"Iain Churches" wrote

I was amazed when David L said that he had no local record shop.
I have a dozen within 20 minutes of here,

Well let me see. 10 mins in one direction there's a small co-op, a post
office, a newsagents and a teashop. The post office does sell a few cheap
DVDs, but no audio. 10 minutes in the opposite direction there's a
post-office cum general store. 20 minutes away in yet another direction
there's a nice little town with a decent-sized co-op, a very good bookshop,
several charity shops, several banks, even two funeral directors, but no
record shops. Or 30 minutes away there's a bigger town, with expensive
parking. It's got a Maplins, several video-game shops and a whole street
full of mobile phone shops. It *did* have a very nice specialist classical
record shop, but that lost business to the on-line retailers and had to
close. There was also a Virgin Megastore (though I hardly ever went in, I
couldn't stand the place), I don't know what's happened to that. They may be
other record shops in back streets, I don't claim to know the town that
intimately, but certainly nothing in the town centre. Of course the big
out-of town supermarkets sell CDs now, there are a couple of those within 30
mins of me, but they only sell "chart" titles and I certainly don't regard
them as "record shops".

and CDON the online
supplier delivers in 24hrs,

It's years since I've bought any CDs other than from on-line retailers,
except for a few "small-label" CDs bought from stalls at shows.

There are already signs that the trend
will be towards specialised shops, selling only jazz. or classical
music. People seem to attach considerable importance
to "record shop browsing" Both Helsinki and Stockholm have
vinyl only shops, which seem to be doing well.

Both Helsinki and Stockholm are, so I'm lead to understand, quite large
cities. What may work in such places need not necessarily work in less
intensely populated areas.

David.