opening up a recordshop where no recordshop has been before

ok maybe there have been a couple of recordshops around and from what i know one still is but im comming with the heat

anyway the question is if anyone has any experience with any vinyl distributor in europe any recos id pretty much appreciate it

please dont say juno/chem/discogs nono.

best ive found is vinyl-distribution.com but the pricing is about the same as the major shops only advantage would be the 10% off deal they made me.

thoughts?

my friend used own a record shop here and found southern distribution very good to deal with: http://www.srd.co.uk/

but he had to close it. beware, owning an independent record shop in 2011 is some difficult, heartbreaking shit.

Record shops in 2011 = how to bankrupt yourself in two years

Yeah, opening a recordshop these days is financial suicide.

Perhaps getting vinyl delivered to Romania is more expensive and more trouble than buying it at a local shop.

I'd love to stay updated on your progress, mrajh, more power to you and best of luck.

romania is a member of the EU, which means it's a LOT less hassle and less expensive with import duty etc. than if it wasn't.

but my local HMV sells more DVDs than CDs now. i think the success of an independent record shop depends on it being in a large enough city. even dublin here saw three very old and respected stores close in the last two years.

i think the only way you could keep a record shop going today is by viewing a record as a collectible and selling it alongside other collectibles, vintage clothing, posters, shit like that. and only stock records that are physically beautiful items, not manky 2nd hand cds or anything like that

  On 2/16/2011 at 8:45 PM, mrajh said:

im comming with the heat

I wish you best of luck on your endeavors but you should really get that looked at first.

  On 2/16/2011 at 9:12 PM, kaini said:

romania is a member of the EU, which means it's a LOT less hassle and less expensive with import duty etc. than if it wasn't.

 

but my local HMV sells more DVDs than CDs now. i think the success of an independent record shop depends on it being in a large enough city. even dublin here saw three very old and respected stores close in the last two years.

you sure about that? maybe with cds and vinyl.. but don't ever ship a synth there.

it will only work if he is selling old/rare wax that is in demand

new /reissue-not so much

Yeah, I don't see a record shop working out too well anymore and Romania doesn't seem like the place where people would buy records if they could get it for free from the internets.

  On 2/16/2011 at 9:24 PM, mafted said:

you sure about that? maybe with cds and vinyl.. but don't ever ship a synth there.

from the states?

it only applies if you ship within the EU (ie both sender country and destination country)... and SRD are in the UK

1. INCREDIBLY CHEAP ROMANIAN INTERNET

2. TORRENT EVERYTHING

3. ?????

4. PROFIT

You can open them, depends where you live and the market you go for. My friend opened his second one a while ago - luckily for me, I'm fortunate enough to live in Brighton, which still has tons of GREAT independant record shops. Sure, a lot of the time they might be a bit more expensive than online, but I'd much rather go in and have a chat with whoever's working about tunes than rely just on the internet for info. It's good to have a little local scene and it's a much nicer vibe than sitting in front of a computer, playing the play button on a list of streaming clips from the internet.

However, I think you'd be foolish to open one in a place that has a poor club scene/DJ culture, and to not use Discogs as well as selling in person.

truthfully i guess gettin vinyls from the internet is less of a hassle than it used to be but a lot of the small packages end up lost in the 'border station'[?] so my bet is on people opting for a live store where they can see/listen to the disk and browse in a shop downtown for about the same price rather than waiting for weeks at a time if not more. the shop will also sell loads of different stuff from slipmats to all kinds of clothing accesories you get the idea

ive been watching lost for a while now and after i said im coming with the heat im really feeling this case of instaflu

also romania has a great club scene

i will def look into southern record distribution and the reason im refusing to go with discogs is because ive put it in the same sack with juno and chem which from my understanding are online stores which i figured means i would get a better deal from a distributor

amirite

the only thing i'd add is that SRD are reliable, but a little slow with shipping.

best bet wold be to have a multi-faceted shop with interesting things besides records, like good books. perhaps turn it into a screening venue where you show rare and funky movies for a few $ to keep things going. perhaps a cafe along side other things. main point is, if you have only music perpare for hard times, because like .1% of the population by music these days (not exact, but very little) yet people are still buy 'things' in droves... great luck!

  On 2/17/2011 at 12:44 AM, spike said:

best bet wold be to have a multi-faceted shop with interesting things besides records, like good books.

agreed. if you could sort of market the shop as 'a place where connoisseurs can buy nice and rare things' then it might do well. but i wouldn't hold out great hope for 'just a record shop'.

seems like a very bad idea to me.

do you mean there are no comparible businesses in the whole of romania? or just in your area?

lol i had this crazy idea of doing a graphic design+ label+ record store company with some friends

but seeing that every record store in the area went busto (even Music Man wtf) we stopped dreaming

  On 2/17/2011 at 12:35 AM, mrajh said:

i will def look into southern record distribution and the reason im refusing to go with discogs is because ive put it in the same sack with juno and chem which from my understanding are online stores which i figured means i would get a better deal from a distributor

amirite

Well no shit! You don't buy from a shop then sell it on!

Tbh, if you don't realise basic business skills, you might want to reconsider going into the retail industry!

You should do your research, look into different distributors each will have a selection of labels, here's another distributor: http://www.cargorecords.co.uk/contact

With any business you have to get on to your suppliers books, sometimes you can form good deals with them but thats more when you're handling larger profits and stock.

buy high, sell low.

no wait...

music is free, enough with the bullshit.