http://www.woai.com/news/local/story.aspx?content_id=06869A53-199C-459A-A914-B20B06A9DC00 Indie record stores say they're weathering new challenges
LAST UPDATE: 3/20/2004 7:28:18 AM
A group of independent record store owners made a field trip earlier this week to a Central Texas Wal-Mart to see how the mega-store merchandised its compact disc selection.
"I had more than one of the store owners turn around and ask 'Why would anybody buy a record here?" said Don VanCleave, president of the Coalition of Independent Music Stores. "But there are a lot of people that buy records there."
Record store owners from across the country gathered at the South by Southwest Music Conference on Friday to discuss ways to deal with challenges they face in the retail music industry.
Along with pressure from the basement prices of mass-market retail stores such as Wal-Mart and Best Buy, independents are challenged by shrinking compact disc sales, the popularity of downloadable music and the widespread use of CD burners.
Album sales have been decreasing since 2000, when a glut of compact disc sales partly related to people replacing their vinyl collections came to a crashing end. Album sales dropped 16 percent from 2000 to 2003, according to Nielsen SoundScan, an industry tracker of music sales.
The decline showed signs of leveling off in 2003, when sales dropped 4 percent from the previous year. By comparison, 2002 sales were down 11 percent from the year before.
VanCleave said the glut of the 1990s has resulted in an inaccurately dire portrayal of the health of music retail stores.
"We have very optimistic people that are thriving," he said.
Record store owners said that music retail now involves more than just selling compact discs.
Lisa Teger-Zhen, owner of Uncle Sam's music store in Miami Beach, Fla., said she supplements her music sales with gift items. Music sales make up only about 65 percent of her sales.
"We just try and keep up with the trends," she said. "In order to stay alive you've got to get into the lifestyle stuff to get the good margins, and that's the only way I can continue to buy all the music."
For Paul Epstein, owner of Twist & Shout in Denver, it's all about making his store part of the community. He said he makes television and radio appearances, and maintains an active Internet presence with regular e-mailings.
"You've got to become such a cultural Mecca or cultural validator for your community that you can't go away, that people would be sobbing or begging you not to," he said.
Steve Wiley runs Hoodlums Music on the Arizona State University campus in Tempe - presumably among a demographic noted for its active downloading of music. But he said his store has expanded by feeding off the buzz the Internet can create about music.
"We've never treated the kids like enemies, and we don't talk down to them about downloading or burning," he said. "What we see is if the prices are reasonable, then they will buy CDs. The Internet, file-sharing, the whole digital process that goes on, just makes them music junkies, and it makes them go out and get more music."
