Guitar Center — Attraction in San Marcos

So many guys are bitching about Guitar Center San Marcos. Go try to get the expansive selecetion of new and used gear at your Mom n Pop stores. Or how about their 30 day no questions asked return policy? Any other local stores do that? Does Craigs List do that? Nope. So quite yer bitchin' about GC San Marcos. I've worked both sides of the counter at GC. Yes, as a customer and an accessories sales guy. And yes, they do push you to make sales or you loose your job. But it's not that hard to do if you create a following. As a sales guy, I could give discounts to my better customers and did. When you get to be the kind of customer who knows most of the sales guys by first name, then they will be treating like family because you took the time to befriend them. But if you start out bitching about the price, or whatever, forget it. Nobody wants to be around anybody bitching about things let alone gear. And where else will you find 20% off new gear coupons almost every month? Mom n Pop? Nope. And GuitarCenter is NOT a franchise like McDonalds. It's wholly owned by one corporation that was recently acquired (a several years ago) by a larger corporation. And if you haven't checked, they're opening new stores quite frequently. I do shop my Mom n Pop stores but you really have to twist their arm to get any kind of discount, price match or what have you. Or they just refuse to budge and show you the door. At GC San Marcos, I've approached the store manager and made him a resonable offer on used gear that has been there for awhile. And more often than not, he accepted the deal. And to top it off, there were NO complaints when I brought back that gear within the 30 day time frame because I didn't like it. About 2/3rds of ALL my guitar and amp gear I bought from GC. Why? Because I get 30 days to play with it, test it, burn it in and if it blows up or I just don't like it, THEY TAKE IT BACK and give me my money back! Will Mom n Pop stores do that? No. They don't have the corporate backing money to do that. More than not, with Mom n Pop, it's 'all sales final'. On the down side, I know you'll take a beating when selling your gear to them. It has happened to me several times on gear I just wasn't using but didn't want to screw with on Craigs List. But then, they have to make a profit too and resell it. And that's where I get my screaming deals is on their used gear. Just wait long enough and the price will come down. Or go online and buy it. 285+ stores to choose gear from. And you still get the 30 day money back guarantee, minus shipping. And speaking of purchasing online... I purchased 2 guitar amps from out of town GuitarCenter's and they both arrived non-functional. You can return your purchase to ANY GuitarCenter. I got ALL my money back including shipping. No arguements, no questions asked. The guys at SAN MARCOS are great! Yeah, you might have to wait to get help in certain areas, but either get there right when they open or come back after lunch and stop complaining. There really isn't any other music store that can offer as much as GC does. Yeah, it does have a few drawbacks, but if you look at the over all big picture, they provide a great service to all musicians whatever you may play. If we didn't have Guitar Center stores to try out ALL the new gear from NAMM, then you could only buy online and gawd only knows what kind of return policy...

I’ve bought 2 guitars (1 electric & 1 acoustic) at the San Marcos location and 1 at the La Mesa location. At the San Marcos location I pretty much had to pick out the guitars myself … the only help I received was to unlock them. No one ever seemed available to help or answer any questions (they were busy looking busy doing nothing). Of course when I picked out my guitars and brought them up to the counter to purchase them they heavily promoted their extended “anything happens” warranty … “if kids poor water on it or dog eats it — no matter what happens it’s covered”. Exxxceppt … if something like the the finish melting away after only 3 months, etc…. (As I found out when I took it to San Marcos). I had to wait at the counter for 15 minutes to be acknowledged (and that was only because I moved where one of the clerks wanted to come and sit and do nothing). He meandered by me 4 times until he realized I wasn’t leaving and finally asked if he could help me (but more in a tone as if I was bothering him). Then I show him the problem and he quickly dismissed me - as if I was an idiot. So I pointed out how stupid it is that he would expect me to leave and come back with a “broken guitar” that would qualify. When he realized that I wasn’t going to easily accept his answer he gets his manager who reinforced the statement and didn’t really care either. I also asked about trading it in since it is literally only 3 months old for a new Taylor guitar that I was interested in that is 4x the price. She said nope… she didn’t offer to show it to me - it didn’t really matter to her and she didn’t really care if I went someplace else to buy my new guitar. So Guitar Center just lost 10’s of thousands of dollars of my future business. In fact I will be buying a new guitar in the next day… BUT it will never be from Guitar Center until they teach their employees...

On Jan 11, 2024 I wrote a scathing review about the San Marcos Store. Boy was I angry! The day after I posted the review Lou V and Joe T separately both reached out to me and expressed their concern about my complaint(s) in regards the stores Customer Service. There were both real gentleman, genuinely concerned and I liked them both immediately. Most importantly "they didnt make excuses"! Lou gave me what I thought was a very reasonable explanation of what had transpired. It appears that there was a perfect storm of employees calling off ill, heavy floor traffic, and other potential customers besides myself on hold on the phone. Lou told me that he would have Joe, the person who knew the details of the used PRS I was inquiring about call me the following day. Sure enough like clockwork Tom reached out to me. He also apologized to me a dozen times about how it appears that I had fallen through the cracks. He also agreed that I was correct in that not only had I received customer poor service but in reality none at all. Joe took the time to send me photos of the guitar I am interested in. He was patient in going over the features, built value into the asking price and offered to follow through on the packaging and shipping of the guitar if/when I make the final purchase. I would highly recommend doing business with the San Marcos Store. Everyone has a bad day and is entitled to the "benefit of the doubt"! With Tom and Lou you'll be in good hands! I'm waiting on a few details and hope to purchase the guitar very soon. Thanks Joe and Lou for restoring my faith in your store! All the best Mark

1/14/2024 Second update! Joe sent me add'l photos and info and is really going above and beyond trying to put a deal together for me! This is the kind of customer service that earns loyalty, trust and almost guarantees repeat sales!! Thanks for all of...