“Music is very, very important to the urban customer. In fact, we are the world’s number one vinyl seller.”
Urban Outfitters Chief Administrative Office Calvin Hollinger during the company’s latest investor call. Vinyl sales are up 38% in 2014.
Image by Casey Hugelfink, licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic (CC BY-SA 2.0).
I’m not sure if this is supposed to be a positive or negative article…can’t be just informative on DMN.
I’m assuming the ellipses at the end is meant to indicate it’s dumb that the number one seller is UO and not like Bleeker Bobs. But how many chain music stores are even left? I’m sure if only 1 record was sold a day at just half the UOs in the US, it’s far more product than any mom and pop store does.
Bleeker Bob’s closed in April 2013.
http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/2013/04/after_46_years.php
Maybe that’s why Urban Outfitters finally overtook them.
Yea, I was just using that as an example of a mom and pop shop. UO has 401 locations according to wikipedia. I don’t think any other store that sells vinyl has had that many locations since probably the mid/late 90s with like FYE or The Wall or something.
Sorry I thought that disclosed that you are from L.A.
No worries, but nope, NYC. I also think they have a new, albeit much smaller location somewhere in the East Village or something. Maybe I’m mistaking it with something else though.
Bleecker Bob’s Closed in April 2013
http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/2013/04/after_46_years.php
Maybe that’s why Urban Outfitters finally outpaced them
First we have DMN telling everyone that vinyl is booming making stores start selling it. They even got someone to start INVEST in a pressing plant. So now they’re surprised Urban Outfitters got the memo?
It’s because they understand their audience and cater to it in a lifestyle manner that fits accordingly.
I think a more appropriate title would be “Largest Retailer of NEW Vinyl”. There are still several stores selling used vinyl who obviously are not reporting those numbers. Also, a large chunk of the vinyl market is ran by individuals via places like Ebay or Discogs.
You don’t know this to be true. You’ve done no research, but you’ve picked up on a press release, along with all the other blogs.
At least Forbes hedges in their headline: Urban Outfitters Claims It’s Now The No. 1 Seller Of Vinyl In The World
See the difference?
And this: “The company didn’t disclose sales numbers, but it would be an impressive feat if the often-offensive clothing retailer is indeed outselling Amazon when it comes to LPs.”
It would, but it’s not verified.
It took a commenter to remind you of this: “To be fair, there isn’t a lot of competition, as not many chains carry vinyl.”
Correlation and causation.
Seriously, can you post a mission statement for DMN so I know what the goal of this site is? If it’s journalism, I will have the validation needed to unsubscribe. If you’re shooting for a Perez Hilton thing, then at least I know what I’m getting.
And no, I don’t work for Forbes. I just thought your headline was specious and unsupported by documentation, so I Googled it. Took about four seconds to see every dumbass blog run with an assertion by the company’s Chief Administration Officer.
What the hell, Paul? Rise above it, give us information, or tell us you have no desire to do so.
Talk about misdirected outrage, get a life. So a clothing retailer is selling some vinyl, is this a threat to the world domination of streaming? It’s a puff piece for f….. sake. Personally, I think it’s sad.
You want to take something on, talk about the beat down Sirius XM took recently.
Actually, the rage isn’t misdirected when it’s toward a news site that doesn’t get the news right. Or are you OK with just repeating what company flaks say?:
by the way,
Urban Outfitters Doesn’t Sell the Most Vinyl
http://www.billboard.com/articles/6266616/urban-outfitters-doesnt-sell-most-vinyl
Urban Outfitters should just change its name to “hipsters R us”
😉
I think it’s great. If they’re getting people to ‘buy music’ more power to them. Has anyone ever been to Bop Street Records in Seattle? According to the latest edition of Record Collector News, the Wall Street Journal considers them one of the five best music stores in the country. Wonder how much Vinyl they sell annually.
Urban Outfitters marketing tactic = fauxthenticity.