Record Store Day 2017

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by joe1320, Feb 10, 2017.

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  1. murphywmm

    murphywmm Senior Member

    The only thing I like about RSD is that most of the local stores here will have all records (except RSD stuff obviously) on sale for 15-20% off. Thankfully, most of them extend their sale to Sunday so I can avoid the nutty Saturday crowds. I rarely buy any of the RSD exclusive stuff and see lots of it sitting in the bins for years and later put on clearance sales.
     
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  2. Exactly. Some of these who bitch don't seem to understand about actual overhead.
     
  3. Rhythmdoctor

    Rhythmdoctor Well-Known Member

    Interesting post. I currently live in Chicago and at one time lived about 20 miles outside Deadwood, SD.
     
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  4. Catcher10

    Catcher10 I like records, and Prog...duh

    Very much agree.....I pay between $7-$15 for used, depending on title and grade. Sure there are some titles I would not pay $15 as well as $8 for, mainly due to overall grading, but I suspect somebody will.

    In my area Seattle/Tacoma, clearly the prices are higher in Seattle than other cities. If I go to Seattle I usually buy new, those prices are pretty constant, but used can vary by $5-$7 more.
    For example I am not sure how Holy Cow Records does it with a store in Pike Place....gotta be super high rent and his records sell for $15 min for really low quality compared to Tacoma store that has the same title for maybe $8.....Gotta love the Pike Place tourists!!
     
  5. DetroitDoomsayer

    DetroitDoomsayer Forum Middle Child

    Location:
    Detroit, Michigan
    @Catcher10

    Wow! Seattle is higher priced than us folks here in Detroit.
    We (the shop I work at) still have a lot of used records priced between $3 and $6, not every VG+/NM garners a price of $8 to $15. We'll use @Bloom 's example of Steely Dan. If the only currently available new LP of theirs is a "Back on Black" import of AJA and it's selling for $35 new, you can be sure we aren't going to price a used ABC Records copy in VG+/NM at $5, that's ripping us off. It's not as if we have boxes of used Steely Dan records laying around in our back stock just waiting to be put out. So when we do have a really nice clean copy of AJA or another Dan title they usually go out on the floor between $12 and $18 and are usually sold the same day. It's the old supply and demand. Supply is low (only 1 title available new, not many old copies being traded or sold in to us) vs. demand which is high based on the evidence that any Dan titles we get in never last more than a day in the bin. If the demand is high and supply is low we sure as hell ain't going to under-cut ourselves, that would be bad business.
     
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  6. Catcher10

    Catcher10 I like records, and Prog...duh

    ^ That's why I mainly shop in Tacoma........
     
  7. Bloom

    Bloom You're embarrassing me in front of the wizards

    If your store is actually selling copies of AJA at $18 then cool, a fool and his money were never going to look at Discogs anyway. But no, I wasn't talking about some woebegone time before inflation and when meals cost a quarter, I meant like 3 years ago those were bargain bin albums.

    But I digress, I'm not here to debate your shop's high volume blowouts. OP said store owners were bitching about it, so somewhere in the heartland AJA isn't getting 18.
     
  8. GMcGilli

    GMcGilli Forum Resident

    Location:
    Richmond BC Canada
    Hope the thread starter comes back with some info on where these shops are - I didn't realize that some vinyl shops somewhere are having it so bad.

    I've been getting emails from vinyl shops who also sell online - all having nice sales now - I guess to make room for RSD stock...
     
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  9. Marc Perman

    Marc Perman Forum Resident

    Location:
    Los Angeles
    No doubt many millions of used records will hit the market in the coming years as baby boomers age out (I'm one, and pretty sure I won't be able to take my LPs with me). In the meantime, support your local record stores :).
     
  10. mne563

    mne563 Senior Member

    Location:
    DFW, Texas
    I shop RSD to buy RSD exclusives or new RSD records that I think I might like. I wait (sometimes hours) in the queue to buy what I can find left. I can't see this as a failure of record stores or a "make or break" day for record stores. Folks are lined up for blocks!

    Most of the used vinyl stores will sell used vinyl for what they can sell it for but I feel no obligation to pay an inflated price for something I already have or something that is common or not hard to find. If it doesn't sell, lower the price. Let the market decide.

    Half Price Books will sometimes sell vinyl and cds for fair prices but they have more recently turned to selling European gray market crap that is in the public domain in Europe. These fly by night record companies don't pay anything for the recording, they just press it to vinyl and sell it for a lot of money. Who would buy this crap?

    Record stores will be in business as long as they can sell enough to stay in business, but they will have to sell something that folks want to buy.
     
