Depressing Message From Founder Of Newbury Comics

Agreed,

Record Bar, Trax, Turtles...were all consumed by BlockBuster long ago.

 

The biggest local chain that was swallowed up and destroyed was Strawberries. Trans World ruined the stores with their pricing and selection. Turned them in to crap Record Town and FYE mall stores.

They also chewed up and spit out Waxie Maxies, Specs, Peaches and a ton of other cool chains around the country. They suck and it will be my pleasure to watch all their shi*e stores gradually close. Real bad ownership to boot. Would have sold their own mother if they could have made a profit. Bad bad actors! Good riddance.

 

I love this store. Whenever we go on vacation in New England I always make a stop there. I wish they'd open an upstate NY location. I'd shop there all the time if they did!

 

I'm surprised that you have not been following what is being released on Black Friday. And I'm surprised that someone working at a large music store doesn't have a clue....either.


QUOTE=Kevin Bresnahan;7118261]Why would the manager of the Leominster store know what the chain is planning for two weeks from now? Generally, corporate offices work on a week by week basis. If something big's being planned for Black Friday, a few buyers in the central office might be aware of it but until it's firmed up, leaking a potential deal could ruffle some feathers if that deal doesn't pan out.

Also, I can't remember there ever being a record release on Black Friday. Doorbusters, sure, but never a new release. Releases are always on Tuesday.[/QUOTE]

 

NC always seems busy anytime I walk in at any of the 3 stores I go to.

I hope they stick around for years.

 

Bull Moose also resurfaces every single one of their cds they sell where NC only does really bad ones.

I have found more junk at BM than NC.

 

The demise of Morris Levy's empire facilitated this transaction. Tommy James' book touches upon this somewhat.

 

To be quite honest- I find the Leominster store to be fairly useless about anything!

I went over a bit of this in a reply back to Mike at Newbury- but they know nothing about new and forthcoming releases, don't know differences in 24K CD, SACD, MFSL, AF or anything Vinyl. I also explained that as a consumer- I am tired of having to drive 50 miles to their "flagship" stores to buy what I want. Hell- even Mike Z at Norwood sent me on a wild goosechase looking for Candy-O MFSL.

I asked that they expand on their Flagship store model to at least one on the Northwest of Boston(as they have one in Boston proper- Newbury st and one SW of Boston in Norwood).

Chris

[/QUOTE]

 

And did they bother to reply to your suggestion?

[/QUOTE]

 

I found another reason why I won't be going into Newbury Comics too many times in the future. I noticed in the Salem, NH store that some used CDs are being re-sealed in shrink wrap instead of the usual resealable bag. I thought they were doing this for rarer, more expensive discs. Last night, I went to the Harvard Square store and about half of their used rock CDs were shrink wrapped. There were quite a few of them that I would have liked to see the CD to see what pressing it was. Because it's shrink wrapped, I can't so now, I'm wasting my time because I am always shopping for *pressings* not simply titles.

Kevin

 

Another head-shaking Newbury moment : went in to poke around in the Leominster store (I know, I know, I'll never learn) and noticed there were no more music magazines (Mojo, Uncut) for sale. Asked at the counter and the clerk actually said "Mojo's gone out of business." Told her that it hadn't and I left.

 

Yeah, I sat in a gas station the other day...for an hour, can you believe no one came out to clean my windshield, or check my air pressure ?

 

Myke, that's because all you spend is $1.00, cheapskate.

 

Having bought a couple dozen used CDs from Bull Moose, sourced from a variety of their stores, I can state this is not the case.

Either that, or they have a really, really good re-surfacer that leaves no tell-tale swirls.

 

No, I've filled up since the age of 16. The point is, the world has changed. Crying about " what used to be " is a waste of time. The fact that you had to bump a 3 year-old thread should tell you that.
Look at your humor...a dollar ? It's $2.50 per gallon.

 

No, not every single disc; only the ones that they think really need it.

 

I shopped at Newbury about a month ago right around the time of the 2 Prince cd releases. Told the clerk I bought them off Amazon because they
downloaded the music onto my cloud, so I could listen to them right away. My point being if Newbury Comics did this and then sent me the cd's within 2 days I would
buy them local. She said "We don't do downloads, only physical media".
She kept repeating this over and over, I understood I told her I have been a customer since 1979! (she wasn't even born yet). Then I told her they need a better website so I could
purchase music online. She said "We have a store on Amazon"….and something to the effect of "we sell physical media, we are not an online retailer".

How much longer do you think they will survive?

 

I'm not sure of the point. Aside from Amazon, I know of NO retailer that offers an instant cloud service...either their own or someone else's via partnership.

The change in products offered for sale is their survival strategy, but you should take note of their expanded vinyl selection.

 

The point is they should offer one. I have owned a business for 25 years doing commercial photography. I bought the first digital camera in 1997 for $16 grand, no one used digital
photography in 97. In fact I was laughed at by everyone I knew, my good friend who also ran a portrait photo studio told me it would never take off. He was all digital in 5 years. If I ran
a music store site and Amazon was the only one who offered it I would find ways to compete. But that is just me.

But your point is well taken being that Newbury barely has a viable website other than just being eye candy. Last night I purchased $26 worth of cd's from bullmoose.com, money that
years past would find itself in Newbury Comics cash registers.

 

Burlington, MA store closed, not sure when.

 

They relocated to the Mall about a month ago.

 

Retail is toast(except Bull Moose).

 

That's what I figured.