Hi Everyone,
I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving with family and friends, and a successful Black Friday.
Here are the charts.
Andrea
Andrea Paschal
Executive Director
Coalition of Independent Music Stores
ThinkIndie Distribution
3738 4th Terrace North
Birmingham, AL 35222
Phone: 205.595.1932 x.208
Fax: 205.595.1938
Email : andrea@cimsmusic.com
cimsmusic.com
#cimsmusic
Hi everyone,
It is official…. the holiday shopping season has begun.
We kicked things off last week with Black Friday and Small Business Saturday, and I am thrilled to see that this was a good one for our stores. I have rounded up a few of the CIMS stores' first-hand accounts of the weekend to share some stats and stories with you. I always enjoy reading these and appreciate everyone that is a part of bringing success to our stores.
Oh and since this message is falling on December 1st... I had to break this one out :) I hope you all find your December will be Magic again!
Here are a few recaps, enjoy!
Andrea
John Kunz: Waterloo Records - Austin, TX
Black Friday 2022 at Waterloo Records was really great, but also very different! Overall store sales were up a whopping 17.9%, but this year's crop of BF titles didn't sell for us in the quantities as in the past, even though they represented 45% of our total sales volume that day. Regardless, sales remained very strong on Small Business Sat., (up 31.9%) when our remaining BF titles went online. Sunday sales were also up (8.3%), so our BF weekend sales were up 19.6% overall.. However, yesterday we marked down nearly half of the BF titles (something we've never done before) for a Cyber Monday Weeklong Sale, to bring today's high prices more in line with pre-inflation times. They are good titles that will likely sell through this holiday shopping season.
The first couple of shoppers in our line arrived at 5am, and there were 75 folks in line for our 8am opening. We were able to clear the line by about 8:30, with a grand total of 105 shoppers, prior to general entry. Overall, we clocked 702 transactions that day, purchasing 2440 items.
Big thanks go out to everyone again that made this day happen: the artists, managers, labels, distributors, one-stops, sponsors, 1400 indie record stores, Carrie, Andrea, Michael, Eric, and most of all, the very dedicated and talented crew here at Waterloo Records!
Alayna Alderman: Record Archive - Rochester, NY
Greetings!!
It has taken me days to get my act together after this past weekend~ WOW Absolutely the best BLACK FRIDAY in our 48-year-old HISTORY!!
First customer in line at 4 am. We opened at 9 to about 100 marching through the doors. They lined up and patiently waited their turn into the Backroom Lounge, where all the RSD titles are carefully displayed. It is the most efficient system to date and did not let us down! We moved the bulk crowd within an hour and 1/2, all were happy to get 98% of their desires. From there on it turned into typical Record Archive Party mode! 2 live bands kept the bar hopping and the main floor shoppers were scooping up as much as possible! This year we feature BUY 1 GET 1 Free on all movies- dvds, blu rays, laser discs & even VHS! Tons of $1 records went out the door. Our LPS bins were the place to be!!
My staff handled it all beautifully and I could not be more pleased or proud to work with this team every day.
Here are the details:
Overall sales up 24% over 2021
72% up over 2020
36% up over 2019
Best sellers:
Doors
Cure
Jazz Dispensary
Soul Coughing
Jimi Hendrix
Billie Eilish
Olivia Newton John
Thank you to all who work tirelessly (every day) to keep our stores stocked with these cool limited edition pieces. Your efforts are not lost on me. I am grateful for you - Andrea, Carrie, Michael, Eric , CIMS HQ, & all the labels and artists who still believe in us.
To my staff who knocked it out the of park and to all our customers who chose to spend their Black Friday with us-- you are all simply the best~
With much love,
Alayna
Mike Fratt: Homer’s - Omaha, NE
Homers Back to Black Friday 2022
about 75 in line at open
Our biggest Black Friday, both Friday and weekend
up 23% vs 2021, up 14% vs 2019 (last normal BF)
up 17% vs weekend last year, up 16% vs weekend 2019
sales activity on 150+ titles,
no sales (so far) on 20+ titles
sell-through sits at 46%
top sellers
Dream Widow, David Bowie (both), Doors, Cure
Smash Mouth, Tommy Boy, Shadows Fall, Billie Eilish
Charles Mingus, Dead Milkmen, Grateful Dead, Ghost
low sellers
Watchmen sndtk, Heartbreakers, Madlib, Monk
Paige Brodsky: Streetlight Records - San Jose & Santa Cruz, CA
Greetings, Everyone--
Another successful Black Friday has come and gone! It was full of happy customers, busy employees and ca-chinging cash registers. Customer after customer told us how happy they are that we’re still here and thriving. Our San Jose store kept the appointment system we’ve been using since the onset of the pandemic (at our customers’ requests) and it went almost flawlessly. The Santa Cruz location uses a numbering system for the people in line and called them up in groups, also proving to be a solid system.
As always, many thanks to everyone who participated in making Black Friday happen, with an ultra big thanks to Carrie Colliton, Michael Kurtz, Andrea Paschal, Eric Levin and Luann Myers! Below are a few stats for both stores and our Top 25 1st day sellers (the indie exclusives) broken out by store location. Many thanks, and have a wonderful holiday season!
--Paige
San Jose
--Black Friday was up 36% over last year and was our biggest Black Friday EVER!
--68% sell-through first day on exclusives
Santa Cruz
--Black Friday was up 8% over last year.
--37% sell-through first day on exclusives
Chad Dryden: Record Exchange - Boise, ID
Hello industry friends,
Here’s a recap of the 2022 RSD Black Friday/Small Business Saturday at The Record Exchange.
Firstly, we set two new records over the weekend: earliest in line ever – for any RSD-related event – with one of our super customers braving the cold at 10:11pm Friday night (she posted the exact time on Instagram); and the largest Black Friday sales day in the store’s history, up 16% from the previous record set in 2021.
By the time we opened our doors, we had 50 people in line who were happy to step inside and warm up after shivering through overnight temperatures in the mid-20s. Almost to the dot we can count on 50 people each year for Black Friday, and this group represents our diehard customers who wouldn’t miss one of these events. A TV news crew visited in the morning for the first time ever to capture it all, including an interview with our first-in-line customer. The morning rush was over by 8:30am, but unlike previous years, the lull did not last – we were steady from the go, and it wasn’t yet 9:30 before the store started filling up again, and we only got busier and busier until we hit our crest mid-afternoon. We had great weather – sunny with a high of 43 degrees – and great energy in the store all day.
As for the exclusives, it was nice to have the least number of heavy allocations in years, and in most cases, people got what they wanted. We ordered with the holiday season and beyond in mind, and with fewer allocations and less demand than expected for several titles, the result was, we’re now sitting on a lot of excess inventory. Our sell-through rate was 39%, compared to 48% in 2021 and 43.5% in 2019.
Small Business Saturday was another strong day, but mellow by comparison. It was busy, and the weather was good (43 degrees and no precipitation), but it wasn’t OMG-busy like Black Friday, and we ended the day $700 short of 2021. We’ll take it, though, after a 58% increase over 2020 on our record-setting 2021 SBS.
We finished strong on Sunday, up 12% for the day over 2021, putting us at 8.5% up for the weekend over 2021.
Thank you to everyone who put the time and energy into making these exclusives happen for our stores. We’re already looking forward to RSD 2023.
Wherever you are and however you celebrate, we wish you a happy holiday season and look forward to working with you in the new year.
Hi Everyone,
I hope you all had a Happy Thanksgiving. I know for many of us it was the first chance to have been able to gather with family and loved ones in a minute, so I hope it was a joyful time for everyone. I am also happy to report another successful Black Friday/Small Business Saturday weekend for our stores. I always look forward to reading these recaps from our stores and so I have compiled some of the CIMS accounts of the weekend for you here. If this is just not enough reading material for you, Ken Glaser from Alliance has also compiled a two-volume deluxe edition as well.
