Rough Trade opening in NYC

[denkinger]

Yeah, forgot about that...and purposefully didn't mention their attempt to move from Haight St. to the middle-of-fucking-nowhere SOMA. The. End.

[ToiletAndBowels]

Not surprising that this turned out to be crap. When they opened their shop in East London they were saying that it was the London equivalent of Amoeba.

[erico]

STILL NO SKATE RAMP?

[Stained Sleeves]

RT tried to lure me away from my current job to go work here.
I decided to go in for the interview just to get the inside scoop.

When one of the founders told me that they weren't going to be dealing with used records, I actually laughed out loud.
From what I could tell they spent wasted YEARS pouring money into this before the doors opened.

As you would imagine, it's mostly there to sell Rough Trade t-shirts.

[I Am Not Marty Feldman]

Don't understand the decision to forego used records.  That's how record stores make their money.

Unless it would mean hiring people who actually know about records, which means bypassing mannequins for dorks and 'heads. 

They'll probably outlast us all.

[J Bone]

Don't understand the decision to forego used records.  That's how record stores make their money.

Unless it would mean hiring people who actually know about records, which means bypassing mannequins for dorks and 'heads. 

They'll probably outlast us all.

At this point I've always assumed that most record stores were tax shelters. Are there still record stores that make money off records? The places that seem to do well(don't change ownership every two years) in town always have something else on the menu like t-shirts, studs, hair dye or a head shop on premises.

[I Am Not Marty Feldman]

I can attest that it's possible, but it depends on the circumstances.  Obviously, supplementing your stock with other media (DVDs, for example) makes a diff.  So does rent.  If you own the space -- even with a mortgage/property tax/etc. -- that makes it a lot easier.

That said, unless you're a tried/true corp (like Barnes & Noble, fer inst), I do not understand how a store expects to make money on new records, books and CDs.  Even at wholesale cost, you aren't making much money on that stuff, even if the volume is as ridiculous as the people at Rough Trade expect it will be.  It's really quite insane to walk into a massive, warehouse-like consumer area in NYC that isn't utilizing every inch of space with salable product when every other store in town is at capacity in this regard.  When I went there, their bins were nearly empty, and I could've fucking line-danced (and nearly did) on their sales floor.  Place was also somewhat empty on their opening day.  Too much money.