Would you buy a guitar from Best Buy? You may have that choice soon. The Associated Press is reporting that Best Buy is planning on opening up music centers inside as many as 85 of its existing retail stores:
The nation’s largest consumer electronics retailer will announce Tuesday that it plans to open as many as 85 of the music centers inside its stores by the end of the year and could add even more locations in the future, executives told The Associated Press.
Each site will use about 2,500 square feet of retail space and include roughly 1,000 different products with well-known brand names such as Fender, Gibson, Drum Workshop and Roland.
There are already 10 stores that include music centers in California, Illinois, and Minnesota. In addition to instruments, the music centers will have sheet music and other guitar accessories. It sounds like they’ll have a variety of instruments, from beginning-level instruments to high-end instruments.
I think it’s great that more people may be exposed to a wider range of musical instruments, but I think I’ll still be buying my instruments from music stores. A lot of buying a musical instrument involves asking questions, and I’m not sure that Best Buy can compete in that area. I’d be surprised if they are able to hire and staff the music centers with knowledgeable sales people, but maybe I’ll be proven wrong.