I have included some of the individual store bestseller charts where provided, and the CIMS Chart below represents our collective hits for Black Friday sales.
Thanks to everyone reading this for being a part of this event. Whether you are making records, distributing records, selling records, or buying records- you all play a role in the success of our stores.
And if you don’t believe me…. Just read on!
Andrea
RECORD ARCHIVE - ROCHESTER, NY
Another fabulous RSD Black Friday entered into the books!
Honestly this was strange in the sense that we were a little light in the morning (bitter cold, damp , gray) so I was a tad bit concerned...
We handed out time slots, but this time not only did I let people into the store early to escape the cold ( they could not enter the Backroom Lounge until 9 am official start) but then we moved them through so quickly with our streamlined and very organized process.
Then we got slammed!! From 1 pm until closing time- we were BUSY!
We had tables of $1 vintage records, 2 food trucks, 2 bands as well as a high profile local DJ on site promoting our " Finally Friday Fickle Happy Hours" giving away a ton of concert tickets.
The releases were solid but folks were really just happy to Christmas shop and enjoy the live music and food with their friends & families. We have fully established ourselves as the ' place to go on Black Friday!" Where else could you go with both young & old to share some live music, shop and enjoy a great craft beer or glass of wine!
Here are the details:
2021 Black Friday up 38% over 2020 and up 10% over 2019!!
For the entire weekend; sales were up 26% over 2020 and up 21% over the 2019 weekend.
Best sellers: Lana Del Ray, Miles Davis, Blackberry Smoke ( defects and all!) Jimi Hendrix, Little Feat , U2 and Life Aquatic Soundtrack
Love em but slow movers: John Legend, KD Lang, Maxwell, Smith & Kotzen & Grant Lee Phillips
Thank you so much! I have been working on this little wrap up since 9 am this morning and am finally finishing up now! Sorry and THANK YOU TO EVERYONE WHO MADE THIS DAY POSSIBLE!!!
Much love & respect,
Alayna
RECORD EXCHANGE - BOISE, ID
What a difference a year makes.
After running our two biggest holiday kickoff days in 2020 with limited capacity and morning appointments, which naturally resulted in decreased sales, for 2021 The Record Exchange kept the masks on but returned to a “normal” shopping experience and crushed our previous Black Friday and Small Business Saturday sales records.
For Black Friday, we were up 25% over 2020 and up 20% over 2019. For Small Business Saturday, we were up a whopping 58% over 2020 and up 28% over 2019. For the three-day weekend, we were up 28% over 2020 and up 31% over 2019.
The morning was interesting. We had our shortest pre-opening line in years – only 60 people despite mild(ish) temperatures in the mid-30s – yet the first person in line was there at 2am, beating our previous record by two hours. He might have been cold, but it warmed our hearts to hear that he and the second person in line watched “Empire Records” together to kill time. Once we opened at 8am, the rush lasted a mere 30 minutes; we are used to a rush of an hour or two. The excitement was there among those who attended, but the rush came and went before we had even wiped the sleep from our eyes, which lent some credence to the online chatter that this year’s list wasn’t the best (even if we thought it was better than some people made it out to be). Fortunately, the typical lull only lasted an hour, as by 9:30am the store filled up again and it just kept getting busier until the afternoon peak. We stayed open until 8pm, and business didn’t subside until the final hour.
The only negative about the day was the number of allocations. We all probably sound like a broken record at this point, but we’re gonna mention the product shortages regardless because they’re still a big deal for the stores and our customers. We received ones, twos and threes on several titles for which we ordered significant quantities, including Dusty Springfield (1), Screamin’ Jay Hawkins (2), Nelson/Haggard/Price (2) and Beleza Tropical (3). In many cases we received half to a third of what we ordered. First-hour sellouts included Crobots, Charlie Parker, Bee Gees, Screamin’ Jay, Hall & Oates, Dusty, Oscar Peterson and A Place to Bury Strangers. The heavy sellers early on were the Life Aquatic, Billie Eilish, Fleetwood Mac, Jason Isbell, Jimi Hendrix, Lana Del Rey and U2. Sell-through was 48%.
As for the rest of our weekend, our impressive growth with Small Business Saturday continued, thanks in no small part to pre-event coverage on two of Boise’s four network TV affiliates; several people said they saw us on the news and decided to come check out the store for the first time. The huge increase in sales leads us to believe that, true to the chatter leading into this holiday season, many consumers are choosing to keep their money in their communities, and that eases the blow of seeing all those Amazon delivery trucks zip around town on a regular basis.
Below you will find our Top 50 exclusive sellers and some photos from the day. A huge thanks goes out to everyone who helped make these exclusives happen as these strange times continue – we never thought we’d be players in A Covid Christmas II, and the fact we even had a Black Friday, despite all the delays and cancelations, feels like a minor (or even a major) holiday miracle.
Wherever you are and however you celebrate, we wish you a happy holiday season and look forward to working with you in the new year.
Thank you,
Chad Dryden
Co-owner / Marketing Director
The Record Exchange
chad@therecordexchange.com
mobile: 208.284.0355
THE RECORD EXCHANGE BLACK FRIDAY TOP 50 SELLERS
1. Various Artists - The Life Aquatic Soundtrack
2. Aerosmith - 1971: The Road Starts Hear (vinyl and cassette combined)
3. Billie Eilish - No Time to Die
4. Jimi Hendrix - Paris ’67
5. Jason Isbell - Georgia Blue
6. The Avett Brothers - Emotionalism
7. Miles Davis - Live-Evil
8. Dio - Holy Diver
9. Lana Del Rey - Chemtrails Over the Country Club
10. U2 - Gloria
11. Little Feat - Electrif Lycanthrope (vinyl and CD combined)
12. Fleetwood Mac - Alternate Live
13. Carole King - In Concert at the BBC
14. Joan Jett - I Love Rock ’n’ Roll / Bad Reputation
15. Leonard Cohen - Songs of Love and Hate
16. Blackberry Smoke - Stoned
17. Iron Maiden - Iron Maiden
18. John Legend - Once Again
19. Thundercat - The Golden Age of Apocalypse
20. Big Brother and the Holding Company - Combination of the Two
21. Brian Rich - Amen
22. All Them Witches - Live on the Internet
23. Judas Priest - The Best Of
24. Canned Heat / Memphis Slim - Memphis Heat
25. Dio - Last in Line
26. Chris Travis - Pizza and Codeine
27. Joe Strummer - Johnny Appleseed
28. Maxwell - Now
29. John Powell - How to Train Your Dragon Soundtrack
30. Jorma Kaukonen - Christmas Candy Cane (both versions combined)
31. Ray Charles - Live in Stockholm
32. The Wonderful World of Louis Armstrong - Original Grooves
33. The Munsters - At Home with the Munsters
34. Crobot - Rat Child
35. Trippie Redd - A Love Letter to You 1 / A Love Letter to You 2
36. Chris Isaak - Beyond the Sun
37. Saigon Kick - Lizard
38. Jackson Conti - Sujinho
39. “Weird Al” Yankovic and Osaka Superstar - Beat on the Brat
40. Modern English - After the Snow Live
41. John Carpenter - The Ghosts of Mars Soundtrack
42. Non Phixion - The Green LP
43. Norah Jones - Christmas Don’t Be Late
44. Smith/Kotzen - Better Days
45. The Wrens - Secaucus
46. Ozzy Osbourne - No More Tears
47. Nancy Wilson - You and Me
48. Sam Cooke - The First Mile of the Way
49. Chet Baker - Albert’s House
50. RZA as Bobby Digital - Digital Bullet
LOONEY TUNES - WEST BABYLON, NY
This weekend was a tremendous success. We are exhausted lol!
If you add Friday, Saturday and Sunday together, both instore sales and online sales….
Sales up 24% over 2020
Sales up 14% over 2019
When I got to the store at 7am we had about 100 people on line. A lot less than years past, so I was a little worried. But it was raining and VERY cold. We did our regular handing out free bagels and coffee to everyone in line. Customers were all in good moods and happy to be there.
