Hi Everyone,

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving. We just wrapped another Black Friday and a very successful one (the best ever for some stores) from most reports I have seen. As usual, I wanted to include a roundup of the day's accounts from our CIMS stores. See those and the charts below.

Andrea

Waterloo Records – Austin, TX

Greetings Everyone,

It was a cool, crisp Black Friday dawn here in Austin when we arrived here at 6:45am. Our first in line was a family of vinyl lovers, that arrived at 3am -- Dad w/ his sockless son and daughter, who didn't regret their wardrobe omission, or complain about their cold feet. We counted 68 folks in line at 7am, which grew to 125 at our 8am opening. Then by 8:20, we had 'busted' the line and admitted 165 folks inside the store. This was down a bit, as last year at that point, we had about 200 shoppers.

Fortunately, though, our turnout was incredibly strong all day long, and our sales for the day were up 10+% over 2023, for Waterloo's highest sales volume ever on Black Friday! Small Business Saturday's sales were also up, aided by robust online sales, for a combined Fri/Sat sales bump of 9% over 2023. Overall, we had a 93% ROI through the weekend, with 39% of our original buy-in left to sell.

Now here's where I sound like a broken record: No one, not the distributors, one-stops, or stores want to be left owning any RSD titles long after the event, but we clearly need to find a better way to anticipate the demand for featured titles, especially now that pressing plants are caught up. I count 8 sold out titles this year on our top sellers report where our order was allocated. That's about 25% of our best sellers. That said, because we stock every RSD title, we unfortunately still had 12 titles with no sales this past weekend. On the other hand, we sold out of 45 titles, or again, about 25%, and 8 of those were allocated best sellers.

Big thanks first and foremost to the incredible team here at Waterloo Records! Everyone here did a fantastic job ordering, organizing, receiving, pricing, stocking, promoting, and selling the 175+ RSD Black Friday titles. Thanks of course also go out to the artists that wrote and recorded the music, and the managers, labels, distributors, one-stops, etc that made it all happen. Thanks also to the RSD team of Carrie, Andrea, Michael and Eric, along with everyone in CIMS, and at Think Indie.

Peace on Earth Y'all,
John T Kunz

Streetlight Records – San Jose & Santa Cruz, CA

We had a wonderful Black Friday at both Streetlight locations this year, including increased sales for both the Day Of and Small Business Saturday, with happy customers all around! Some stats:

Our San Jose store was up 2%, and it was our best ever Black Friday sales day! We are still using the pandemic-era advance appointment system and we had 209 confirmed appointments for the day, most of whom showed up. Streetlight San Jose had a 68.5% sell-through for the first day, which is exactly where we like to land.

Streetlight Santa Cruz was up 7% from last year! There were at least 50 people lined up at opening. We had a first day sell-through of 50%, which also allows for some transfers between stores of any remaining product.

We love that some of the bigger titles still have stock available (Olivia Rodrigo, Billie Eilish, U2) and we were able to take special orders for customers. Things that were allocated that we wish we had more of: Kasey Musgraves, SpongeBob, Pearl Jam. Things we wish we had ordered more of: Beaches, Tegan & Sarah, Rage Against the Machine, Illenium. Things we may have (slightly) overordered: Allman Brothers, Big Brother & the Holding Company, Cat Stevens. Then again, it’s nice to have these titles available for the holiday shopping season. Below are the Top 20 sellers for each store.

Big thanks to all of our industry partners: the artists, band management, labels and distributors! And our utmost gratitude to Carrie Colliton, Michael Kurtz, Eric Levin and Andrea Paschal for their tireless commitment to all things Record Store Day!

--Paige

Record Archive – Rochester, NY

Greetings!!

Wowza, another great RSD BF in the books!
As you may have seen on our socials already, our first shopper arrived at 7:30 pm the night before! It was a chilly morning, so we got started right at 9 am! Due to our efficient system, we moved several hundred folks through in less than 2 hours! Everyone was thrilled!
Local fav Zweigle hotdogs were roasted at noon, 3 live bands; Head to the Roots (fabulous band with a didgeridoo!), rockers Brian Lindsay Band & closing the show the ever powerful Pete Griffiths Group rocked the house throughout the day! Local beer sampling and All movies (every format) Was Buy one Get one Free all weekend long! Tons of $1 used records to boot made it a fabulous day all around.

