Best Buy to indies: drop dead

[kayagum]

Pitchforkmedia can be self important and shrill (no, really?), but I thought this was an interesting article:

http://pitchforkmedia.com/news/06-02/23.shtml

Indie and boutique commerce and economics- an ongoing concern...

[;ivlunsdystf]

That is bad news. It is maybe inevitable that a big corp. would find a way to muscle the small guy like that, but it's very disheartening.

Dang.

[bniesz]

cool record stores should have something else up their sleeves besides using Best Buy as the bogeyman.

what about the Indepenent Record Store Union or Collective or whatever it's called.

my local indie store has usually at least about 10 titles that are locally exclusive to that store.

[Professor]

See, I don't see that as disheartening at all.

Best Buy picked up a bunch of discs from small indie labels.
Best Buy paid for the advertising costs involved in printing the discs in their circulars & maybe even running them in TV/radio ads.
Best Buy bought more albums from those tiny labels in one day than all those indie stores probably buy in a year or two.
Best Buy moved the product which means they put the music into the hands of people who will listen to it.
And from the description, it seems like maybe Best Buy did it for little-to-no profit, and maybe even at a loss.

And who are they screwing?
Certainly not the bands, because their music is being heard, and they are moving closer towards chart-status.
Certainly not the music consumer who wanted music from the bands.

So the concern must be that the poor little independent stores who don't advertise for the band, don't promote the discs, and don't buy more than a handful of copies annually are being intentionally "muscled" by a company like Best Buy.
Do you really think Best Buy is sitting around plotting how they might steal 10 or 20 album sales a year away from each local record store that's in a town with a Best Buy? Do you think Best Buy is terrified that the independent record stores are threatening them? Worried enough to pick up a bunch of indie labels when they could just keep selling chart-toppers?
It's not Best Buy that's killing the record stores, and it's not Walmart or any other big bad evil corporation.
It's the fuckin' internet.
Do you really think some 15 year old kid is going to drop $15.99 at the mom & pop store to buy some "hip new band" they have never heard on the radio when they can buy just that "one song they like" for $.99 on iTunes... or just download it for free somewhere else?

And if BB really wants to sell the discs at a loss, why aren't the anti-corporate fanatics cheering? Isn't the big, bad, Best Buy losing money?

Sorry, but if I were in a band that signed onto a label, I would want that label to move my product. And if the indie record stores would advertise and promote and move product, that would be great. But they don't, and these other guys do.
And wouldn't every band you've ever known tell you, "it's not about the money, man, we just want our music to be heard and enjoyed."
Well there ya' go - BB is going to put more music in more ears in a shorter time and without raping the consumer on the price.
Isn't that what every band wants?

-Jeremy

[chris harris]

shocking that the local conservative would side with the big anti-competition corporation! just shocking!

the point is that Best Buy doesn't do this to support indie music. And, they don't do it to help their customers find the indie rock that they so crave... They do it so that they can run the indie stores out of business. And, they don't sell music at a loss because they're fighting the music business powers that be. They sell at a loss so that they can get you into the store to sell you an overpriced T.V. or refrigerator. It's a pretty scuzzy way to do business.

Capitalism is failing society because of the greed of corporations like Best Buy and Wal Mart. What they count on is for people to be so excited about their low prices that they'll completely ignore how they keep them so low.

[;ivlunsdystf]

So, do we want the world to look like the Best Buy parking lot, or would we rather live in a world full of quirky little mom and pop stores?

[chris harris]

corporations used to have an obligation to society... now their only obligation is to the shareholders. even if a decision/policy goes against what's best for society, they're legally obligated to put the shareholder first. it's a broken system. broken from the beginning.
it all starts with the false premise that there's a level playing field to start.
then, later down the line, you have to deal with the fact that corporate greed often leads to more successful companies using their profits to kill off the competition.
and, then, when the big box store is the only option for a community, they can pretty much write the rules in that community.
it's a pretty sick system...... unless you worship money. or, unless you've been drinking the KoolAide for years and years and cannot bring yourself to see that there may be some problems with a system that your corporate-funded government has raised you to believe in.

[Barry Jive]

corporations used to have an obligation to society... now their only obligation is to the shareholders. even if a decision/policy goes against what's best for society, they're legally obligated to put the shareholder first. it's a broken system. broken from the beginning.
it all starts with the false premise that there's a level playing field to start.
then, later down the line, you have to deal with the fact that corporate greed often leads to more successful companies using their profits to kill off the competition.
and, then, when the big box store is the only option for a community, they can pretty much write the rules in that community.
it's a pretty sick system...... unless you worship money. or, unless you've been drinking the KoolAide for years and years and cannot bring yourself to see that there may be some problems with a system that your corporate-funded government has raised you to believe in.

We decide with our dollars.

-Eric

[chris harris]

well, that's an interesting myth. and, if the people with all of the money and power can keep most people without it believing that, then they'll hold on to their money and their power. but, if "voting with your dollars" is our only recourse, then the playing field is even less level than I thought.

most people who shop at Wal Mart, don't choose to because they're super hyped about supporting Wal Mart's world vision. they're there because (thanks to corporations like Wal Mart) their good job has been shipped overseas and they can't afford to shop anywhere else.

[Knights Who Say Neve]

it's a pretty sick system...... unless you worship money. or, unless you've been drinking the KoolAide for years and years and cannot bring yourself to see that there may be some problems with a system that your corporate-funded government has raised you to believe in.

