Vetteman94 said:
The downfall of the music store in malls had more to do with competition and pricing than dwindling CD sales. With internet sites like Amazon and B&M stores Wal-Mart, Best Buy and the now defunct Circuit City, offering better prices with the same broad selection of titles available, thats the reason why alot of your music stores in malls shut down. But if you knew anything about the industry you would already know that. As for your last point, I did fine 2 music stores at the 2 malls nearest to my house. SO I dont kow what you are talking about |
OK, so I know this argument is several weeks old, but this thread only gets the occasional update, so what the h.
People spent far less money on CDs across the board, which crippled the industry. If you understood the industry, you would know that Best Buy, Walmart, et al sold "loss leader" CDs, but that their selection, short product shelf life, and product knowledge was vastly inferior to actual CD stores, which is why those stores still existed, until the bottom dropped out. It didn't hurt the big boys becuase they were never really making money on the CDs in the first place, so they switched to other product. "National Record Mart" couldn't exactly switch from music so easily, and well, that's the result. I'm really not going to waste many more of my own words arguing with someone who clearly doesn't understand just how badly the music industry, and especially physical media sales, have been hurt by mp3s, so here's a wiki quote:
"In the 21st century, consumers spent far less money on recorded music than they had in 1990s, in all formats. Total revenues for CDs, vinyl, cassettes and digital downloads in the world dropped 25% from $38.6 billion in 1999 to $27.5 billion in 2008 according to IFPI. Same revenues in the U.S. dropped from a high of $14.6 billion in 1999 to $10.4 billion in 2008. The Economist and The New York Times report that the downward trend is expected to continue for the foreseeable future[6][7] —Forrester Research predicts that by 2013, revenues in USA may reach as low as $9.2 billion.[6] This dramatic decline in revenue has caused large-scale layoffs inside the industry, driven retailers (such as Tower Records) out of business and forced record companies, record producers, studios, recording engineers and musicians to seek new business models.[8]"
"Digital Sales Surpass CDs at Atlantic"
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/26/business/media/26music.html?_r=1
"Last year was terrible for the recorded-music majors. The next few years are likely to be even worse."
http://www.economist.com/node/10498664
Knopper, Steve (2009). Appetite for Self-Destruction: the Spectacular Crash of the Record Industry in the Digital Age. Free Press. ISBN 1416552154.