response 161 of 194:

Mar 23 23:29 UTC 2001

md in resp:156 :: being the only classical music store within 60 miles
doesn't work any more.  In the Observer, Jim Leonard said that he used 
to have a large base of distant customers who made approximately monthly 
pilgrimages to SKR Classical, and weekends were the store's busiest 
times.  But in the last couple of years, most of those far-away 
customers switched over to the online retailers so they could avoid
the drive, and weekends became SKR Classical's quietest times.
 
sindi in resp:158 :: I believe that what's left of the classical and 
jazz business is moving to the online stores because of inventory issues.
Unlike pop music which is mostly economically driven by large quantities
of a small number of discs, a good classical or jazz store has to 
stock small quantities of large numbers of discs.  This sort of an 
inventory problem is best handled by a large national online store
because the online store has many more customers and thus has less
of a problem trying match obscure discs with buyers.  (I'm not explaining
this well, oh well.)
 
There was a recent online essay somewhere discussing how amazon.com 
had a minor hit with the Ken Burns Jazz series, and how everyone had 
been forgetting that Internet e-commerce was supposed to be all about
niche marketing, and not selling more N*Sync discs.