Re: (TV) Amazon.com

[Michael <michael@recordsnyc.com>]

  Philip wrote:

  The internet's biggest toll hasn't been on mom-n-pop stores

    Sorry Philip, but I beg to differ. It's not just me who feels the pinch
of the internet but most of my competitors who I am friendly with. This
didn't just happen overnight. I can hear it in the conversations of some of
my customers. Case in point is the Beefheart "Grow Fins" collection that I
mentioned yesterday. Heck, I've even bought copies of Marquee Moon on CD
from Amazon when my distributors were out of stock. They sell them $2.00
cheaper than I do but they do not plug it the way that I do, so I need to
have it in my store at all times regardless of the profit margine. The point
is that I can still order it from Amazon and still make a profit from it.
I'm sure that there are those people who read my praises of MM and say "let
me see how much Amazon is selling it for. But more than Amazon now we have
sites like Napster and MP3 which are going to annilate the CD industry.
That's already in progress. That not only includes the bootlegs but the
major labels and indi's as well. At this point I'm considering getting rid
of one of my CD racks and putting in another bin for LP's which is still a
viable market from kids to grown ups. Vinyl has made a major upswing in
these last few years. Just look how many of the majors have begun releasing
vinyl again. Even Rhino Records, the first to bail out(remember their slogan
"Save The Vinyl") now they've begun re-issuing all these classic LP's on
180g vinyl like Blank Generation, the first 4 Ramones LP's, Beefheart's WB's
catalog, and get ready because Marquee Moon is on it's way. So they know as
well that vinyl is the only way for them to start making money again. I
don't know if it'll ever get back to the old vinyl format, it's a nice
thought, but with CD's and computers in alot of homes now it's alot cheaper
to just download it. Only the serious music lover will want the entire
package be it vinyl or CD. For the vast majority, it's the music that
they're mainly interested in. So the Internet alone is killing the music
industry. And though it's biggest toll may not be on the mom & pop shops it
still has taken a sizeable chunk out of our sales. Luckily for stores like
mine Amazon doesn't sell vinyl or collectable ephemera. Not yet anyway. M T
C

--------------
To post: Mail tv@obbard.com
To unsubscribe: Mail majordomo@obbard.com with message "unsubscribe tv"