Music gear/equipment manufacturing companies have been impacted in varying capacities by the Coronavirus pandemic. To explore the short term and long term impacts of the pandemic on such companies, I informally interviewed Southeast District Manager at the Yamaha Corporation of America, Brent LaCasce.
To start our conversation, I asked LaCasce about his impressions of the overall sales during the past few months, and whether or not he believed that there had been an increase, decrease, or steadiness in music gear purchases since the start of the pandemic. LaCasce highlighted that the number of sales has depended heavily upon the region. As a district manager of the Southeast area, LaCasce’s sales are a lot higher than regions with more coronavirus restrictions. He mentioned that places like Tennessee, with more relaxed health restrictions have seen an increase in purchases. LaCasce also said that it seems like many people who received their first stimulus check, “blew” the whole check on various Yamaha gear. Interestingly, the crisis has evidently been very good for guitar, keyboard, and drum purchases, but not very good for band and orchestra equipment. This has to do with the uncertainty of having marching bands, orchestras, and choirs in full swing in the coming months.
Additionally, LaCasce also said that companies often have a better chance of higher sales when they have a set up online platform and presence. For example, the online music retailer, Sweetwater, has had amazing success in the past couple of months due to their already easy and clean platform for selling gear online. According to Lisa Johnston’s article, “Social Distancing Proves To Be Music to Sweetwater’s Ears,” “May [was] its largest sales month ever in its 41-year history.” Founder of Sweetwater, Chuck Surack even said, “I’m almost embarrassed to say this because I know so many businesses are suffering and people are suffering, but we’ve now had 10 weeks of absolutely record weeks.” Essentially, companies like Sweetwater, which were already set up as an online retainer site, are some of the companies that are having the most success during this pandemic.
Additionally, fortunately for Yamaha’s company, they did not have to lay off any employees. Rather, they cut back hourly employees by 50% and sent them to work remotely, so that they could ultimately receive unemployment benefits. While talking to LaCasce, I also asked if Yamaha has had to implement any additional safety and health precautions into their shipping process. According to LaCasce, any equipment shipped is boxed up for a large enough time prior to its destination, that there is very little risk of transferring the virus from the equipment to the consumer. LaCasce highlighted the fact that Yamaha’s factories and locations have all been affected in various ways depending on their local government’s response to the crisis, and the overall number of COVID-19 cases in that area.
Ultimately, what might become concerning in the long term for Yamaha and other music manufacturers and retailers, is the longevity of the supply chain. Companies like Behringer, Roland, Yamaha, Martin, etc. all receive various parts from around the world for their products, thus they all depend on the global supply chain. In the short term, companies like Yamaha and Sweetwater are fortunately having great success. However, will they still have great success in the long term if the global supply chain is broken?
