31st Annual Top Music Chains

So, what’s new in MI retail?  If our yearly report on the top chains in the industry is any indication, the answer is both, “Not much” and “Quite a bit.”  It all depends on whom you’re asking.

Though a decent number of the folks we reached out to provided feedback on the past year and expectations for the coming months prior to the results of the presidential election, the outcome of our collective trip to the polls on November 6^th was often cited as a determining factor in how the coming year would pan out.   And, much like the election itself, those responses indicated a highly divided nation.   For every executive who expressed concern about the Obama administration’s policies and how they’d affect the bottom line for the MI business, there was an opposing voice pointing to a recovering economy and the upsides of the nation’s current and upcoming initiatives.  Piano Distributors’ William C. Boyce, Jr. nicely summarized the dichotomy by voicing worry over, “new health issues for small businesses with ‘Obamacare’,” while simultaneously predicting a better year in 2013 due to “a better economy [that] should increase sales!”

Politics aside (or somewhat aside), how’s that “economic recovery” going, anyway?   Once again, it really depends on whom is being asked.  Truthfully, roughly half of the individuals we heard from reported that 2012 was “much the same” as 2011, or that business had seen a “slight increase.”  But there are plenty who see things in (slightly) more extreme terms.   “I don’t believe there is a ‘recovery,’ nor will there be,” asserted Music Go Round’s Tim Kletti.  “The economy is now what it will be.”  Beth Houlihan of Kidder Music, however, feels that, “Things are starting to turn around and we’re seeing a bit of an up-tick.”  And then there’s Chris Syllaba of Jordan Kitt’s who offers a very positive review of his operation’s past year, noting that when all is said and done, “2012 will have a significant increase over 2011.”  So there you have it – crystal clear, no?

Thanks in part to some new arrivals (more on that in a moment), as well as Guitar Center’s “onward and upward” continued expansion (16 new locations in 2012), our store-count is up from 759 in 2011 to this year’s total number of 774*.

This year we say goodbye – perhaps only temporarily – to Michigan’s Firehouse Guitars, which now fields two retail locations (minimum number for inclusion in “Top Chains” is three), while we greet California’s Music Exchange, Alabama’s Railroad Bazaar, and West Virginia’s C.A. House of Music.  In many respects, while the lessons of the past few years and the realities of the current economic and political climate provide specific challenges, the fundamental truths behind achieving success in the MI business – in any business – remain unchanged.  As Sammy Ash of Sam Ash observes: “It’s live or die… [If] you want to die, then sit around and do nothing. Or sit around and strategize, and figure out how to survive and how to thrive.”  Preach it, brother…

* Not Counting Best Buy