Mark Goodwin Pianos in Manchester + London is run and owned by Mark and Julie Goodwin. After selling a couple of his uncle’s pianos, Mark released his potential to become a leading national retailer of reconditioned Yamaha pianos and that’s exactly what he does today. They sell modern, upright pianos to people all over the world! We caught up with Mark to find out more.
How would you describe your shop in three words?
Definitely the loveliest
How did the business get started?
What does your shop specialise in?
We try to keep around 40-50 Japanese-made Yamaha pianos in stock. We don’t stock Chinese pianos or small pianos or old pianos. We specialise in pianos that are suitable for playing all the way up to grade 8 and beyond. We also specialise in happy customers and refuse to have sad or disappointed customers!
What additional services do you offer?
We offer a “can do” attitude, we try to say “yes” to customers as often as possible and we go the extra mile as standard. We offer 0% finance, free nationwide delivery, a 100-day 100% money-back trial on all Yamaha pianos and we don’t ask for any payment until the piano has been safely delivered inside your home.
What’s your favourite item for sale in the shop right now?
I have to say that our Yamaha U3 pianos are our all-time favourite model. Customers love them, they never get returned, they rarely have problems and they go up and up in value.
Name a favourite piece of music. (From any genre you like, absolutely no judgement!)
In our house we’ve learned that Radiohead’s “Everything in its right place” really gets the kids in the mood for tidying up. So I’ll go with that! I apologise to Thom Yorke for lowering his song to a domestic cleaning trigger song.
Do you get involved in your local community? If so, how?
We try to give away as many part-ex pianos as possible. Any piano that we don’t want to put our name to, we give away locally for free including free delivery. We are also setting up a guided tour of our warehouse, workshop and showrooms to local children to help them see behind the scenes of a musical instrument shop to help inspire more kids into playing music and also to inspire more children into self-employment. Get in touch if you’d like to have a look around!