We handed out coupons for our big 50th anniversary celebration which will be 12/18. We are still looking for nice prizes to give away and help from the labels.
info here - https://www.looneytuneslongisland.com/post/looney-tunes-is-celebrating-50-years-on-saturday-dec-18th-2021
It was not the same without our long time manager John who passed away last week. So we spent a lot of time talking to customers who were asking WHERE'S JOHN?
We have decided to do a music scholarship in his name to keep is memory alive. We miss ya buddy…
info here - https://www.looneytuneslongisland.com/post/john-sadowski-tribute
Overall sales were just great. CONSTANT…… Usually there is a MAD rush and then it dies down…This year as usual 8am - 9am was the best hour but it was really busy the whole day. Sales were really spread out through the whole weekend. Which was really nice. Online sales started the following Saturday and were strong!
Thank you to everyone that was a part of this wonderful event. Especially Andrea, Carrie and Michael…..I know you guys work so hard on this event for our benefit….we owe you a lot.
Best sellers
Aerosmith
Dio
Iron Maiden
Joan Jett
Jason Isbell
Hendrix
Ozzy
Wish we had more could have sold a TON more
Judas Priest
Saigon Kick
All the best
Karl
PLAN 9 - RICHMOND, VA
We were lacking in stuff to giveaway, including concert tickets this year.
After a brief interlude mask-free, we've been requiring masks since delta reared its head.
We had the shortest line outside that I think we have ever had. Weather was not a factor, although some of our regulars showed up later, even near the end of day saying they had to work.
So RSD shopping carried on through the day when usually we’ve slammed out most of it in the first three hours. That said, shoppers came on strong all day long, and we ended up 23% over last year.
Top sellers:
Jason Isbell
Miles Davis
Lana Del Ray
Little Feat
Hendrix
Carol King
Slow: U2, Maxwell, Dire Straits, Mobb Deep
Thanks to Carrie, Andrea, and all involved in RSD BF!
HOMERS - OMAHA, NE
Hello everyone,
Homers had a line of about 75 at our 10am opening.
We offered coffee and donuts to our crowd.
We had a successful Black Friday event with BF sales
up 20% from 2020 and the weekend up 24% from 2020
Sales for BF were down 7% compared to 2019. However, the
weekend sales were flat vs 2019.
For the year we are up 26% over 2020 and 20% over 2019
As has been the case for us for the last couple years
RSD product represents under 50% of day's/weekend's
total sales. So, we are lucky and thankful customers
shop us for more than just RSD products
Sell through so far is about 40%
top sellers
Eilish, Isbell, Hendrix, Aerosmith, Life Aquatic,
Cohen, U2, Del Rey, Miles, Wrens, Thundercat
no sales on 24 titles; Labrie, Legend, Cooke, Lang,
Strummer, Beleza are the most glaring
I would suggest RSD pull back on titles going forward with
250 on RSD, another 100 on a Drops day and
100 on Black Friday
-- Mike Fratt
WATERLOO RECORDS - AUSTIN, TX
Waterloo Records enjoyed a strong 2021 Black Friday and Small Business Saturday weekend! Once folks could get fully vaccinated this past spring, we had decided to do all of our year to year sales comps back to 2019, Vs 2020, because that year was so out of the ordinary. Our sales were down 2% on Black Friday, up 3% on Small Business Saturday, and down again on Sunday, but it all worked out to a 1% increase for the full 3 day weekend, when you factor out missing our historical bestseller release of the year. This year, again like 2020, there
wasn't a KGSR ACL Radio Broadcasts CD & LP, because many bands weren't touring, much less doing radio in-studio performances. This charity benefit release is historically our bestseller of the year. In fact, it had accounted for over 4% of our BF19 weekend.
When we opened Black Friday at 7am (3 hrs early), there were 60 folks waiting in line, versus 100 back in 2019 when we didn't open until 9am. Like other stores, we had done a really good job of messaging folks about the plethora of Black Friday title bumps, so there weren't many folks surprised or disappointed to find out their desired BF title now had a Dec21 or RSD22 release date. We're obviously still in a Covid world, (OmyGod - Omicron!) so I'm not even gonna try to shame any label or distributor for all those BF bumps. As our wise, local sage, Ray Wylie Hubbard often deadpans, "Every day that I keep my
gratitude higher than my expectations, that is a really good day!" Myself & everyone here has very high gratitude for all of the great music that was released for BF21. Thank you all!
On Friday the BF21 exclusives comprised 34% of our sales, compared with 41% in BF19, which we attribute to less titles and more bumps. We had a 42% sell through for the BF21 exclusives on Black Friday, (Vs 33% in 2019) and a 50% sell through overall for the 3 day weekend (Vs 42% in 2019), so our BF21 purchasing was tighter this year, as we had planned.
These BF indie exclusive releases are an appreciated and needed strong driver, that has given customers a reason to shop independent record stores on Black Friday, and after. Here's a big 'Thanks' again to every artist, manager. label, distributor., and manufacturer that helped make all of these Black Friday releases happen!
Overall traffic drivers this weekend in addition to the BF21 releases were:
- CIMS' GTGOM $9.99 CDs & $5 off LPs
- UMG's Black Friday week rebated CDs
- Amex Small Business Sat
- Austin Chronicle full pg RSD/BF ad, shared with all Austin RSD
pledge stores and others
- Waterloo's BF early opening underwriting announcements on KUTX and Sun Radio
- Social Media posts on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook
Waterloo's Top Black Friday sellers:
(All Formats combined)
1. Little Feat 31 (LPs + CDs)
2. Jason Isbell 29
3. Miles Davis 26
4. Jimi Hendrix 26
5. Lana Del Ray 22
6. Aerosmith 20
7. Life Aquatic 19
8. Fleetwood Mac 19
9. Billie Eilish 19
10. Carole King 11
11. Chet Baker 10 (SO)
12. Leonard Cohen 10
13. Iron Maiden 10
14. Blackberry Smoke 10 (SO)
15. Nelson/Haggard/Price 9
16. John Legend 8
17. Big Brother 7
18. Munsters 7
19. Dio Holy Diver 7
20. Chris Issak 7 (SO)
21. Shangri-Las 7 (SO)
22. Dusty Springfield 7
EASY STREET RECORDS - SEATTLE, WA
Well, we’ve all come a long way from a year ago. We doubled where we were from last years RSDBF. That one sucked so hard I didn’t bother with a wrap up. We were about 20% down from 2019. I can’t say we were too surprised. We weren’t getting the calls and questions we normally get about titles. We just didn’t have any drivers that were registering for us like previous years. At the same time, I think we fell short of rallying behind some of the releases at the store level. We didn’t do a lot to pre-promote the titles like we normally do. We did still do a few things and we overall had a good day and overall, a pretty good weekend. We are hopeful that this might carry into a nice holiday stretch.
Our operating costs are back to (and in some cases higher) than pre-Covid levels…there is definitely a motivation to find areas within the store to utilize better. We’ve continued to expand our product lines as well. We are back to selling posters. We’ve improved our t-shirt, book, and Hi-Fi business, but still…we aren’t back to pre-Covid sales figures just yet. So, things are still pretty challenging.
We partnered with Sub Pop reissuing the ’93 power pop classic The Fastbacks-Zucker. Been out of print for years. They performed on BF as well. We were able to sell 250 copies in November. Made for a great night https://www.instagram.com/reel/CWv193ilBPw/?utm_medium=copy_link
Here’s a small biz video we participated in https://www.instagram.com/p/CWlsugqNuKZ/?utm_medium=copy_link
A few newer releases that performed well all weekend…. Adele, Taylor, U2, Nirvana, Kiss, Coltrane, Brandi, Mogwai, Snail Mail…
A few surprise sellers we could’ve used more of…Strat Cats, Aerosmith, Little Feat, Fleetwood Mac
A few we thought more of than sales would indicate…Charlie Parker, Mr. Big, Dio, Maxwell, John Legend, Joe Strummer, Lana Del Rey… (let us know if u need any of these)
STREETLIGHT RECORDS - SAN JOSE & SANTA CRUZ, CA
Well, another successful Black Friday and Small Business Saturday are in the books! It was full of happy customers, busy employees and buzzing cash registers. Customer after customer told us how happy they are that we’re still here and thriving. Our San Jose store kept the appointment system we’ve been using since the onset of the pandemic and it went well. The Santa Cruz location used a numbering system for the people in line and called them up in groups, also proving to be a solid system.
