are really strong in acoustic, folk/bluegrass, Irish music, blues, etcetera but we really have a lot of other things as well. However we are definitely not Top 40.
The Retailer: Many music stores don't sell books and CDs and cite competition from book/CD retailers as well as guidelines from labels and publishers as the problem. How do you do it?
Werbin: We started it because we didn't know any better. Frankly it's like two completely separate businesses and they are both really hard in their own ways. We hope, and it tends to work out, that the people who buy instruments are interested in buying CDs too. Generally, what we have noticed is that most people, if they are open minded about music, enjoy things other than Top 40, especially players. So to me it is a natural fit. The only difficulty that we run into is that we have CD customers who don't even think about us when they go to buy a musical instrument and more often, vice versa. We have a lot of instrument customers who think of us for instruments and related accessories but who wouldn't think to buy books, videos or CDs from us.
The Retailer: Do you use point-of sale devices to facilitate the crossover?
Werbin: We do the best we can. Frankly, we are not real whizzes at that. We don't have a marketing department planning out end-caps and so on. We do the best we can and try to put things out near the counter that, hopefully, people will want. But we are not extremely sophisticated about that.
The Retailer: Do you use eBay as part of your business?
Werbin: We don't do anything on there. When I first found eBay I thought it was really cool but what you find out pretty quickly is it is a seller's market, not a buyer's market. There are a lot of sellers up there who either don't know what they are selling or pretend they don't know what they are selling. You can buy something that needs a great deal more work than has been represented at that point. You are not getting any kind of bargain. It's not to say that you can't get a good deal but it's a buyer beware situation. If you are an informed buyer who asks the right questions and are buying from somebody who will back up what they sell to you, then I think you are OK.
The Retailer: How has the computer changed your business in the last few years?
Werbin: We take a lot of orders right off the web and of course, use e-mail for everything. We make orders to our suppliers through e-mail or fax right from our desktop. We have been computerized since 1988 so we have a database of everything we have had since 1988 and we can access it all. Communication to overseas is much easier because if you are dealing with people whose English is not great, allowing them to write back and forth keeps things clearer.
The Retailer: Do you get to the NAMM shows?
Werbin: Yes.
The Retailer: What do you get out of it?
Werbin: We go to stay in touch with what's new. That is the main reason. I usually bring about eight to 10 people. But the other reason is to give my people who are ordering and selling for the store a perspective on the real world out there. We've got our own little world here and this is what it is but there is much more to the music industry than what we do and it certainly is an eye opener.
The Retailer: Are we selling as many guitars as we were 25 years ago?
Werbin: Yes I think so. I know that Martin and Fender are selling many more guitars than they did at that time.
The Retailer: How come it doesn't seem like more people are playing musical instruments?
Werbin: Part of what happens nowadays that didn't happen when I first got into the business is that people would have one or two guitars. Now it is not uncommon for people to have 10. I know a lot of people whose goal for the month is to find another guitar. This is partly because they can afford it They have gotten to whatever point in their lives where they feel this is the important thing for them to do with their money.
The Retailer: You may be touching on a frightening truth. Less people are buying more instruments and the demographic may be getting older.
Werbin: That may or may not be true. There is certainly no shortage of bands around here that are playing out or trying to play out or just having fun. I don't know the industry statistics. Certainly the manufacturers know how many they sell, but I don't know if anyone knows how many players there are. Still, I think the demographic for guitar players may be getting older.
The Retailer: What is the biggest thing that's changed about the way the business is run over the last 30 years?
Werbin: I would say that it is both technology and customer service. When we started, there were just a few of us and we didn't know how to run a store. We just started a store and we thought we would treat people as best as we can. But there are difficult situations when you don't treat people as best you can because you are inexperienced. I would say it took some time to fully understand the importance of customer service at every step of the way, not just when things are going well.
The Retailer: Do you have an example?
Werbin: I had someone e-mail me yesterday who said he drove in to see us from Grand Rapids, Michigan to buy a Deering banjo. He checked the web and our prices were as competitive as any so he came in and checked out the Deering banjo and some others. He brought a friend and his friend liked a Fender banjo, for the money, better. Everything went well and he ended up buying the Fender. Then he got home and checked the web and found he could buy the Fender banjo for a hundred dollars less at Musician's Friend. He was disappointed and wanted us to match the Musician's Friend price. I e-mailed him back and told him I happy he got what he liked but we don't match competitors' prices because we provide a lot more service, we think, than the other places he was shopping. I pointed out our extra services like checking out the instruments and setting them up before the sale. I went through the litany of how we provide extra value, etc., etc. But here comes the part I wouldn't have done 20 years ago. I wouldn't have offered a refund. It had only been a few days so I welcomed him to bring the banjo back for a full refund. At that point if he wanted to buy from Musician's Friend, he could do that. I don't know if that is the best example of customer service or not but it was the best I could do. I didn't want to meet the Musician's Friend's price because frankly, we have to make some money somewhere and especially when we are doing all this extra stuff that I don't think they do.
The Retailer: But you are putting yourself at the risk of losing the sale.
Werbin: That's right but at the same time I am doing the right thing. The important thing is to do the right thing, which is not necessarily meeting someone's price. The thing that would have made him the happiest is if I sent him a hundred dollars but short of that I gave him every possible option to be happy. He e-mailed me back saying that he understood and appreciated my position and that I would be seeing him in the store again.
Published 2002-06
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