Canadian Music Trade - August/September 2020 | Page 23

RICK POPIEZ
A&R Music – Walkerton, ON
A&R Music is a full-service music store offering quality brandname
instruments, accessories, and books, as well as onsite
repairs, since 2009.
CMT: Generally speaking, how has offering repairs and tune-ups
benefited your business? Have you found repair services have
led to other sales or service opportunities or earned you repeat
business?
RP: Offering repairs, set-ups, and restrings helps bring different customers
into the store than those looking to buy a new instrument or a
better amp or a birthday gift. Also, repairs create their own market to
sell parts and strings. Customers who brought in one repair and were
happy with the results would bring in other instruments or make
recommendations to friends.
There’s a relationship that develops with customers when they
trust you to take care of their instrument so, on the retail side, they
also trust you for advice about something they are looking to buy or a
product you carry.
CMT: What about benefits for you and your staff? Does offering
repairs boost your knowledge on instruments, offer insights that
are helpful on the sales floor or with ordering, etc.?
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RP: A major benefit is I can service what I sell. My knowledge benefits
customers as they know that if they buy a new guitar or amp and
something goes wrong down the road,0they can bring it back to me
for service.
You get familiar with instruments from working on them over the
years so, if some parts aren’t available, sometimes I make them myself
– bridges, nuts, saddles – and custom-fit them. It might take longer
but the customer will get a really nice repair that will last.
My experience from working on so many different instruments
and brands over the years has really come in handy.0There is a huge
market for counterfeit guitars and other instruments. Sometimes
customers come in looking for advice for something they want to
purchase online. I can give them pointers on things to look for, like
sloppy inlays, logos and serial numbers that don’t match, paint flaws,
wood filler on the fretboard, broken bindings, painted chrome...
A personal benefit for me is that I’ve gotten to work on some
really unusual and one-of-a-kind instruments. I have worked on a
rebab, zithers, a 1920s mandolin, and a 1960s Mosrite electric guitar.
As a music-lover, that’s been really cool.
RP: A repair department can be a huge time commitment. Not only
is a lot of time spent sourcing parts, schematics, and service manuals,
but some processes, especially for structural repairs, need to be done
after-hours because they require concentration and careful attention.
It can sometimes be challenging to estimate how long a repair might
take as parts may not be available or sometimes it’s more work than it
originally appears once the instrument or amp is opened up.
It’s also important to know how to be diplomatic with customers
because sometimes you don’t have good news. Doing repairs lets you
develop a relationship with customers and I love working on instruments
and making them playable again; however, it can be tricky to
balance what the customer expects for turnaround or the result they
want with what is right – especially if the item is either not fixable or
the repairs are well beyond the value of the instrument.
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CMT: Did you see an influx in repairs/tune-ups coming in
through the pandemic lockdowns? If so, to what do you attribute
that, either based on what customers were telling you or your own
observations?
RP: The pandemic was really hard on the music industry in so many
ways, but a good thing was music became so important to help
people cope and more people were at home and looking for things to
do. I had a lot of repairs come in from people cleaning up basements
or closets and deciding that it was a good time to learn an instrument
or pick it up again. Some had an instrument or amp they had been
putting off getting fixed but during the pandemic they had the time
so they brought it in.
CMT: What are some of the inherent challenges or things to keep
in mind with running a successful repair department that might
not seem obvious to anyone thinking of adding one to their
business?
CANADIAN MUSIC TRADE 23