As always, many thanks to everyone who participated in making Black Friday happen, with an ultra big thanks to Carrie Colliton, Michael Kurtz, Andrea Paschal, Eric Levin and Luann Myers! We had a couple last-minute product arrivals, but otherwise it was pretty smooth sailing. Below are a few stats for each store. Many thanks, and have a wonderful holiday season!
--Paige
San Jose
--Black Friday was up 8% over last year and up 21% over 2019.
--Small Business Saturday was up 26% over last year and 27% over 2019.
Santa Cruz
--Black Friday was up 22% over last year and up 14% over 2019.
--Small Business Saturday was up 16% over last year and down 14% from 2019.
PARK AVE CDS - ORLANDO, FL
event: RSD Black Friday & Small Business Saturday 2021
dates: Friday, November 26th & Saturday, November 27th
location: Park Ave CDs, 2916 Corrine Dr, Orlando, Fl, 32803
sales reporting: MRC
event marketing: social media, pacd newsletter, local media, app
facebook event page: https://www.facebook.com/events/279952734006307
instagram: https://www.instagram.com/parkavecds
twitter: https://twitter.com/ParkAveCDs
pacd newsletter/guide: https://conta.cc/30SHtzl
charitable contributions: Second Harvest Food Bank of CFL
overall sales:
- RSD Black Friday: up 35% over 2020
- Sell through: 42%
- Small Business Saturday: up over 100% over 2020
- Sunday: up 40% over 2020
thumbs up and thumbs down:
up: Our crew!
up: The RSD crew for the coordination and execution.
up: Our customers and supporters.
up: The allocation deities smiled upon PACDs this RSD event.
up: The best Black Friday weekend in the history of the shop, surpassing the previous best of 2019.
down: Last minute shipping from the one-stops.
down: Larger list of bumped titles resulted in smaller turnout for “RSD Black Friday shoppers"
titles we wish we had more of: Norah Jones, Iron Maiden, Pink Lincolns, Art Pepper, Bee Gees, Nancy Wilson, Broken Social Scene, Dusty Springfield, Tammi Terrell, Chris Travis, Stypes P
titles we thought would have done better: Jason Isbell, Lana Del Rey, Weird Al, Billie Eilish
summary:
Hello again!
Hope everyone had a nice and relaxing holiday weekend :)
PACDs is happy to announce that we’ve had another successful RSD Black Friday and Small Business Saturday! Overall both days as well as Sunday were consistently busy, and we’ve continued to stay busy with online RSD Black Friday orders since we went live at 8am on Saturday. We utilized the same raffle/appointment system for early access time slots like we have for past RSD Drops, but this time we adjusted the number of time slots so we could open the doors to the general public a bit earlier in the day. This worked well for us as we had a good amount of walk-up shoppers before noon and we were able to easily slot them in without much of a wait. Once again the time slots proved to be very efficient and the store never felt too crowded or congested.
As always, there were several surprises as far as which titles sold out early and which titles were hardly touched — all of which have been included in our wrap-up below. Norah Jones, Iron Maiden, Broken Social Scene, Nancy Wilson, Dusty Springfield, Rich Brian, Bee Gees and Chris Travis were the some of the hottest titles of the day and some of the first titles we ran out of on Friday. The Life Aquatic, Lana Del Rey, Billie Eilish, Aerosmith, Jimi Hendrix, Jason Isbelll, Black Berrysmoke, Thundercat and Miles Davis also did really well for us and have continued to sell both in-store and online throughout the weekend. We didn’t have as high of a sell through in comparison to last year’s RSD Black Friday but we were very happy with the turnout and our overall numbers for the entire weekend beat last year.
Our RSD Black Friday shopping time slot reservations were booked from 8am-11am for over 180+ people, and then at 11am we opened the doors to the general public and began taking walk-up RSD Black Friday shoppers. We had a good turnout but we also had a good number of no-shows and last minute cancelations. This was mostly expected with it being Thanksgiving weekend and the fact that a good number of RSD Black Friday titles were bumped or removed from the list. We decided to add the list of bumped titles to our ‘"RSD Black Friday Menu” which helped us out a ton with relaying all the information to our customers. Once we hit 11am and started allowing walk-ups we maintained a pretty busy atmosphere in-store but we hardly ever had a line outside. A bit later in the day we even had a visit from Orlando own/PACDs’ alum, Tierney Tough! We were super proud of her to have her first RSD Exclusive release for her debut solo EP! She came by to visit and help us do a giveaway for a special test pressing of the release. Photo attached below of Tierney and her pup, Arrow! This RSD Black Friday we also held our annual food drive for our local food bank Second Harvest of CFL!
Overall it was fun day for everyone involved! We hardly had anyone that couldn’t find the record/CD they were looking for on their list and we’ve continued to sell through titles steadily online and in-store. The big surprise for us was how quickly we sold out of the Norah Jones 3” and how many people added it to their wishlist! The more you know! Also, sales overall for this Black Friday weekend bested our previous record set in 2019!
Lastly, thank you so much for everything you’ve done to help us and all of indie retail throughout the year! We know this was a weird RSD Black Friday for most but we couldn’t be happier with how things have panned out and we look forward to another busy holiday season!
Stay safe, stay warm, listen to some new tunes, and have a great rest of the year!
Cheers!
- Josiah, Sandy & the entire PACDs crew!
top selling titles:
1. The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou - Soundtrack
1. Lana Del Rey - Chemtrails Over The Country Club
2. Billie Eilish - No Time To Die
3. Aerosmith - 1971: The Road Starts Hear
4. Iron Maiden - Iron Maiden (PD)
5. The Jimi Hendrix Experience - Paris 1967
6. Jason Isbell & The 400 Unit - Georgia Blue
7. Blackberry Smoke - STONED
8. Thundercat - The Golden Age Of Apocalypse (10th Anniversary Ed.)
9. Miles Davis - Live-Evi
10. The Munsters - At Home With The Munsters
10. Mr. Big - Lean Into It
11. Fleetwood Mac - Alternate Live
12. Saigon Kick - The Lizard
12. RZA as Bobby Digital - Digital Bullet
12. Little Feat - Electrif Lycanthrope
12. Rich Brian - Amen
13. How To Train Your Dragon - Soundtrack
14. Hall & Oates - Fall In Philadelphia: The Definitive Demos
15. Motorhead - Lost Tapes Vol.1 (Live in Madrid 1995)
15. The Avett Brothers - Emotionalism (Cassette)
16. U2 - Gloria (40th Anniversary)
16. Dio - Holy Diver (PD)
16. All Them Witches - LIVE ON THE INTERNET
16. Bee Gees - Three Kisses Of Love
16. Dusty Springfield - The Complete Atlantic Singles 1968-1971
17. Stray Cats - Live At Rockpalast
17. Broken Social Scene - Feel Good Lost (20th Anniversary Ed.)
17. Puscifer - Billy D and the Hall of Feathered Serpents, Puscifer Live at the...
17. Dire Straits - Encores (Live)
17. Carole King - BBC Live Performance (1971)
17. Leonard Cohen - Songs Of Love & Hate (50th Anniversary)
17. Ozzy Osbourne - No More Tears
17. Big Brother & The Holding Company - Combination of the Two: Live at the Monterey...
18. Ray Charles - Live In Stockhol 1972
18. Smith/Kotzen - Better Days
18. Tickets For Doomsday: Heavy - Various Artists
18. Screamin’ Jay Hawkins - My Little Shop Of Horrors
19. Dio - The Last In Line (PD)
19. Judas Priest - Best Of
19. The Shangri-Las - The Best of the Red Bird & Mercury Recordings
19. Jackson Conti - Sujinho
19. Chris Isaak - Beyond The Sun
20. Charlie Parker - Bird In LA
20. Chief Keef - Thot Breaker
20. "Weird Al” Yankovic / Osaka Popstar - Beat On The Brat (Maxi Single)
20. Joan Jett & The Blackhearts - Joan Jett & The Blackhearts - 40x40: Book & Record Set
20. Chet Baker - Albert’s House
20. Tierney Tough - A Farce To Reckon With (7”)
MUSIC MILLENNIUM - PORTLAND, OR
Hello All -
Black Friday this year felt like the world was back to normal….except everyone was wearing masks. We had about 40 people in line when I arrived at 5:30. The weather had drizzled over the night but it had stopped for the time being. The temperature was hovering close to 50, making it quite tolerable.
