In a market like today’s guitar industry, sometimes starting small can be a newcomer’s best move. Seattle musician and guitar collector Frank Gross opened his boutique, Thunder Road Guitars, with just a handful of choice guitars, a few amps, and no physical storefront. But thanks to some shrewd online branding and an eagerness to tap into the burgeoning online collectors’ market for both high-end buyers and working musicians looking for unique instruments, Gross blew through that initial inventory and was able to just keep growing.
Now, with a spiffy year-old storefront in West Seattle, Thunder Road is thriving.
“Running a business is kind of an eight-days-a-week gig,” says Gross. “But this is the kind of stuff I’m passionate about, so to do anything else wouldn’t really make sense.”
Gross, who spent most of his 20s as a professional musician, came up working at a few other music shops in the area, including the well-known Seattle vintage shop Emerald City Guitars. There, he noticed that online buyers for fine used instruments were steadily growing over the last five years. As orders seemed to reach a critical mass, Gross decided to end his touring career and get started with an online business of his own.
“When I started out, I took what you might see as the backwards approach,” he says. “I slowly built it up online rather than starting out with a big bank loan and just crossing my fingers hoping it would work. I think that was a far better for us just starting out.”
One of Gross’s first orders of business was to talk with longtime friend and web designer Aaron Johnson (of boutique design company Pixel & Quill) about web functionality and brand identity. Key to Thunder Roads’ success would be a clean site with easy navigation and detailed, accurate descriptions of every product (along with great photos, of course).
The website (thunderroadguitars.com) came out beautifully and the shopping couldn’t be easier. With a live website and no geographical limits to trade, Gross soon found himself achieving another goal – that of servicing customers around the globe.
“I wanted to provide cool and clean examples of vintage guitars and share them with customers all over the world,” says Gross. “We ship guitars and amps to places that you wouldn’t even believe.”
There are of course challenges to doing business online, first and foremost being the increased scale of competition. There are hordes of sites (not to mention endless listings on eBay and Craigslist) offering similar services to Thunder Road, as well as the usual online megastore branches of chains like Guitar Center. But Gross points to his website along with a growing reputation for good business as clear difference-makers. The shop’s reputation is bolstered by upfront salesmanship and a three-day “no questions asked” return policy.
Though the staff remains small (Gross, a service tech, and a sales/web tech) Thunder Road has been able to hunt down some world-class instruments. A recent look through their inventory brought up a sleek ‘67 Fender Coronado II, a beautiful ‘52 Gibson Les Paul, and even some newer mid-range models like a 2009 G&L Legacy.
“I hate to say this but I’m usually pretty picky about what we carry,” says Gross. “We get calls every day from people who are trying to sell X, Y, or Z Brand. I’m always looking for clean and original Fender, Gretsch, Gibson, and Marshall products. That’s the stuff I’m passionate about and really like, and I think it would be kind of silly to sell stuff that I wasn’t personally really interested in.” Gross features brand new instruments only from Fastback Guitars, a small Seattle company who build great-looking twists on vintage Fender designs. The shop also carries a good deal of slightly more obscure brands like Danelectro, Kay, Silvertone, and Harmony, which have quietly become popular alternatives as the vintage pieces from Fender and Gibson climb into prices well beyond many would-be collectors’ finances.
Reaching that middle-tier of vintage buyers is one other key part of the shop’s identity. Gross caters to high-end buyers, even offering a Monday appointment-only day where buyers can have the whole inventory to themselves. But customer diversity is important. “I love being able to sell to different categories of buyers,” says Gross, noting that great used instruments come in a variety of grades, from the mint condition to slightly hammered and refurbished. It’s that flexibility that Gross tries to take advantage of.
“Guitars that have been refinished or have changed-out parts, guys are taking out on the road and using,” he says. “I think that’s great that we’re able to sell to everyone from collectors to someone who’s maybe doing his first tour and sleeping in a van.”
