Death of a Salesman

Yes I've been watching and cheering as the death knell of the music industry draws nearer, and now this little bit of news confirming what Ive been seeing for the last two years in the States and UK, the death of the Record Store. High Street record stores have never made huge profits, operating at the margins of making money, they would often offset profit from a bigger seller by stocking more obscure or rare stuff to add to the kudos of their store, and help the choice of the customer. Nowadays the chances of being able to do that are next to zero. Since the beginning of the new year, I have heard of 2 stores, one in Michigan, the other in Mass, are going to close by summer. Over a longer period [the past year], I know of at least ten stores that have closed or are in the process of closing, all across America. I have witnessed the killing/mutating of the cd warehouse franchise by filing chapter 11, and the blame put on everything from 9/11 to mp3 downloading. My own job dried up as a result of the ongoing changes in the USA music retail business. The article below, from the Washington Post, checks Newbury Comics, a well known and successful music and comic outlet with several stores, as well as Manifest, another small independent music chain, tell it like everyone has known for a while now. No more independent music stores. Wal-Mart and Best Buy have been allowed to kill the little stores outright, with no thought for the little guys. No mercy in the land of the free eh? They can blame who they like, but by doing this, all they will achieve is a shrinking industry, with shrinking demographic and shrinking interest. Another one bites the dust?

Death of the Music Retail Store

Exert:
Requiem for the Record Store
Sat Feb 7,10:08 AM ET Add Technology - washingtonpost.com to My Yahoo!


By David Segal, Washington Post Staff Writer

With a total stock of more than 85,000 albums, Manifest Discs & Tapes was a music lover's mecca in the North and South Carolina towns where it operated. And despite an industry-wide downturn in CD sales in recent years, all five Manifest stores were turning a decent profit right up until the end of 2003.


So there was shock all around when chain owner Carl Singmaster announced in late December that Manifest would close all locations and lay off all 100 of its employees. There were still plenty of consumers eager to browse the bins, Singmaster explained, but his company's prospects looked bleak and were getting bleaker.........more