G&L in trouble...?

[Jean-Luc Pickguard]

Fender won't be using shopify, but it is likely that G&L being much smaller were using it for their webstore, and if so it may have been reverted to default settings.

[neepheid]

That's what you get for not paying your bills?

[Stub Mandrel]

Minimog.com is a blank landing page.

 

The URL is owned by Godaddy.

 

So we can't pull anything from that except they want to harvest email addresses. 

[Russ]

2 hours ago, LukeFRC said:

It's not, it's Jost, fender use Futura 

I think it's the standard from the shopify theme

Yep, it's just a holding page for a Shopify site. They all look like that. 

[Russ]

1 hour ago, Jean-Luc Pickguard said:

Fender won't be using shopify, but it is likely that G&L being much smaller were using it for their webstore, and if so it may have been reverted to default settings.

Lots of big guitar companies use Shopify, including Fender. Gibson also just moved their entire online store to it. This is probably meaningless to anyone not involved in webdev, but you can see the Shopify config code right there in the Fender site's pages. 

[Jean-Luc Pickguard]

I never realised shopify was used by large corporations like FMIC with complex custom sites. I thought it was for smaller sites. Every day's a school day.

[Russ]

5 minutes ago, Jean-Luc Pickguard said:

I never realised shopify was used by large corporations like FMIC with complex custom sites. I thought it was for smaller sites. Every day's a school day.

Yep, they've really upped their game in recent years. It's not just for little sites, or people who have just outgrown Etsy any more. 

 

We've been seriously considering the possibility of moving my employer's site over to it, since Salesforce Commerce Cloud is a pain in the ar$e. 

[rwillett]

3 hours ago, Jean-Luc Pickguard said:

I never realised shopify was used by large corporations like FMIC with complex custom sites. I thought it was for smaller sites. Every day's a school day.

So did I.

 

I assume Gibson brings it's own domain and the rest is Shopify under the covers. If Shopify can provide all of that for a price less than rolling your own, good for Shopify.

Rob

[dmckee]

I ordered pickups on 17 Sept (just before all this started) and heard nothing, despite several emails to chase. I got a refund yesterday. (I’d rather have got the pickups obvs, but happy at least that I got my money back). 

[Russ]

On 22/10/2025 at 17:10, rwillett said:

So did I.

 

I assume Gibson brings it's own domain and the rest is Shopify under the covers. If Shopify can provide all of that for a price less than rolling your own, good for Shopify.

Rob

The subscription cost for a Shopify site like that is… steep. The lower subscription tiers can be cheap (they just take a smallish cut of your sales via Shop Pay) but once you scale up to something with all the bells and whistles, it can get very pricey very quickly. But, compared to a lot of e-commerce solutions, it mostly “just works”. 

[Jean-Luc Pickguard]

It has been confirmed on Phillip McKnight’s podcast that FMIC (Fender) has bought G&L.

[rwillett]

On 25/10/2025 at 15:02, Russ said:

The subscription cost for a Shopify site like that is… steep. The lower subscription tiers can be cheap (they just take a smallish cut of your sales via Shop Pay) but once you scale up to something with all the bells and whistles, it can get very pricey very quickly. But, compared to a lot of e-commerce solutions, it mostly “just works”. 

Gibson must have worked out the costs of Shopify vs roll your own.
 

Building your own isn't cheap either. However most big brands tend to build their own to get the site exactly how they want. Gibsons annual revenue is circa $300M per annum so they can afford it. 

 

Still strikes me as odd for Gibson to use Shopify though. 

[LukeFRC]

2 hours ago, rwillett said:

Gibson must have worked out the costs of Shopify vs roll your own.
 

Building your own isn't cheap either. However most big brands tend to build their own to get the site exactly how they want. Gibsons annual revenue is circa $300M per annum so they can afford it. 

 

Still strikes me as odd for Gibson to use Shopify though. 

But their model is via their dealer network isn’t it? Direct to consumer must be a much smaller part of that annual revenue. 
also the shopify costs go on a bit of the ballance sheets that looks far better to investors than taking staff on to manage what could easily become a tech liability. 

[rwillett]

3 minutes ago, LukeFRC said:

But their model is via their dealer network isn’t it? Direct to consumer must be a much smaller part of that annual revenue. 
also the shopify costs go on a bit of the ballance sheets that looks far better to investors than taking staff on to manage what could easily become a tech liability. 

 

To me, it's the loss of control that appears odd. Direct sales to customers is, as you say, smaller revenue stream than their customer dealers. 

 

Buying into the Shopify model means doing things the Shopify way, that's the Web framework you must use. Now if Shopify provides everything Gibson wants to do, that's fine, but if Gibson wants to do things that Shopify can't offer, then they have to either build something off the Shopify site and link back and make sure it all fits. 

 

I can't speak for USA accountancy rules, but in the UK you could get this as a managed service through a Web design and hosting company and get the people costs off your head count. You also get the VAT back and it goes against corporation  tax as an expense and HMRC are happy. 

 

For smaller companies Shopify simplifies things but for larger ones, I still think it's unusual. 

 

Clearly Gibson will have worked it all out and made their call so what do I know 😊

 

Rob

[neepheid]

10 hours ago, Jean-Luc Pickguard said:

It has been confirmed on Phillip McKnight’s podcast that FMIC (Fender) has bought G&L.

 

This is a quote I found which I think came from someone who used to work at G&L

 

"I ran the [G&L] custom shop the last 2 years. The factory has been emptied out. Fender didn't take any of the guitar inventory we had, which was substantial. That was all sold to MIRC out of Tennessee to be sold through their channels. 
All fender wanted was the IP and Leo's likeness and signature."

 

So, looks like a clean break.  Makes sense, didn't think Fender would want the bother of selling stuff they didn't make.

[rwillett]

4 minutes ago, neepheid said:

That was all sold to MIRC out of Tennessee to be sold through their channels. 

Who is MIRC?

[Woodinblack]

1 minute ago, rwillett said:

Who is MIRC?

 

I assume these people

https://mircweb.com

[Sean]

3 hours ago, neepheid said:

"All Fender wanted was the IP and Leo's likeness and signature."

 

 

 

I understand Fender wanting the Leo stuff but is there any valuable physical IP that will end up on Fender products in the future?

 

MFD pickups is one, I suppose, a good product but hardly a game changer for Fender. The bridge is nice but it's not really different to what I have on my Spectors. 

 

The MFD single coil "P90-alike" pickups on the ASAT guitars are amazing but like most G&L things, very niche. 

[Chienmortbb]

It is a shame, I have often lusted after a G&L, but it never quite worked out. No doubt used prices will increase as they start to attain legendary status.