We had no time assignments this year and everyone lined up with social distancing in mine. We handed out granola bars and coffee to those in line along with Kill Rock Star CD samplers and an incredible poster that our store artist made. We also had local radio station KINK-FM out at 7 AM, giving everyone a chance to win a turntable along with giving out buttons and stickers.
By the time we opened at 8am, we had a crowd of about 100, the smallest BF crowd we have had since RSD BF began. Each of the first two customers exceeded $1000 in purchases. Both are regulars on RSD event and built up find collections from being regulars at our store. Hendrix seemed to be the big title that most people wanted but everyone was all over the map on what they wanted.
By 9:30 we went from regulating a single file line into the store to keep social distancing, with everyone walking by all the RSD releases, to just conducting regular business. There was a lot of non-RSD business done in the day. We also had door buster deals we had in place on 25 titles on vinyl at $10 off, that had not performed up to potential. Those were well shopped and at the end of the day we had moved quite a few. CDs had a solid day as well, a format I hope the industry re-embraces. With the vinyl shortage, we have seen a substantial pick up in catalog CDs and I believe it’s a sign of the future as 10 month pressing time on vinyl is too long a wait to get a title. And the younger generation is more and more embracing the CD as a secondary format of physical music to own.
Our business was up almost 62% over last year and equal to our business on BF 2019. And that’s with a lot less titles. Our sell though on BF titles was only 50%, much like last year which
had been a low for us. however, like last year, we are hoping to have a super strong weekend and that number being closer to a 70 to 75% sell through. The surprise titles that did not sell well were the Ozzy Osbourne picture disc, Lana Del Rey, Maxwell, Todd Rundgren and Mobb Deep.
The day accomplished what we wanted to see….happy customers who really enjoy buying physical music and being able to celebrate their temple of worship…..Music Millennium and record stores in general. To some, this was their first RSD event they decided to attend. Being double and triple vaxxed is giving many more confidence in wandering indoors….and in a crowd. I believe the retail holiday season will be quite strong because of that.
Thanks to all of you that made this day possible with all these wonderful releases. Thank you Michael, Carrie, Andrea and Erik for your work all year long to make this day happen. And the label and distribution people who are juggling to make these releases happen. Physical goods just keep growing. I hope each of your companies take a good look at the immediate future and provide you with the tools and staff to keep the arc going forward.
Now for the sales results:
Full Length Vinyl
1- Jimi Hendrix -Paris 67 48 (sold out)
2- Miles Davis - Live-Evil 38
3- Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou 30 ( sold out)
4- Jason Isbell - Georgia Blue 27
5- Tundercat - Alternative Live 25
6- Fleetwood Mac - Alternative Live 22
7- Little Feat - Electrif Lycanthrope 22
8- Leonard Cohen - Songs of Love & Hate 20 (shipping company lost 10, sold out)
9- Carole King - Carole King In Concert 20
10- Aerosmith -1971:Road Starts Here 20
11- Big Brother & The Holding Company - Combination Of The Times 17
12- Lana Del Rey - Chemtrails Over The Country Club 14
13- Dire Straits - Encores 14
14- V/A -Tickets For DoomsDay 14
15- All Them Witches - Live On The Internet 14
16- Dusty Springfield - Complete Atlantic Singles 14 (sold out, allocated)
17- Iron Maiden - Iron Maiden 12
18- Blackberry Smoke - Stoned (sold out) 10
19- Shyangri-las - Best Of The Redbird and Mercury Recordings 10
20 - RZA - Digital Bullet 9
21- Canned Heat/Memphis Slim - Memphis Heat 10
22 - Munters - At Home With The Munsters 10
23 - Ray Charles - Live In Stockholm 1972 9 (sold out, allocated)
24- Jackson Conti - Sujinho 8
25 - Charlie Parker - Bird In L.A. 8 (sold out, allocated)
12” and 7” Singles
1- Billie Eilish - A Time To Die 16
2- U2 - Gloria 16
3- Joan Jett - 40 X 40
4- Sons of Kemet - African Cosmology 6
5 - Joe Strummer - Johnny Appleseed 6
Cassettes
1- Aerosmith - 1971: The Road Starts Now 5
2- Local Natives - Music From The Pen Gala 1983
CDs
1- Little Feat - Electrif Lycanthrope 6
2- Charlie Parker - Bird In LA 4
Hi Everyone,
I hope you all had a safe and Happy Thanksgiving. This past week our stores celebrated Black Friday, our fourth and final RSD event of the year. Before we get into that, I wanted to recognize and congratulate our fellow CIMS member Chip Heuisler, owner of Tunes. This Black Friday also marked a very special day for the store- their silver anniversary. Congratulations Chip on 25 years!
If you can, drop by the store or make a visit to their online shop to help them celebrate this important milestone -- tuneshoboken.com.
A link to an article about Chip and Tunes can be found HERE
Despite many challenges, Black Friday was still overall a success for our stores. Most were down a little bit from last year, but there are several pandemic related factors here on all sides of the industry that played a factor here. However, the biggest thing I heard from the stores was: “I needed more product.” In many cases allocations were harsh. There was a lot more product that could have been sold and made a lot more customers happy if it had been on the shelves in our stores. This is something that we need to fine tune and improve not just for our RSD related releases, but on indie exclusives as well. What is that saying? Oh yeah… “If you build it, they will come.” 2021 goals.
I also wanted to share a few of the store recaps from Black Friday and photos from the day:
THE RECORD EXCHANGE
Pandemic and product.
Both presented challenges to our success on Black Friday. The former was unavoidable. The latter could have been.
Were it not for a lack of adequate quantities to sell to our customers – heavy allocations on over 30 titles, no-shows on Chris Cornell and War (still waiting on War) – we would be reporting another smashing Black Friday success at The Record Exchange. Instead, the day was colored by the frustrations of a store dealing with under-filled orders and missing product on what should have been a huge day, and head-scratching customers who had grown accustomed to the rewards of getting up early to get what they wanted only to be shortchanged on Friday. For the first time in years, we were down on Black Friday (-4%) even with a 10% increase in our sell-through rate, and we’re only left thinking what could have been had we had enough product to sell.
The allocation numbers speak for themselves: 3 copies of the Rolling Stones (12% of our order); 7 John Prine box sets (23% of our order); a quarter of the Uncle Tupelos we ordered; 1 – a whopping 1 – of the 20 copies of Ice-T we ordered. We got halved on Kids See Ghosts and the Charlie Brown Christmas 7-inch, received a third of our Motorhead “Ace of Spades” order. Even with the relative obscurity of a Beat Farmers live record, we couldn’t get anywhere near the 8 copies we ordered – we got 1. When Volbeat finally showed up on Friday, we also got 1. And so on. Imagine the sales day we would have had without these allocations.