Our best RSD BF up 21% over last year! Sold through 70% the first day, the highest sell through we have ever had in all RSD participation. The weekend stayed strong and we literally have 3 crates left!
Amazing day-- my team was flawless even in the worst of times (charge machines went down) and lines throughout---super proud of these wonderful folks I work with every day!
Much love and appreciation to Andrea, Carrie, Michael, Eric and all our suppliers, labels and mostly the artists themselves who still see the intrinsic value the indie retailer represents.

Cheers,
Alayna

Twist and Shout – Denver, CO

    This year’s Black Friday at Twist & Shout was a stellar day and weekend for the store, among our top 3 of all time. We had a longer line than any Black Friday event in memory, with probably 150 people waiting by the time we opened at 10 AM. The day ended up being our second highest Black Friday total ever, shy of the top spot by less than 1%, and the weekend was a mere .02% from tying the second-place BF weekend of all-time for the store. All of this was great news in a year that has been sluggish overall.
    We were able to sell completely through on 43% of the titles we brought in (64 of them, to be precise), and most everything had at least some sales. A little more than a dozen titles saw no movement – including Johnny Bragg, Lamb of God, the Gladiator II soundtrack, and (most surprisingly to me given our customer base) Ultravox. And I suppose it’s fair to that we still have some stock on a few other titles if anyone’s looking. Need a copy of Isaac Hayes, Jane’s Addiction, Santana, King Missile, Stress Eater, Beatles 3” single/carrying case, Elephant 6 Recording Co. OST, Merry Marvel Marching Society, Morphine, or Carl Stalling Project, push your customer our way, hit up our website, or give us a call!
    On the other hand we were surprised by the performance of a few things – the SpongeBob SquarePants Movie OST, Orgone, the Ramones Greatest Hits collection, and U2’s release (their titles are notoriously hit or miss for us) all sold out quickly and we probably could’ve doubled our orders on these titles.
    Similarly, allocations probably hindered us from selling as many as we could of several titles – our numbers being cut on Helmet, Rage Against the Machine, Pearl Jam, and (especially) Kacey Musgraves (plus a few others) definitely cut into what we could’ve sold this holiday, and not getting the Bah Humbug New Orleans Xmas title at all kinda sucked – we had a few customers asking and had nothing for them. We would expect by now that if you’re going to offer a piece, especially for BF when there’s less pressure than regular RSD, that adequate quantities could be pressed.
    Top 15 best sellers for Twist, in order, were as follows: Noah Kahan, Olivia Rodrigo, Grateful Dead, Kacey Musgraves, MF DOOM (all formats), Jerry Garcia, Rage Against the Machine, Billie Eilish, The Beatles 7”, The Rolling Stones, Jazz Dispensary, Buffalo Springfield/Byrds, Allman Brothers, Pearl Jam, and U2.
    It would be great if all major label distributors ensured that product gets to one stops well in advance so that there is no stress over whether we’ll get something or not, or that weather may be a factor in receiving things on time (it wasn’t this year, but it could be any given year for us). For indies, things seemed much smoother – I got no complaints there!
    One great new thing that came out of this year was having a list available ON Black Friday of titles still available. It aided us immensely in not just reordering titles, but being able to provide the best customer service we possibly could. PLEASE ensure that this happens every time and huge thanks are due to whoever did the work to knock it out!

We appreciate all our label partners and the folks at Record Store Day who make this possible every year.

Cheers,
Patrick Brown

Park Ave CDs – Orlando, FL

Hello friends!

Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving and RSD Black Friday weekend :)

RSD Black Friday 2024 proved to be our best Black Friday ever! Sales were up 48% over 2023, and the entire Black Friday weekend (11/29-12/1) beat our previous weekend best of RSD BF 2023 by 68%. Having a list full of great titles, seeing better margins, and refining our in-store operations certainly contributed to the success we had this past weekend.

We utilized the same free-to-enter raffle/appointment system for "early access shopping reservations" from 8am-11:30am and then we opened to the general public from 11:30am-11pm for walk-ups –– all shoppers would turn in their completed RSD Black Friday Menu at check-in. This year we had a total of 401 shopping reservations booked, surpassing last year's total reservations by 52. This year we also modified our fulfillment system for customer menus by building out an assembly line in our annex space next door. This refined setup really cutback on some of the typical chaos that ensues when we get backed up with larger menu orders. The staff never really fell behind too much and on occasion intentionally had to slow things down to allow our customers time to browse the main shop. In the end, the new setup kept the lines down outside and at the registers in-store. Also worth mentioning that our newish POS system (Thunder) allowed us to run three registers up front, which also contributed to shorter lines for customers.

