Last Dance for Tower Records
In some ways the recent news that Tower Records was finally shutting its doors was not surprising. The record and video businesses have undergone such radical disruptions over the past two years that its survival as a brick-and-mortar operation was dicey at best. I don't pretend to know the ins and outs of entertainment retailing, but I do see some interesting customer strategy trends that have been put in the spotlight by the news at Tower.
The first is the disturbing lack of difference that employee expertise and customer experience played in Tower’s business. Yes, it’s true that digital distribution made any physical music store a different experience. But at Tower employees were known for knowledge. They were hired for their expertise in a certain area of music or video. The guy who worked the jazz department at Tower Records on Broadway in New York actually knew a lot about jazz. The woman who worked the classical department in Lincoln Center could recommend the best of new releases or a primer for new opera fans. Tower was far ahead of any other retailer in the entertainment business. WalMart, Circuit City and Best Buy still sell CDs. But they compete on price, not selection or employee skills. Could Tower have made it if it approached the business through smaller stores? Could it have tied its online and offline operations together? Or did it simply not see the truck called iTunes that was speeding down the street?
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