    Last edited: Mar 27, 2017
  11. Neonbeam

    Neonbeam All Art Was Once Contemporary

    Location:
    Planet Earth
    No idea what the op is talking about. Used vinyl is actually doing very well, a friend has a recordstore in Berlin and certain titles are virtually flying off the shelf.

    Concerning RSD, maybe it would help to produce enough copies of certain titles so people can actually buy them in shops. This "limited edition" business is only fooling vinyl novices anyway. But by creating a hype the labels did RSD a severe disservice. And of course the flipper will be portayed as the villain. As usual. When in fact he/she only takes advantage of RSDs shortcomings.
     
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  12. e.s.

    e.s. Forum Resident

    Location:
    United States
    I was actually there this weekend and came home super impressed by how many I saw in the Seattle area shops. Went into Jive Time over in Fremont on Saturday afternoon and it was packed! Same with Easy Street. Even better, stopped off at Hi-Voltage in Tacoma on the way home to Portland today and discovered they'd moved to a bigger space since my last visit. And again, full of customers. I've been traveling a lot this month, so haven't been to local shops as much as usual, but Music Millennium always seems to be hopping. The shops I visited in the UK earlier in the month were all busy.

    I get that not every city is the same, but again, I tend to travel fairly often and so far this year, my experience is that most of my favorite shops are busier than I've seen them in a while.
     
  13. Catcher10

    Catcher10 I like records, and Prog...duh

    That's why I posted that pic of Hi Voltage, he moved last year to the corner store front. The sales folks were really happy, one guy told me "so this is what it is like working in a real record store!!" Pretty funny cause as you know the previous location was tiny!
    I was at Hi Voltage on Saturday....

    The thing that I don't like about RSD is yea, they don't release enough of the specials. I'm not gonna go and stand in line for hours before store opens, I'll go later in the day but it is turning into Black Friday shopping...ain't doin it!
     
  14. tremspeed

    tremspeed Well-Known Member

    Location:
    Los Angeles, CA
    `
    Record stores and game stores have always had pretty different business models though. Game buyers are a lot more concerned with newer stuff, there's a HUGE drop off in demand and a similarly huge supply when a title is a couple years old. Whereas back catalog stuff in vinyl is huge. Even not quite vintage or even primo stuff like say a 2008 pressing of a Radiohead album, (equal to what, Madden 08 for the PS2?), are much, MUCH more sellable than some super expired game for a system no one has anymore. Sure, there are people who collect NES or whatever, but its a tiny market compared to record collectors where the physical format has been totally compatible with players for more than a half century and counting!

    Also record stores have stocked "other things" since time began. These aren't new ideas. You don't just start selling coffee or beer. There's been a few threads offering advice on how to improve record stores... and all I can say is, give it a go then!
     
  15. Vaughan

    Vaughan Forum Resident

    Location:
    Essex, UK
    "RSD is needed big time this year to save the stores"

    Erm, for me, no. If record stores are to survive, then they need to move away from a boom-or-bust mentality. RSD is a single day in the calendar, and while sales on that day may fund weeks, or perhaps months, to come, it's not a business model that will sustain them in the long term. They either have to get to a point where they're selling week-in and week-out, or they'll disappear.

    To that end, I personally think RSD has moved over into being damaging to the business. RSD is a great day for scalpers, but for music lovers - and make no mistake, it's only real music lovers who can sustain the stores long-term - it's a worthless little blip where for some strange reason, crazy little exclusives (one could call them gimmicks) get released. I don't see how Vinyl alone is going to be enough sustain record stores. Not unless the price remains artificially high, perhaps even higher than they are now.

    I will also say, speaking as someone who has moved on from Vinyl and won't be looking backwards, that a primary focus on Vinyl won't draw me into a store. It'll do the opposite, it'll keep me away. As mentioned in another thread, I've purchases 80 CD's so far in 2017. I buy music. It's what I do. Okay, so I'm not going to go back to Vinyl, but I am someone who is a key player in keeping sales of physical product alive (not trying to pretend I'm personally uber-important, but merely pointing out that buying physical product is something I do with regularity. Some buy more, some less). CD sales are falling, as Vinyl sales fell, but a store that wants to succeed will have to cater for music lovers, not simply Vinyl lovers.

    Here are some things that come to mind about record stores, based on my personal preferences, and what I've loved about stores over my decades of music buying:

    1) Location doesn't matter very much. We all know business rates and property taxes are killing bricks and mortar. But when it comes to music stores, some of the best I ever knew where in out of the way places. They didn't need to be in malls, or even in shopping districts. Music lovers don't mind doing a bit of traveling to go to their favorite stores. So I suggest music stores don't waste funds on prime sites.

