Austin Bazaar

First, the price for the bundle of incredible products I purchased was unbeatable.
Second, although there was a bit of an order mix-​up, the customer service to figure it out was not only professional but also pleasant.
Last, but not least, I’ll always remember Austin Bazaar when it comes to finding solid quality and reasonably priced audio equipment!

I made an order order online on June 21 and paid it via paypal. Today is July 1. And they still haven’t shipped it. When I contacted their customer service, they were unable to resolve the situation and fix the problem. I will have to use paypal’s buyers protection as my last resort to return my money back.

I have been shopping online for a digital piano for my boyfriend. I researched several different brands and searched multiple websites. I wanted a beginner DP that had the feel of a real piano, something that also sounded nice, and that would still be enjoyable to play after he transitioned into more intermediate playing capabilities. After reviewing the Yamaha P35, P105, the Williams Allegro, the Casio Privia PX130 and PX 150, and the Korg SP170 I decided on the Casio PX150. I then began searching for an affordable bundle online and at local stores. I live in the Bay Area and therefore wasn’t able to find an affordable option locally so my search was limited online. I truly do not like supporting Amazon however I searched and found a list of their retailers that sold what I was looking for. Using the list I went to each retailers website to see if they carried the product I was looking for and read up on their company reviews. The first two music shops that sold the bundled package through Amazon also sold the products through their online store website, however both had horrible reviews from customers. I finally landed on Austin Bizaar and found their prices similar however the biggest plus in their favor is their amazing money back guarantee. They give you a full 45 days to return the product without restocking fees and will even provide the shipping label. This is amazing! I decided to contact the store direct and ask some questions. I ended up speaking with Omar. He gave honest advice and input about the product and helped dispel any concerns I had about whether or not I was making the right choice. I was originally going to wait a couple days to make the purchase but Omar gave such excellent customer service I ended up buying over the phone that day. At the end of the transaction I was truly pleased with my purchase and happy that I had found a good company to give my business to. Regardless if you are in the Austin area or not, this company provides excellent customer service and will definitely make your buying experience an enjoyable one. I highly recommend them!

I love this place. They have an online store and actual shop in town. I haven’t ordered anything online from them yet, and have just visited their shop… multiple times. I love that you can play any instrument, and no one bothers you. They even have a room with a stool and amps where you can play without making too much noise for other customers. Even it’s not on the floor but you saw it online, no problem. They’ll pull it from the warehouse so you can play and determine if it’s the instrument for you.
I play the ukulele, and their selection surpasses any other shops in town. Also, if they don’t have something, you can check the website, and if it’s out of stock online, there’s a good chance they’ll order it… or even tell you how to build it or where else to search. They have great prices, too and if that wasn’t enough, everyone here is really friendly and knowledgeable.
So far, I’ve bought two ukuleles from them, along with various accessories, and been happy with everything. Now, whenever anyone asks, I always recommend AB, and those people have all thanked me later.
To put it all in one sentence, these guys rock. :-)

I purchased a keyboard amp through the Austin Bazaar website. It was an «open box» item and had a very attractive price. The day after the purchase I was called by AB to confirm the purchase. Everything seemed good at that point.
A day later I received an email saying that the item was no longer in stock and that there they had no idea when the item might be in stock again. Now this is an open box item. There was probably only one. And there is not likely to be another one. It looked like I was out of luck.
Today I received a call from AB. They let me know that they would get me a new amp for the price of the open box. That’s customer service with great integrity.
You can trust the business to do whatever it takes to make things right.

Having began with the cool local music stores, and then being less than thrilled with the attitude and salesiness, I stumbled upon Austin Bazaar while ordering on Amazon. I saw the name, and wondered if it was actually an Austin TX business… it would make sense, this being a pretty music-​y town and all.
Turns out that hidden in an industrial park, as far from the cool side of Austin as possible without hitting Round Rock, is a warehouse full of music gear, with a decent storefront. Better yet, the salespeople are more like musicians, and the prices are even better than Amazon (by picking up locally, you avoid the need for the Prime Air drones).
When you need gear at a great price, and with awesome non-​salesy service, this is the place to go. Setups, repair, custom orders, and even lessons… Austin Bazaar has you covered.

This place is one of the unknown music store gems of Austin! I have been looking for a Guitar Center alternative for a while now and this place is the best I have found. It is a bit off the beaten path but the inventory is higher quality than what you will typically find at Guitar Center. They have an on-​line store and a warehouse show room location with a knowledgeable and friendly staff. They carry most major brands and you can browse inventory on-​line which is a plus.
If you go there, ask for Marty. He was especially helpful, knowledgeable and was a pleasure to deal with. As a professional musician here in Austin, I have needed a place like this to get high quality gear at competitive prices and have found my new oasis!

