The Coalition of Independent Music Stores (CIMS) is a collective of 40 independently owned record stores in 25 states throughout the country. CIMS was the first record store coalition -- founded in 1995. We are co-founding members of Record Store Day  and long time members of the Music Business Association (formerly NARM). We are also the owners of the independent distribution company, ThinkIndie  that we founded in 2002. We are not a chain, but a coalition of locally owned record stores working together for the betterment and support of each other, our industry, the artists we love and the music fans that make this all possible. CIMS works on behalf of our member stores to broker marketing campaigns. We are the liaison between each individual independent store and the artist’s record label. CIMS offers a diverse selection of music marketing programs to promote a variety of artists. We pride ourselves on creative marketing strategies that are based on years of proven results combined with new media technologies. We offer marketing promotions to fit every budget and every artist, but if by some chance we do not have one that fits your needs, we are always up for the challenge to develop a custom designed promotion just for you.

The stores that make up CIMS are all very different, but we share the same desire – to be the heart of our communities, to super-serve our customers and to share our love of music. Our stores are found in major cities, college towns, bustling suburbs and tourist meccas. We range from massive storefronts to hidden neighborhood gems – we can guarantee that no two are alike. You will find deep catalog, rare imports and the broadest music selection available in our stores – we pride ourselves on that.  Many of our stores even carry audio equipment (turntables, speakers, headphones, etc.), music and feature film DVDs, and music paraphernalia such as t-shirts, posters, figurines, and the like. The stores that make up our coalition are consistently honored in “Best Of” record store lists by national publications such as Rolling Stone, Paste Magazine, Pitchfork.com, USA Today, The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal