On Selling Records.....
So as you should know Tower Records went bankrupted, was sold to a liquidator and is now no longer in business. Americas largest record store chain has closed. What you may not have thought about is how will this affect the music business. I recently saw two interesting reports on the effects already being felt buy this.
First from Hits Daily Double:
“TOWER AFTERSHOCKS: Word has it that at least one of the Big Four distribution companies is downsizing its sales force in direct response to Tower going out of business. Tower has historically been a very labor-intensive chain due to the fact that its 88 stores had no central distribution center and had to be taken care of on a location-by-location basis. Will other distribution units follow suit? Insiders tell us that it’s more than likely. 2,700 Tower employees lost their jobs due to the closures, and now the effect is being felt on the supply side. (10/26p)” - hitsdailydouble.com
That may not seem like a big deal, some major label employees losing their jobs (on top of the Tower employees). But this might. Yahoo just posted an article on the effect to indie labels saying that this closure may cost the indies up to 5-6% of their total sales.
Yahoo Article.
The problem is that the record industry as a hole has not been looking long term for years. For years that have thought more about Wall Mart and Best Buy who both do not care about selling record only about getting people in the store to buy TVs and dishwashers and not about record stores and people who do care about selling records. You have to help the people who care about what you are selling and the industry has forgot that. What are the labels going to do when all of the record stores close down, CD sales drop more and Best Buy and Wall Mart decide that CDs are not worth the floor space and start cutting back even more? When (not if) the big box retailers stop selling CDs where will record labels turn to sell their records when they have already killed the people who want to sell them? I don’t think the heads of the record labels have though about this yet. The indies are trapped in the world the majors are creating and they majors are creating a national retail market where you can’t sell records. What other industry actively works against their own best interests?
First from Hits Daily Double:
“TOWER AFTERSHOCKS: Word has it that at least one of the Big Four distribution companies is downsizing its sales force in direct response to Tower going out of business. Tower has historically been a very labor-intensive chain due to the fact that its 88 stores had no central distribution center and had to be taken care of on a location-by-location basis. Will other distribution units follow suit? Insiders tell us that it’s more than likely. 2,700 Tower employees lost their jobs due to the closures, and now the effect is being felt on the supply side. (10/26p)” - hitsdailydouble.com
That may not seem like a big deal, some major label employees losing their jobs (on top of the Tower employees). But this might. Yahoo just posted an article on the effect to indie labels saying that this closure may cost the indies up to 5-6% of their total sales.
Yahoo Article.
The problem is that the record industry as a hole has not been looking long term for years. For years that have thought more about Wall Mart and Best Buy who both do not care about selling record only about getting people in the store to buy TVs and dishwashers and not about record stores and people who do care about selling records. You have to help the people who care about what you are selling and the industry has forgot that. What are the labels going to do when all of the record stores close down, CD sales drop more and Best Buy and Wall Mart decide that CDs are not worth the floor space and start cutting back even more? When (not if) the big box retailers stop selling CDs where will record labels turn to sell their records when they have already killed the people who want to sell them? I don’t think the heads of the record labels have though about this yet. The indies are trapped in the world the majors are creating and they majors are creating a national retail market where you can’t sell records. What other industry actively works against their own best interests?
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