midnightlemon
The Fly
On Black Friday, I was fortunate enough to get myself a copy of Wide Awake in Europe, but it wasn't easy. And as I went through the process, I realized how all these indie shops are missing the point of Record Store Day (RSD). The purpose of the day is to help bring customers into record stores, and get them to come back another time. But it seems many stores don't understand that they must first help themselves.
I live in the Philadelphia area so I'm only speaking on behalf of the shops near me. I "researched" about 25 different stores in the city of Philadelphia, Philly suburbs, Delaware, and South Jersey to prep myself to get this release. But as I was on my quest to find out who carried this EP and where I could get it, a lot of things came to mind about why RSD can't help record stores.
I live in the Philadelphia area so I'm only speaking on behalf of the shops near me. I "researched" about 25 different stores in the city of Philadelphia, Philly suburbs, Delaware, and South Jersey to prep myself to get this release. But as I was on my quest to find out who carried this EP and where I could get it, a lot of things came to mind about why RSD can't help record stores.
- Poor (or lack of) websites and information
Some record stores listed on the RSD's website didn't even have websites of their own. Nowadays, with the tons of website creation tools or the plethora of web designers out there, there's no excuse not to have a website. Most that did have a "website" listed was just a link to a Myspace page, which I can't call a website. Some that had "real" websites listed were just plain awful and listed no information. Some were just plain weird, like this one. For the few non-Myspace websites that did exist, most of them were horribly outdated. Out of the 25 stores in my area, only two stores even mentioned RSD on their sites, and one mentioned that it was carrying the U2 EP. But even that one store that mentioned it had the U2 release didn't post its hours, so I had no idea when they were opening and by the time I contacted them at 10 am, they had already sold out. Some places I called that morning didn't even answer their phones and didn't have automated messages or voice mail either.
[*]Letting customers continue to shop online
Back to the website issue, the only thing worse than a Myspace page as your website is an eBay page as your website. One shop's homepage as listed on RSD's webpage was their eBay page. No mention of their location, phone number, or anything on their page. A few stores in my area who did get the U2 EP put it right onto eBay and didn't even bother selling it in their stores. People say that internet sales are one reason that record shops are declining, but these shops seem to be part of the problem.
[*]Not being "in the know"
About half of the stores I called that morning had no idea of the U2 release I was talking about. One store even said "Um... Record Store Day isn't till April... so... yeah... we don't have that." Another store said they didn't have it in stock, but would order it for me if I emailed them. Clearly they didn't know what I was talking about either, since any store who was selling one of the 5000 copies already had them in and they weren't getting anymore.
[*]Poor customer service
I called one shop that morning asking if they had the U2 EP and I was told "NO! We ordered them, and we got them, and... you're like the 30th person to call here today!" *I hang up.* The store where I got the EP sold it for $50, and I told the lady most were selling it for $10-20. She was very nice, but tried to justify her price by saying that Universal told her she could sell it for how ever much she wanted, and that she decided to charge that much as opposed to putting it right onto eBay (as if she was doing us a favor). Apparently I was ripped off just as much as everyone else.