In this chapter:
- What is music retail?
- What do music retailers do?
- What you need to know
- Different types of music retail outlet
- Different types of job
- Highs and lows
- Getting in the door
What Is Music Retail?
Music retail is the sale of records, in shops, to the general public. Not only has working in this field proved a most fertile breeding ground for some of the top record company execs and music journos of today, but it can also offer an exciting and important career in its own right if you take it further than the Christmas job.
Once upon a sepia-tinted time all music retailers were independent, innocent and not especially commercially-minded music-lovers with a steady business. Then, in the
, along came Our Price, a new breed of music retailer that stocked in bulk and sold at low prices. Their aggressive market stance changed everything.
Nowadays CDs and other music products are sold in more places than they ever have been. As well as the independent specialist record stores that always have the coolest carrier bags, the scowliest staff and were immortalised in the film High Fidelity, we now buy CDs from the internet, supermarkets and garages.
As well as CDs, many shops also sell videos, DVDs, computer games, calendars, t-shirts, music magazines, concert tickets, and even audio equipment like personal stereos and DJ gear.
Retailers pay record companies/distributors a ‘dealer price’ for CDs. This can vary but is always somewhere between what the record company has paid to make the CD and what a customer will pay for it, i.e. the retail price. Dealer prices are the subject of almost all communication between retailers and their suppliers. For the retailer, the difference between the dealer and retail prices is their all-important profit margin.
What Do Music Retailers Do?
Stock Control
Orders for stock are placed by the shop staff either by phone to a distributor’s telesales staff (see Chapter 3), to a visiting sales rep, or through the EROS in-store ordering computer system which is linked up to the distributor. Some stores also order from wholesalers – organisations that service smaller outlets with smaller
of stock from many different labels and distributors (‘Only one copy of the new Limp Bizkit please, this is Hay-on-Wye after all’).
The ability to spot the gaps in your repertoire, and conversely, when to delete from stock, is important. This can be a tricky aspect of the job. How to satisfy demand for a new title without grossly over-ordering? Getting the balance right in terms of diversity of stock and striking the right buy-in versus turnover ratio (i.e. how many you order versus how many you’ll sell) is an art.
Stock Processing
This is basically filling the racks. It can be fun when you’re handling brand new titles, but tedious when it’s the 200th
Carpenters Best Of you’ve handled that year. New releases are delivered the Friday before the release date and retailers are under strict instructions not to display or sell them before then. The retailers then stick the price labels on and ‘process’ or rack them.
Store Displays
This means assembling any new ‘point of sale’ material: dumpbins, posters, etc. In the case of the chainstores, this point of sale material – as well as matters such as shelf space and display (or ‘racking’) of CDs – has been organised in advance with the record company, which strikes mutually beneficial deals over it. Yes, it is all a little shady . . .
Faulty Product And Returns
Most retailers send back to the distributor/record company a certain amount of ‘returns’, i.e. CDs that haven’t
. This will include faulty goods that have been returned to the shop by the customer.
Other Duties
These include selling to the customer at the counter, balancing up at the end of the day and keeping the counter tidy and useable.
Different Types Of Music Retail Outlet
- Specialist chains: HMV, Virgin, MVC, Fopp
- Multiples: chain stores for whom music is just one of several types of goods, e.g. Borders, WHSmith, Wool-worths
Things You Need To Know
Practices like piracy, illegal downloading and CD burning have hit retailers harder than anyone else in the music industry. Unlike record companies, they don’t have many other avenues (like downloads, licensing, synch, ring-tones, computer games, etc.) to fall back on to make extra money. As the daily unit turnover (i.e. the amount of records sold per day) drops, it becomes like trying to sell bread when there’s a bloke in a balaclava giving it away free on the corner of the street.
Year after year, music specialists also lose more and more custom to supermarkets, multiples and chains (see above). (Next time you think of buying the new Sean
at Sainsbury’s - don’t! Get it from the little shop round the corner with all the posters in the window.)
Many independent stores therefore survive by:
- specialising in the kind of product customers can’t get at supermarkets or copy from friends. They will ditch the chart albums and specialise in dance music for example, filling the racks with rare releases and imports from small labels that fans go bananas for, but larger chains won’t look twice at unless a customer actually comes in and pleads for it.
- offering better customer choice and service. They can’t compete with their larger rivals on price - they aren’t in a position to negotiate discounts from record companies because they don’t buy enough, so they try to offer superior service instead.
