Pa Rum Pum Pum Pum – Kraft Music & The E-Drum

If you asked Ben Kraft, president of Kraft Music, to write about the history of Kraft Music, he’d say that he considers the store to have had two chapters. Chapter one begins with his father, Roger Kraft.

Chapter One:

“My dad was a gigging musician as early as his high school years,” says Ben. “He played his way through college, and even landed in the United States Army Band during the draft, touring England and Scotland. Upon returning to the U.S., he continued to perform as his primary source of income. Dad was always on the forefront of technology, and even built his own “keyboard” that consisted of a Hammond B3 organ, a Moog Satellite, MiniMoog, and an Arp String Ensemble (that keyboard was later featured in Keyboard Magazine as the “Keyboard of the Month” in 1999). Right around 1980 a local music retailer who frequented Roger’s shows asked him to come on in and sell some keyboards. He came to work at Ralph Hanzel Music and took over the keyboard department offering sales, repairs, rent-to-own programs, et cetera.”

In 1984, Roger Kraft purchased the keyboard department from Ralph Hanzel Music, and Kraft Keyboards Inc. was born. Roger became Milwaukee’s exclusive dealer for Kurzweil, Oberheim, Linn, Ensoniq, and others. Other brands that were represented were Roland, Moog, Alesis, Korg, Tascam, Synergy, Akai, Crumar, Kawai – nearly the entire assortment of synthesizers available during that time. “And of course,” Ben notes, “1984 was when MIDI was born, and customers flocked to Kraft Keyboards to get demonstrations of this exciting technology.”

While all of this is happening, Ben Kraft is around 10 years old. “I loved coming to work with Dad and in between filing papers, vacuuming, and doing other odd jobs, I was able to play the latest wonder in electronic instruments and I became hooked on it all myself,” Ben explains.

Over the next decade, Kraft Keyboards ended up in several locations around Milwaukee due to one reason or another – a lease that ended early; a small expansion that led to there being two stores on each end of town; and a short attempt to create a full-line combo store to augment the keyboard offerings with guitars and drums. “By 1990 or so, Kraft Keyboards ultimately ended up locating in a small space, right smack downtown,” says Ben. “With just a few employees, it was easy to manage and still fulfilled its mission to be the leading technology store.”

Two years later, Ben goes off to school at the University of Wisconsin-Madison to study business (accounting). “Working summers at the shop, an employee and mentor of mine helped me to dream of the market our company could have if we could reach customers through AOL, CompuServe, and other dialup communities that were popular at that time,” says Ben. “In the fall of 1994, I convinced Dad to upgrade my old Mac to a new PC, and I took it to Madison and began exploring ways to sell online when I wasn’t in class. The Internet was in its infancy, but I had easy access to it as a student of the university and quickly found the ‘newsgroups’ that electronic musicians were hanging out in. I began to make friends through my knowledge of the gear, and ultimately earned their business.”

In 1995, with the help from a classmate, Ben launched the first Kraft Music website (they chose the name Kraft Music to avoid pigeon-holing themselves to only keyboards).  “I ultimately left school without finishing and began working on Internet sales full-time despite my unhappy mother and father,” Ben explains.  “Mom was a grade school music teacher and was rightly concerned that leaving my studies unfinished would be a huge mistake.  And Dad wasn’t enamored with the music products industry any longer due to increases in competition from mail-order retailers and the rise of Guitar Center. But I was too foolish to listen, and began working my way through creating an 800-number, answering email, shipping, and creating online content.”

But it turns out Ben was onto something, and Kraft Music quickly outgrew its downtown Milwaukee location, replacing it in 1997 with another space in the Milwaukee suburb of Brookfield. This move provides more storage, more officers, and more area for retail. But it wasn’t all growth and expansion for Kraft. “Our misstep was in the retail efforts,” says Ben. “Energy that was previously put into learning the World Wide Web was quickly sucked into hiring and promoting our new retail location, and the next few years became very difficult. In the meantime, I hired a friend and early adopter of website development to build the first e-commerce enabled kraftmusic.com. I did so without the blessing of my dad, and with very little money of my own, so that created some interesting conversation between the two of us!”

The site was ready to launch in the late summer of 2000, and it was launched just in time. The retail shop had essentially failed, and all employees had jumped ship leaving just Ben’s dad, Ben, and one part-time employee. But the launch of the site began to generate calls, emails, orders, and hope, and in March of 2001 Ben bought the business from his father and Roger left the industry.

Ben believes that Chapter 2 began that day.

Chapter Two:

“And with one employee (whom I hired the week before I bought the business and who is still with me today), the focus became square on e-commerce,” Ben says.

