The Rough Trade Record Store In The UK To Expand While Others Fail

[DudeAsInCool]

This is kind of an interesting business development, but I think they are smart if they mirror what Amoeba does in the states:

"From big chains such as Music Zone, which collapsed in January, to tiny independents such as Covert, in Brighton, which closed its doors last month, record shops are failing across the country. Sales of CDs have dropped by 11% over the past year, as both legal and illegal downloading continue to grow. HMV, Britain’s biggest music retailer, has issued two profits warnings in the past year, and even Tesco, with the second biggest share of the music market, has admitted that it doesn’t make money on the CDs it sells. But the Rough Trade team is confident the store will succeed.

Rough Trade’s store director, Stephen Godfroy, believes that the market is increasingly polarised between supermarkets and music specialists, with high-street record shops losing money by being stuck in the middle. He hopes the new Rough Trade shop will attract richer or more committed music-lovers who treat record shopping as a pastime, enjoy owning albums as artefacts and are willing to pay more than supermarket prices for hard-to-find records sold by knowledgeable staff."

Read more at The UK Times Online