...And it's less and less corporate-funded every year (tax cuts).

Great system- corporations get the control, and we pay for it.

[chris harris]

it's a pretty sick system...... unless you worship money. or, unless you've been drinking the KoolAide for years and years and cannot bring yourself to see that there may be some problems with a system that your corporate-funded government has raised you to believe in.

...And it's less and less corporate-funded every year (tax cuts).

Great system- corporations get the control, and we pay for it.

yeah... I should have said corporate-owned, rather than corporate-funded. hell, we've already reached the threshold where some corporations spend more on lobbying and bribing politicians than they do in taxes.

[;ivlunsdystf]

The Wal-Mart profit margin is considerably less than 1%. Their executives all make way less than executives at comparably huge companies (not counting stock appreciation, which has been pretty crummy lately in the specific case of Wal-Mart)

It's almost like Wal-Mart was bound to happen sooner or later even if no single person stood to benefit greatly from it. I know, the Walton heirs are totally loaded, but now it's almost like Wal-Mart is a de facto government, or an appendage of the government, that sells us basic necessities in exchange for low prices, convenience, and our souls.

Now, thanks to changes in federal law, Wal-Mart is muscling into the banking business. They have already totally redefined the grocery business. Be very afraid, if you don't like them to begin with.

Back to Best Buy: They are struggling too - BECAUSE OF WAL-MART. They are trying to get into more boutique niches with their lifestyle specialty stores because they sense that price wars are becoming a race to the bottom.

Does anybody remember back in the mid-1990s when Best Buy had (for two or three years) the best selection of independent CDs? For a while there they made a huge effort to establish themselves as the source for Matador-type labels. One day in the late 1990s they announced that they weren't happy with their sales in that sector and they quickly cut down to a much smaller inventory of 'safe' artists.

Okay, enough typing for me.

[Professor]

Well it's humorous, humorous I say, to see that the local socialist/communists believe so strongly that those systems will somehow protect the diversity of their arts and culture and defend the profitability of small businesses.
That has certainly been proven everywhere in history, hasn't it?
I mean you gotta figure that China, Russia, Cuba, Nazi Germany, all those places are or were great for supporting the artists. And the current socialist countries in europe are enjoying between 10-20% unemployment with no economic growth.
But I bet the indie-labels there aren't selling their discs for less than they demand.

Really though, put the emotion and the political drivel aside and tell me what you would offer as a solution?
Should the government step in and make a law that no CD ever be sold for less than $12.99? Would requiring record labels to fix their prices help the mom & pops?
Or how about the government saying that no business can ever sell a product at a loss? So if the mom & pop store buys a CD that doesn't sell for 6 months because the ineffective indie label doesn't advertise and promote the band, the little mom & pop store can't sell the product on clearance?
Maybe the government can step in and make sure that indie-labels are not allowed to sell more than 10 copies of any one album to any one business in a one week period?
Maybe they could make a law that wouldn't allow Best Buy or WalMart to buy records from indie labels?

Or maybe they could just shut down Best Buy once and for all and put an end to it?
That would be great, right? Let's put 106,000 people out of work. After all, they are all just greedy corporate pigs... and maybe a handful of minimum-wage slave laborers. But all those slaves would be happily picked up by the mom & pop stores who will pay them double minimum wage with full benefits and retirement.
They deserve it anyway - I mean they are worth about $26bil and only employ 106,000 not like that cool, indie, internet company Google that is worth $111bil while only employing 3500 people. Fuckin' greedy corporate scum.
While we're at it, we can make a law to ban WalMart and put them out of business. Put the 1.7 million people they employ out on the streets. Damn scummy blue-vested traitors that take jobs there for minimum wage instead of working for the cool mom & pop stores who are desparately in need of unskilled labor.

Believe me man, I live in a tiny fly-speck of a town in the middle of nowhere. There are lots of cool, hip, independent mom & pop stores. And there is no price benefit for me as a consumer, and no jobs for better than minimum wage, and certainly not with health benefits or retirement. Oh sure, mom & pop do very well because they know they have a captive audience who would need to travel 75 miles to get to the nearest city for competitive pricing. But they know you won't do that for a hotel room, an apartment, an oil change, a cheeseburger, or a gallon of milk. There's no billionaires in this town, but somehow there are still people that have the money and own the businesses and a bunch of people who can't find a job for better than minimum wage unless they move out.

-Jeremy

[;ivlunsdystf]

Drivel nothing. All I'm saying is that 1. Wal-Mart was bound to happen sooner or later and that 2. Given the choice I'd rather the world not look like a big box parking lot from sea to shining sea.

Those commie states that supported the arts so thoroughly did so only to promote the interests of the state. Sure, they paid the bills for some artists, but only if the ensuing art was acceptable to the heads of state. Unless we are talking about Sweden, where aspiring independent bands can actually apply to the government for grants to pay for their instruments and equipment!

I will keep buying my basic necessities at Sprawl-Mart as I have always done, and I will always feel kind of queasy in their big impersonal stores with their zombie employees plodding around with vacant looks. That's the suburban life that I know and love. This makes me a hypocrite - no need to point that out. I can live with it.

[chris harris]

I never suggested that Socialism or Communism is the answer. I don'k know what the answer is. But, I know that pretending that Capitalism is fair and completely ignoring everything bad about it and chalking it up to "the way it is" doesn't help anyone.

I'm sure that LESS regulation is the answer, right?