Tough Commerce is reportedly “assessing alternatives” to construct extra shops following an enormous rise in vinyl and CD gross sales.
Managing director Lawrence Montgomery advised Music Week in a brand new interview that the chain – which at present has six outlets within the UK and one within the US – was seeking to open extra shops, notably in London.
“We at all times control alternatives within the UK however we’re respectful to the good indie shops across the nation, so we’re very particular when taking a look at alternatives,” Montgomery mentioned. He additionally added that the chain had been “assessing a pair alternatives in London, the place we now have a powerful staff and operational set-up.”
It follows an enormous resurgence within the vinyl business, by which the variety of impartial vinyl shops hit a 10-year excessive in March this yr and vinyl outsold CD for the primary time in 35 years in 2023.
“We’re promoting greater than double the variety of data and CDs to date in 2024 than we did 5 years in the past,” Montgomery advised Music Week. “So long as labels and artists proceed to worth the function impartial file outlets like ourselves supply, we consider this development can proceed.”
Just lately, Tough Commerce opened their largest UK retailer in Liverpool final January, with Montgomery calling the preliminary response in direction of the shop “extraordinarily optimistic”. “Each time we open a store, we tackle the duty to serve the local people and Liverpool has an exquisite historical past and current in relation to music tradition.”
“The subsequent step for us is to get the amount and high quality of exhibits within the stay venue,” Montgomery added of the Liverpool location. “We took the choice to take a position extra closely into the stay venue – it’s 300-capacity, high-quality manufacturing and appears nice. For our mannequin to work, having this twin goal – retail and venue – is necessary and Liverpool is essentially the most bold we’ve accomplished when it comes to the capability and high quality of match out.”
Just lately, Tough Commerce got here below fireplace for an “ill-advised” vinyl promoting scheme.
In August, the file retailer introduced the scheme would enable folks to swap “pre-loved data for money with FlipVinyl”, an organization the enduring file store describes on its web site because the “fastest-growing second-hand vinyl consumers in Germany who’ve revolutionised the best way to promote vinyl on-line”.
Nevertheless, folks had been fast to identify that the corporate had been providing extremely low costs for uncommon data, with one consumer provided a mere £9 for his or her David Bowie ‘5 Years’ vinyl field set.
In response, Tough Commerce launched an announcement apologising for the scheme, saying they had been “very sorry for this error”.
“It’s clear based mostly on suggestions from a variety of clients that we made mistaken assumptions and that folks seen this service as inappropriate and noticed us as profiteering.”
“This was not our intention, nevertheless we perceive and respect these criticisms and take full duty,” the assertion continued. “Consequently, we’re going to droop the service to offer us time to reassess.”