‘With the emergence of the “no-margin”, chart-product-only supermarket approach, the independents are falling back on older artists who have had earlier material remastered and enhanced with extra tracks and visual media,’ explains veteran music retailer Paul Lloyd (see Case Study). ‘This is enabling them to persuade the enthusiast to part with his money again for an even richer experience than his initial one, and to broaden the minds of the younger enthusiast.’
However, lest we start thinking the non-indie stores have it too easy, it’s worth noting that they are feeling the pinch too. Recent years have seen US giants Tower Records pull out of the UK due to lack of business, the
Andy’s chain go into administration and Australian chain Sanity (which bought Our Price – remember them?) closed its 110 stores here after just two years.
Different Types Of Jobs In Music Retail
Sales Assistant
This includes stock control and stock processing, serving customers, answering enquiries and working on store displays. In an independent store your enthusiasm for music will be more appreciated than in a chain as you’ll often be the single point of contact for the customer, and you’re likely to have regulars who’ll want to discuss everything from old Cure b-sides to Sting’s appearance on Parkinson.
Also your knowledge of music and a good memory will be valuable with regard to stock enquiries – you won’t have the computer systems of a chain where most enquiries can be dealt with by tapping on a keyboard. You’ll also be expected to help out wherever needed in the shop, rather than stick to the one designated task you’d probably be assigned by a chain.
Buyer
This is the member of staff in charge of ordering up and stocking the shop with music of a certain genre – with bigger stores there’ll be a dance buyer, a rock buyer, a jazz buyer, a world buyer, a folk buyer, a classical buyer . . . The amount ordered depends on how many copies they think the shop will sell.
Head Buyer
Chains and supermarkets will normally have one of these for every genre of music, working usually from a central
, seeing record company reps and buying various amounts of stock for distribution to stores around the country.
Shop Manager
This involves acting as a buyer, seeing reps, organising promotional events such a signings and live gigs and generally ensuring the smooth day-to-day running of the premises.
Owner
Same as the manager but can be more hands-off, and concentrate on expanding the business. Most managers/owners spend less than one day per week on the shop floor dealing directly with customers.
Highs And Lows
HighsYou’re literally surrounded by music all day. You get to hear all the new releases as soon as they are out. There’s no better place to launch into a career elsewhere in the music industry, as you’ll gain a knowledge of music and its consumers as broad as the Nile and end up knowing more about the current music scene than many A & R managers. Music retail attracts a wide and vibrant mix of individuals and is often a lot of fun to work in.
Lows
Job security can be shaky. Working weekends is often unavoidable. Plus, as with all shop work, you’ll be on your feet most of the day and the job can be tedious.
Getting In The Door
You’ll need:
- an in-depth knowledge of at least one genre of music, and an awareness of musical trends
- good customer skills like patience and tolerance
- the ability to be methodical and good with systems.
High-street stores regularly advertise staff vacancies in their windows or on a vacancy board. Demand for staff increases enormously during busy trading periods like Christmas.
In addition to regular jobs, many of the chains and multiples also offer structured training schemes for various levels. HMV, for example, offer:
- Basic two-week work experience slots for secondary school pupils in their record stores.
- Foundation Modern Apprenticeship for school leavers which can result in a full-time job at the end.
- Graduate scheme: a year’s training based in two separate stores learning initially in the first store about the various operations of the store and what all the staff do, and then learning about management in the second store. An assistant manager role usually follows thereafter. A degree and a certain amount of flexibility required. Fifty places are available per year, and start dates are in April and September.
Apply online at www.hmvcareers.co.uk
Those interested in graduate jobs at Virgin should send their CV and a letter outlining their areas of interest to head office (see Useful Addresses). Details of in-store vacancies can be obtained from the shop manager.
Alternatively, make friends with the staff in your local independent store (naturally, being a music fan you’ll be in there every Saturday having a snoop around at the new releases anyway, right?). Let them know you’re looking for work, and you know your stuff (that should be obvious already, right?). Take an interest in what they do. Ask how their day’s going. Ask what’s flying off the shelves at the moment.
A lot of people start in music retail with a view to moving into distribution, manufacture, and even A & R. If you want it to be, the world of music retail can be a stepping stone to another part of the entertainment industry or media.
You may, however, dream of managing or even owning your own store – in this case your shop-floor experience as an employee will need to be supplemented by grit, determination and steely self-discipline as well as astute business acumen.
The British Association of Record Dealers (BARD) is a well-respected and vociferously campaigning trade or-
ganisation for retailers and wholesalers of music, video, DVD and multimedia products (see Useful Addresses). Its website, www.bardltd.org offers a very handy online database of record stores plus facts, figures and stats about record retailing that, as well as giving you a good overview of the business, will also impress employers.