Newsgroup: it.arti.musica.rock.progressive
Titolo: solo x Kane : lunghissimo,vi avevo avvisato,in inglese

  dal Ny Times
  GRASS-ROOTS BUSINESS 
From a Store With 300,000 Titles, a Big Music Lesson
By JIM RENDON
 Glenn Ward, the chief executive of the Virgin Entertainment Group, North
America, has an urge to hunt for obscure, out-of-print recordings, he passes up
the Virgin Megastore on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles for another music
retailer down the street. 
Mr. Ward chooses that competitor, Amoeba Music, because, he says, it is among
the best places to find rare music in Los Angeles, where Virgin North America
is based.
 
 
Mr. Ward is not alone. Amoeba, a three-store chain that opened its first store
in 1990 near the campus of the University of California at Berkeley, is a haven
for music customers and, as a result, is growing as most of its megasize
competitors are shrinking.
Last year, it says, it sold $50 million of merchandise, up 50 percent from
2001. It has had a profit every year since it started, even in recent years
when the biggest names in music retailing have been closing stores or stocking
their shelves with shirts and action figures — anything that might sell
better than the music.
Amoeba's selection outdistances the competition. It carries an average 300,000
titles in each store, twice as many as Virgin does, and more than 10 times the
average at Wherehouse Entertainment stores. Moreover, about half those CD's and
recordings are used. Amoeba has achieved cult status as the place to sell, as
well as buy, CD's and rare records. 
The company also tries to hire knowledgeable employees who can lead customers
to the latest Scandinavian black-metal offering or help them find an
out-of-print Freddie Hubbard jazz recording. Amoeba shoppers, even those who
work for the competition, can be fanatic.
"I love shopping there," said Mr. Ward, who most recently bought an
out-of-print single by the band Talking Heads at Amoeba. "They have a great
buzz going and a great staff with deep product knowledge. They put temptation
in my way, and I can't resist. It's a great place to hang out." 
While Amoeba continues to grow, fueled by the opening of its 34,000-square-foot
store on Sunset Boulevard in 2001, many big names in the industry have been
fading. Wherehouse, based in Torrance, Calif., closed 255 stores last year,
leaving it with only 149 outlets in the West. It filed for bankruptcy
protection in January. Tower Records, based in West Sacramento, Calif., and
owned by MTS Inc., lost $57.1 million in 2002 and is reportedly up for sale.
Musicland, based in Minnetonka, Minn., and the operator of the Sam Goody
stores, lost $74 million last year and was sold by Best Buy to Sun Capital
Partners for the assumption of its liabilities. 
Since 1999, CD shipments in the United States have fallen 15 percent, according
to the Recording Industry Association of America. Music retailers are also
battling rampant downloading on the Internet and growing sales at stores like
Wal-Mart and online sites like Amazon.
The largest retailers are racing to diversify. Virgin is selling clothing from
Ben Sherman Ltd. and is considering incense and candles. Wherehouse and Tower
are pursuing similar strategies. 
"We're in the process of overhauling our merchandise so we can have a higher
reliance on things other than music to drive customers into the store,"said Lew
Garrett, executive vice president of Wherehouse.
 
BUT on a recent Saturday afternoon, Amoeba's store in San Francisco, on Haight
Street, was a swirl of commerce. A long checkout line snaked around racks of
bargain CD's. The rhythmic clacking made by people sifting through bins of CD's
mixed with the soothing rhythms of "Essential Asian Flavas," a CD playing on
the sound system.
Linnea Vedder, 21, an art student, flipped through a stack of used CD's, hoping
to find a bargain on the latest release from the British rockabilly singer
Holly Golightly. "Amoeba has lots of music that I wouldn't find in other
stores," Ms. Vedder said. 
A dozen yards away, Duane Felix, 50, a truck dispatcher, clutched a Temptations
album under his arm; he owned a copy of it 30 years ago. Ryan Carlisle, 23, a
student visiting from Arcadia, Calif., found a CD by the indie-pop band
Pinback. "This is the best record store I've ever been to," he said. 
Amoeba does not display any promotional material. No Mick Jagger cutouts hawk
the latest Rolling Stones album. Instead, vintage posters are displayed next to
records. Paco Underhill, founder of the retail research firm Envirosell and
author of "Why We Buy: The Science of Shopping," visited the Los Angeles store
and was impressed by how Amoeba had tapped into people's passion for music. "It
is like a temple," Mr. Underhill said.
Amoeba was started in Berkeley in 1990 by Mike Boyder and Dave Prinz, friends
from college at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, and Mark
Weinstein, who became friends with Mr. Prinz while working in a San Francisco
record store. They were joined in 1995 by Karen Pearson.
The original, 3,000-square-foot store in Berkeley expanded, eventually to
11,000 square feet. The San Francisco store, at 25,000 square feet, opened in
1997 and the Los Angeles outlet in 2001.
 
