It’s been a month since my last blog update regarding ATMV, so I thought now would be a good time to catch you up on what’s been going on. In short, I’ve been working like MAD organizing and evaluating the back-log of vinyl LPs. I easily have another 5,000 units to evaluate, I lost two months of music work in the transition while I wore my construction and relocation supervisor hat. Now we’re all in a rapid catch-up mode. The good news is that in the last 30 days, we’ve added nearly 800 units of quality collectible vinyl to our bins. These include the Beatles, ZZ Top, Janis Joplin, Pink Floyd, the Doors, Led Zeppelin, Clapton, Donna Summer, James Brown and many more great classic LPs that always seem to be in short supply. Part of my work is determining fair market value on any LP based on supply, demand and condition. Unfortunately, as many as 85% of the albums we evaluate, are common or of minimal value and are either discarded or added to the dollar bin. The 800 units I mentioned represent the 15% that are the gems you may be looking for. Most are priced in the 7-10 dollar range. A small percentage of these are actually super-collectibles that are auctioned on the web. This is the future for collectible media stores such as ours. Many of the items that are on the floor now, once sold, may not become available to us for years. We never know for sure. This is the nature of collectibles and what makes this category of music sales so interesting and exciting. As a collector myself, I know that the worst feeling in the world is to know that someone beat me to an item or gap in a collection. That’s why I’m inviting my vinyl fans to come in right away while my stock is at a high point.
This said, I’m surprised and amazed at how so many of our regular customers never got the message about our move to 6800 Gateway. I know this because I made daily trips to the old Lee Trevino store in the process of removing the last of our property. Every five minutes someone was tugging at the door of a vacated space. Despite three months of signage, flyers, Facebook, Website, TV, radio, newspaper and tabloid media, a good chunck of our regular customers never got the message. Sad, but true. In another week we’ll be increasing our LP capacity with new fixtures. We’re also fine-tuning the operational side of the store, so we are still weeks away from any real mass-media advertising. In the interim, I came up with a promotional idea to see just what’s behind this social-media phenomenon. It’s a sort of a test to see what kind of results the web-based self-promotion can actually deliver. For now, this preliminary test promotion will be specific to LP collector’s only.
Here it is: Come in any time Friday, Saturday, Sunday, or Monday and purchase any LP at any price, and qualify for a drawing for a $150 gift card. Plus 10% off all vinyl! (excluding sale and clearance LP’s) The drawing will be Memorial Day Monday at 5 pm. We’ll announce the winner on our website. I hope this gives you one more good reason to come check out our new digs during a long, hot, Memorial day weekend. Even if you don’t win the drawing, just think of the possibility of acquiring that vinyl gem that may be missing from your collection. Feel free to pass this on to any vinyl collectors you may know. If you’ve been out to see us, THANK YOU! If you know someone that doesn’t know about our awesome NEW store, thanks in advance for passing along this message. Have a great, safe Memorial Day weekend everyone.
