Record biz changing, not dying, according to Naxos

There's an interesting post by Naxos' Mark Berry that outlines the dynamics of today's retail music biz:

The Naxos Blog: Why Only CDs on NaxosDirect?

It’s important, though, to remember that CDs still account for 75%-80% of total music sales and are a huge part of what Naxos of America does. Brick-and-mortar retail is hurting, but, online stores are doing a booming business. According to a recent Billboard article, the only category to grow its share of music sales in the first quarter of 2007 was nontraditional retail, which includes online stores and download stores (nontraditional went from about 15% to about 20%).

The bottom line is that consumers are still buying music, but how they're doing it is changing.

My opinion is that the reason why consumers are spurning bricks-and-mortar retail is that the retailers have done it to themselves. Big box stores like Wal-mart and Best Buy have set the tone by only carrying Top 40 with virtually zero depth in the back catalogue. Keeping an extensive back catalogue in inventory is a costly undertaking , and iconic retailers like A&B Sound, Sam the Record Man, Tower Records, and many more have either fallen by the wayside or radically slashed their inventories.

What fun is it to browse through a record store that has no inventory? Believe it or not kids, there was a time when you would go to the store for one disc, spend an hour or three combing the shelves, considering artists you'd never heard of before and being engaged and challenged by interested, excited store staff who wanted to share their latest discovery with you. Most of us left the store with armfulls of records, not just the one we came for. That was how music stores made money in the old days. Now, a CD is a commodity and an impulse item; you might pick up the new Emmerson Drive CD (well, I wouldn't, but you know what I mean) on your way to the checkout after buying kid's clothes, or soap or something else.

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