The CEO of Gibson was explaining how he turned the company around - Gear-Monkey Guitar Community

MrSandMan

This is an old article that I found on the net.

So what did Gibson do to turn the company around?

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USA TODAY: Did you do anything in particular with the products themselves?

JUSZKIEWICZ: Our employees wouldn't buy our products. They thought they were bad. One practice common in all companies was that if a product didn't make a certain quality level, you would sell it as a second. The problem was that dealers were not necessarily telling their consumers that seconds were seconds. So I got into the factory and I picked up a guitar. Got the employees around. "See this guitar," I said. "This guitar says Gibson on it, and it's not Gibson quality. So, here's what we do." I took the guitar, and I smashed it on the factory floor. I said any guitar that doesn't make the grade is going to be put in a pile, and we are going to take a chain saw to it every week. We are doing that to this day. We have Japanese dealers who just cry when they see the pile. It's a very small pile, though, now.

USA TODAY: What else did you do?

JUSZKIEWICZ: I said we are going to increase prices. Prices were ridiculously low. And people said, the price has been decreasing 20% a year, how can you reverse that? I said I'm just going to double the prices on a lot of models. I actually tested it and got an inverse price curve. Basically it showed that every time I raised prices a certain amount, volume would go up.
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Monster

very interesting story... thanks for the share... interesting on raising the price......

floydmoline

lol yeah that's basically the same thing i've been thinking about them, and the way economics work in the guitar industry, just most people are stupid enough to buy into it........ peavey Vs marshall, behringer Vs DBX etc etc, if it's cheap it has to be crap...... or atleast everyone thinks.

Monster

Quote:

Originally Posted by floydmoline

lol yeah that's basically the same thing i've been thinking about them, and the way economics work in the guitar industry, just most people are stupid enough to buy into it........ peavey Vs marshall, behringer Vs DBX etc etc, if it's cheap it has to be crap...... or atleast everyone thinks.

yup thats what gets me mad on other guitar forums.. someone buys some stuff that the cost was cheap and you get jumped on. stuff cheap sounds just as good as more $$$ stuff in some cases.. and i always say buy gear that sounds good to you....

i don't buy gibsons guitars for the reason they charge more then they should for the guitars and in fact i don't think they are as good as everyone says they are

floydmoline

i think gibsons are WAY over priced, but epiphone i believe are a fairly decent deal, ig i could snag up a decent gibson les paul for under 1100 and had the cash i'd do it, but 2500+ is rediculous for any machine produced guitar, now if there were actually guys standing in a work shop carving the tops by hand etc i could see it, but not on mass produced shit

MrSandMan

the epi floyd has now is a nice guitar and the Agile that I play is really nice too. Both are under $300 guitars.

Servant

My Matsumoku Vantage LP Clone eats my real LP any day of the week. No Gibson for me - never ever again.

MrSandMan

+1 [The Man]

agreed, my $379 Agile can give a standard a run for its money.

Vintageheadbox

Actually he's right. Your sales will increase when you up the price..Most people feel that if it cost alot they are getting a better product. This is a stanard practice in alot of businesses, highend houses is one of them.. example.. same house same size lot similar nieghborhood 1 is 450,000 the other 325,000, the 450,000 will sell more often than the other because they think they are getting more or a better product thinking the 350,000 home has hadsome corners cut or the products used were cheaper..when actually both were indentical

Redline68

There is a true story about a cheap Vodka brand that wasn't doing that well. They changed the bottle and label, and increased the price 400%. Same booze. Sales took off.

I'm not saying that's Gibson, but I do think their guitars are overpriced.