    2) Each store should have a vibrant online store too.

    3) Stock. Record stores need to carry stock with some depth. It's all very well going to a store and finding a copy of David Bowie's Blackstar, but when I go through the Bowie section there should be Man Who Sold the World, Space Oddity, Diamond Dogs etc.

    4) Good coverage of ALL formats. Vinyl, CD, Blu-Ray, SACD etc.

    5) Good coverage of all genres. Yes I might go in and buy some rock music, but at the same time I love to go through Jazz, Classical, and Electronic. Don't pigeon hole customers.

    6) Have staff who know something about what they're selling, beyond the big names. One of the greatest enjoyments I had was chatting with staff at various music stores. Some of them were more knowledgeable than I was, and were able to guide me to music that I still listen too today.

    7) Build your business on a model that does NOT rely on mainstream pop/rock acts. One of the things that killed off the record stores was the arrival into the market of major grocery stores, chemist chains, and the likes of Woolworth. Essentially what happened is stores were depending on the "big" sellers - whatever was popular at the time - to finance everything else. That sounds reasonable, but the reality is, just about anyone can sell mainstream acts or chart songs. So stores that had little to do with music got in on the act. To sell that latest fad you really don't need to do much other than stock the item at a cheap price - so sales bled off to major stores. Smaller record stores found they couldn't compete on price, and they were so reliant on those sales, it was a death knell. A sustainable music business is going to have to be able to survive without the obvious low hanging fruit.

    8) A music store can sell other things, but not all "things" are equal. Take for example, HMV in the UK. Back in the day, the HMV store on Oxford Street in London was an Aladdin's Cave. My mate and I would plan a trip there, since we lived 30 miles away. We'd get up early, and be at the store by 10:00am. In order to get around the store you needed a good 5 to 6 hours. HOURS. It was huge - unreasonably so in today's standards - but the point was, no matter what it was that you were going to look for, you'd find armfuls of stuff you either didn't know about, or that simply caught your eye. The store was amazing, with breadth and depth of catalog: imports, local labels, Vinyl, CD, Tape. They worked their ass off to make that store great. Then the rot started. They started selling video games. Then it was electronic goods, movies, clothes. I'm sure at the boardroom level they were screaming "diversify!", and that's all well and good - but at the same time they were emphasizing this new stuff, they let the music die. In a panic over staying relevant, they ignored what had sustained them all those years. Suddenly the imports stopped, catalog depth disappeared, they needed space for all that tat so music space shrank. Slowly, but surely, they asphyxiated themselves. I'd been going there for years, but gradually the trip wasn't worth it. The store is now closed. A store can do other things, but for me they need to stay focused on their core market. A music store is a MUSIC STORE primarily. So, musical instruments is okay, a coffee shop, a small book section with relevant music stock, perhaps some music related T-Shirts. But no perfume/toiletries, no i-whatever, no gaming controllers. It's a music store, not a general store.

    These are just the ruminations of one music buyer. I don't pretend to know what others want. I do know what'll drag me back to stores though. I've experienced record stores throughout 50 years or so. I saw the high-water mark, and the low. That doesn't make me an expert, but I do think I saw both the success and the failure pretty well. HMV is a perfect example of what happens when you forget what your core business is/was. A music store opening today concentrating on Vinyl alone is ridiculous, imo. Even Vinyl mostly. Record Store Day is passed its sell-by-date. It's not a sustainable model. You can't have a single day that sustains a business.

    I do most of my shopping online now. Yes it's super convenient, but you know, I don't think that's the primary motive for me. I'd much rather go to a physical store, and have the product in my hand immediately. No, the main draw is a vast breath and depth of "stock" (which some online stores dress up a bit), and a decent price. Amazon is good - but it's not perfect. There are some very obvious ways it could be improved. However, it' search is pretty good, and that allows me to browse - something I love to do.

    Finally I'll say this: Music stores can, and will, only exist/thrive/survive if we - the music lovers - use them. So if you go to a music store and find something for $2 more than Amazon, and so order online, then know that you're killing off that store, one cell at a time. We music lovers reap what we sow. If we don't go to stores, then the stores have no reason to exist. We need to go to stores, and BUY from stores. When you want to order something, order it through a store rather than doing it online yourself etc. Otherwise, bricks and mortar are fighting an uphill battle they can't possibly win. While music stores need to do more, we the customers are what make the whole thing run. We get the music stores we deserve. But they can only survive through transactions, they make nothing from just browsing. Comparing <insert generic local music store name> with Amazon on price and stock alone is unreasonable. Amazon wins. Keep in mind, you may have to pay a little more, but you're keeping an eco-system alive that brings pleasure beyond the exchange of goods for money. Music brings so much more than that into our lives, so maybe we owe it more back.
     
