Guest Posted October 31, 2011 Share Posted October 31, 2011 came across this on facebook today: Newbury Comics-No Future?! Our Company is approaching a long awaited crossroads. Behind us is our storied past of bringing cutting edge music to a highly enthusiastic, and very loyal customer base. When John and I opened our then tiny store front on Newbury Street in 1978, we had no idea the ride we were in for! Over the ensuing years, we built stores all across the region, worked with hundreds of the most interesting and creative people you could imagine, and in the process impacted the cultural perspective of New England. We have sold over 90 million records, CDs and DVDs, had hundreds of artist in-store appearances and employed perhaps 2400 different people through the years. We have out lived, out witted and out lasted The Coop, Strawberries, Lechmere, NE Music City, Tower Records, HMV, Popcorn, Good Vibrations, Virgin Megastore, Circuit City and now sadly, Borders. We are left competing at Brick and Mortar with the likes of Wal-Mart and Target, and what remains of Best Buy's and FYE's media offerings. Looking forward, we can see we surely must morph, or slowly die. There simply isn't enough remaining customer demand to support more than a handful of our stores in a few years if we don't change our mixture of goods. Many of you have continued to support us, even as your own music consumption has shifted to online options. All of you have noticed our not so subtle shift in emphasis from pure music, to music and DVD, to now at times an odd mixture of new and used CDs + DVDs, combined with an increasing amount of pop culture and fashion items. We recently launched a new "hybrid" store in the South Shore Plaza in Braintree, moving our store from across the street. Yeah, I know, malls kinda suck sometimes. This store features way more fashion than we have ever presented. The results are very encouraging so far, with CD + DVD sales up, along with a very strong increase in other non media categories. We have also built our web efforts to the point where they represent 25% of our total sales, mainly through eBay, Amazon, and Punk.com. These web sales help support our overall cost structure, and may be a potential future path for the entire company. We are right now in the process of building another hybrid superstore in the Natick Mall. The next 6 months will be critical in determining whether we have a brick and mortar store concept which will survive the steady decline in CD + DVD sales we are now experiencing in all of our other locations. I know we can't turn back the clock, and I know we have to change dramatically over the next 3 years. The question is - What to do?! I always say the 3 most important words in business are "I don't know!" Here's to hoping we can figure it out. I would very much appreciate it if you could provide us with some feedback on our future. Please fill out the survey below and send any additional thoughts you might have to me directly to [email protected]. Thanks so much for both your honest feedback and your support over all these years! Customer Survey mike dreese ceo and co-founder Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
finchbadass Posted October 31, 2011 Share Posted October 31, 2011 they should think about actually having the shit they put on ebay before listing it. bought stuff from them twice on ebay, both times i was refunded a week later because they didn't have it. and it wasnt stuff incredibly hard to find or OOP, stuff readily available but for a good price. never bought anything from them ever again and never will. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mmhmm Posted November 1, 2011 Share Posted November 1, 2011 People who collect autographed CD covers are bummed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kyacrash Posted November 1, 2011 Share Posted November 1, 2011 Interesting. I've been a newbury comics fan since I was a kid. my dad would take my sister and I to the original store (when it was the only store) and it always had the coolest stuff. I was excited for them when they began to expand, but perhaps they would've been better off remaining an independent one-off store. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
morfiend Posted November 1, 2011 Share Posted November 1, 2011 I hope they figure some things out and stick around for the long haul. I've never been to one of the brick and mortar stores but I've always had good experiences with them online. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
albert Posted November 1, 2011 Share Posted November 1, 2011 I bought The Bedlam In Goliath from them Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xlovecolouredx Posted November 1, 2011 Share Posted November 1, 2011 one of the store i ever ordered a lot of cd.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mcm1610 Posted November 1, 2011 Share Posted November 1, 2011 Don't shop there much, but have been into the Newbury St. location a few times and come out with a few goodies. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nothingnatural Posted November 1, 2011 Share Posted November 1, 2011 I hope they figure some things out and stick around for the long haul. I've never been to one of the brick and mortar stores but I've always had good experiences with them online. Seconded Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oojavaguru Posted November 1, 2011 Share Posted November 1, 2011 EarXtacy in KY and Slowtrain in Utah have also announced they are closing or have closed for good. We are losing some great music stores. We already lost Criminal Records in Toronto and Vinyl Fever in Tampa....depending on what happens, we may lose Criminal Records in Atlanta too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
