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General Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: bruno on April 03, 2025, 03:39:12 PM

Title: Bax and Gak both closed
Post by: bruno on April 03, 2025, 03:39:12 PM
https://youtu.be/JO4T7gBIj3I?si=I3YARd5ofIG6IMBZ

Title: Re: Bax and Gak both closed
Post by: AndyR on April 04, 2025, 08:02:05 AM
Yeah, I saw that the other day.

Never used Bax... but there's quite a few guitars of mine looking sad because where they came from is no more  :(

I always bought online.

No access to my GAK account anymore, but I thought I'd check out what I'd bought from them, from the "thankyou for your order" emails...

Woah!


My wife bought a few things for me there too (another Vox BC108 with a Vox MV50 AC springs to mind - the BC108 above was a second cab I got later to spread the sound).

We went to Brighton last year, I finally found the physical GAK store and looked through the window. But we'd been in GuitarGuitar Epsom a day or two before buying my last Strat... I didn't really feel I could drag her round another guitar shop, so I decided I'd visit it next time. Obviously not :(

RIP GAK
Title: Re: Bax and Gak both closed
Post by: chapperz66 on April 04, 2025, 10:16:36 AM
This is sad.  I bought a few things from them on line but never visited.

I imagine the inventory costs must have been huge.
Title: Re: Bax and Gak both closed
Post by: AndyR on April 04, 2025, 01:36:02 PM
Apparently there's been huge turnover but minimal profit - like a LOT smaller than my personal take home. I was stunned reading that - but bear in mind it was on a guitar forum with a lot of "experts", so take it with a pinch of salt.

Not too sure of the ins and outs... but I do know that one of the reasons I've bought so much from them is they often had noticeably cheaper, compared to GG and Andertons, when I REALLY wanted something (mind you, though, my GG list looks just as scary!!)

I haven't watched the video (watching a film with Mrs R), so I don't know whether there's anything about this in it: my reading the other day suggested that they (GAK) got hit with a HUGE fine for price fixing with Yamaha... around the time I bought my Revstar, I believe. That was news to me.

Apparently, they never really recovered, and it looks like both the online and physical store companies ended up owned by venture capital in the early 2020s. Then the plug got pulled suddenly the other week and the employees were the last to know kinda thing.

All a bit sad...