I learned via ffanatic that the local indie/import/rarity music store is going out of business. I was saddened to hear this, until I really thought about it.
Crow’s Nest has been slowly dying for years. Besides being tied (rumours, mind you) to drug trade, its selection of music has been slipping. Even years ago, with even weirder tastes than I have now, I had a hard time finding the albums I wanted, even though they purportedly stocked a wide variety of imports, rare albums, and metal. There was a time, about a year or so ago, when my friends and I decided that even Best Buy stocked a better collection of music than Crow’s Nest did.
I went yesterday for their liquidation sale, and even looking for relatively normal stuff (Ben Christophers, Anekdoten, Silver Mount Zion, Ulver), I found zip. I finally stumbled upon some Sondre Lerche and Rufus Wainwright.
The fact of the matter is, Crow’s Nest’s prices (in order to clear their relatively high overhead) were pretty steep (I saw a normal copy of NIN’s Pretty Hate Machine for $23.98), but their inventory as a traditional brick & mortar store was limited and slow-moving. They just couldn’t compete with a) the more powerful Best Buy and b) giants like Amazon.com, where you get a much better selection, for the same or cheaper price, and very rarely is the item out of stock. Before yesterday, I hadn’t bought an item for Crow’s Nest in so long I can’t even remember.
What does this say for the future of brick & mortar stores like this? Places like Blockbuster are leaning in the direction of online distribution á la Netflix and keeping a wary eye on fledling broadband distribution systems (on the one hand, people like being able to download XviD rips of television shows and movies, but at the same time, everyone loves their losses DVD9s). For entertainment, we might be seeing the death-knell of physical stores as we know them.
Maybe that’s not such a bad thing. Anyone who’s ever tried to return on item to Best Buy on Decemeber 26th can attest to that.
The death of physical stores would be a step foreward, in my opinion.
The loss of Crow’s Nest, to me, is stronger more for the emotional weight the store carries. I had been going to the store for time out of mind, and when I started listening to heavy music seriously (but before being able to purchase stuff from the end records/amazon on my own), it was the only place I could pick up a lot of the music I listened to. But their selection, as you pointed out, has been deteriorating as of late, and despite having some great finds at the store, their closing was, as you said, more or less inevitable. The fact is that amazon and similar online stores can get you the same stuff but cheaper, even after shipping. Crow’s Nest either had to lower their prices or improve their selection, and they were unable to do either, and now they’re closing.
What’s this? No calls for government subsidies? No populist cries for anti-monopoly regulations? Do I detect acceptance of market-driven realities in capitalism?
Methinks you’ve mistaken me for a dyed-in-the-wool neoliberal stereotype. I’m more of a classical liberal, at least when it comes to economics.