What is going on with FYE?

[Andrew T.]

Remember when dedicated record store chains were a thing? I do, but it seems redundant to speak of such a concept in the plural now since there's only one chain left: Trans World, aka FYE.

Ten years ago, I lived in Morgantown WV and regularly frequented the FYE store at the Morgantown Mall. Today, I don't even know where the nearest extant FYE is anymore. I also don't know how they make enough money to stay in business: CDs and DVDs don't have much profit to begin with, some of the stores I've been in seemed as lively as a ghost town, and surely they wouldn't sell enough T-shirts to pay the bills. But at least I knew what to expect inside one.

But this summer, I visited the FYE at the Southlake Mall in Merrillville, Indiana. It was...different, to say the least.

How different? The logo was the first thing that seemed amiss: It was spelled out in all caps, each letter enclosed within a circle. There was no mention of "records" or "music" anywhere on the sign.

The front half of the store...or front two-thirds of the store, or even more...was stocked with nothing but T-shirts. Most of them bore cliched pop-culture images, and almost all of them were strewn loose in boxes that were impossible to browse or find anything in.

Was there music anywhere? Well, there was the word "VINYL" emblazoned in huge letters on the back wall...for people who weren't eager in the 1980s to kiss pops, skips, inner-groove distortion, cleaning rituals, and stylus replacements goodbye.

For the rest of us, there were a few CDs in back, packed into vertical racks that were poorly-lit and (once again) difficult to browse.

I did one lap around the store, shaking my head the entire time. I walked out without any desire to buy.

The FYE website still bears the old logo, so evidently this store concept is still in the experimental/test-marketing stages.

Is this a plot for profits? Or have they gone raving mad?

[Super S]

The only way a music chain can survive these days is if they have exclusive music (which the internet and digital downloads have mostly eliminated) competitive prices (which has never been a strong point of any music chain...people figured out long ago that the same stuff can be bought in discount stores) or if they offer a good selection of used music. There are a handful of independent music stores I have been to which, because they sell used music, seem to do a brisk business.

I do remember visiting Musicland/Sam Goody stores as a teenager. Pricing was terrible, and they often did not seem very welcoming if you weren't buying anything.

I still buy CDs from time to time and used ones are actually a good buy if they aren't damaged. They can last for many years.

[Brian Lutz]

It seems like they might be trying to to the same thing Gamestop is doing: Moving away (slowly) from selling physical media as their once primary markets go increasingly digital, and moving more toward selling pop culture merchadise. In the case of Gamestop it comes mostly from ThinkGeek (which they bought a couple of years ago) but I haven't been in an FYE Store in ages (I think Southcenter and Alderwood still have them here, but I don't get there too often.) It remains to be seen how well this will work out in the long run.

[BatteryMill]

The FYE chain completely seems to have gone extinct around here... I've somehow been given the impression that they are out of business with this effect. Are their remaining stores still successful?

[BillyGr]

We probably hear a bit more about the chain, as they were founded and have HQ here in Albany (NY).

When they first started with the FYE name years back, they had many other names that were separate (Record Town was music, Saturday Matinee was video and so forth).

The idea behind the FYE was to bring all that together (in fact one of the early ones in Colonie Center had not only music and video but merchandise and even a video game arcade in the back of it) rather than having several separate stores in the same mall.

Over time, as they acquired other chains they seemed to eventually change everything to the FYE branding, losing that differentiation, but maybe now they are bringing it back by having more stuff in the stores?

No real idea if it's successful, but they probably have to try something to replace the sales and merchandise that isn't there any longer with so much direct availability of music and video items.

[mbz321]

We probably hear a bit more about the chain, as they were founded and have HQ here in Albany (NY).

Over time, as they acquired other chains they seemed to eventually change everything to the FYE branding, losing that differentiation, but maybe now they are bringing it back by having more stuff in the stores?

I think it's too little, too late, especially since many have shifted away from shopping in malls (does FYE still have any stores in regular shopping centers? In my area, they were branded as 'Coconuts', but they all closed down probably around 15 years ago). Hatings tried the same thing in the end and look where that got them.

[Groceteria]

I've been in several non-mall locations in the Southeast, most of which were pretty large and very oriented toward used media. The have a nice, relatively new store in Virginia Beach that seems to get good traffic. They also own the Manifest Disks store in Charlotte (a former Winn-Dixie) and I believe a similar store in Columbia SC. If they have a future in physical media, it seems to be in used items.