If you would have told me there was a music store around the corner from my work that had really cool, laid back sales folks I would have laughed at you. After having issues trying to find a certain model of amp that I could try out to determine if I wanted that model or not, I went to the manufacturer’s website. They had the big box store listed which does not carry them, you have to order them in order to check them out. They did list this place. I had never heard of this place. It is tucked away in this warehouse area off Howard.
I walk in and start telling the guy my story about how I am not happy with my current amp, that I have tried the digital route and was not happy with that. I was torn between two amp models from the same manufacturer. He pulls out this head and tell me to pick my guitar of choice. I pick one that is close to what I currently play and plug in. The downside was this amp was a head and cab, not the combo amp I was looking for. It did have a great tone but I wanted at least a 3 channel amp. He goes back and grabs one from his warehouse, brings it up and sets it up for me. As I am rocking out, he switches channels and shows me all the sounds you can get from this puppy. I am SOLD! This amp is GOLD.
He offers 10% off the list price. The downside is that there is no special 12 months same as cash, which would rock. I appreciated this guy’s friendliness and professionalism. I have gone to the «Big Box» stores and felt like I unless I was in the «He man Woman Hater’s Club» I would not get any help at all.
This place has the pedals that I normally have to order online and get shipped to me. I was told provided they had anything on their online store, it was in their warehouse.
This place has become my favorite little Austin music store. I will definitely be back.

I bought the ukelele bundle (uke, tuner, case, polish cloth) through their website and am super happy with the price, quality, and speedy delivery. The SERVICE was TOP NOTCH and is the sole reason I’m writing this review (my first one on Unilocal,I know I’m lazy and lame).
Everything was packaged really well. After inspecting the uke, I noticed that it had a few small nicks on it. Totally not the fault of Austin Bazaar — it was a manufacturer’s defect, so I called Customer Service. A lady by the name of Sarah was apologetic and instructed me to ship it back on their dime (she emailed me a FedEx label) and said she I could get a refund or exchange. Since I wanted another uke right away, I called Sales and ordered another one. Jeff was the sales guy who handled my order. After telling him what happened on my previous order, he walked to the warehouse, hand picked my uke, and personally inspected my uke to make sure it was spotless and packaged it himself for delivery! I returned the defective uke and Sarah expeditiously issued the refund. It was that simple, and now my daughter is a proud owner of a beautiful ukulele for which I will be the auditory recipient of melodic music (soon, she’s taking lessons!)
These days you have gazillions places to buy from — the service is what differentiates any purchase experience. A huge SHOUT OUT and Thank You to Jeff from Sales and Sarah from Customer Service. My next music order will definitely be with Austin Bazaar!

This place was awesome! I went to a few different places to buy a guitar and none beat this one! Knowledgable, helpful, great variety and great prices. They gave me a great deal on a bundle package! Will definitely come back here and recommend this to anyone looking for quality at great prices!

Chicks dig guys who play guitar. Everybody knows that. Well, at least that’s the impression I get from watching movies. And movies would never lie about things.
So like Bryan Adams in the summer of ’69, I got my hands on an old six-​string (borrowed from the girlfriend I was trying to impress… apparently it worked because she’s now my wife!) and played it till my fingers bled. Not literally, but it felt like they were going to. That thing was not comfortable! Not a good motivator for a beginner.
So I searched Amazon for a light-​action guitar and decided on a Yamaha FG700S due to its great reviews and trusted brandname. It was selling for $ 200, guitar only, which was a very reasonable price. Then I noticed that Austin Bazaar on Amazon was selling a complete FG700S package that included a hard case, stand, strap, tuner, picks, extra strings, guitar winder, capo, polish and instructional CD’s for $ 260. Knowing that a good case alone can run for $ 50 and up, this package seemed like a great deal, so I bit and ordered.
The package arrived shortly but was missing some picks and strings. 12 picks were advertised but there were only 7 in the box. 2 packs of Yamaha FG12 strings were advertised but I received only 1 pack of Martin MSP4000 strings. This item was fulfilled by Amazon, which means that Austin Bazaar packed it and Amazon merely distributed it. So Austin Bazaar goofed either on packing or on writing the listing (my guess is the former).
I didn’t care about the picks but I did want another box of strings, so I emailed Austin Bazaar explaining the situation, and a friendly rep named Kyle emailed back half an hour later saying that a box of strings would be shipped to me and that the tracking number would be emailed to me. I never did get that tracking number, but the box of FG12 strings came in the mail a few days later.
Austin Bazaar’s website says the following: «If there is an issue with your order, rest assured that we’ll work with you to resolve it. We take customer service seriously and go out of our way to promptly resolve any and all problems that arise.» Yep, I can attest that their statement is true. They’re not perfect, but they’ll try to make it right. Their prices are decent as well, so I’ll definitely consider ordering from them again.