The frustration – among the stores, among our customers – is palpable. Our core customers, the uber-fans, our people, the ones you want to be excited about Record Store Day and Black Friday, are starting to get shut out. These customers don’t want to hear excuses. They don’t care about under-produced titles, allocations and delayed shipments. All they care about is getting the music they visit our stores expecting to get, and guess who gets to be the bad guy when they don’t get it?
We get that there’s a pandemic raging, and we’re grateful we even got to have a Black Friday this year. But these problems aren’t new – Record Store Day quantities were set long before there was a pandemic, and allocations proved to be an issue during the RSD Drops events. Even a once-reliable event like the Rocktober reissue campaign was marred by allocations this fall.
These events have gone mainstream to a certain extent, yet the pressings remain niche, and in some cases regressive. Only 900 units of a Rolling Stones piece? (No one wants to hear how precious the process of each individual vinyl pour is if they can’t count on taking one home.) Only 1,000 units of a long out-of-print mainstream rap classic from the likes of an Ice-T? A mere 2,000 for a John Prine (RIP) box set in a year where fans and newbies alike are clamoring to revisit his catalog in the wake of his passing? From our view, it’s wakeup-call time: Is this a sustainable model for the success of our stores and the labels and distributors investing in these physical goods? Do you really want us to be running out of your releases by 8:05am and pissing off our loyal customers?
It’s time to start treating these precious goods a little less precious – or at least realize that the demand for exclusives has eclipsed previous standards for “limited edition.” It’s time to recalibrate before we kill the goose that laid the golden egg, because 1,000, 1,500, even 2,000 pressings just aren’t cutting it any more. We hope you take our observations to heart as you begin planning for Record Store Day 2021.
As for the rest of our weekend, we saw our first drop in Small Business Saturday business in years, which we largely attribute to the pandemic based on the feedback we received from our customers. While we saw an encouraging amount of support on Saturday, and our first foray into early-morning appointment shopping yielded positive results, we knew that several of our customers were choosing to stay away and that some saw the line out front – we kept our limited capacity limited – and decided not to wait to get in. The end result was a 19% decrease in business after seeing 15% growth for two consecutive years in 2018 and 2019.
Fortunately, Sunday saved our weekend. Several of those customers who walked away on Saturday returned on Sunday and told us they made a point of coming back when it was less busy so they could still support the store. We also got a nice boost of support from TV viewers who saw The Record Exchange featured in holiday shopping news stories on two of Boise’s network affiliates. That, coupled with online sales of exclusives to customers across the country, resulted in a 118% increase in Sunday sales, which miraculously put us 1.7% up over 2019 for the three-day weekend.
Below you will find our Top 50 exclusive sellers and some photos from the day. In spite of our grumbling, we do thank you for your support in this strange year. The fact you helped make the RSD Drops events happen (and allowed us to revisit orders); that you convinced your artists to release records early in our stores and provide us with virtual concert events; that you continued to send us promotional goods and raffle prizes … it did not go unnoticed, and we're grateful for all of it.
We wish you a happy holiday season and look forward to a new (and hopefully less-strange) year of working together for the love of the music.
Chad Dryden
Marketing and Promotions Director
CACTUS RECORDS
Here are details of Black Friday at Cactus.
We continued our successful ticketing method that we have used during previous RSD Drop events. This ensured minimal interaction between customers and our staff while maintaining our standard of fairness and calm. Our many customers who frequent our store for events are now accustomed to the new procedures and seem to be appreciative of our efforts. While our sales have been concentrated in the morning hours for the 2020 RSD events, non-stop rain resulted in customers visiting throughout the day and into the next day, whenever rainfall was lightest and potential flooding was not an issue. We were down 6% for Friday, but ended up flat for the weekend. Considering the health crisis, we feel very fortunate to have posted these numbers. That said, we are not optimistic about the holiday shopping season as our city's positivity rate has quickly risen to 10%.
Our sell through, at only 60%, was not as successful as the RSD drops. We bought long on the Black Friday stock, as we usually do, with plans to have these unique items in stock for the holidays.
All in all, we were pleased with how it turned out and it was remarkable to see so many music fans at our store including many that we had not seen in some time.
Be well, Q
Some #’s and additional info:
We were missing six titles due to late arrivals or damaged shipments.
There was no movement on the 11 of the titles.
31 titles sold out.
Allocated, needed more: Elliott Smith, Kids See Ghosts, Stones, Tesla, Uncle Tupelo, Anthrax, Bill Evans, Ace Frehley, Milla Jovovich, Aimee Mann and John Prine,
Non performers: Norma Jean, ODB, Beastie Boys and a few others.
DEARBORN RECORDS
Black Friday sales were down 15% mostly due to the initial line being down 50%. The weekend sales were even from 2019 to 2020. Overall our customers very happy they were able to shop. With everything going on the weekend was a big surprise.
Stay safe and well and have a wonderful day too!
Kevin LeAnnais
Dearborn Music
22501 Michigan Ave.
Dearborn, MI 48124
HOMERS
hey everyone,
big thanks to RSD for all the effort this year.
Homers Black Friday 2020 recap-
We really weren't sure how the day would turn out.
Unsure how the virus exploding around here would affect
the weekend.
About 30 in line on a cold morning.
Customer traffic was down for us and our area, the Old Market.
Numerous tv stories about how light consumer traffic was
everywhere.
For the day we were down 23% and for the weekend 20%.
Sell-through sits at 47%.
The most allocated of all RSD/BF dates so far.
Jazz and Hip-Hop continue to be big demand along with
hair Metal
top sellers include;
Kids See Ghosts, G Harrison, Fountains of Wayne, Uncle Tupelo,
U2, Tesla, Willie Nelson, V Guaraldi, D Gilmour, Puscifer,
Lou Reed,
under-performers; DMX, Garcia, Weeknd, G Washington, B Lavette
Hope our friends who are dealing with much more difficult
situations in their state/city had as good of weekend as possible
--
Mike Fratt/Homers
General Manager/Head Buyer
1210 Howard St
Omaha NE 68102
402 346 0264
www.homersmusic.com
https://www.facebook.com/HomersMusic
#cimsmusic
STREETLIGHT RECORDS
Greetings, and Happy Post-Black Friday!
We are thrilled to report that both Streetlight locations had great success on Black Friday, especially considering some extra obstacles thrown in our path. Most notably, the power company decided to shut down power to our Santa Cruz store 90m minutes into the day to change out a power pole. As a result, we were closed for several hours. While that made for a lower sales day than last Black Friday, our Santa Cruz store still had a decent sell-thru rate and will take it as a win.
Our San Jose store was up 12% over last year. The appointment system went smoothly and the customers seemed happy and very appreciative that we were still hosting the event. San Jose’s first day sell-through rate was 66%. Santa Cruz's was 53%, with lower sales than last year due to the power outage. All in all, a great success! Much thanks to all of our partners in this amazing effort.
We’re extra appreciative of the successful day, as by the end of the weekend, San Jose's county that mandated retail shopping go down to 10% customer capacity. It will be an interesting holiday shopping season.
Best seller reports for each store are below. Much luck and health to all during the holiday season!
