Fair Play to ye Waltons...

artvandulet

I tried ringing Waltons about buying a couple of Gibson accessories I was looking for. As far as I know they are still the distributor in Ireland for Gibson.
Anyway, they didnt have the items in stock so I said no problem, I'll wait for em to be ordered in. They basically told me not to bother as it would take ages. "You're better off buying Gibson stuff online" is what I was told.

Jaysus, sounds like they've given up altogether. Really poor form. If they are still the Gibson distributor (not just a dealer) for Ireland then this is pretty bad service!
No wonder so many of us shop online.

CiaranK

Thats mad, I had good experiences from waltons the other day. It depends who you are dealing with. You could ask andy if there is any spare parts on broken guiatrs upstairs, If not try Guitar fix just up the road from it (Address - 4 Exchequer St) It's upstairs in a tall builing, He does have a blackboard with 'Guitar Fix' written on it. He has some lovely stuff!

EL_Loco

you got an honest answer. Customer service over profit. fair play!

artvandulet

EL_Loco wrote: »

you got an honest answer. Customer service over profit. fair play!

Fobbing off over customer service more like.

rgjmce

waltons have **** service anyways

Scoual

hey,
what stuff were you after btw?
i've heard they've got some parts in recently, if you are after common stuff it shouldn't be a problem, you'd better drop them an email just to be sure,

punchdrunk

Gotta say your in the wrong here mate!

I work in a slightly different industry,same deal though

NOTHING is held in stores in the UK by distributors/manufacturers anymore

warehousing inventory costs a fortune so everything is to order,but like most manufactures Gibson probably massively slowed production down when the recession hit,low volume/low margin stuff would have been a prime target for cut backs!
anyway as the economy pics up production will up a gear,but already many many shops will be waiting in line on allocation
basically first up,first served so it could be months and months to get stuff

to give you an idea I tried to order a Camera lense for a customer (worth 1800!)
couldn't even be told "possibly" when it would be available,but definitely no sooner than 3 months before some started to arrive and that there was already approx 200 of them on backorder in the UK and ireland alone! and i'd be last in the queue

then there's the added possibly of his boss only ordering from gibson say every three months (things are SLOW!)
so you could be waiting until his next shipment and lets face it which luxury goods retailers
will be ordering anything after early/mid december at the latest? it'll be late feb when retailers re-stock

also if you want something small special order even if it's a couple of Euro's worth they'd courrier it over,
normally if your ordering say a pallet of stock yo ucan spread the delivey cost out over loads of things so it works out only a
couple of euro per item
corporations like Gibson don't do "stick it in a jiffy bag by registered post"
your talking 20 quid delivery fee for a few parts easy
he was doing you a favour,and i'd do the same!

eoin5

That sucks, have you tried contacting Gibson art? Theres very little a shop or even a distributor can do as its all based on bulk orders as punchdrunk has said but if Gibson wants to advertise themselves as a global brand who values customers then they should give you the option of buying their accessories in a way that you can bring it back to a shop if theres a problem.

OK-Cancel-Apply

They still have rip-off prices and they never answer my emails.

Scoual

hi guys, gibson are also selling parts direct from their site now

http://store.gibson.com/Products/Hardware.aspx

punchdrunk

..and there's not a single part in stock on the 1st page...

artvandulet

punchdrunk wrote: »

Gotta say your in the wrong here mate!

If they were merely a dealer I'd have no problem with their answer, but the fact is (or at least was, and I'll stand corrected on this whole thing if they're not anymore!) they are the Irish distributor - they supply all the other Irish shops with Gibson products. They represent Gibson in Ireland. If they don't do a good job at that, another distributor will take the account. Happens in this country quite a bit. I know several large brands who've shifted distributors in recent times.

For the Irish distributor to tell me to go online is just plain wrong. Gibson is part of their bread and butter. I may only be a customer spending a few quid now, but I could be buying a 335 in a few months for all they know, and being told to buy online is exactly what I'd do after that kind of service.

punchdrunk wrote: »

it'll be late feb when retailers re-stock

I'd find it very hard to believe that the Irish Distributor have no need to ship anything from one of their largest suppliers, this side of christmas for anyone of the 30 or 40 guitar shops in the country.


Anyway, I've since ordered online, so sorted.;)

Dangerous Man

I've had some bad and weird experiences in Walton's. One day I was in having a look at an Epi Sheraton II. It turned out to be a piece of firewood (like a lot of the stuff in Walton's) so I put it back up and decided on the way out the door to ask one of the sales assistants if they sold allen keys. I needed one for the screws on the saddles of my strat. Anyway, the guy said 'no' and that I shouldn't waste my time looking around town as 'only Fender keys will fit Fender screws as they make the screws a particular shape and size.' I pretended as though I believed his nonsense, smiled, and left.

eoin5

Dangerous Man wrote: »

I've had some bad and weird experiences in Walton's. One day I was in having a look at an Epi Sheraton II. It turned out to be a piece of firewood (like a lot of the stuff in Walton's) so I put it back up and decided on the way out the door to ask one of the sales assistants if they sold allen keys. I needed one for the screws on the saddles of my strat. Anyway, the guy said 'no' and that I shouldn't waste my time looking around town as 'only Fender keys will fit Fender screws as they make the screws a particular shape and size.' I pretended as though I believed his nonsense, smiled, and left.

Donno how that myth gets put around. The fender allen keys are generally imperial sizes but nothing too mad.

Dangerous Man

Well - that's exactly it, isn't it? How or, why on earth would a person think that? It just doesn't make any sense whatsoever - from any perspective. And this guy was working in a guitar store... that sold Fenders. !!!!!!!!

punchdrunk

probably mixing up the fact that fender japan do use different allen keys to fender USA,metric vs imperial
at least they used to be different !