After being tasked with finding a classical guitar (with nylon strings) and a non-​wooden foot stool for my 12 year old nephews fine arts class, I figured the first and only place I would need to look would be a store with ‘guitar’ in its name, right? Wrong. I checked online at Austin Guitar Center and found exactly what I needed — a low-​end classical guitar for forty bucks. However, when I get to the store they inform me that the stock listed online is stock that has to be shipped to the store and the turnaround time on that is about five business days. Grrrrrr! I need it today, so I can be the hero-​uncle. My fault. I forgot to look at the website and make sure the stock listed was stock on-​hand. I hate that, I hate that, I hate that. Of course, the sales guy was only too eager to show me the $ 300 classical guitars they DID have on site. Uh, no. If you saw how roughly my nephew plays with his friends and how poorly he takes care of his room, video games and unfortunately, his bodily hygiene, then you’d know that a guitar doesn’t have much of a chance for lasting a whole semester. Instead, while I’m here, I’ll just go ahead and buy a metal footstool. Don’t have that either? Wow. Okay, this is akin to going to McDonald’s on the way home and them telling you that they’re out of hamburgers and the fries won’t be in till next week. While in Guitar Center I heard various ‘musicians’ if you want to call them that, plugged into amps playing guitars like they were in concert. I mean, I don’t know a fretboard from a fartlek but I was about to do my best impersonation of a punk rocker and grab the closest guitar and smash the sh&* out of it on the ground, perhaps even set it on fire. Ugggh! Let’s move on to the next store…
Next, I call Strait Music and told them my situation. The guy on the phone was less than helpful in stating that Strait doesn’t carry low-​end guitars because they’re more trouble than they’re worth. I reiterated that I wasn’t buying this for Al Di Meola or Andres Segovia but a 12 year old who’s trying to learn how to play and will very likely lose interest in a few weeks. I asked for any recommendations he might have and not without a little bit of stank dripping off this comment he said, ‘maybe you should try WalMart.’ Dayuum. I used to be a professional baseball player and I understand that a high skill level requires superior equipment but more importantly, I know that you need to walk before you can run. I mean, I learned to hit off a batting tee and used a shitty plastic glove when I was little. You work your way up. It felt as though ‘The LIve Music Capital of the World’ expects you to have your shit together already, or don’t bother. Eye-​opening.
Enter Austin Bazaar. Thank you fellow Unilocalers for your entries on this little gem of a store. Apparently this is a fairly new establishment to the Austin music scene and most of their business comes from online orders. However, they do have a brick and mortar location in far North Austin which is also where their massive warehouse is. I looked online, found what I wanted, called to make sure they had it in store and made the quick jaunt up I-​35. You can imagine my sense of dread as I looked around the store and didn’t find the model I was looking for. No worries said the sales guy, it’s back in the warehouse. After waiting about ten minutes for him to go back in the warehouse to retrieve it (I told you it was massive) he returns with exactly what I wanted. Problem. After taking it out of the box, it has some slight damage to the fingerboard. No worries. I’ll go get you another one, he says. In the meantime, I relax on their leather couch and watch a video of Slayer performing live in concert (awesome). He returns with a new box, procures me a footstool and hands me the guitar for inspection. ‘Looks fine to me,’ I say, like I really know what the hell I’m looking for. I mean, the thing feels totally unfamiliar in my hands. I just want to turn it around, grab it by the neck and hit a baseball with it. I pay for my items (one guitar and one footstool for $ 88 bucks), thank them profusely and I’m on my way to being the good-​uncle-​hero.
In short, Austin Guitar Center was like the lumbering meathead that couldn’t get out of its own way, while Strait Music was like the pretentious and fashion-​conscious d-​bag you knew in high school. Austin Bazaar was just right Goldilocks, just right…

I found this place on accident by doing a web search. Went by their retail store, and WOW! Great store, great selection and service… and AMAZING prices! Bought a couple of ukes from them, complete with cases, tuners, etc. for less than $ 80 each. Best kept secret in Austin!

Ok y’all…forget the «other» so called music stores around town! This is the real deal. And as an added bonus, if you have kids, they have the largest selection of kids instruments in Austin! What you see in the storefront is only about 5% of what they have access to! Knowledgeable, way more friendly than the other stores… and it’s home-​grown in Austin :) go check it out!

Not a huge store, but they have a pretty good selection. Located off the beaten path of Austin.

I just found this place when I was looking to buy a guitar amp. They have an awesome online store, but lo and behold, they also have a huge retail store right here in Austin too!!!
They have a great selection of guitars, amps, effects, and all the accessories any musician could need.
I ended up buying a Roland guitar amp from them and they gave me an incredible deal (I know because I searched all other local retailers and online sales)!!
Very helpful guys work here. Give them a shot.