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Another retail outlet bits the dust - it looks like GAK is about to call in the administrators
- Jonathan Dean
- Apr 7
- 4 min read
Introduction
GAK which stands for Guitar, Amp and Keyboard has been a stable part of the Brighton music scene for over 30 years. Starting the business in 1992 Gary Marshall the original owner, sold the business to Max McKellar and Ian Stephens in 2021. Both of whom I understand were already involved in the business prior to the sale. GAK under the steerage of Marshal was one of the first UK retailers to start an on-line web shop to sell musical equipment.
On Tuesday 25 March 2025, the GAK website disappeared reporting that ‘Our site is currently unavailable’ and the shop had a closed sign in the doors at the start of trading with a sign ‘closed for maintenance’.
GAK Speculation
Speculation started to swirl in the local press and was picked up by publications like ‘Music Radar’ that the company was in trouble. The rumour mill then started to build evidence that this non-trading situation was a becoming a permanent situation:
First there was the Web site being taken down at some point between between Monday (24/03) evening and Tuesday (25/03) morning. And is still offline as of this morning.
The shop was closed on Tuesday morning and has remained closed since then
Staff were seen in the shop on Friday (28/03) but when the local press asked for comment they were told they were under strict instruction not to comment on the current situation for legal reasons.
The company’s Reverb store is also off line and has also been since Tuesday.
An ad has been placed in a small business sales website with the following ‘a musical instrument retailer and supplier in the South East of England, with a turnover of £20,364,000’. Inviting offers to be submitted by 5pm Friday (28/03). Now while this is not definitive, there are not many musical retail organisations on the south coast of the UK with that level of turnover.
The last two years of filed accounts show consistent operating losses.
There is a rumour that management have approached other local outlets about liquidating stock.
There is no official statement on administration or formal liquidation. I looked at the London Gazette for any entries relating to GAK for the period since the retail outlets closed its doors and there are no announcements. (By the way, the London Gazette is the defacto location for these types of notice to be published in the UK.)
In the UK administration is where you seek legal protection from your creditors while the administrators assess whether the business is a going concern or not. If not then the next stage is liquidation, the process of legally winding up the business.
Another recent high profile UK retailer gone bust
Last year I commented on the fact that the North London / Home Counties retailer StudioSpares' business had hit the buffers and the management had called in the administrators. In this case Gear4Life purchased the intellectual property of the company, trading name and trading aliases. However, Gear4Life is only trading a subset of the original StudioSpares product lines.
Now I do not know the reason why GAK has failed, apart from the fact that if you continue to make losses and can’t pay the bills the business will fail.
But the reasons are normally wider:
The costs of doing business in the UK, especially operating retail premises, are high compared with other areas of the world.
International sourcing. The way goods are traded across borders can make it cheaper to source the product from say Germany, even after paying freight and imports taxes. This is less of an issue now that the UK has left the European Union. However, in some instances this can still be a ligitimate purchasing strategy.
Buyer behaviour, people think nothing about going into a shop, trying the goods and then sourcing from the Internet because they save a few pounds. That sounds a little wrong, some of these online retailers do have significant discounts over the retail prices. More and more in the UK we are seeing the realignment of the sales price across multiple channels channels to stop this practice somewhat. Although they have to be careful that this is not seen to be cartel behaviour which is illegal in the UK, but not in other areas of the world. Andertons in Guildford for example, have the same prices for good bought in the shop, on the website and collected in the shop and those purchsed through the website dispatch directly to the customer.
Summary
We will need to see how this story plays out over then next few weeks. Someone might repeat the Gear4Music style of purchase, which I think is the most unlikely. There was comment that even though the trading entity for the online business was separate legal entity to the shop legal entity all the stock was actually owned by the shop, so the trading name and website might not have that much value on its own.
Until next time....
About the Author
Jon describes himself as a frustrated musician with a passion for the electronic instruments that help him and other musicians be creative. He started playing keyboards in his late teens and re-ignited his passion and built a new studio following his seperation.
About the Blog
The Music Tech Guy UK's Blog, Website and YouTube channel were started to share Jon's experiences and views on the industry at large and how these effect the small musician. Plus technical tips how to configure and maintain the equipment he owns.
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