Big changes at Wizard Guitars

[Vasquez Rich 10]

Wizard as was.. awful awful...

 

I have a wonderful burgundy red 1993 Warwick Fortress, beautiful bass, it was one of the first Fortresses imported into the UK (checked with HansPeter Wilfer, owner of Warwick).. I got it for a snip, cash, cos Carlsbro were in the last days of selling up after going bust... I had the cash in my pocket, shop manager was biting my hand off... Wizard man didn't believe the amount I had paid and snorted that it was "a 2nd".. after I queried his crazy pricing of a similar bass... yeah right.. I vowed never to enter that horrible place ever again.

 

Richard

[Cuey 10]

Good news. The old place had such a bad rep that you only went once to see if it was true (it was). Will the new owner now be putting prices on things?

 

I went in to Wizard a few years ago to look at a Gretsch I'd fallen for. "How much for the Gretsch?" "How much can you afford?"

 

FFS its not a second hand car. If you know the price then say so. People who might want it then know before they waste time looking. With Google and the like these days it's not hard to get a comparison price to see if your being taken for a mug.

 

I ended up with a Yamaha503tvl from elsewhere. Nice guitar but unfortunately it didn't magically make me any good at playing

[Loopgarou 10]

Got to be better than the 'helpful' staff at Richtone. Bought some strings there and asked for an old guitar box as I was sending a bass via the post. The young guy said no, there guitars don't get delivered in boxes and they don't give out old boxes. I was confused as I'd got one there a few months before! I'm all for supporting local businesses but if you don't get decent service it's all too easy to just buy online.

[JOHN HABS 10]

I too had a bad experience at wizard guitars with its previous owner and vowed never to go in again.

 

Having seen on here that the business had been taken over and had new owners decided to try the shop out again has I wanted a guitar setting up.

 

Took a Burns Bison ( 2003 model ) to wizard guitars on Friday 1st May 2015 for new strings fitting and a full set up, had a word with the tech who was more than helpful and very friendly - sent me an email later the same day to inform me the guitar was done and ready for collection.

 

Went to collect it on the Saturday ( 2nd May ), tried it out through an amp and it was just perfect..............best its ever played !

 

Met the new owner of the shop and had a word - really nice bloke.

 

Will definitely be going there again.

[De Batz 10]

I know this thread is old, but thought it would be worth adding to it:

 

Mixed experience today, going in to look generally at anything interesting they had, and asked to try a couple of guitars. I was met with the unnecessary and patronising response of 'you can if you're interested in buying them'. Now, I don't buy a guitar every week, but I have previously bought a guitar from Wizard (in the 'old days'), and having only bought around ten in my lifetime, that's a decent proportion of my business that they've had.

 

I should also add that I'm not a spotty teenager (not for a long time) and I'm not in the shop every other week trying something and not buying it. I've probably had a grand total of five guitars in my hands there. I will also add that it wasn't the boss man that spoke to me in this manner. He seems nice enough.

 

Well, I've finished ranting. But I would suggest a bit of customer service goes a long way, particularly in the face of stiff competition from RichTone in terms of prices if not characterful guitars.