Straight to Plan B then

I’ve always had mixed feelings about the coffee shop but when it works well it works very well indeed especially at busy in-stores. However during rainy windswept midweeks we would be reliant on the coffee addicts of Red Dog together with their love of Rocky Road. I was going to call it a day after the Festival as the plan had always been to relocate the main counter to the coffee counter if we weren’t really generating enough income as the space is quite valuable. However one of our customers distraught that he might lose buying “the best cup of coffee in the Grassmarket” offered to take it over. Since he had experience of running coffee shops it seemed right to give it another go. However as I was having second thoughts about somebody making a hefty investment that could easily not pay off I was also offered a large collection of vinyl that would fill the very space moving the counter would free up. This just after a poor rainy Tuesday had been saved at the end of the day by a customer visiting from China buying 18 second hand albums (everything from Phil Collins and Rod Stewart to U2, Zappa and Sinatra).

I’ve only mentioned this to a few people and already I’ve been asked if I can keep the ever popular cakes and I supose that is a possibility. A free cup cake with each copy of Emily Scott’s new album maybe ? Anyway whether the deal for the large collection comes off or not it seems to make far more sense to fill that space with vinyl either in one go or gradually. My joiner will be in to extend the cult and classic European DVD racking this week and I’ll discuss the logistics with him then.

I’m a great believer in giving customers what they want which is why we went with sourcing more posters and more recently t-shirts and there certainly seems to be a market for the European DVDs too. It helps greatly that my supplier has an expert knowledge of this field and provides all the DVDs.

Avalanche started off selling second hand vinyl before we got accounts firstly with independent distributors and then the majors so we are in a way returning to our roots. Before that I made the money to set up our first shop by selling 80’s merchandise at Ingliston market so we have indeed come full circle. More on this and the decline of new releases tomorrow.