Dave Stearns recently celebrated 20 years of success at his Guitar Gallery store, located in Amherst, New Hampshire. Originally located in Londonderry, Stearns at one point ran two locations, but decided to move the entire business into his Amherst location, as he owns the building. “I haven’t had to jack up the rent on myself too often in the last 15 years,” Stearns quipped.
Today, Guitar Gallery stands at 5 Route 101A in Amherst, only five miles from the Everett Turnpike. Stearns is happy about his longevity. “It’s a good feeling,” he said, about being in business for 20 years. “I didn’t expect that it would last that long when I opened it. I was 27 at the time. It’s cool thing. I saw a need for cool used, vintage stuff. I wasn’t thinking long term then so I wasn’t thinking about” being where he is today.
Stearns built his Guitar Gallery business up from scratch. He had worked in sales at Daddies Junky Music as well as working sales for some other companies. “That’s where I sort of learned the ropes,” Stearns said. A guitarist himself, Stearns, in his younger days, played in bands, took high school music courses, studied at a recording school, and learned privately with a couple of pro players.
Playing in bands, though, was something Stearns put behind him for a while after he got married and started raising his two children. “I’ve actually been playing out more so in the last ten years than I ever did when I was younger,” he explained. “But, I’ve always had the advantage of knowing the guitar from the user’s point of view.”
Although most of Guitar Gallery’s customer base is local, it’s not uncommon for Stearns to see a guitarist come in his store after driving down from Maine or Vermont or up from Massachusetts. “I had a guy come in the store who was out riding his motorcycle on a nice day and he popped in and he turned out to be this phenomenal bass player in Boston,” Stearns said. Stearns markets his Guitar Gallery business mainly online these days through an e-mail customer base, his website, and his social networking pages.
“The younger players might not know about me yet, but the seasoned pros have either all dealt with me or have heard of me, simply because I’ve been around so long,” the business owner said.
In the early days of Guitar Gallery, Stearns’s formula for success was that his stock of used, vintage guitars sold well. “In 1993, there was no internet,” he reminded. “So players had to poke around. There was no Craigslist or Ebay.”
Guitar Gallery soon earned a reputation for being a place not too far from Boston where accomplished, professional players could find upscale, higher end equipment from manufacturers like G&L, Rickenbacker, and Mesa Boogie.
“I developed a clientele of upscale players who needed higher end equipment to play out professionally,” he said. “I also had some people who played at home for fun who had some expendable income to purchase a nice instrument.”
That niche Stearns carved out of a market of discretionary players looking for high end equipment at reasonable prices is the business model that has kept him afloat 20 years. Stearns noted that his Guitar Gallery does offer lessons, but that it’s not the only reason his store exists. Another reason he’s lasted so long is himself: “I don’t have any inclination to do anything else and I don’t know anything else,” he quipped.
Guitar Gallery, being a boutique instrument shop, can do many things that a large corporate store cannot do. “We can be more nimble and quick responding to the market,” Stearns said. “I could make a decision in a day and have new products on my shelf in a week. We can carry products popular with our local customers whereas a large corporation plays to a large mold and cannot invest in a small local market. Their concern would be if they could sell enough of them. I can also respond more quickly to trendy things like ukuleles. I also have a personalized approach. There is only me the owner and one employee who has been here for several years.”
Stearns’s biggest challenge over the years has been finding the merchandise he wants his Guitar Gallery store to carry. “With used, vintage stuff, we can’t just call up and say send us this stuff,” he said. “We have to go out and find it and that can be time consuming. We also have had to wait for nice products to walk in.”
Guitar Gallery does offer some new products. Stearns buys half his merchandise from dealerships like Fender, Martin, G&L, Mesa Boogie, Rickenbacker and others.
Stearns’s proudest accomplishment was opening up his business 20 years ago in his original Londonderry location. It was on the fourth of July in 1993. Guitar Gallery was located in the same building as a fireworks store, so Stearns caught a lot of traffic from people who were coming up from Massachusetts to purchase firecrackers, sparklers, and Roman candles.
“That with the limited resources I had at the time I was able to get it off the ground,” he said, “that was a good feeling.