Requiem For The Record Store

Rick Zeman writes "The Washington Post has an article (minimal registration required) in which record stores ('Daddy, what's a record?') are preparing for their own demises. They attribute this to the big box stores (Best Buy, etc), online retailers (Amazon, etc) and, you guessed it, downloading, both illegal and legal. 'The fat lady is warming up, but she's not exactly singing,' says one retailer, knowing that he still has a few more years until his business is totally moribund." Get it while it's hot -- soon, the Washington Post is switching to a more annoying registration system.

Comments

Physical Media

[77Punker]

I'll always be buying physical media whenever it's available, record shops or not. If I'm buying digital stuff, it's just a keystroke or bankruptcy away from being lost forever. With real stuff, it's much harder to destroy, can be easily backed up, and the format won't go out of style for quite a while.

Is this a bad thing?

[Reality Master 101]

I'm not sure what the big deal about this is. I seriously doubt that many people care about "knowledgeable" record store owners. All they want is the lowest price, which the large retailers are going to provide. People learn about music through their friends, the radio, etc.

Now, the knowledgeable people used to be more important, because we didn't have online sources of knowledge. Who wants to trek down to ask Record Story Guy about that obscure album when you can sit in front of your computer and make a post on some web site to the world? Sure, there are some people who want the record store experience, but I highly doubt that it's a significant number.

There's just no reason for them to exist anymore, unless they can somehow sell for less.

Good idea/Bad idea?

[Thiscatiswild]

Bitching about annoying registration requirements: Good idea
Opening slashdot to charges of copyright infringement by reposting an entire piece of copyrighted material here: Bad idea

Generic pure record stores may die

[Gogl]

But those that either appeal to specific hard-to-find genres (like places that have a lot of used stuff and let you trade in and so forth) and those that have diversified beyond recordings (like Borders) will still be around for awhile, I think. Even with the internet, I still like going to Borders and hanging out, browsing some books and previewing some cds and generally shopping around. And the used places are nice too, as you can often encounter things that you probably wouldn't find anywhere else.

Re:Don't Forget The Video Store

[Doc Ruby]

With the disappearance of live music venues, record stores would do well to promote live acts, and give out free samples on CD, which autoload the page that sells the band's merchandise, including recordings. Not only will their retail showrooms generate more revenue per square foot than do their boxes of inventory, but they'll attract more engaging salespeople, and more engaged customers. And there's a tiny chance that the music will improve, as it brings players, listeners and the music together in person, where the muse can play.

Its because of the retail clerks

[thedogcow]

I know why the stores are at their demise versus online venues... The retail clerks...

I shop online because I've been to the stores and the retail clerks all seem to be essentially worthless.

The quality of knowledge is decreasing exponentially in these huge mega stores upon the retail clerks... or at least it seems more often than not.

Video Stores will be around for a while...

[Cyno01]

Video stores will stick around becuase sometimes people just need a movie to watch. I was out to dinner with friends last night and somone was talking about the evining with kevin smith special, and we were like, what the hell, lets go rent it. Thats what rental places will cater to, spur of the moment type things. Netflix is nice, but if you dont know what you want in advance it cant beat wandering the ailes trying to decide on a movie for that nite. Until VOD services get better(speed, selection and widespread) there will still be a blockbuster on the corner. Most popular movies it would be easy enough to download it p2p and output it to my tv, but even with my high speed cable connection it still takes at least 40 minutes to download a 700mb divx dvd rip, its a lot quicker to walk over to blockbuster.

Re:Registration? What's that?

[rixstep]

Well it was 'minimal' registration - whatever that means.

I have a serious suggestion: as so many people are royally pissed at these stupid harvesting zines, why don't we just wait until a decent news source publishes before coming to /. with a story?

So we don't have to hide our tails between our hind legs with unbelievable utterances such as 'minimal registration'.

And thanks, parent, for doing the gentlemanly thing and pasting in the entire article. It was a good read. Most kind of you.

Cry me a frickin' river...

[bckrispi]

Maybe if the poor, victimized record stores (e.g. Virgin, Warehouse, et.al) would stop charging $17.99 for a CD, they wouldn't have this problem.

Re:no Virgins worth entering in the record store b

[broller]

That wasn't "interesting" at all. Basically the parent poster said:

Oh boo hoo. I went to a store and had to search and search through the popular stuff that they sell everyday! I picked the brains of the employees, and *gasp* they weren't music historians, but knew quite a bit about the current offerings. How dare they!

I finally found what I was looking for, twice even, but they didn't have this obscure song by an unpopular artist in stock right away! What do they think they're in business for? To sell popular music to people who like popular music?!

As I passed the posters, t-shirts, books, magazines, and DVD's on my way out of the store, I thought, "If they're not going to sell the music I like, they should just stop pretending to sell music and focus on selling pop culture."

Hey buddy, the term is "target audience" and sorry, but you're not in it.

Re:I've already seen some businesses fail

[shark72]

"I live my an independent music store that recently shut down due to a Best Buy open up right next door."

Incidentally, this is how the record companies got nailed for price-fixing a few years back:

1. The big box stores (Best Buy, etc.) started selling CDs at little or no profit as an incentive to bring customers into the store (where they'd presumably also buy a high-margin item at the same time).
2. Smaller vendors, as expected, freaked out and complained to the record companies.
3. The record companies starting using a mechanism (already common in many other industries) called MAPS, or Minimum Advertised Prices, or MAPs. Retailers who sold their wares had to agree to not advertise CDs below a certain price -- they could sell them for any price they want, but not advertise them. This was done to help protect the "little guys" who didn't have a metric buttload of high-margin CE devices in the back of the store and thus couldn't slash prices on CDs as a draw.
4. The big box retailers complained to the government.
5. The record companies stopped doing MAPs. Meanwhile, lots of other merchandise in your local Best Buy is sold with a MAP arrangement -- the difference is that nobody's complained to the government. Yet.
6. Smaller retailers who can't compete on price continue to go out of business, as covered in the article.
7. Some slashdotters -- those of you who'll be hurrying to mod this down -- (correctly) point out that record companies have been nailed for price fixing; thus they are corrupt evil greedy bastards, and (incorrectly) thus it is morally okay to use Kazaa for this reason. Two wrongs making a right, and all that.
8. ...Profit! No, just kidding.