Another small improvement we made this year was the addition of utilizing a microphone to call out names as customer menus were completed/filled. This was such a HUGE HELP in the end as it understandably made it easier for customers to hear their name called out AND it completely eliminated the uncomfortable scenario where half the store crowded our back rooms, arms folded, anxiously waiting to hear their name. A big stress reducer for both staff and customers – a win-win!

Meanwhile in front of the store we had a few local businesses/vendors throughout the day. From 7:30am-12pm we had Not Another Coffee Co. and Chef Crystal to fuel those early morning hours, and then from 1-5pm we had Red Panda Noodle. We also held our annual food drive for our local food bank Second Harvest of CFL, with our total number of donations coming out to 202lbs of food! Each customer that donated received a 15 % OFF Coupon good towards a future purchase, and for every 4 items donated they received one entry into a $100 PACDs Gift Certificate Giveaway.

Music Millennium – Portland, OR

Hello Everyone-

I arrived at the store about 5am. There was about 35 to 40 people in line. It was about 40 degrees and we lucked out with no rain. At 5:30 I started passing out muffins and Phil got the coffee brewing at 6am with complimentary coffee from Stumptown Coffee. We had a few items to give away compliments of Donna Ross at Concord, Secretly and Beggars.

We opened the doors at 8:00am to a line of about 150. Most of these people were able to get everything on their wish list except for the 3 titles that did not come in, Sun Ra being the most requested. As we have always done in the past, we have everyone come in single file. They walk by every RSD title before they reach the cash register. The line outside faded at 9:30. The floor was packed all day. Some for RSD titles, some for our 60 door buster vinyl deals, some holiday shopping or shopping for themselves. And we sold a fair number of CDs. The Deftones section was located about the starting line and we sold 5 copies of “Around The Fur” while they walked by.

Two format buyers are growing with many new release titles on vinyl coming out at $32.99. The industry needs to make sure they don't price themselves out of the market on vinyl. $24.99 single vinyl is welcomed by the customers, $29.99 pushes it a bit but over $30 single vinyl seems to have hit a threshold.

Vinyl, CDs and DVD all saw increases over last Black Friday. Business was up 10% over last year, which had been our best RSD BF ever, making this our best RSD BF yet.
Allocations were good on most titles but there were titles we wished we had got our whole order on like Kacey Musgraves, Pearl Jam and Ramones.

Again, thanks to all of you that make this day possible. Record Store Black Friday is an amazing fun day for music lovers. Thanks to Michael, Carrie, Andrea and Eric for their efforts. Big thanks to all the labels that go after getting these titles secured for this day. And to all of our staff that help get ready for RSD BF and do their thing on the day to give our customers the best experience they can get, even though the chaos of the day.

Plan 9 – Richmond, VA

Wow, the day it was huge for us, too. Really the whole day. Up 32% over last year!

Lines were no longer...maybe even shorter, than last BF. People seemed to buy more titles, but balked at 7" prices, and were rattled at some of the single LP and 12" prices-- as they already have been this year.

We stepped out more on a number of titles,but feel good we'll sell through a good % of the leftovers.

Best part is the mood and sales carried through the whole day, so it was as much across the board sales as it was RSD titles.

Thanks again to all involved. Great to see Carrie here, who stopped in while visiting relatives.

Jim

Homers – Omaha, NE

It was a very cold morning but we had about 150 in line by 9am. Opened at 10am.
despite ordering 25% less product this year, not by design, orders just worked out that way., we beat last year by 10% for our biggest BF to date. The weekend was up almost 20% and online orders on Saturday/Sunday were very strong.

Sell through sits at 62%, no sales activity so far on 44 titles which represents 11% of our BF order. No sales on Asking, Betts, Echo & Silver 12inch, Hancock, Houston, Levin, Keith Murray, T rex, Santana, Shmurda, Stokes.

Reordering on a number of titles that are still available.

Eilish was top seller along with Kahan, Rodrigo, U2, Van Halen, Musgraves, MF Doom, Dead, PJ, Morphines, Helmet, Better Than Ezra.