Thursday 7th July – The start of a new era ?

Thursday 7th July was actually quite a busy day which made it even more remarkable when I noticed at the end of the day that we had taken more money selling posters, badges, t-shirts, bags and magazines than CDs and vinyl. Unusually we had not sold any DVDs at all. It is clear there is no problem still getting people to spend money on music related products. Our large Foo Fighters posters sell at £15 and kids will happily buy Arctic Monkeys posters three at a time for £3 each. Badges sell by the handful and every week we seem to sell even more bags. Avalanche t-shirts have always sold well but we are now having to order twice a month and the recent Bad Brains, Suicidal Tendencies and Dead Kennedys t-shirts we got in sold like the proverbial hot cakes again at £15. We have sold two Weezer t-shirts in the last two days to two very happy customers indeed. Our old Mojos, Record Collectors etc sell several at a time for £3 each.

On the other hand since tripling the number of vinyl racks we have less customers. Luckily those customers we do have are spending more so we do actually take more money and if we get a visitor in they can easily buy two bags full of vinyl. Last week’s biggest customer was from the Lebanon and spent £165 on everything from a new Belle and Sebastian LP to an old Smiths album. Seven inches seem to have died the death unless they are from PJ Harvey or Mogwai. Second hand CDs tick over nicely and we have a great selection covering all genres but with so many CDs now at £5 new (and just recently more shops going down the FOPP line of £3 for new CDs) you have to sell 6 £2.99 (4 for £10) CDs to match one large poster. New release CDs are fucked. Independent record companies in particular have now woken up to the fact that shops simply can’t sell new releases for pounds more than available online but buying patterns have been established so even if a shop can match Amazon and have a free print it makes little difference.

It has always been the case that “indie” bands would get bigger and “indie” shops would lose that market to HMV / FOPP. However there was always a new crop of bands ready in the wings which is now not the case and the days of “soft” releases are now gone also. We had the first Bon Iver album before HMV even had it for sale. Both the first Vampire Weekend album and the XX album were deliberately kept low key befor being pushed through HMV and Amazon. It has been no surprise therefore that sales of both the new Fleet Foxes and Bon Iver albums have been a lot lower than you might think even with two very nice prints though we will continue to sell them long after they have been consigned to some far flung corner of HMV. Interestingly the Explosions In The Sky album didn’t really cross over so much and we have sold proportionately far more.     

I will assess exactly how we move forward after the Festival. That so many different things are selling well is encouraging and the fact that we are getting more and more youngsters in the shop every week that clearly love their music (even if that doesn’t involve buying it from a shop or at all) is heartening also. More to follow.