Shortage to Surge - Studying the Post-COVID-19 Guitar Retail Market

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic was one of the most catalyzing events of the 21st century, leading to supply chain disruptions, lifestyle changes, and a massive shift towards digital technologies. During the COVID-19 lockdown, many people had more time, and over 16 million people learned guitar in the first 2 years of the pandemic. According to a study by Fender, 62% of these new guitar learners cited the pandemic as their primary reason for learning the instrument. However, pandemic policies and supply chain disruptions meant that many guitar retailers were unable to satisfy demand, and backorders began to accumulate. Since both guitars and clothing in the past have been retail items that consumers preferred to buy in person rather than online, this student-led research project seeks to compare the guitar and clothing retail markets before and after the COVID-19 pandemic (2019-2023) to discover guitar market category trends and predict future market growth to better inform manufacturers, retailers, and consumers. The study will include a literature review, hypothesis testing, a preliminary study of the datasets through summary statistics and basic visualizations (using Tableau, Python, and R), and several iterations of predictive models (regression, clustering, neural networks, etc.). The clothing retail data will be procured from the Information Systems Department in the Walton College of Business, and the guitar retail data will be procured from 2 anonymous US music retailers. After conducting interviews with industry experts at the NAMM (National Association of Music Merchants) show in California, the modeling results will be compared with the interviews, and an appropriate final model will be selected to predict the guitar retail market’s growth in the next five years.https://scholarworks.uark.edu/hnrcsturpc25/1026/thumbnail.jp