Official Luthiers Forum!

Folks we are thrilled to bring you this news. Guitar Maker Direct (http://www.guitarmakerdirect.com) is something that is long over and desperately needed in our line of work!
Mark Blanchard is the creative mind behind this concept and also the owner of the site.

Please take a moment to welcome GMD to our community!

Here are some of Marks comments to better explain GMD and how it works
Fellow OLFers

I haven't been very active on this forum recently because I've been very busy with a new guitar related project. It's a website called GuitarMaker Direct where guitar makers can list guitars that they have for sale. The idea is to provide a single place where potential buyers can go to see what a variety of luthiers have available without having to visit all of their individual websites. There are several search filters which make it easy for buyers to zero in on what they are looking for.

For the guitar makers it provides an economical alternative to sending a guitar to one of the existing guitar dealers and potentially more exposure than they might get listing the guitar just on their own website. Also, because the site puts the buyer in direct contact with the Luthier, there is a better opportunity for a lasting relationship to develop. Direct relationships result in higher profits margins and repeat business, and for me at least have been a lifesaver during the recent economic slowdown.

At this point, the site is new and visitation is low. But before ramping up marketing efforts to increase traffic, I'm trying to increase the number of builders listing guitars and increase the inventory on the site so that when buyers visit for the first time they will be impressed enough to want to visit again. To help with this objective, I'm offering all listings at half price through July. That makes a basic listing $15 and a deluxe listing, with pop-up photo gallery, $45. There is no expiration date on a listing. They can stay on the site as long as needed.

There's more information on the site about what it is and how it works so I won't go into minute detail here. If this concept sounds interesting to you, I suggest going to the site and having a look around. I welcome new listings and ideas for improvement.

http://www.guitarmakerdirect.com

Thanks,
Mark

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Lance@LuthiersForum.com

This sounds pretty cool. I just look at the acoustic guitar section and noticed that the least expensive model goes for ~$6,000. I was wondering whether this site is intended for 'established' makers, or is it also open for people like me who have completed a few guitars so far and want to take the plunge and sell some guitars for ... say $1,900 or so?

cheers, Christian

Christian

GMD is for guitar makers at every level. In fact, I envisioned it as being especially valuable for amateur builders who do not really have a connection with an internet dealer and perhaps do not even have a website of their own. The price search filter has a $0 - $2000 category for those buyers looking for something in that price range.

Mark

Great idea Mark !
I for one will use your site.

Mike

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Mike Collins

This one gets a thumbs up from me. What a great idea, Mark.

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Waddy

Photobucket Build Album Library

Sound Clips of most of my guitars

Cool idea Mark. Nice looking site. Could you have your developer turbo-charge the photo gallerys, those are the slowest I've ever seen.

Steve

Steve

I'm sorry the galleries are slow for you. I am the web master of the site and I don't think there's much I can do to speed them up. I optimized the photos to reduce the file size but the photos are fairly large so they are still sizable files. I could make them smaller but I don't really want to sacrifice photo quality.

The galleries seem fast to me..... is anyone else having problems with the photo galleries being slow??

Mark

They seem to load just fine on my home network, where I work through a cable system modem with a G router.

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Waddy

Photobucket Build Album Library

Sound Clips of most of my guitars

Mark, great concept! And I agree that, particularly for those who don't yet have a lot of marketing "tools", it would fill a need.
BUT.... the "photo galleries" definitely need work! I guess you're using some form of flash presentation (I'm a "computer 101" guy), but on my machine (IE6, dial-up) the pics wouldn't load AT ALL. (Tried 3 different galleries ...aborted ea. after 5 min ... nothing even looks like it's loading)

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Dave
Milton, ON

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Give me 50 cents worth of regular.
Check my oil too, if you don`t mind,,,

Bravo, Mark!!!

This is a fantastic idea and one that definitely has valuable potential for both buyers and sellers. Best of luck on your new venture!

I was able to navigate the site with reasonable speed on a DSL connection.

One question...will the listing for a guitar allow for a builder's website address?

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JJ
Napa, CA
http://www.DonohueGuitars.com

I will look into the photo gallery issue, but I suspect that any photo gallery with large images will be rough going on dial up.

JJ - I did not include each builder's website address in an effort to keep visitors on the site. I am, however, considering adding a 'profile' page for each builder and their website address will be part of that.

Thanks everyone for the encouragement and feedback !!!

Mark

Thanks...That's a reasonable consideration and would make sense.

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JJ
Napa, CA
http://www.DonohueGuitars.com

I think this is a very good idea!
What are you doing to get GMD on other than guitar "maker" sites? You need to get it on "player" sites...

Great idea. Best of luck with it.
Chuck

Hans

You are right. I do need to get GMD out to players and buyers, not just luthiers. So far (the site has only been up for a month or so) I have put the emphasis on contacting luthiers because I want to increase the inventory and the number of builders on the site before. putting a lot of effort into contacting players. I want the players who visit to be impressed enough with the content and selection that they will take the site seriously and want to make it a regular stop in their guitar web surfing activities.

I have created a GuitarMaker Direct facebook page and I'm getting a surprising percentage of traffic from there. They tend to be high quality visits as well, so I may ramp up marketing in that arena once the GMD site has developed a little more.

I do expect it to take some time for the word to get out to players and buyers. That is why I'm offering discounts on listings and not putting on expiration date on the listings. I really appreciate the support of the builders who are investing their time and money into this venture at this early stage. It is unlikely that it will generate a lot of sales in the short term but without the builders getting on board, it doesn't stand a chance of EVER developing into a website that players and buyers will want to visit.

Mark

This is a really good concept, Mark . Once I have built a guitar that I'm proud to put my name on, I'll surely make use of this valuable site.

Christian

I understand Mark, and will enter the GMD portal as soon as I have something for sale. One would think AGF might be a start...

I like it. Good idea.

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Greg
http://garibaldiinstruments.com/

What about other instruments like mandolins and such? I need to ask, but my predicted answer is that you will list them with all of the guitars until the list gets too long to fish through the many guitars to get to something else. Am I also right in saying that you'll separate the guitars by style when the need comes? Strange questions, I know, just askin.

ian

If there is demand for listings for instruments other than guitars I would create a separate page for them in the same way that electric guitars have there own page.

I have tried to include enough options in the search filters to make it possible for visitors to zero in on what they are interested in without having to sort through a long list of instruments. Certainly other parameters could, and probably will be, added to the search filters.

Give me an example of what you mean by different guitar "styles".

Mark

Any thoughts on classical and flamenco guitars? Unless I missed something, it is just "acoustic" and electric guitars.

Thanks,
Max

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Max Bishop
Brighton, Michigan

Nylon string is one of the search categories.

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Waddy

Photobucket Build Album Library

Sound Clips of most of my guitars

Pretty much answered my question. Your search categories are what I was talking about, basically to choose between 000, OM, Jumbo, Dreadnought, etc. However, there is a substantial market for mandolins these days, and if no one has anything against it I would suggest going to the Mandolin Cafe and tell them about this site. Loads of amateur builders there who are really good, just need some support. There should be an "other instruments" section anyway. Not telling you how to run your site of course, just making suggestions. You have done something very wonderful for the luthier community and I would hate to offend you in any way or any amount.

Good idea, Mark. I'm on dial up and the gallery images aren't slow on my computer. I'm using firefox. I actually thought that everything loaded up pretty fast compared to most places.

Ron

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OLD MAN formerly (and formally) known as:

Ron Wisdom

Somewhere in the middle of Arkansas......