Just after Christmas, my daughter Winter took a bag of 30 used CDs to our local independent music store in Greenfield, Massachusetts to see what she could sell the lot for. The store owner offered her a very low price, and when my daughter expressed her surprise at the offer, the merchant angrily threw the CDs back at her and shouted: "I'm losing my store. I'm not going to be here next year!"
The next day I came across the tale of Tape Town, a music store in Morganton, North Carolina. Owner Roy Lowdermilk probably thought that locating his store next to the Wal-Mart in Morganton was a great idea.
The Wal-Mart on Burkemont Avenue in Morganton is probably the largest retail store in this community of just over 17,000 people. But Lowdermilk's store, Tape Town, never benefited from its location in the shadow of the giant retailer. According to the Morganton News Herald, Tape Town turned off the sound for good on December 27th.
Lowdermilk and his wife opened up their music store in 1972, sixteen years before Wal-Mart came to town. But now their store is dark. "It was a combination of things," Lowdermilk told the newspaper. He blamed the sinking economy, and the internet as the two main reasons for his loss of sales. One customer in Tape Town told the News Herald that when he couldn't find music at Tape Town, he didn't bother going next door to Wal-Mart. Another shopper said he liked shopping at Tape Town over big box stores because it catered to his musical tastes, had reasonable prices and great service. "They're willing to help," the customer said. "If I can't find it here, they'll help us find it somewhere."
But great customer service could not save Tape Town, just as it has not saved hundreds of small music stores across the nation. The independent music stores have made some efforts to organize. The Coalition of Independent Music Stores (CIMS) was founded in 1995, but its current membership is made up of only 59 stores in 21 states. Hardly a threat to Wal-Mart.
Lowdermilk claims that during his 36 year run "the loyal customers have kept us there." Over the years, his store moved several times in Morganton. But in 1988, Tape Town moved right next to Wal-Mart. "Me and Wal-Mart opened on the same day," Lowdermilk recalls. But the fact is, the Wal-Mart next door helped to kill Tape Town. It didn't happen overnight, but Wal-Mart turned out to be one of Tape Town's biggest threats.
And Tape Town was not alone. As of January 2008, the Apple iTunes Store was the largest retailer of music, with 19% of sales. Number 2 was Wal-Mart at 15% of the market--counting sales at both its stores as well as its website. Best Buy cornered 13%, Amazon 6%, followed by companies like Borders, Circuit City, and Barnes & Noble. ITunes being a digital-only retailer indicates how much the music industry has shifted over the past 10 years.
Digital downloads are up, while sales at stores like Tape Town are down---way down. According to the NPD Group, 48% of US teens didn't buy a single CD in 2007, compared to 38% in 2006. People using digital downloads will select one or two songs from an album that they want--but not the whole CD. By contrast, the music stores rely on sales of entire CDs. In 2007, there was a 10% drop in overall music spending, according to the NPD Group. According to Enders Analysis, physical sales of CDs, as compared to digital sales, will fall from $35 billion in 2001, to $15 billion in 2012. This continuing loss of sales will come from a lot of independent stores like Tape Town across small town America.
Last August, Wal-Mart announced an exclusive release contract with the band AC/DC, whose album was produced by the same person who has produced Bruce Springsteen in the past. Just before Christmas, it was announced that following its success with the "Black Ice" album, Wal-Mart had signed an exclusive deal to sell Bruce Springsteen's "Greatest Hits," starting Jan. 13, 2009. The Boss has signed on with the Retail Boss, much to the chagrin of his many fans, who saw Springsteen as the voice of the disenfranchised. Now he's just another Walton commodity. Born in the U.S.A. meets China-Mart.
Back in Morganton, if Roy Lowdermilk wants to understand where many of his loyal customers went, he can walk next door to Wal-Mart and pick up an AC/DC or Springsteen album. Tape Town tried to ride the crescendo with Wal-Mart by its side, but ended up with a less than grand finale instead.
For Roy Lowdermilk, the music has died.
Al Norman is the founder of Sprawl-Busters. He has helped grassroots citizen's groups stop big box stores for the past 15 years. His website is http://www.sprawl-busters.com.
As far as teens buying one or two songs they want on a CD, in a way that's a shame. I don't know what I would do if I were a teen now (I'm 52), but often I've bought a CD for one or two songs I really liked, but would find more gems as I listened to the entire CD. I've done this for popular music and for classical music, which has been my favored genre practically since I was born. This trend of only downloading the Top 10 or so of a given genre is troubling, especially since you consider payola and the narrow offerings of corporate-owned radio stations.
