“We have sold, literally – not including the recent release, which is another 350 guitars over a week – 2.8% of the entire Australian market for guitars over the last 12 months, and we did that in six days,” Ormsby says. “But retailers are not interested in the slightest in even talking to us, and I think that is absolutely crazy. We’re offering the same margins as everyone else, we’ve got the hottest product right now and we’re offering something that’s totally different to what’s in every store, and has been in every store for years. If you’re looking for a metal guitar and you walk into a store you’ve got a choice of black or black. We’ve surveyed our clients and we’ve got all the info of what these players want if they could get a custom-made guitar, and we’re putting it in a production guitar and we’re selling them by literally the boatload, and yet retailers aren’t interested.”
Ormsby makes a great point: walk into any store and you’ll find dozens of black, twin-humbucker metal guitars from different brands sitting happily side-by-side. But none of them are offering what Ormsby does: multi-scale fanned-fret designs, custom-designed pickups, and finishes voted for by users rather than a marketing committee. Heck, there’s even a new headless run called the Goliath which looks incredible.
“We’re coming in with multi-scales, which you can’t buy from a shop. They’ve got stainless steel frets, which every metal guy has heard about but hasn’t been able to feel how amazing they are. We’re giving them a case included in that, and we’re surveying them on what the hottest trends in colours are and what they want, and then we’re giving it to them,” Ormsby says. “If you were to ask me 12 months ago, ‘Would baby blue be an option for a metal guitarist?’ I would have said ‘Hell no.’ But that’s what they want, so we made them. We made pink guitars and we sold a heap of them. I would never have thought that was something that was going to be popular. What was the least-popular colour? Black. What’s the most common colour you see on the wall in the guitar shops? Black. People are sick of it. We’re giving them something different and they’re buying them.”
Currently you can get in on a GTR run via the Facebook group. “We sold 800 instruments in 11 days of selling,” Ormsby says. “Now, I’d much rather deal through retails so I don’t have to deal with the individual orders coming through. I’m sitting here looking at my desktop and there are 95 orders that came in today. People are telling us, ‘If I could go down to the shop and try that out, I’d buy it today.’ Especially with something like we’re selling, it’s a multi-scale with a different feel and a different look, and it intimidates a lot of people, but as soon as they try it, a lot of guys find them easier to play than regular guitars – but they’ve got to try them. But retailers don’t jump on board so we do it.
“We do barbecue days in each state. We organise a rehearsal space, we put on a barbecue and we invite everyone down and we make sure there are 20 guitars there and most of the guitars are gone before lunch. If a retailer wants to jump on board we’re going to absolutely help ‘em out. We do have a store in Sydney that was entirely funded by presales of our guitars. He jumped on board, he ordered 40 instruments, he sold them within a couple of days and that gave him the capital to start his business. It’s crazy. And you’ve got long-established stores that won’t give them a look in. And it’s always the same thing: ‘Where are we going to put them on the floor?’ Mate, get rid of the stuff that doesn’t sell.”
BY PETER HODGSON
