Where do retailers find vendors?

[sluggish]

Any retail store owners here?

I would like to open a non-franchise music store. This business will deal in the sale and resale of new and used music equipment and media. Where do stores like this get the things they sell?







*edit for spelling

[rabbidrabbit]

ebay?  auctions? Craigs list?  consignment? trade ins?

[sluggish]

Let me clarify.  I'm more interested in media than gear.  I would like to specialize in hard to find obscure music with a reliance on special orders.  Where do music stores get CDs and DVDs (or even sheet music and instructional material for that matter)?

Gear is a whole other story.  Most manufacturers of name brand gear (Gibson, Fender, Marshall, etc) require an up-front commitment of at least $50k (maybe more I haven't checked in the last couple of years) to become an authorized dealer of their gear.  This is why you don't often find a small non-franchise retailer that is an authorized dealer of the big names.  For gear I plan on relying on a lot of the sources mentioned in the previous post as well as using those same methods to SELL gear.

Another question I have is where do retailers find fixtures like glass cases and media bins?

[rpm]

What you are looking for is a wholesaler. You will find gondolas, endcaps and display cases at a distributor or at an auction.
Give the yellowpages a try or look thru an industry magazine. Industry mags are full of ads.

[Reschke]

Another way to find vendors is to go to various trade shows in whatever industry you are looking to enter. My wife used to go to at least one a year for her embroidery/monogramming business and always found good solid vendors who were willing to supply her with items she needed.

[Jackal1]

As far as CDs , DVDs , etc. goes, if you have your sales license there are thousands of wholesalers out there. Just do a search.
Make sure that you do business with a reputable dealer. Some claim to be so, but are selling illegal copies. Packaging is the same, so beware.

[indy007]

Vendors are easy. Getting a sustainable customer base that can put food on your plate, not easy.
Are you going for an online business? A brick & mortar store?

[sluggish]

Both.

[Carrel]

sluggish, my advice? Go Internet exclusively- retail space is expensive, and if you're specializing in hard to find items most of your customers will already know what they're looking for and are less likely to browse.

[indy007]

sluggish, my advice? Go Internet exclusively- retail space is expensive, and if you're specializing in hard to find items most of your customers will already know what they're looking for and are less likely to browse.

Exactly. I think to a certain extent you're starting out with a business model that's already failing.

How many niche music stores are still around? I live in one of the largest cities in the United States, and I can count the number of independent music stores on 1 hand. It's the same thing that happened to gaming stores, paintball stores, small town mom & pops, etc. Large retailers and the internet kill you. You can not compete. You don't have the capital or buying power. The current climate to getting your hands on those funds isn't exactly friendly either.

Top all of that with the ongoing decline of CD sales.. and it's just bad. Digital formats are crushing it. I haven't bought a single CD in 5 years, yet I have a large collection of songs that supposedly can't be obtained anymore. Even songs that don't have their licensing rights signed over to an online company and aren't on anybody's download system (iTunes, Napster, etc) are easily available to anybody that's willing to spend 5 minutes figuring out how to find it.

afaik, the only brick & mortar stores that actually survive in houston fall into 3 relative categories...

1) Music exchanges. Turn in your old stuff, get new stuff. I don't know of any that are still open tbh.
2) Vinyl shops. Lots of imported eletronic crap, caters to DJs with turntables.. but even those are falling by the side to CDs...
3) "Screw Shops". Specialize in a homegrown type of rap music called "Screw". They're usually drug fronts... not kidding.

[DiabloTX]

Yeah Indy, I miss Texas Tapes 'n' Records as well as Cactus Records And Video.  Those were the days.