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  16. Dave S

    Dave S Forum Resident

    Some shops somewhere will have it bad. A record store opened in Ayr, Scotland at the old post office. It was busy, but many might just be browsing instead of buying. It was gone within the year.
     
  17. Nick Dunning

    Nick Dunning Forum Resident

    The collector's record shop I work in pulled out of doing RSD some years ago as the overheads and grief associated dictated it just wasn't worth it. The shop is doing fine.
     
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  18. pghmusiclover

    pghmusiclover Senior Member

    Honestly, if a store is hoping that two shopping days are going to make or break them, then they are probably managing their business poorly.
     
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  19. Holerbot6000

    Holerbot6000 Forum Resident

    Location:
    California
    Record stores in my area are becoming used MEDIA outlets, selling not only records but books, movies, comic books, video games and the usual pop culture doodads. Some are even selling antiques and other collectables. I think it makes sense and it seems to be a pretty good business model for them because we've actually gotten a few NEW record stores and that hasn't happened in years. RSD is definitely a shot in the arm but it's not enough to keep the doors open.
     
  20. ranasakawa

    ranasakawa Forum Resident

    CD day should follow record day
     
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  21. Spruce

    Spruce Forum Resident

    Location:
    Brigg, England
    Hang around, if you are young enough! When the vinyl buying "baby boomer" generation, I'm one, start to depart en masse, then I reckon there will be a flood of product to buy.
     
  22. DetroitDoomsayer

    DetroitDoomsayer Forum Middle Child

    Location:
    Detroit, Michigan
    I think you missed my point. The market sets the price. People will pay what they think is fair. $18 for a NM AJA is a pretty good deal because a new copy is import only at $35. People like NM original records.
    There are still a lot of people who don't buy vinyl online, or are reticent to do so because they can't look at the record.

    I never said all of our Dan records get priced that high, we've had many, many Dan and other artist records out between $4 and $6 in VG/VG+

    Again, it depends on the market. If we we're in a rural community I'm sure our prices would be different.

    I've also stated that a good majority of records (good catalog from good artists of all genres) are still found in our shop for $3, $4, $5 and $6.
     
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  23. jimac51

    jimac51 A mythical beast.

    Location:
    Allentown,pa.
    I'll grant you that PREX has a lot of well-organized stuff,but they can be bettered in so many ways. When I think about a road trip to Princeton,throwing in driving time,gas,food,etc. and what the budget can afford,it makes no sense to just walk my six blocks to Double Decker here in what my first-born calls Stinkytown. With up-to- the- minute online postings of new stuff and a roomful of discards going for a half- a -buck(finally tracked a mono Sreisand Christmas LP there last week),CDs for a flat-fee $3(now being clearanced for a buck),I'm already over my budget by a few months. This guy was a long-time PREX shopper and still admires what they do,but he moves quicker and cheaper while taking in anything brought in the store. He opted out of RSDBF last Nov. and already has RSD in his rear-view mirror. In its place,he will have a bunch of used stuff available first-time that day(he blew away figures last BF by abstaining). New sealed product is becoming less and less an important part of the store,as it had been before the bubble of the last few years.
    This weekend brings a semi-annual 45/78 RPM show a short distance from DD. A pretty big deal around these parts with vendors hitting the no-tell motels days in advance. Meanwhile,DD got a lot(200+?)boxes of 45s in the lat month and,rather than sorting it all out,put them all at $2 per. Lots and lots of guys who will be selling their stuff at $4+ per at this weekend's show found lots of goodies from those boxes. Now,the rest(120 boxes at last posting) are a buck a piece and anyone coming to the Sat. show would possibly find lots of stuff hidden in those boxes.
     
  24. I agree with you. I used to shop a bit around Burlington VT about 3-5 years ago, and I've lost count of how many NM copies of "Gaucho" and "Aja" I used to see in the bargain bins (I've bought two or three keepers myself over the years). Perhaps not the DOLLAR bin, but really not far... Just an observation.
     
  25. PaulKTF

    PaulKTF Senior Member

    Location:
    USA
    If your store is so poorly run that you depend on one gimmick event a year to stay in business then you're living on borrowed time as it is anyway.
     
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