Re: A small bright spot in the classical retail biz

Date: Sat, 10 May 2003 02:54:14 GMT
Newsgroups: rec.music.classical.recordings
Size: 2,243 bytes

Jon Bell wrote in message ...
>My favorite independent record store in upstate South Carolina (OK, there
>aren't that many of them), Horizon Records in Greenville, has vacated the
>small building that they've rented for many years (since before I moved
>here in 1985) on the outskirts of town. They now own a somewhat larger
>building in an area which is apparently starting to see serious commercial
>redevelopment, near both downtown Greenville and a thriving in-town
>residential district.
>
>Unlike the old store, the new one has a separate classical room, reversing
>the trend of nearly every other store I've visited in the past few years
>either eliminating the classical room or making other genres share the
>space. The stock isn't large by big-city standards, but it's rather high
>quality. My first purchase in the new store yesterday was the new "Baltic
>Voices" choral disc on Harmonia Mundi, with the Estonian Philharmonic
>Chamber Choir conducted by Paul Hillier.
>
Oddly enough, there is also a success story in Motown.
A local chain of shops, Harmony House, which had been founded just after
World War II, announced it was going out of business last year--for most of
the usual reasons, especially former customers downloading of music instead
of purchasing it.
They had about 50 stores in Michigan. All of them had a small classical
section, but there was the jewel of the chain, THE classical store.
I have about 3,000 classical and opera CDs, at least half of them purchased
there since 1996 (I was a late adopter of the digital revolution). I was
there several times per month and always bought something. Sometimes it was
just a single CD. Sometimes several. Often enough boxfuls.
The sales at the Harmony House classical store after the going out of
business stories hit were quite amazing, as you can imagine. They were so
successful that the owners of the chain decided to keep two stores open--the
classical one and one other.
The inventory isn't as deep as it once was and a lot of the part time sales
guys and gals aren't there, but they still a LOT more stock than most places
I have been in over the past several years.
I realize that this is only a small bright spot in the ever encroaching
darkness.