Jonathan Cunningham of the New Times of Broward-Palm Beach has a nice item about the growth of a small local music retailer (via Coolfer). After interviewing a few south Florida record shops, they’ve identified localism as a key to growth management.

“”Dude, we’re in a death zone with our current location,” Ramirez says. “In a five-mile radius, we have a Borders, Target, Circuit City, Barnes & Noble, and a Best Buy. We’ve got all these killer stores right around us — but that doesn’t mean that we can’t survive. Everyone says these record stores are done, but that’s bullshit. We just have to work harder.”

Cunningham also describes efforts to convert a retail store into a community gathering space. This local community focus can be a successful source of differentiation for many types of retailers. But like any strategy, it needs to fit the context of the business. Localism works well if your main competitors are decidedly non-local. Localism also works well when local businesses learn to collaborate.

And sometimes localism isn’t enough.

Music Millenium is a small chain of record retailers in Portland, Oregon. Their NW 23rd street store was a music lover’s community institution for 30 years. Sadly, this past July the Music Millenium 23rd street store was forced to close.

Nicholas Deshais wrote about the Music Millenium store closing in the Portland alt-weekly Willamette Week. He asserts:

“Music Millennium was slain in cold blood by iPods and yuppies.”

On first read that Deshais quote sounds like the type of stereotypical complaint you usually hear from people on the losing end of a deal. Damn those iPods! Damn those Yuppies! Damn those Scallawags!!

Yet Deshais is probably right. The changing tastes of local communities can be an advantage to small local players. They can work harder, know the product better, hustle. Unfortunately, as illustrated by the case of Music Millenium, communities can change in ways that can’t be played.
[tags]growth management, music retail, localism[/tags]