Our stocking policy – we did try !
A few people have complained that we don’t stock new releases or at least “the new releases they want”. I know exactly what they mean especially in reference to shops like the excellent Piccadilly in Manchester. When we moved to the Grassmarket I made a very conscious decision to stock more leftfield, unusual, obscure (pick your own word) titles. I even gave them a prominent position in the shop rather than get lost in the racks.
We had all the recommended titles from Cargo, Forte, Southern, Shellshock etc and truth is they just didn’t sell. Bands like Thee Oh Sees have been mentioned that we had in stock and in particular I remember the Peaking Lights album “936” that we stocked twice each time it was released and again it just didn’t sell. Thankfully the stock was SOR but we ended up sending back thousands of pounds of stock to our suppliers.
Similarly the bands I would say were more popular down south I stocked on the basis we had lots of students and visitors but again they didn’t sell. One Sunday a customer who had arranged to meet a friend in the shop, and it later transpired was just visiting from London, browsed for quite a while as his friend was late and ended up buying a dozen or so titles. He was our one success.
We have of course had success with labels like Gizeh Records in Leeds and we are currently supporting the Last Harbour album on the Manchester label Little Red Rabbit so we are not unknown for supporting labels and bands that are both small and not Scottish !
im a big Avalanche fan so dont get me wrong but i was dissapointed when the new Bill Wells album was not in on the day of his Edinburgh show last christmas – turns out i found it the next day at Fopp so obviously it was already released on the domino sublabel doublesix. to me he is one of the finest artists the scottish music scene has to offer.
very sad to hear the shop will close but i know all too well the way the record business has gone.
To be honest I can’t remember the reason for that. We would have of course stocked a Bill Wells album. In the “old days” a rep would always make sure you had stock for when an artist was in town but then as the artists started to sell themselves it didn’t matter and now of course there are no reps to visit anyway. Given FOPP is owned by HMV it is very easy for them to stock whatever they want in large quantities if they want as they don’t have to pay for it the way we do. If they were operating on equal terms with the independent shops they wouldn’t still be in business. Last December the very month you mention HMV had 15 million pounds worth of debt written off in return for a percentage of HMV. They were also granted consignment ie here is some stock see if you can sell it and we’ll sort the money out later. They had lost any insurance against non payment and for some reason the independent labels were first to sign up to take the risk of giving HMV stock. It is indeed ironic that HMV/FOPP have always called for a level playing field with Amazon while demanding ridiculously better terms for themselves compared to independents.
I think you’re maybe missing the point. I don’t see how you can make a conscious decision to sell more obscure bands, and then complain that they don’t sell. I also don’t see why it has to be one or the other; why not stock both genuinely popular releases as well as your more unusual stock. That way you keep everyone happy and attract both a wider range, and more importantly a larger number, of people to the shop. Surely part of the problem arises in that less and less people are buying music, whilst your shop is becoming more and more niche. The two simply aren’t compatible.
I used to come into the shop a lot when it was on Cockburn St, and equally spent a lot of money there as there was a lot of stock I liked. Each time I visited since the move, there’s been less and less there that I’ve liked, and consequently I’ve spent less and visited less. I don’t mean this as an attack, as I loved Avalanche and still like to think I do, and I really don’t want to see the shop go. But I really don’t think you’ve helped yourself with some of these decisions.
We did stock these releases in addition to what might be called our “usual” new releases. What we have found and the national figures confirm this is that sales have dropped dramatically in the last couple of years in all quarters. Whereas 200 might have been considered low now it is 50 for national sales figures. We also found that whether a title sold depended quite heavily on how much effort had been put into selling directly by either the label or the band something a shop is never told when trying to gauge an order. I’m very happy to get comments like yours and in no way see it as an attack.
Selling stockings… there’s an idea…
Do you get much business in the shop as a result of mentioning stuff on here/FB/twitter? If I saw a list of the new releases in stock the following week that would make me more likely to come in to the shop. I know sometimes it does happen already but not sure how regularly.
On a tangent there have been a couple of times this year I’ve come in to get something I would ‘expect’ to be in stock and not been able to get it. Having seen Rachel Sermanni instore I thought it would be a safe bet to get her album but I think the initial stock had sold out, and someone else (can’t remember who) that suggested people buy their album from Avalanche and other indie shops, but then it wasn’t actually in stock.
I do prefer to buy music in a shop but things like that make it easier just to order stuff online
Rachel’s album is a good example of shops being at a disadvantage. It was very expensive and both ourselves and Coda were selling it for £11.99. HMV/FOPP had it at £10 and you could buy a limited version from Rachel’s site for £10 too. We got a poster saying order here !
Is there generally a minimum of orders of a particular title you can place with your suppliers? I must admit to my ignorance when it comes to this aspect of running the shop, but I was very surprised that you didn’t appear to be stocking the PAWS album the last time I was in. Surely that would have shifted without problems given the large amount of press they’ve been getting, regardless of any pre-release date sales by the band/label?
We often sell next to nothing if a bigger local band has a launch before the release date. We sold no Found CDs at all week of release and they are a big band for us. Most interest was in the PAWS vinyl and we did get that in as quickly as it was available which was quite late and their label seemed to be selling it several days before.