Best Places to Buy a Guitar On the Internet

Buying your next guitar online can be quite a fruitful experience, and I strongly recommend you look into buying online whenever you’re in the market for a new axe the next time!

Buying online is good for many reasons. First off, it is convenient. You can easily browse through the store’s inventory at any point in time – whenever you may like and wherever you might be. Just a few clicks of the mouse button could get you the guitar of your dreams, delivered to you right at your doorstep. And you also end up saving money on gas, and of course, saving some valuable time.

Speaking of money, buying a guitar online can actually be cheaper than doing so from a store. Unfortunately, owing to inefficient supply chains and rising transportation costs, these can be quite high, especially when you go pick one up from a store.

On the other hand, buying online can be pretty cheap, since the guitar is usually shipped to you directly from the factory (as opposed to going through and stopping at various avenues before reaching a store), thanks to the more efficient distribution method.

Plus physical brick-and-mortar stores have to pay rent, utility bills and salaries, which they end up charging the customer by adding them to the cost of the products they sell (guitars in this case). Not a problem with online stores!

And of course, buying online is, in my opinion pretty cool since it provides you with access to a large selection of all sorts of guitars, amps and accessories – including all kinds of brands (the bigger, more well-known ones to the smaller ones), types, and of course, for all kinds of pockets and budgets. In my experience, if you look around a bit (and have a bit of luck going for you too!), you could find some excellent signature and vintage guitars (maybe even a rare axe) for some amazing prices online!

Here are some of the best places to buy a guitar online (list is in no particular order, all links are direct links, and no affiliate links at all):

1. Musicians Friend: One of the biggest and best stores on the internet, for anything music. And certainly, a guitar-heaven! They have a large selection of guitars – all sorts of guitars from acoustic, semi-acoustic, electric and bass, to name a few. They have a large inventory of both new and used guitars, as well as tons of fantastic deals on their Deal Center. A word about the website itself: it is pretty well designed, easy-to-navigate, and very user-friendly. You can easily track your order, or order a gift certificate straight from the website. If you’re a guitarist or a musician, you’ll find anything and everything under the sun here. Simply a must-check!

2. GuitarGuitar: UK’s largest online guitar store, GuitarGuitar caters to the European guitar market, and guitar players on the other side of the Atlantic. You can find a large selection and variety of all sorts of guitars here – acoustic, electric, bass, left-handed, and of course, a ton of some of the most amazing used guitars as well. Like Musicians Friend, they also stock other musical instruments, which makes it the perfect one-stop-shop for the modern musician. They offer free next-day delivery in the UK, and you can also easily check the location of any of their physical stores in the UK (they have 5) if you want to. They accept all kinds of payments (VISA, MasterCard, etc.), and update their inventory very quickly. In fact, GuitarGuitar will be one of the first places where you’ll be able to find some of the best guitar equipment!

3. Sweetwater:  Another good online store, which carries electric and acoustic guitars from Fender, Gibson, Martin, Taylor and PRS, amps, pedals, strings and accessories. The site also offers special deals, and of course (like any good online guitar store), a whole slew of other musical instruments and accessories.  You can shop by budget, shop by color, sort guitars by the bestselling ones, and use the compare tool to do a side-by-side comparison of your favorite guitars. Sweetwater also offers some fantastic deals like 0% interest for the first 18 months on Pigtonix guitars. Sweetwater’s ‘Guitar Gallery’ feature offers you to see each instrument in detail, they ship straight from the factory, each guitar comes with a 2 year warranty, free shipping, as well as some great customer support.

4. Zzounds: On Zzounds, you’ll find a huge selection of electric guitars, acoustic guitars, bass guitars and a large inventory of accessories for these guitars. The website does a good job to keep its inventory updated and well-stocked, and also offers easy-payment plans and the ability to pay in installments. The store stocks some amazing guitars from brands such as Gibson, Fender, Taylor, Yamaha, Peavey, and Epiphone, and all guitars come with the 30-day no-questions-asked return policy. Payment options include VISA, MasterCard, Amex, and Wester Union. The guitars ship straight to you from Zzound’s warehouse, and shipping destinations include the US and Canada. The whole process of buying a guitar off the website is super-easy, and you can even track your order on the website.

5. GuitarCenter: Last, but by no means the least is GuitarCenter, which for me, is the pick of the stores on this list! They have tons of acoustic and electric guitars to choose from, and a fantastic-looking online store to boot! You can browse through their selection of new guitars and accessories, as well as the huge inventory of used gear – including guitars and amps – easily. They also offer some pretty great deals (such as the weekly ‘Big Cool Deal’), a large selection of guitars on sale, some fantastic new arrivals, and just about any guitar accessory or add-on that you might possibly need! You can also have any guitar listed on the website shipped to one of their stores near you (without paying any shipping costs!) and pick it up from there, in case you want to check before buying. They accept all the usual payment methods, as well as via PayPal. But perhaps the best thing about GuitarCenter is that they ship to as many as 90 countries all over the world!

Notable mentions:

Guitar Bitz

GuitarTrader

Ebay/Amazon/Best Buy