"Other stores think the public wants sameness, a nonliving entity," Mr. Boyder
said. "Our store is vibrant; the walls have energy. The staff likes it here.
It's cool to do what we are doing, and the public feels it and responds."
Amoeba is catering to a growing need, said Tom Adams, president of Adams Media
Research in Carmel, Calif. As music tastes have diversified in recent years,
sales by major stars have slowed and those by midlevel artists have grown. 
 
The Internet, often blamed for cannibalizing music sales, may also broaden
consumer tastes, Mr. Adams said. People can go online to listen to free samples
of songs, look up artists on the Internet and learn about music that they would
never hear on radio.
Music has split into so many subcategories that large retailers have trouble
keeping up, Mr. Underhill said. Fifteen years ago, the average teenager might
have been familiar with blues, rock and country music. Today, teenagers listen
to Goth-industrial, hip-hop, electronica, black metal, jungle, garage,
Bollywood — a broad range of music from around the world, he said. 
Virgin has tapped into the trend by stocking 150,000 titles in its stores, a
far wider CD selection than at other large chains. If a CD sells one copy a
year, Mr. Ward says, it's worth stocking it.
Still, profits on individual CD's have been dropping. With tough competitors
like Wal-Mart, Amoeba and other retailers have drastically cut prices on new
titles. Today, many retailers make as little as 20 percent on a new CD. 
Selling used CD's is crucial to Amoeba's success. It says it has an average
markup of 60 percent on its used titles, which account for half its sales.
Amoeba's reputation has attracted music experts nationwide. It has large
collections of jazz and classical music, genres often ignored by other
retailers, and has employees who can make the most serious fans feel that they
are among kindred spirits.
That knowledge is something that many of the large chains are lacking, said
Jerry R. Goolsby, a professor of marketing and music industry studies at Loyola
University in New Orleans. If stores do not have a knowledgeable staff, he
said, there is no reason to patronize them if it is easier to buy on the
Internet. Amoeba does not sell on the Web.
 
AMOEBA'S formula may not work everywhere, however. Just a few American cities
— including New York, Nashville, Chicago, Seattle and Austin — have
thriving music scenes, Mr. Underhill said. Amoeba could flourish in any of
those cities, provided that it could find inexpensive real estate for its huge
stores. Outside of such cities, its formula would not be as effective, he said.
Amoeba's size can also be a liability, Mr. Underhill added. Although the staff
in each store is knowledgeable, it is, by necessity, large. A customer may find
a jazz expert every time she walks through the door, but she might not find the
same one she spoke to on her last visit. That can lead to an impersonal feel,
he said.
But so far, Amoeba has found the right cities and the right market. Mr.
Underhill said that its success should inspire other retailers. "Amoeba is a
beacon in the wilderness for the rest of the industry," he said. 
salutoni
 

titles. Today, many retailers make as little as 20 percent on a new CD.
seconda nota dolente, non si riescono più a gonfiare i prezzi
artificiosamente giocando sulla spasmodica aspettativa
indotta sula consumatore a suon di propaganda martellante.
come dicevano i Timbuk3, The future's so bright, I've got to wear shades.

come dicevano i Timbuk3, The future's so bright, I've got to wear shades.
problem is, these shades are a cheap imitation, and I think I got ripped off
bye

 lontano.
c'è da considerare la concorrenza che i venditori tipo amazon
fanno ai negozi tradizionali. tutto sommato questi ultimi
stanno reggendo piuttosto bene, pensavo che sarebbero
stati decimati più in fretta
comunque nell'ultimo mese ho comperato solo dischi
usati, sarà una coincidenza.