While contemplating how best to summarize the world of MI retail over the past twelve months, it occurred to me that I’ve only recently spoken and emailed with a handful of folks who are bound to have more meaningful, “boots on the ground” insight on the topic than anything I might offer.
Below are some observations shared with MMR by representatives from dealers included in this year’s installment of ‘America’s Top Music Chains’ (for even more retailer perspective, be sure to check out the 32nd Annual 50 Dealer/50 State Review and Forecast on page 32 of this issue):
“We’re cautiously optimistic after a solid 2015. We continue to see growth in the school music business and there continues to be life in acoustic guitars and digital pianos. Store traffic continues to be an ongoing concern. We need to continue to up our game and give customers a compelling reason to come into our store each and every day.” – Robin Walenta, West Music
“2015 continued to rebound from the recession, reflected in both the retail and school markets.” – Nick Rail, Nick Rail Music
“In the in the latter part of 2014 and early part of 2015 we had nature against us: fires in the West, snow in the Midwest and East, and storms in the South. So far it looks like we might not have those problems [this year]. Those were big contributing factors in our business.” – Sammy Ash, Sam Ash Music Corp.
“Raising the minimum wage in two of our locations to $15/hour [is a concern]. They already did it in Seattle and they just voted \to raise the rate in Tacoma. Luckily? it will only be $12/hour.” – Stephanie Howe, Ted Brown Music Company
“2015 was an excellent year. We witnessed major improvements in all of our KPIs including sales, margins, inventory on hand, e-commerce sales.” – Tim Kletti, Music Go Round
“2015 was a bit more challenging in respect to the MI division. We leaned on our strengths and worked on developing our Sound & Light division, while also increasing our visibility in the Band & Orchestra market.” – Greg Morrison, Hermes Music
“High ticket sales were great [in 2015]. Our sales were up 10 percent.” – Ronald Klinetob, Keyboard World, Inc.
Of course, there’s no one, single “shared experience” – regional economic, political, and social differences, alone, ensure that MI retailers will have disparate experiences from state to state – but it would appear, at least anecdotally, that our industry is finally on some sort of legitimate, sustained upswing.
While I lead off with a quote from Robin Walenta which makes use of the phrase, I am hopeful that in 2016 we can put to rest – even if only for a while – “cautiously optimistic” as the universal go-to when describing future outlook and land solidly and confidently on “optimistic.”
In the meantime, may we all wrap up 2015 on a strong (and profitable!) note and ride that momentum into the next calendar year.
