Knights Who Say Neve wrote:For most musicians and music lovers, it's good to have independent record stores. (More choice, less censorship, keeps money in the community, builds the local scene, small businesses more likely to help individual musicians w/consignment sales, and the list goes on.)
OK, I'll agree that musicians and 'music lovers' would prefer to have small independent stores.
I disagree that Best Buy "censors" their selections any more than some mom & pop stores might, but they may well have a more narrow selection. But assuming there is more choice and 'less censorship' then why are the music lovers going to Best Buy at all?
And I agree that we aren't likely to see a 'locals' or 'consignment' area at Best Buy or WalMart. Nor will we see a "used" section, though there are some chains which have these.
So we'll consider mom & pop's strengths to be selection and support of the locals.
I will however, have to disagree on the idea that all the money gets sucked out of the local economy. Some of it does, there's no question there. But when a store that size employs 120 people, and pays taxes on 100x more land than mom & pop, and pays utilities and hires a cleaning service, and advertises in the local paper, and donates stuff to the local schools, then I'm going to have to say that they are putting a lot of money 'back into the community'. Not all of it, and maybe not as much as mom & pop.
Knights Who Say Neve wrote:But, if Best Buy sells the most popular independent releases as loss leaders, it becomes more difficult for independents to stay in business.
I can see where it's easy to make that call, but I think that's going to be in cases where mom & pop aren't playing their strengths.
If mom & pop are really more diversified, and BBY or WMT are really only selling the most popular of the indies, then fine, mom & pop lose out on that batch of sales because their customers have more loyalty to their wallets. Even so, there is now a whole new crop of people hearing the most popular indies, and then they'll going looking for the back-catalog, and mom & pop could see a boost in those areas later if they follow up properly.
And there's still so much that BBY won't have in stock aside from indies. Consider classical, jazz, world music, etc. No, these have never been hot sellers, but mom & pop have to play up their strength of diversity.
As for the economics, well if the sale price is really a loss-leader, and BBY is really taking a hit on those and selling them below mom & pop's price, then mom & pop should pick up a few copies and sell them cheaper than BBY's non-sale price after the sale is over. Hell, they could get in there with their reseller tax ID number and not even pay sales tax on the purchase. This happens all the time. How many times have you seen a grocery store flyer that shows a sale price but says "limit 2 per customer" or "no dealers please"?
Knights Who Say Neve wrote:If the independent goes out of business, music lovers and musicians are worse off.
Therefore, Things that make life hard on independent record stores=BAD.
Well, just saying it doesn't make it so - no matter how hard you believe it.
I happen to agree with you, but if you're gonna call me on rhetoric, I gotta be fair here.
Once upon a time, music lovers might be worse off without their independents, but today so much is traded on the internet, that we would really need to consider the role of the websites and the direct selling by bands and labels as part of the challenge to mom & pop.
And while things that make business tougher on mom & pop also have a funny way of making some mom & pops tougher at business. Musicians too for that matter. If mom & pop can't find their strengths, focus their energy there, and retain their market, then it's truly sad and unfortunate for mom, pop, and their customers as well. But the competition could encourage them to fight a little harder, work a little smarter, and keep their business from stagnating.
Similarly, the local musicians might suddenly find there isn't a local shop where they can stick a pile of CDs to watch them sell off at the staggering rates they're known to. But I always encourage musicians I work with to consider alternatives to the record store. Why try to sell your un-advertised, unknown album in a store where it surrounded by thousands of competitors. But go to other local businesses and ask them to play your CD on their system and stack a few at the counter, and guerilla marketing might just be more successful. There will probably only be a handful of competitve discs at the local skate shop or coffeehouse, or thrift store.
No, I'm fully aware that isn't a suitable replacement for a lost mom & pop, but my point is that adversity breed creativity. At least it used to.
Knights Who Say Neve wrote:Solution- buy your shit at independent stores, and make it clear to anyone possible why you choose to do so. Market through independents and not chain stores like Best Buy. Write letters to Matador or whoever decided to do this. Pressure politicans into enforcing the anti-trust laws. Start requiring corporations to act in an ethical manner. Take a logic class at your local JC and start analysing the local newspaper. Read Orwell's "Politics and the English Language" here:
http://www.resort.com/~prime8/Orwell/patee.html
Finally, a potential solution, albeit one that should be really obvious.
Somewhere back in the nether pages of this thread someone suggested that 'voting with your wallet' is a myth. I disagree, because I've seen it in action.
Some 5 or 6 years ago, the citizens of Saratoga Springs, NY didn't want a Starbucks coffee shop opening in their town. It did, of course, because the local couple who paid the money for the franchise wanted to exercise their free-market rights. Of course, then the citizens voted with their wallets and never showed up. No boycots or pickets or lawsuits or acts of congress, just good ol' fashion word of mouth telling their friends not to go there. The shop closed.
Of course, the humorous anecdote is that when it was replaced by a Peaberry's coffeehouse, the customers charged through the door.
But it really can happen.
I think I mentioned a Sam Goody closing here by me. The little local record shop is still doing fine, the Hastings (another chain) is doing fine, hell, there's even a WalMart in town. And while the local record shop and local book/music store are still there, Sam Goody is out, and the local videogame store bought their console inventory, and the local video store is buying movies to rent. And nobody went to Sam Goody because they had a lousy selection and high prices.
Now as for getting politicians and lawyers involved, I think that's a little extreme, but that's your opinion. Trying to argue anti-trust against
any company involved in selling music is a little ambitious. I mean any one of them will point at their other products and say "we sell more than just music" and they'll point to some other company and say "they sell more music than we do". With BBY, WMT, and then all the other retailers large and small, and then Amazon or iTunes or whatever, that's just not going to happen. And I'd argue that it shouldn't for exactly the reason that there is no monopoly on music retailing.
But this is a great start. Any other suggestions beyond voting with your wallet or convincing congressmen to file anti-trust suits against BBY?
-Jeremy
