I have no idea why I've been pondering this, but here's what I would do to save a brick and mortar music store chain.
...
1) Hire the most passionate music lovers you can find, and treat them right. Every store in the chain should have two or three guys on shift at all times to be the in-store experts on music. Pay them a good salary (at least enough to be exempt from overtime), and put them at the same level as assistant managers, responsible only to the store manager. These guys are the workhorses that will save your chain. They have to love music so intensly that it's nearly all they think about. They need to be personable and friendly. They need to be able to be at least passingly familiar with every band on the market. They need to be eager to share their passion for music with others. They need to be willing to stop being snide about bands like Nickelback and awcknowladge that all music has someone that likes it, but they are allowed to introduce even Nickelback fans to similar music that they might appreciate as long as they do so respectfully. There'll be at least a few people capable of this in evey market, but you want the best so you will be paying them well.
2) Your manager may run the store, but the experts set the tone. The days of sticking the latest Brittany Spears album on repeat over the store speakers is past. The music industry is becoming completely consumer driven, and if you ignore that you will go out of business. The central station at which your experts are located runs the PA system, and has the best equipment and a computer stocked with every song in your store in digital format. They can use this system to show new music to customers that are looking for things they might like (either over the PA system or on headphone stations connected to their system), but they are also acting as your in-store DJs. They choose what should be played to best fit the tone in the store at that time. They are responsible for creating a low-level party atmosphere and keeping the consumers browsing the shelves interested in sticking around and hanging out. If you are lucky enough to have one that can actually spin on the fly, encourage him to do so (with the caveat that helping customers comes first).
3) Integrate your online brick and mortar locations with your online digital store. These in-store experts are also you online experts. Each station these guys work from is equiped with a webcam and mic, so that they can speak to online users with questions about music. Using an audio/video link to the customer (even if the customer is only typing his questions) will make it more personable and also let any other customers in the store that wander up looking for help know that they aren't just chatting with a friend in AIM, they're actively helping another customer and will be with them next. Using these experts for online help will also go towards defraying the cost of having these experts on staff in the stores on overlapping shifts. The system should give routing preference so that a user is likely to have his question answered by an expert at his local store if at all possible. That way a customer is more likely to come on into the store in the future instead of staying strickly online.
3b) Integrate your online digital store with your brick and mortar locations. The relationship goes both ways. Find a way to make digital music purchases in your store as easy and practical as buying a pressed CD. Be it prepaid club cards or buyer accounts, using iPod stations or thumbdrive terminals, whatever it takes to pull it off a customer must be able to purchase digital music in the store at least as easily as they can do so at home, if not more so.
4) Most importantly of all, <s>embrace</s> immerse your store into the local music scene. Except for the busy times around the holidays, your in-store experts are scheduled to work in-store 35 hours a week. They also agree to spend at least 10 hours a week (on the honor system, no time clock required as they will be eager to do this anyway or you've hired the wrong people) being a part of the local music scene. They go to the indie coffee shops, they hang out at the hot local venues, and they become a part of it. Odds are they already are a part of this scene before you hired them, but encourage them to do more. They are to build a relationship between your store and the local population of music lovers and bands. Add CDs produced by good local bands to your store's inventory (at little or no markup, sold on consignment - and pay the bands each week for their sales, don't hold out on them). For the best local bands, make deals to add their songs to your online digital store as well. Make sure the in-store experts are on top of the local schedules and can steer customers to events they might like to go to.
5) OPTIONAL: When things are going well, consider turning your store into a part-time venue. Once your store becomes the place to hang out for local music lovers, if the setting permits you can consider having weekly (or even bi-weekly) in-store events catering to the local music scene. Invite beloved local bands to play. But a word of caution: don't attemp this until you are sure it will succeed, one badly run event will hurt you more than a whole handful of successes will help you. Do be sure to watch the schedules at other local venues and make a preference for the off-nights for your events; you don't want to become a competitive venue and spoil the relationships you've been trying to build up.
...
Maybe I'm way off base, but this is how I see a music store being successful in the digital era. It's all about stripping off the corporate bullshit and becoming a chain of passionate music-lovers seeking to spread that love of music far and wide (while also turning a profit of course, but it's been shown time and again that the best way to turn a profit is to stop caring about profit and start caring about the products and the consumers).
How to Save an Industry - The Brick and Mortar Music Store
GORDON wrote:Sounds like that movie with that guy from Grose Point Blank and he also has a sister but he did a movie where he ran a record store like that.
Not really, they belitteled everyone who's tastes were different from their own, and didn't have any digital integration. Sort of like evil twin version of what I was saying.
Sounds like our local Schoolhouse Records.
They went bankrupt already.
Well, in that case I guess it's a good thing I don't actually run a record store.
Edited By TPRJones on 1196315865
"ATTENTION: Customers browsing porn must hold magazines with both hands at all times!"
Yeah, seriously. There's probably more cash in doing some shit like having the store open only times when you have some all-day concerts or something & spend most of your time booking local bands or shit. Most people just don't wanna physically go buy music unless they're vinyl freaks or DJs.
Diogenes of Sinope: "It is not that I am mad, it is only that my head is different from yours."
Arnold Judas Rimmer, BSC, SSC: "Better dead than smeg."
Arnold Judas Rimmer, BSC, SSC: "Better dead than smeg."
It would be difficult to find someone who lives and breaths good music who would not mock someone for coming in looking for the new Linkin Park cd.....TPRJones wrote:Not really, they belitteled everyone who's tastes were different from their own, and didn't have any digital integration. Sort of like evil twin version of what I was saying.GORDON wrote:Sounds like that movie with that guy from Grose Point Blank and he also has a sister but he did a movie where he ran a record store like that.
"Be bold, and mighty forces will come to your aid."
Maybe we should give Gordon sixteen guesses? Why sicteen? Just a number I came up when I was looking around my living room and saw Sixteen Candles?
(It's a stretch, but I think it works.)
(It's a stretch, but I think it works.)
"Happy slaves are the worst enemies of freedom." - Marie Von Ebner
"It was always the women, and above all the young ones, who were the most bigoted adherents of the Party, the swallowers of slogans, the amateur spies..." - Orwell
"It was always the women, and above all the young ones, who were the most bigoted adherents of the Party, the swallowers of slogans, the amateur spies..." - Orwell
Maybe because he's a cat owner, Gordon couldn't name an actor who Must Love Dogs.
"Happy slaves are the worst enemies of freedom." - Marie Von Ebner
"It was always the women, and above all the young ones, who were the most bigoted adherents of the Party, the swallowers of slogans, the amateur spies..." - Orwell
"It was always the women, and above all the young ones, who were the most bigoted adherents of the Party, the swallowers of slogans, the amateur spies..." - Orwell