OP/ED: WHAT THE DEATH OF THE MUSIC STORE HAS WROUGHT

The following commentary was sent to HITS by a former Tower, National Record Mart and indie store manager who asked not to be identified:

Paul McCartney’s strong first week at terrestrial retail makes a great case that lack of physical presence and convenience of availability have contributed to the decline of CD sales. As more physical retailers close their doors, the consumer is simply doing without.

Although they may never admit it, I think the labels have assumed that the customer would shop elsewhere after the Towers, Musiclands, Wherehouses, etc., were gone. They were wrong. Steps should have been made by the majors nearly a decade ago to ensure the survival of the ‘music store.’ Instead, catalog titles were raised to frontline pricing, frontline pricing was raised from $16.98 to $18.98 and big box retailers were allowed to steamroll over the independent shops—all in the name of a quick buck.

The labels' lack of foresight has been, and still is, astounding. Pricing has been the #1 consumer complaint about CDs for the last 10 years. The only one to address this issue was Universal Music several years ago, when they attempted to lower CD prices at the expense of co-op dollars. Unfortunately, the retailers were so heavily dependent on these funds that to take them away would have probably spelled a quicker death.

We're nearly at the halfway point of 2007, and the market is down 16% year-to-date. It might be interesting to look at how much marketshare Tower had during the first six months of 2006. I would guess its demise has been responsible for at least 8-10% of the market's downfall.