24th Annual Profile of the American Dealer

The 2014 edition of our annual summer dealer count and breakdown represents a major milestone in how MMR collects and verifies this type of information. The numbers presented reflect a far greater degree of accuracy, providing current store counts for each state and the country, overall, as well as a percentage breakdown of how many stores provide each type of MI product to consumers.

While the upsides to this revamped approach to data collection are obvious, it does present challenges when comparing today’s numbers with those of previous years. By employing enhanced techniques to ensure that our store-counts do not include duplicate entries for the same business, and verifying that all retail outlets are in fact still in operation at the present time, the overall totals are (for most states) down from what was reported in 2013. A unit change of just a few digits doesn’t mean much when considering a single state or district, but when considering all 50 states plus Washington D.C., the effect is more significant.

As a result, for the first time in a while, our official annual dealer count is below the 8,000 mark, with a 2014 mid-year total of 7,650.  Though data for recent years is included in the graphs and charts below, in many ways this July’s Profile could be considered “Year One” for a new and more accurate “Profile of the American Music Dealer.” To be sure, a handful of music instrument stores opened across the country in the past 12 months and, unfortunately, a number of operations also closed their doors for good. Simply glancing through the pages of any issue of MMR or checking your email in-box for recent MMR Weekly Updates will provide ample evidence of that. But, when considering the reported “minus 364” stores in this year’s Profile, it would have to be said that the decrease is more a reflection of our entirely retooled approach to compiling this report than to some massive industry implosion within the past 12 months.

Even factoring in such changes, some states saw a healthy uptick in overall store operations since July 2013 – Illinois, Nevada, and Arkansas, in particular.

Additionally, “Percentage Shares by Product Type” has been rethought to be more exacting in how it presents the product lines carried by individual stores. For example, in previous years, a dealer who carries a few hand drums might not have responded “yes” when asked if their business carries “drums/percussion.” Our belief is that, yes, if your store stocks a few castanets, djembes, and shekeres then you are a store that sells “drums/percussion” – hence the otherwise inexplicable jump from 47 percent of retail locations reported to carry that category of product in 2013 to the current 81 percent.

Among the notable openings, closings, and other developments in the past year… Sam Ash opened its second store in the Texas market with a mammoth 21,500 square-foot Dallas store last July. Longtime co-owner of Kentucky’s Owensboro Music Center retired in October 2013 and the store was rebranded “Gordy’s Owensboro Music Center” after Starks’ previous partner and current sole owner Gordy Wilcher. New Canaan, Connecticut welcomed the new “one-stop music shop” New Canaan Music. Ricky Bright, former manager of both the Music Shoppe and Samuel Music in Champaign, Illinois, opened his own high-end guitar store in town (The Upper Bout). Guitar Center signed a 15-year lease for the former Daffy’s (fashion retailer) space in the old New York Times building in Manhattan, while elsewhere around the country the chain’s rate of new store openings remained at an impressive pace. After 71 years in business, Houston’s Dowling Music closed in late January 2014. In Harlem, a March 12th explosion believed to be the result of a gas leak destroyed the Absolute Piano retail operation (happily, the store re-opened in Downtown Brooklyn later this spring). In April, Music & Arts acquired six former Mills Music locations in Washington state. And guitar vets Paul Hvidsten and Brett Marcuson opened Flatland Guitar and Lutherie in Fargo, N.D.