Amoeba Hollywood morphs into t-shirt store

I had trouble finding the oldies vinyl at Amoeba Hollywood today. It weren't where it used t'be. To my surprise, I had even more trouble finding the rock/pop CD section. The section used to be featured front and center and back through the middle of the store. In its place, there are now several racks of rock n' roll t-shirts. I'm talkin' a ton of 'em! All the rock and pop CD's have been moved to the used section - which is probably a better idea BUT they've cut the rock/pop CD stock on the floor -both new and used - in half. The area that used to be devoted strictly to used rock/pop CD's now incorporates both the used and new CD's.

I take this as a bad sign. It's what we saw in the days leading up to the closing of Tower Records where the bean counters figured they needed to feature general merchandise instead of music. On the plus side, the vinyl LP section looked as healthy as ever and there were a good number of customers flipping through LP's on a Friday afternoon.

Oh, the oldies LP's and CD's have been moved into the Jazz room.

 

A sign of the times. They're discovering what savvy merchandisers like Newbury Comics have known for years.

 

They're certainly enough of a record store that I spent $162.57 there last week.

 

It's not quite cut in half, since they had to move the oldies (which you mentioned), country, and punk sections to make room.

 

"I went to Amoeba Records for music and all I got was this lousy..."

 

Instagram post by Amoeba Hollywood • Mar 30, 2017 at 1:53am UTC

Shirt visible in the right hand side of this instagram photo

 

Instagram post by Amoeba Hollywood • Mar 4, 2017 at 10:03pm UTC

Instagram post by Amoeba Hollywood • Mar 16, 2017 at 4:20am UTC

Instagram post by Amoeba Hollywood • Mar 10, 2017 at 11:03pm UTC

Shirt rack switch was done 3 weeks ago

 

I was there about ten days ago, and I noticed the changes right away. Hopefully, this is not a sign of financial trouble. The store was pretty busy during the Sunday morning/early afternoon I was perusing the bins. The marathon that was going on that day (with many blocked off streets) didn't seem to hurt business. I made some good finds too. I certainly did my part to support that grand brick-and-mortar temple of music by departing with a significant number of my $.

 

Thought they were moving?

 

Why listen to the music when you can own the t-shirt?!

 

Since they set up shop in Southern California, Amoeba seemed to be "bucking the trend" and expanding (or at least holding it's own ) while the music store competition seemed to be dwindling in size, this is disheartening news...

Well, since this Amoeba IS a CD's throw from the Hollywood Walk Of Fame, I guess tacky movie tchotchkes, James Dean mugs, Marilyn Monroe posters, and Al Pacino Scarface t-shirts may follow.
I just hope they don't start stocking $300 bongs.

 

When I was in San Francisco & went to Amoeba there I bought a tie dye t-shirt and some target CDs. I don't remember there being much of a display, just a short hanging behind the counter with the price.

 

For the past two years or so, it felt like a ghost town wandering around the CD aisles. I tended to go on off hours/weekdays, but still ... Seemed like something had to change.

I remember the glory days when you could barely move through the CD section for all the shoppers. Oh well ... I wish them well.

 

As long as there is still a decent used selection I am cool with more shirts, hopefully the selection is still in tact when I get over there next

 

So they just moved things around and not "removed" them. Ok, sound good.

 

I figured since where they originally had the T-shirts before (the backroom where they have all the classical and jazz albums) wasn't getting enough traffic and they had a stockpile of the T-shirts. So they moved them to the main sales floor to probably drive up sales.

 

Glad the vinyl section is intact at least for now. Always visit when in LA, though I prefer the SF location.

 

CDs are passé

 

They are counting on a big RSD , they need a quick boost ...

 

Shirts use to be on a step up riser area in back of the classical music room. Was wondering if they would eventually lump ALL front room CDs together in same bins. In a way, it makes sense. If you cannot find it used, a new one is right there without going an isle over.

 

That's nuthin'. The SF store is positioning itself to add a cannabis dispensary.

If that's what it takes to hang on, I say go for it.

 

Ah yes. Well, it is significantly less on the floor. I'm guessing they moved a lot of CD's to storage.

 

That's good to hear. I had trouble finding enough good stuff today and only spent 55 clams. I usually spend a couple of hundred.

 

That's not quite what he's saying. The moving of the oldies section accounts for one row (a two-sided row) of CD's. Several rows of new CD's that used to be in the middle ain't there now. The point here is that Amoeba is doing what Tower did in it's final year or two. They are featuring general merchandise items in the heart of the store. This leads me to believe that t-shirt sales are up and CD sales are down.

 

I see in a recent forum post that CD sales fell 20.9 percent in 2016. And that's after a drop in the average price of new CD's from 12.36 to 11.80. Music sales over all are up significantly but most of it is streaming. (U.S. Music Industry Sees First Double Digit Growth in Almost 20 Years as Streaming Takes Over ) This would explain the shift in focus at Amoeba.