“With baby steps, it sort of got clearer and clearer,” he said, adding that after the merge he soon realized Carter Vin- tage needed more space. “Our inventory volume had increased as we’d grown, and we needed space for all of the operations that flow behind the scenes because 60% of our inventory is shipped to us. Once an instrument is shipped to us, from there, you have quite a significant flow. It has to get skewed, authenticated, priced and then the contract is written. Then it gets a description and heads to media [for im- agery and/or video] and finally gets a case and hits the floor.” Montague said Carter Vintage needed a showroom that could showcase a wider variety instruments. “Whether it’s a father and son buying their first guitar or a collector buying their 30th, we want them to get a dedicated, guitar-based experience,” he said. “We’re just customer-obsessed, whether it’s on the buy side or whether it’s on the sell side. If a customer is consigning an instrument with us, we want to make sure that customer is going get the most value for their sale. We want to make sure they get great com- munication with how their instrument is being processed and how it’s being sold, and we want make sure that there’s great visibility on the website and in the store so that they think, ‘I’m definitely going consign my instrument with Carter’s next time too because I know that they’re going represent my guitar well.’” THE SAME, BUT DIFFERENT It was that same “customer-obsession” that lead the way for Carter Vintage Gui- tars when creating the design of the new 12,500-square-foot space — which it moved into about four months ago. “When we settled on this location, it was very apparent that we could say what was phenomenal about Carter’s, and what people love about it, was how we replicated the core values of the business into the new space,” Montague said. “The murals were painted by the same mural artists, both outside and inside. The new space has all of the same countertops, and we have the same Walk of Fame where we have images of Walter and Christie and the celebrity guests we’ve had in-store. Even the door handle is the same. The layout is pretty much identical to how the old store used to be.” Montague said maintaining a similar store layout for the shop was crucial for
“Our ethos is always, ‘Nashville’s friendliest guitar store.’ This is something that [founder] Christie Carter was always very proud of. ... We want customers to always feel that and feel like they can walk in and take a $50,000 instrument off the wall or take off a $100 instrument off the wall and have the same experience.” — Ben Montague
42 I MUSIC INC. I AUGUST 2024
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