By Daniel Kline, The Street | For a long time it seemed like sellers of musical instruments had a sort of immunity from the internet. Consumers liked to go to a store and physically hold, and even play, an instrument before buying it. Many musicians made this a sort of ritual. They might go and play a handful of instruments over multiple weeks before making the decision to buy.
That’s still the case, but long-standing musical instrument chains like Sam Ash died a slow death from a thousand paper cuts. In many cases, they still served as the front-facing part of the industry where people came to play before they bought.
The problem is that over time, they lost sales on accessories, sheet music, and other items to digital retailers. And, in the biggest kick in the teeth, they would sometimes provide all the labor that led to a high-priced instrument sale, only for the customer to make the actual purchase online.
That’s similar to what was happening to Best Buy over a decade ago, but that chain had the size needed to add free delivery and compete with Amazon on price.
Digital music stores have lower expenses and can offer lower prices. That’s something brick-and-mortar chains can’t offer, and another global leader has abruptly shut down.
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https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/smallbusiness/huge-music-retail-chain-closes-all-stores-after-bankruptcy/