Today, Kraft Music has 30 full-time employees, and Ben mentions hopefully a few more will begin to work with Kraft by the time this article runs. “Most of the growth for Kraft has come in the last six-seven years, attributed to a laser-sharp focus on e-commerce,” Ben comments. “Remember that 2008 was the beginning of the Great Recession, and between that and skyrocketing fuel prices, consumers were embracing the web as their preferred method of shopping. We couldn’t have timed our focus better, and our past experience with the Internet gave us the foundation and confidence to invest heavily at a time when others were contracting in size.”

2014 marked the official 30-year mark for Kraft Music. But Ben and his team hardly had any time to celebrate. “A few years before, we had grand plans to party, and have open houses, et cetera, but we never really got around to it,” he says. “The growth of the business has made everything more complex, and we quickly decided that maybe we would wait for our 35^th to celebrate!”

A Peek Inside 

The Kraft Music office/showroom is divided into four functional chunks, consisting of 3,000 square feet of open room (with private offices for managements) to house the team of sales advisors. “This talented group of musicians give advice based on their expertise, solve order-related problems, and provide customer service to our customers from around the country,” says Ben. On the opposite side of the building, there is about 4,000 square feet, which houses the marketing team who is busy creating content for Kraft Music’s website and third party shopping sites, shooting and editing videos, designing images, taking still photography, among a slew of other tasks. Executive offices and HR and Accounting are also in this wing.

There are a few training and conference rooms, a generous break area, a video and photography studio, and some storage. “Our large distribution space is predominantly set up for receiving and fulfillment, but we also have 2,000 sq. ft. of offices that houses staff who are in the weeds keeping a busy shipping and receiving operation running,” Ben explains. “Visitors who are expecting a ‘music store’ and whatever that means in their head are often surprised to see so many people working on large computers and on phones, etc. I like to say that while we’re a digital, e-commerce centered retailer, it takes an awful lot of analog activities to make it all tick… We have an enormous amount of ‘brick and mortar’ that we operate within. While I think the fantasy is that an e-commerce retailer can operate with less space, and less ‘overhead,’ that is only true to a small degree. The reality is that our customers do not provide their own transportation for their purchases or returns. We do that with forklifts, delivery trucks, and service providers, et cetera. We invest heavily in software, hardware, and equipment in order to meet the high level of customer service that is expected from us, or anyone.”

Sandwiched in between both wings is the 2,000 square foot showroom, which Ben and his employees generally like to refer to as a gallery. “It’s a beautiful space with open ceilings, soft colors, wood floors, and a hi-tech room to highlight the latest synths,” he explains. “We can’t possibly show all of our available products, so we tend to display new and top SKU’s that represent the latest and greatest from the manufacturers that we get behind. While this room is an excellent place for a customer to spend time auditioning the latest keyboard, guitar or electronic drum set, it doubles as a spot where our sales advisors can put their hands on products to better assist our customers. Each sales advisor wears a wireless headset, and it’s not uncommon to see one or two of them in the showroom walking a customer through the operation of an instrument over the phone.”

Kraft Music offers everything from guitars, drums, recording and PA, and home electronics to what his father first started out with in the ‘80s: pianos, keyboards, and synths. “We’ve been a seller of high-end keyboards and synths for a long time, and that market has sure changed over the years,” Ben says. “High-end synths and workstations have flattened out with software and iPads offering alternative ways to create music.  Gone are the days where a keyboard player would purchase a master controller and load up on racks full of sound modules! But it sure is exciting to see the resurgence of classic synths – the re-issue of the Arp Odyssey, Aira from Roland, ReFace from Yamaha and many more. What’s old is new again, and it’s fun to see.”

One thing Ben says that they’re noticing at Kraft in all the instrument categories is increased quality at the lowest price points. “It’s amazing what one can buy today at prices that were unimaginable just a few years back,” Ben exclaims. “The price barrier one has to overcome to learn or to start playing music is extraordinarily low, and that’s positive news for our customers and future customers. Lower ticket prices are certainly an operational challenge, however, but we’re certainly not the first industry to face that.”

Well into their second chapter, as Ben calls it, Kraft Music continues to push forward, continuing to adopt new technology, innovate, and serve as many people as they can. “So that’s a long story made long,” exclaims Ben. “As you can see, we’ve really survived two chapters: one as a traditional retailer, and another as a company operating in the crazy world of e-commerce and digital transactions… Finally, I suppose most business people have been saying this for generations, but business seems to be getting harder and harder, and there seems to be more obstacles that are thrown at us than ever before. We joke that we would love to just get back to selling keyboards (and thankfully we have a great staff who can concentrate on that), but the day-to-day for my executive team and me seems to be focused more on compliance, regulations, changing regulations, cyber security, human resources challenges (retirement plans, and benefit do’s and don’ts) and a host of other activities that take us away from our core reason for being: to help people make music. But in the end, I’ll take it, and I’m extremely grateful to be operating in the industry that we all are in.”