Lets put it this way, as an indie musician, i like iTunes, the store is available for many to post if you know how (its very easy). Technology made the industry change, I am not weaping, even best buys and wal-marts are moving away from music as a result of the shift. Complain as you might Al, and others, but you are misinformed on the topic, this has been happening for ten years, and Wal-Mart is not the real one to blame...the internet and technology is.
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The chain I worked for got bought out by Musicland/Sam Goody. Our chain was purely a California operation and, at the time, Oingo Boing was selling huge numbers of records (in fact, I think they went gold alone in that state) there but few elsewhere. After the takeover, we would order more Oingo Boingo albums to refill our inventory but were told by Musicland's central warehouse, and I am not kidding, "stop asking us about them, we have never heard of them."
That was great news for our surrounding competition, which included Tower Records. I quit shortly after that and the store I worked at went out of business a year or so later. It was a total cluster job, if you get my drift. Our district manager also had a major drug problem. Musicland/Sam Goody was almost intentionally lame and they weren't alone in that. I could tell you stories about what went on at other record chains, but the HuffPo word limits won't allow me.
The reason ITunes is so popular is that people can download individual tracks in perpetuity while it used to be that the record companies forced customers to buy the LP/tape/CD by pulling singles off the market after just a few weeks. When folks took those new full length recordings home, they found that maybe there was one other good song on it (in the majority of cases) and it made them feel ripped off. That made customers CD- averse, in effect, and is one reason behind ITunes explosive growth.
However, a lot of those independents also sold used CD's, thereby cheating artists out of royalties (if you want to put the worst possible spin on it) and subliminally devaluing cd's as a commodity. Best Buy and Wal-Mart then stepped in and saw how effective that CDs as loss leaders can be in selling audio equipment to the point where they were willing to (successfully) sue the RIAA and Tower Records for antitrust violations when those entities attempted to rig prices for recorded music.
Also, the mom and pops paid higher wholesale rates than the big retailers.
By the way, doesn't the name, "Tape Town" cry out, "I'm an anachronism!"?
This shift has been taking place since 1947. Today an economy of scale is apparent, the manufacture-distribution-sale of goods has been streamlined, keeping prices down and variety up.
The oft heard phrase, "customer service" is a red hearing. No American needs customer service to buy music. They need a well lighted selection selection.
The downside of "big box" and Walmart dominated retailing is monoculture. When Walmart stumbles there will be no one to pick up the slack. The real issue is not about individuals, although it's always a good journalistic read, it's about diversity for sustainability. Yes, the same issues in ecology apply to retailing.
Stop with the Kill & Die journalism and focus on what matters.
You are wrong in the main, but you are also right in that the customer service meme became a red herring only because so few record shops hired people who actually knew anything about music. They paid them burger flipper wages and so there was no reason for record retail employees to take an interest in really learning anything other than running the cash register. That led to employee turnover and it is that kind of lack of continuity that made customer service in record retail a non-starter.
The "music store" is a dninosaur. Pure and simple. CDs and physical media are disapperaing as the Internet displaces stores as the logical and preferred delivery channel. Considering everybody uses MP3 players anyway, purchasing physical media is a substantial chore that adds several steps to the process. Not only going to the store (be it a small store or a big box store), hoping they have the CD, paying $20 for the entire CD to get the 2-3 songs you want, then driving home, loading it all into iTunes or your preferred player, choosing the few songs you actually want from the CD, etc. Now, compare that to going to Amazon.com or itunes, typing in the name of the few songs you want , paying $3 for them and having them delivered within seconds to your itunes or other music player.
Wal-Mart may be teh bad guy in some cases. This is clearly not one of them.
Hey, the sam epeople drive Toyotas and still claim to be "patriots" too.
seriously, bruce? hypocrite.
And don't get me started on the radio and video stations being one big blob of mundane programming...
Do yourself a favor. Take the money you would have spent on a fancy new flat screen HDTV, and instead by an entry level Rega record player ($350ish) or an Oppo SACD player ($200ish, also upconverts your DVDs to HD quality). You don't need surround sound (although SACD does some amazing things with six channels) so you can still use the same stereo you already have. Your ears will thank you.
The bonus comes when your PMP breaks, or all your digital files get erased accidentally. When you own physical media, you can always rip it into the highest resolution files available. They never go obsolete, and you always have a pristine original.
I think there is still hope. We just have to hang on and think beyond the ordinary.
http://www.corporaterocksucks.com/
Next time you're in Charleston, SC, drop in and say "Hi!" And if you're interested in new gear to play it on, Read Bros. up the street is in its ninth decade of business. Just give them some time to warm up the tubes...
http://www.readbrothers.com/stereo.html
But, the record companies knew this. they already went through it a few times. And, they did charge 15-20 dollars for an item that cost maybe one or two dollars to make. The gravy train can't last forever.