Sunrise Records Canada - New Stores opening thread.

I thought rather than keep the HMV closing thread to record opening dates of the new Sunrise stores we should have a new thread where we can discuss opening dates, selections in store ect.

They have posted on their Facebook page that the Pickering Town Centre and Sherway Gardens stores are opening soon, although not an exact date, together with pictures of the store. It looks as if they will be using some of HMV's old fixtures and fittings judging by the photos. They certainly have more vinyl than HMV, but I'm more interested in what their cd selection will be like.

 

Sunrise Records

 

I was in Fairview Park Mall in Kitchener last week. The former HMV store has a Sunrise Records sign over the door, but the windows are papered over.

 

I liked the manager and the staff of the old HMV in my neck of the woods in Orleans (Ottawa). I hope they're retained for the new Sunrise. As in the previous thread, Sunrise was aiming for an early May opening at said location & many of the staff had applied for the new jobs.
I'll be more interested in their vinyl selection.

 

Because they'll have a real vinyl section, not like what HMV had which was a token acknowledgement that vinyl existed.

 

Agreed. Not all HMV stores in Ottawa even had a vinyl section. At least my local one had a "corner section" for wax.
There wasn't much but the manager tried to stock at least some interesting titles.
I did find some good stuff from time to time at competitive prices. But you had to go there every day to check.
Obviously, I wasn't the only one going there to look for wax. They got to know my face fairly well.
I used to get the staff to order me stuff if they didn't have it in stock. They were good about that.

 

I ran into the former manager of my local HMV (Orleans, Ontario) on RSD at a local independent record shop here in town (Ottawa). He said he isn't coming back to the store when it opens up as Sunrise. He is retiring.
He said he doesn't expect the Orleans location to be open until the second half of May.
I passed by the old Orleans location a few days ago and as yet there was no notice put up or signs of renovation or work being done for the new store.

 

Was the manager an older Francophone bloke?

I had a long discussion with him about the Pink Floyd box one day, we both agreed it was overpriced and he didn't expect that it would sell.

 

Yep, the same one. He was indicated that prices would be higher for us. Dunno if he was being serious or not.

 

Sunrise Locations - Sunrise Records

First 4 new stores now open

LONDON, ON: Masonville Place
PICKERING, ON: Pickering Town Centre
BELLEVILLE, ON: Quinte Mall
ETOBICOKE, ON: Sherway Gardens

My inlaws live in Belleville, but I won't be back down for a few weeks,be interesting to see Sam The Record Man's response as they are located in the same mall.

 

Well, now....I will pop out to the Masonville store this weekend. I was at the other London location today and
- as I have stated before - the catalogue CD section is dreadful.

 

Well, we shall see if they last then, won't we LOL! Per my comment on the earlier thread, and echoing the comment above from @Mr.Sean, there was essentially no vinyl at HMVs....almost like they completely missed this growing segment (and one at perhaps a higher profit margins than the $8CD...). Thus, IMO, HMV definitely deserved their fate. We shall see now with Sunrise....the owner/Pres has stated that, due to the growing market, he did want lots of vinyl, good first step for those interested in vinyl and hopefully one not made at the inventory expense of CDs (again IMO). While I never mind paying a few bucks more to in support of local businesses, I will not pay a hefty margin for the same thing....it will be interesting to see!!! A valid point made on the earlier thread was also one of where they would source all that vinyl, IIRC something like 2k titles/store they said they wanted....all good but yikes! On the other hand, hopefully their investors did some good due diligence and it will work out! Not sure if a business model based on higher prices will go that far.

 

We've had a Sunrise in downtown Hamilton for a while, but the vinyl is overpriced, compared to Amazon and HMV.

 

How are the new Sunrise(HMV) stores for DVD/Blu stock for movies/music?

 

Didn't Sam the Record Man as a company go out of business about 10 years ago?

 

That's what I thought... actually I thought it was more than 10 years ago... I remember them in the late 1980's or early 90's. Excellent store. Anybody know if sunrise will carry used vinyl? or just new... from what I remember it was just new only.

 

I stopped by the Pickering Town Centre location today.... came home empty-handed.
Hopefully it's just because the store is brand new and they're just waiting for more stock in the near future.... but at the moment, their selection is totally worthless. They didn't even have any of the mainstream stuff on my list.

 

There's a new mom and pop kinda music store in are little town, to say I was surprised and happy would be an understatement.

 

It's nothing like the White Oaks location....way more CDs than I expected. I was there today and walked out $200 poorer. I'm not sure if it's like this because it just opened and they are flooding the new stores with stock but at the moment it's far better than I expected. For example I was shocked to find a couple of Roger Hodgson solo discs for under $10 as they are pretty deep catalog items...they aren't there anymore by the way.

 

As the above poster stated, way better than the White Oaks store. I came out of there with 4
CDs today. The catalogue section is much larger. The Zappa file had about 30 titles in it,
including the latest reissues. So far, so good. I picked up the Zombies BBC double as well
as the new Feist, Xavier Rudd 2-CD live and Rush's sixties cover disc.

 

Only one mall location that is different owners and only has a vague resemblance of the former stores.

Kinda like how they are still 12 blockbusters locations in the US open for business.

 

The newly reissued Zappas were well priced and cheaper than the Amazon pre order prices for the most part....I grabbed 6-7 titles myself.

 

The Sunrise at Fairview Park Mall in Kitchener is now open, and has been for a few days. There's lots of vinyl near the front of the store. The selection of CD, DVDs and Blu-rays isn't bad, at least by current standards, but there's lots of room for improvement.

 

More new stores opened

Champlain Mall - Dieppe NB
Fairview Mall - Kitchener ON
Mic Mac Mall - Dartmouth NS

 

Shouldn't this be in Music store section?