finchbadass Posted November 1, 2011 Share Posted November 1, 2011 EarXtacy in KY and Slowtrain in Utah have also announced they are closing or have closed for good. We are losing some great music stores. We already lost Criminal Records in Toronto and Vinyl Fever in Tampa....depending on what happens, we may lose Criminal Records in Atlanta too. whatever happened to your lame blog that you plastered this board with when all you did was copy and past the RSD releases list and went on ill-informed rants. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted November 1, 2011 Share Posted November 1, 2011 i live in western mass, and record shopping isnt exactly easy around here. i have a few used shops, hot topic, and newbury comics. newbury is pretty much my only source of getting new vinyl without having to pay for shipping. and i think we can all agree that physically sifting through records is 129% better than searching for something online. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jcamps Posted November 1, 2011 Share Posted November 1, 2011 doesn't it suck that newbury comics is almost all we have left? i was delighted 7 years ago when one opened up close my house in north dartmouth, and even though now i almost always go to armageddon instead its always nice to flip what newbury has once a month i can never leave empty handed. box stores will never carry a decent selection of vinyl, newbs is the last frontier. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kriss Posted November 1, 2011 Share Posted November 1, 2011 All of these closures make me relieved that I'm within walking distance of four different record shops with a great selection of both used and new stuff. I almost never buy new records unless I absolutely can't wait for them. One of the things that led to Criminal ATL's downfall was their move to a much larger space several years ago - had they stayed where they were, they'd probably be in a bit better shape. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
benchwarmer Posted November 1, 2011 Share Posted November 1, 2011 I used to work at Newbury Comics while I was in college. It was a great place. It has certainly gone downhill, though. The selection has taken a huge hit. The never seem to have what I want anymore. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
benchwarmer Posted November 1, 2011 Share Posted November 1, 2011 i live in western mass, and record shopping isnt exactly easy around here. i have a few used shops, hot topic, and newbury comics.newbury is pretty much my only source of getting new vinyl without having to pay for shipping. and i think we can all agree that physically sifting through records is 129% better than searching for something online. there used to be this really cool record shop in Indian Orchard, but it went out of business years ago. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eatdeath Posted November 1, 2011 Share Posted November 1, 2011 long live armageddon shop boston newbuy has nothing for vinyl any more only classic rock represses for 45 bucks or more the one on newbury street has the best selection the rest is just overflow of all the crap records they order Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
almightyseancore Posted November 1, 2011 Share Posted November 1, 2011 I bought The Bedlam In Goliath from them so did i. there were bits of paper from the sleeve stuck in the grooves. ruined this release for me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
piecemeal Posted November 1, 2011 Share Posted November 1, 2011 Never went to Newb for vinyl, but sure as hell bought a good percentage of my CD collection there. Best prices on new CD releases in MA. Usually had decent looking suicide girl type chicks working the counter too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mcm1610 Posted November 1, 2011 Share Posted November 1, 2011 All of these closures make me relieved that I'm within walking distance of four different record shops with a great selection of both used and new stuff. I almost never buy new records unless I absolutely can't wait for them. One of the things that led to Criminal ATL's downfall was their move to a much larger space several years ago - had they stayed where they were, they'd probably be in a bit better shape.When I went to Chicago two summers ago, it seemed like there was a record store every few blocks. I was jealous and then did some unneeded shopping anyway. It was kind of a bitch getting records into my carry-on without worrying about them getting crushed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kriss Posted November 1, 2011 Share Posted November 1, 2011 Yeah no kidding. Sometimes I've had to make an active effort to NOT go in since I have to walk by atleast two of them directly when I'm walking to the grocery store. Then there are the boutiques, comic shops and everything else. Living in an awesome neighborhood sorta sucks for the wallet. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tape Posted November 1, 2011 Share Posted November 1, 2011 Newbury Comics was the best thing in the world 15 years ago. These days they're more of a pop culture items/fashion store that happens to sell some CDs and DVDs and a few records. the Newbury Street and Garage stores have a pretty decent vinyl rack, but most of the other stores don't. 5-6 years ago when I lived in Lowell I used to do most of my music shopping at Bull Moose in Salem, but whenever I go there these days I end up wondering why I made the trip from Boston or went out of my way from Lowell if I was up there. Newbury Comics will probably either evolve almost entirely into a regional Hot Topic-like pop culture and fashion store (and may keep a few racks of music, in the way that Hot Topic has branched out into music, but it will be a tiny part of their business) that is a bit more mainstream as compared to Hot Topic's leaning towards punk/goth/metal-oriented stuff, or they will end up going out of business. I don't see them sticking with music as a large basis of their business for much longer. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
benchwarmer Posted November 1, 2011 Share Posted November 1, 2011 bull moose is great. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
astrangerwithcandy Posted November 1, 2011 Share Posted November 1, 2011 I got my Mariachi El Bronx LP there last year. Cool store, seemed like it was doing well enough, guess not. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jcamps Posted November 1, 2011 Share Posted November 1, 2011 i mean cmon, they gave up comics ages ago Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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