--Paige
Santa Cruz:
1 823134006614 JUST DROPPED IN JONES,SHARON
2 602507321253 KIDS SEE GHOSTS KIDS SEE GHOSTS
3 759656067911 ELLIOTT SMITH ALTERN SMITH,ELLIOTT
4 602507458218 SOME OLD BULLSHIT BEASTIE BOYS
5 602435051345 MY SWEET LORD HARRISON,GEORGE
6 093624895589 LIFE ON THE MURDER S MY CHEMICAL ROM
7 602507193508 LOVE IS GONNA RAIN O JONES,BILLY & T
8 664425134216 HERBIE HANCOCK TRIO HANCOCK,HERBIE
9 051497174972 LIVE AT LOUNGE AX - UNCLE TUPELO
10 194397868715 LOU REED LIVE AT ALI REED,LOU
11 602507496272 BOY - 40TH ANNIVERSA U2
12 712758040510 LIVE AT RONNIE SCOTT EVANS,BILL
13 4050538636338 APOCALYPTICAL / ROCK PUSCIFER
14 4050538639681 COSMIC DANCER CAVE,NICK
15 826853455275 SOME VELVET MORNING SINATRA,NANCY /
16 089353501822 FIRST CENTURY DEMENT DR DEMENTO
17 194397846614 SAP ALICE IN CHAINS
18 5050159834006 JARVIS COCKER RECORD COCKER,JARVIS
19 848064010968 LIVE IN PASADENA JUL BLUE OYSTER CUL
20 728706340519 DOGGYSTYLE (RSD) SNOOP DOGG
21 712758040596 ROLLINS IN HOLLAND: ROLLINS,SONNY
22 989327004215 PARDON MY FRENCH JAHARI MASSAMBA
23 194397934113 RED HEADED STRANGER NELSON,WILLIE
San Jose:
1 602507496272 BOY - 40TH ANNIVERSA U2
2 823134006614 JUST DROPPED IN JONES,SHARON /
3 602507321253 KIDS SEE GHOSTS KIDS SEE GHOSTS
4 602435051345 MY SWEET LORD HARRISON,GEORGE
5 194397846614 SAP ALICE IN CHAINS
6 602507458218 SOME OLD BULLSHIT BEASTIE BOYS
7 051497174972 LIVE AT LOUNGE AX - UNCLE TUPELO
8 4050538626711 ACE OF SPADES MOTORHEAD
9 712758040596 ROLLINS IN HOLLAND: ROLLINS,SONNY
10 888072114258 CHRISTMAS TIME IS HE GUARALDI,VINCE
11 194397868715 LOU REED LIVE AT ALI REED,LOU
12 194398003610 NO BUSINESS: THE PPX KNIGHT,CURTIS /
13 093624895589 LIFE ON THE MURDER S MY CHEMICAL ROM
14 190295264666 ON PAROLE MOTORHEAD
15 759656067911 ELLIOTT SMITH ALTERN SMITH,ELLIOTT
16 880882416010 GARCIALIVE VOLUME TW GARCIA,JERRY
17 194397934113 RED HEADED STRANGER NELSON,WILLIE
18 888072205291 JAZZ DISPENSARY: ORA VARIOUS ARTIST
19 711574899722 I WALK THE LINE CASH,JOHNNY
20 4050538639681 COSMIC DANCER CAVE,NICK
21 634457276871 BEATLES VS. STONES LOS STRAITJACKE
22 4050538636789 DREAM EVIL LIVE 87 DIO
23 698519000217 BACHELOR NO. 2 (OR T MANN,AIMEE
--
Paige Brodsky
Store Manager, San Jose
Marketing Coordinator
408-292-1105
#streetlightrecords
#cimsmusic
LOONEY TUNES
Good Morning All,
WHAT A WEEKEND!!!
First let me give thanks to everyone involved in RSD.
We were closed for 3 months with in-store sales at $0. For any mom and pop like us…you can imagine just how difficult it has been. BUT after we reopened we had 4 months in a row all with one massive day. IT HAS BEEN A GOD SENT! I heard that maybe some people may be saying it was overload. I disagree strongly. It has been a blessing…And it is one of the main reasons we are still alive and kicking. I can not be more grateful. No customers complained or felt overloaded. Every person I have spoken with has loved the way RSD has been handled this year. So…thank you RSD from the bottom of our hearts.
Black Friday started with about 125 people on line when I got to the store at 7am. First job…FREE BAGELS and COFFEE for everyone! We get about 500 mini bagels with butter or cream cheese and coffee. People love it. We also handed out Looney Tunes Hand Sanitizer bottles. Which still are a big hit! The first person on line lined up at 11pm Thanksgiving night! He wanted 1 of the 2 Rolling Stones Lps that we got. SUCCESS! He was super super excited. And we were excited that it went to a true fan! (license plate # RSTONES1). The line was very orderly as we allowed 20 people into the store at at time. We had all the titles in one line around the store that everyone went through. Very very smooth. Having the online sales start on our website at 1pm was also really helpful! Saturday was strong and so was Sunday.
Overall #s
Black Friday weekend was down about 5% over last year. But we are super happy with that.
2020 VS 2019 total RSD sales (all 4 dates compared to last years 2 dates) UP 11%!!!!
time to go ship some online orders!!!!
Karl
Karl Groeger
President
Looney Tunes &
Brookvale Records
31 Brookvale Ave.
West Babylon, NY 11704
www.LTCDS.com
RECORD ARCHIVE
Greetings everyone~
So, like everything else Black Friday didn't look or feel like anything else this year. We had a nice modest crowd of 50 people at 7:30, First customer arrived at 2:30 am ( wanting Let it Bleed).
By the time we opened, there were approximately 100 people coming in the doors. We had the entire Backroom Lounge dedicated to shopping RSD titles, with the rest of the store open for regular shopping. It was easy, efficient and swift. We did not have any live music, or food trucks or the bar open. So it was a little on the somber side as it should be since this pandemic is really taking it's toll~
So the bad news is we were down 21% in the store. The better news if I factor our online sales for the weekend , we are only down 6%. Nonetheless, even though I am a little disappointed, I am not unhappy as it is quite remarkable we did even that! In NYS, specifically in my region we are broken into different ' zones'. We are located in an area that many businesses ( gyms, hair salons) had to close but we remain open. Customer confusion ( and lots of phone calls) have convinced me that many people have thought we were not open, or simply decided to stay home and heed all the warnings.
Either way, I am grateful once again to all those who have made this day possible; first my staff who have poured their all into making theses days as successful as they can be, to all the heads of RSD for wrangling all the labels and artists on our behalf, to the suppliers who make sure we receive all the product ( and shippers!) and mostly to the artists who create the music that is so highly coveted.
Here are some of the specifics:
Best sellers ( LPS);
Kids see Ghosts
Alice in Chains
My Chemical Romance
U2
Sharon Jones
Beastie Boys
Alanis Morissette
Herbie Hancock
Bill Evans
Sonny Rollins
Lou Reed
Snoop Dogg
Anthrax ( NEEDED WAY MORE THAN WHAT I RECEIVED!)
Best Seller 45s:
George Harrison
Vince Guaraldi
David Gilmour ( plenty of stock left)
Nancy Sinatra
Hank Williams
(Of course Rolling Stones sold out in the first 5 minutes and I heard was going for $600 online....ugh)
Best to all and Happy Holidays~
Alayna Alderman
VP Record Archive
33 1/3 Rockwood St
Rochester, NY 14610
585-244-1210
est.1975
recordarchive.com
#recordarchive
The first record store in NYS to serve beer and wine daily!
MUSIC MILLENNIUM
Hello All -
Black Friday started with the normal thunder that it always does. It’s never like RSD but it has grown to 1/2 what a normal RSD is for us. We had 55 people in line
at 5:15 when I arrived and handed out a total of 120 time assignments by out 8am opening. It was 34 degrees out but clear and dry. Everyone was glad to see me so
they got a chance to go warm up some place before their time slot appeared. I agreed with their sentiment as I stood out till 7am giving away time assignments till
the morning crew arrived and I was able to get warm feet again.
I was happy to see that 1 in every 10 people through the door wanted the Fountains of Wayne release. I was not as smiley when people asked for titled that were highly
allocated or titles that that did not arrive due to late shipping or shipping carrier issues. 1 Beat Farmers, 1 Ice-T, 1 Sunn-O, 1 Tesla. 2 or 3 Fred Neil, Anthrax, Dogg
Pound, Fraggle Rock, Milla Jovolish, Painted Shield…..and the most requested of the day, Kids See Ghost which we only received 4. And somewhere out in America
are our Best Coast, Volbeat and Dave Brubeck. The Black Friday was the highest allocated slate of titles we’ve seen since the inception of Record Store Day.
