Klarinet Archive - Posting 000316.txt from 1999/03

From: Michael Cogswell <Michael_Cogswell@-----.com>
Subj: [kl] Store closings
Date: Fri, 5 Mar 1999 09:52:54 -0500

The pros and cons of dealing with your local retailer vs mail order is an
old story.
In the book world I loved to visit a small local bookstore. They had
wonderful stacks of hard to find books, and would cheerfully locate anything
they didn't have. But eventually the "Going out of business" sign went up
following the nearby opening of a large discount chain bookstore. But large
meant the had lots of discounted copies of the popular titles, not a lot of
variety. Now even that chain is in financial trouble, being caught between
the new class of book superstores and Amazon.

The same has happened in the hobby world. The magazines frequently print
"support your local store" articles and editorials, but in many ways it's a
waste of ink. Economics are working to hard against them. The true
hobbyist who like to scratch build or highly modify something needs a
variety of miscellaneous detail parts. But there is no way a small store
can stock *ALL* the little stuff, so the chances they will have the bits I
need are small. In the old days I had no choice but to allow them to order
the parts and wait (often weeks) for them to get them from their
distributor. Once mail order caught on, I could order direct from a catalog
and get them sooner and cheaper. With internet ordering and FedEx/UPS I can
get stuff literally overnight. So I do. The bad news for the local stores
is that once we start buying mail order, we get the big ticket items the
same way. And they die, which turns into bad news for us because we lose
our source for the items we did buy locally. It's a viscous circle,
following the relentless rules of supply and demand.

Returning to music, it's the same story. The music store almost directly
across the street from my office has no clarinet books at all. The last
time I stopped in they had a single mouthpiece, no ligatures, and a couple
of miscellaneous boxes of reeds. They seem to specialize in teenage garage
bands, since the stock is mostly electric guitars, drum sets, guitar method
books and rock sheet music. But they "can get it for me" if I ask for a
clarinet item. The music store closest to home is part of a chain that
specializes in music rentals to the local schools. They have a limited
(very limited) selection of clarinet related items. I can get reeds from
them, as long as I want van Doren. My daughter can't, since they rarely
have any on hand for a bass clarinet. They will certainly have a clarinet
if I want to rent one and aren't fussy about the brand. They may have a
Yamaha to sell, if I'm not fussy about the model. Otherwise, they might be
able to get it from "the warehouse" or they can special order one. I know
from experience it can take up to two weeks just to get a box of reeds. The
only decent store even remotely local is the Washington Music Center. When
my daughter recently bought a new bass to low C, she and her teacher were
able to play from a selection of Selmer and Buffet instruments and pick one
she really liked. The price was a bit higher than mail order, but freight
and restocking charges associated with trying several probably made the
overall transaction cheaper. However, I'm sorry to say that we rarely visit
this store. It's thirty miles away in another state, which makes it
impractical to drop in a browse. As a result, we both buy almost all our
musical "stuff" mail order.

MikeC

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