Ben Kraft on E-Drums

Electronic drums represent a strong share of Kraft’s business. “We carry many of the brands active in the category,” he says. “Roland, Yamaha, KAT Percussion, Alesis, Pearl, Nord, Korg Wavedrum, the Zildjian Gen16 products, etc. There are a few old and new brands that we haven’t established relationships with yet, but that’s coming. Every manufacturer in the space has something interesting to offer here, so it’s an exciting category to watch.” 

Ben notes that they were early adopters of electronic drums, selling Kat and Simmons many years ago. “There are way too many advantages to ignore (volume, size, headphones, just to name a few), and we’re seeing customers from all levels get interested in them,” Ben explains. “Electronic drums provide so many advantages over acoustic kits, and the advantages are profound.  First, acoustic kits can be excessively loud.  Every parent’s nightmare is when the little one asks for a drum kit for Christmas, right?  They’re too darned loud and too disruptive…especially if you’re in an apartment, or condo.  But with an electronic kit, everybody’s happy because the volume level is solved… Second, the technology makes it easy and fun to learn. Built-in metronomes, coaching functions, built-in songs that you can play along with, et cetera – it’s an awesome way to learn, and keeps making music fun. One could make the case that anyone who is beginning to learn to play drums should be starting on an electronic kit of some type.” Ben notes a few particular brands who are doing interesting things in the e-drum market. “We love what Pearl is doing with electronic drums – they make beautiful shells and hardware, so now an electronic kit doesn’t have to look like an electronic kit! Same with the Zildjian Gen16 cymbals, and other products coming down the line.  

Roland’s V-Drums are the lion’s share of Kraft’s business. “MI SalesTrak consistently shows Roland having 70 percent or so marketshare, and that is reflected at Kraft Music as well,” explains Ben. “What’s so interesting is that the Roland products are by far the most expensive, and yet they’re the most popular by units.  They play great, sound great, and Roland continues to innovate and refine the technology.  The relatively new TD25 kit has been a stunning success, even at its $2,500 price-point.  But there’s no shortage of innovation and interesting ideas from the competition and we’re thrilled to have as many options for the customer as we do today… We see great products from Yamaha, Pearl, Alesis, and there’s more to come. Just like a digital piano has taken over the acoustic piano market in many ways (and most of our customers refer to a digital piano simply as a “piano”), you have to wonder when a “drum set” will simply refer to an electronic drum set in the consumer’s vocabulary. Lots of reasons to love them! The hybrid kits are especially exciting, and it will be fun to see the category progress.”

While the electronic drum product is the centerpiece of the market, it’s supported, Ben says, by accessory products – sticks, pedals, stands, and also cables, headphones, and powered spearkers, among other things. “Rarely is the electronic kit self-contained, so we can really show our expertise by helping the customer match their choice of electronic kit with the right hardware, headphones, and much, much more,” says Ben. “So a good electronic drum dealer really can’t serve the customer well without having a breadth of knowledge and inventory of traditional drum products (thrones, pedals, sticks, et cetera) as well as technology brands (for speakers, headphones, recording gear, and more).  We’re extremely proud of our selection, and our sales advisors receive regular training from all of the manufacturers to ensure that we’re serving the e-drum customer to the best of our ability.”

Staff, Fair Treatment, & Details – What Makes Kraft Different 

When asked what differentiates Kraft Music from its competitors, Ben was able to succinctly break it down into three simple bulletpoints. “First, we’re very fortunate to be in a business where we can add real value to our customers by being experts at what we offer,” he begins. “We’re not selling commodities – we’re helping people make music. And folks appreciate a person they can trust who can walk them through their first digital piano purchase, for example, and beyond. So the first differentiator is our staff. We have a caring, knowledgeable, dedicated staff.  Customers feel it immediately, and as a Google Trusted Store, we boast the highest rating of any music retailer competing with us. We do our best to take care of our employees, and they in turn take extremely good care of our customers.”

The second focus for Kraft is upholding the strictest and highest standard in all of their business dealings with vendors and partners. “Whether it’s an instrument manufacturer, a supporting bank, a service provider or anyone else that we have a relationship with, we make every effort to treat them fairly and promptly,” says Ben. “We like to have an open channel of communication with all of our partners, and our goal is to be the first place that these partners want to do business.”

“Beyond that, the devil is in the details. We’re working around the clock to give the customer what they demand and deserve. Our YouTube channel recently exceeded 20,000,000 views, and our eBay store maintains a 99.9 percent Positive Feedback rating as just two quick examples of how much hard work goes into achieving the service level that we strive for.”