We brought in 30 people people per 1/2 hour and that went smooth with once again people thanking us for the system we had in place to get people through. Many would
love to see this model in place post COVID and expressed it. Customers were only able to shop Black Friday titles during this time. The morning thunder did dissipate at
10:15 and at 10:30 we went back to our COVID limit of 10 people in the store at a time and regular shopping of the entire store.
Our totals for the day were only 60% of last years Black Friday titles. This effected our sell through of just selling 50% of what we had in stock. And there were a number
of disappointing performances of titles including Curtis Knight, Paul Kantner, Jorma Kaukonen/John Hurlbut, DMX, Karen Dalton, Grand Puba, Zella Day, James McMurtry,
Comet is Coming,Norah Jones, Ol’ Dirty Bastard, Lil Wayne (both), John Batiste, Corey Taylor , Drive-By Truckers, Baroness and some others. Again, if we had done the
business of last year, some of these may have not been on the list. I’m sure the State of Oregon’s Pause that was put in effect on November 18th due to heavy spike in COVID
in the state may have effected how people shopped on BlackFriday this year. It had not effected our every day business but when you are encouraged not to celebrate Thanksgiving
with anyone out of your household, then you may have thought twice about exposing yourself to a crowd of shoppers on Black Friday.
We did make plenty of people happy which is what the day is all about. We thank you all for making all these fine releases and all the effort that was put in to making this day
possible. I look forward to the day we can do these events post COVID. Thank you Michael and Carrie, Andrea and Eric for what you have had to do this year. And if anyone hears of a Beat Farmers floating around, I might look like one of those smiley face emojis if it showed up! I could not take that 1 we received.
Now here are the sales results.
Full Length Vinyl
1- Alice In Chains - Sap 30 (Sold out and allocated)
2- Elliott Smith - Alternative Takes 28
3- Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings 25
4- Beastie Boys - Some Old Bullshit 23
5- Bill Evans - Live At Ronnie Scott’s 23
6- Aimee Mann - Bachelor No, 2 20 (Sold out)
7- Willie Nelson - Red Headed Stranger 20 (Sold out and allocated)
8- My Chemical Romance - Life On The Murder Scene 19
9- Jazz Dispensary 17 (Sold out)
10- Herbie Hancock - Herbie Hancock Trio 17
11- U2-Boy 17
12- Lou Reed - Live At Alice Tully Hall 17
13- Sonny Rollins - Rollins In Holland 16
14- Jerry Garcia - Garcia Live Volume Two 16
15- Fountains of Wayne - Welcome Interstate Managers 16 (Sold out)
16- Vince Guaraldi - Christmas Time Is Here 15 (Sold out and allocated)
17- Little Richard - Southern Child 13
18- Drive-By Truckers - Plan 9 Records Live 13
19 - Uncle Tupelo - Live At Lounge Ax (Sold out and allocated) 11
20- Studio 1 - Afrikan Blood 9
21- Alanis Morissette - Live At London’s 02 9
22- Bettye Lavette, Billie Holiday, Nina Simone - Original Grooves 9
23- John Hurlbut/Jorma Kaukonen 9
24- Norah Jones - Playdate 8
25- Bangles - Doll Revolution 8
7 Inch
1- George harrison - My Sweet Lord 15
2- David Gilmore - Yes I Have Ghosts 10
3- Hank Williams - 1952 Radio Auditions 9 (Sold out)
4- Nancy Sinatra/Lee Hazelwood- Some Velvet Morning 7
5- Nick Cave - Cosmic Dancer 7
Happy Holiday to you all!
Terry
DARKSIDE
That's a wrap! With Black Friday and Small Business Saturday now complete, we've finished the seemingly never-ending cycle of RSD this year with a sigh of relief and a longing to do it again next year. If you don't care about my synopsis, our easily digestible stats and top sellers are included on the right hand side. For specific distributor information, please reach out to me directly.
I said it last month, but it certainly bears repeating again- our customers absolutely love the multiple dates of RSD. They're freely admitting to us that they're spending more money than if it had just been the two traditional dates, and they're happy to do it. To borrow a phrase, take my money, please.
Friday did feel a bit more tepid that the previous drops in the morning, but by the end of the night the results are hard to deny. Between the media coverage of traditional holiday shopping being down and and the heightened anxiety of COVID spikes in the area again I think that finishing the day up 2.7% is a great win for us.
Our online sales in the evening were stronger than ever, even over the past Drops. We close at 8pm and launched our remaining stock on our own website and had over 100 orders in the first hour. As of this writing, my staff is still busting their asses to get all the orders out the door to happy customers, new and returning.
I think it's worth bringing up here that I feel that there should be a minimum entry for a title to be an official Record Store Day piece. There are pieces for every event that are under-pressed and we're all leaving money on the table. It is my opinion that the minimum entry to play on this national stage should be 1,500 pieces. That's still less than 1 per pledged store and I understand that not everyone brings in every title- but that just means there might be one more copy for the rest of us who do bring in everything, generally in more than 1 quantity. Record Store Day is a serious event with a national platform, with serious people ultimately working toward the goal of making people happy by guessing correctly at the things they want. I think we need to recognize this and try to serve the people who support us a little bit better each and everytime we ask them to give us their dollars.
The first person in our line was at 4:46pm on Thanksgiving, a new record! We also made a slight change this year- usually they camp out in the freezing cold, but between the cold and the pandemic we decided to number parking spots as the places in line. We made it clear you had to stay in your car and didn't have to worry too much because we knew the die-hards would keep each other honest. At open, we have continued allowed two people in at a time to go up to the registers and get their RSD exclusives. Afterwards they were free to shop the store and check out a separate non-RSD register, then exit from our side door, so no one ever crossed paths. As always, we partnered with our favorite local coffee shop The Poughkeepsie Grind to to keep everyone caffeinated.
The earliest titles with the highest demand included The Rolling Stones, Blue Oyster Cult, Sonny Rollins, My Chemical Romance, Sun O))), Ace Frehley, Uncle Tupelo and Fountains Of Wayne. There were other titles that we had lower quantities on that also sold out quickly.
Sadly, our Chris Cornell 7"s did not arrive until Monday evening, or this would have been included in the top sellers for sure.
A few titles we were surprised to see slow movement on, such as Curtis Knight, Corey Taylor/Dead Boys split, Little Richard, Brian Wilson & Van Dyke Parks among a few others.
We always like include a charity element on RSD to give back however we can, and this time around we did a raffle/donations to benefit Angels Of Light Hudson Valley. We're helping out a family who recently lost their 33 year old father to stage 4 cancer. All the money raised goes to provide them with gits for the holidays and other household essentials in their time of need. We raffled off the Mastodon Medium Rarities prize pack, Gorillaz hoodie w/ a bag of locally roasted coffee and several other items. Thank you to everyone involved for helping us get awesome prizes to raise money for a great cause!
Many thanks to all the labels, distributors and reps who worked to give us great product to produce these awesome results. These days aren't possible with all of your efforts and we're truly thankful for all of you. If you have any more specific questions, please feel to reach out directly. Scroll down to see a couple pictures from the weekend.
Justin Johnson
Darkside Records
845-452-8010
Darkside Black Friday Stats
- First person in line at 4:46pm on Thanksgiving
- 58% First Day Sell Through
- 65% Sell Through for whole weekend
- Sales up 2.7% over BF19
- Received 17% less BF stock vs 2019
- Combining all Drops + Black Friday, total sales up 39.33% over LY
- Online sales for Black Friday product particularly strong this year, presumable driven by the pandemic
- Small Business Saturday sales very strong, up 48.76% over LY
- Total weekend sales + 17.32% vs LY
Thank you once again to everyone that puts in the hard work to bring these special releases to life and to pull off these events, as well as to everyone that supports the stores on not just this day but every day.
Here are the charts,
Andrea
Andrea Paschal
Executive Director
Coalition of Independent Music Stores
ThinkIndie Distribution
3738 4th Terrace North
Birmingham, AL 35222
Phone: 205.595.1932 x.208
Fax: 205.595.1938
Email : andrea@cimsmusic.com
cimsmusic.com
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