No B.O.C. at BB in H-Town

Good Afternoon,

I thought I'd swing by Best Buy and pick up the Blue Oyster Cult Legacy remasters of Some Enchanted Evening and Spectres yesterday evening, but as I found out with Neil Young's "Live at the Filmore" I checked the website to see if it was in stock at my nearest store. Well it wasn't and not only that it wasn't in stock at any BB in Houston.

Don't cha love it? They corner the market then quit selling CD's. Of course their reply is always "we can order it for you". To which I reply "If I'd wanted to order it I'd have pre ordered it weeks ago".

I guess I'll never learn.

 

I just checked online, and none of the Best Buys in my area have either of the BOC remasters. In 2001 they had several of the first four remasters... and yes, they seemed to sell fine. I'm not suprised, since my the BB I go to has shrunk the CD section. Hendrix used to have a large selection as of six months ago. Now, it's pathetic.

 

I don't even look at BB anymore. I call Border's Books in the morning of a release (even though in some cities they're thinning their CD section from what I've heard) and ask if its in the store. Otherwise I buy online.

 

I don't necessarily doubt that they didn't have it, but one thing to keep in mind is that the Best Buy website is not directly linked to their real-time inventory system, so it's not always accurate as to which stores have which titles in stock. I was told by a clerk there a while back that if I really wanted to know if something was in stock, I'd have to either call the store or have them look it up for me in-store while I was there.

Since then I've confirmed this on several occasions, particularly when it comes to new DVD releases - a couple of weeks ago I was looking for a title that had been released that week, and the website indicated it wasn't available at any of the Houston stores, but there were multiple copies of it right in the new release rack when I dropped by the Greenspoint-area store shortly thereafter.

 

Hi Dave,

Your post is another reason I really love BB (I hope this doesn't make the sarcasm meter explode). I mean why have the feature if it doen't work? This actually kept a customer with money in his hands out of their store!

And I've been contemplating buying an MP3 player of some type, so that could have cost them hundreds of dollars.

 

If you're in Houston, I'd imagine there'd be an indy store that would be more reliable with new releases (and reissues). Am I wrong?

 

Same situation in Alpharetta, GA. I don't know why I even bother checking. They finally have the Rainbow Live In Munich DVD in stock after however many months that's been out. They've lost a lot of impulse buys on my part by not stocking stuff when it's issued.

I did notice that they have Japanese mini-lp CD's of Led Zeppelin I and II for $13.99 apiece, and several David Bowie Japanese mini-LP CD's for $22.99. Unfortunately, I'm so hooked on vinyl now that I can't get excited about them anymore. The BOC's a different story - much expanded from the original release.

 

Seriously dude, get a Gort to change the title of your thread so others will know what it's about.

 

I haven't seen any around here in South Florida. It's possible it didn't ship yet even though they were due to release them this week.
Bruce

 

But that's the reason I clicked on this thread, I had no idea what it was about.

 

Sorry Scott,

Just used to other boards that are a little less formal.

 

It helps out greatly for future reference when folks are doing searches and the like. It's really just a matter of consideration.

 

I just checked with our best "local indy" and they said they didn't receive any, so they must be backordered... doesn't sound good.

Did anyone pre-order these and receive them? There was some limited discussion of these a little while ago.

Scott, no problem, I have to realize this board gets a lot of traffic. On Most boards I'd have run out of space in the subject line if I'd have written that all the way out. BTW I have a blue vinyl copy of "Stone Blue", loved that record, haven't heard it in ages though.

 

Found "Some Enchanted Evening" at my local BB on Tuesday. $22.99. No "Spectres" though. Check a Borders today and didn't find either. I wish I could comment on the package and sound but haven't had time to open it yet. Hopefully tonight......

 

There's Soundwaves that used to be reliable. That was when they owned the controlling share in the only large wholesaler in Houston. The wholesaler closed. Now they order from out of town, and they've lost their pricing advantage. They are left with only one large store which may or may not carry a title - the BOCs most probably.

CD Warehouse died and we lost our last reliable used stores.

Sound Warehouse was bought by Blockbuster who sold out to Wherehouse CD who have closed so many locations that it is a hassle to shop there.

Houston's most popular longtime independent, Cactus, tried to sell their business so the owners could retire after 30 years - no buyers, so they closed last year.

That leaves Borders who now are into selling off inventory, so most of the sales they are running are the buy 3 CDs get the 4th free variety - worthless to anyone who keeps up with his wantlist. This week you can get 30% off any book or DVD, but you must pay full price for any CD you want, unless you want 4 titles.

Yes, we are the nation's 4th largest city. We might as well be a town of 100,000 - at least it would be easy to get to the Best Buy, and then to the overpriced store in one trip... (only to come home and order on-line).

We're big, but we've got nothing to show for it! (Now food is a different story - see our title as most overweight city for several years running!)

 

If it helps any, I've ordered a lot of titles from Soundwaves at their Montrose location - they have many titles (CDs, hi-res discs and dvd-v discs) in their system they will order that they don't normally carry. Shameless plug for them : last year they built a coffee bar inside the store, so you can get your caffeine fix while browsing. They also sell lots of vinyl & they have a couple of SL-1200 turntables for sampling purposes......and lots of CD changers filled with CDs & a customer-use computerized music catalog for the same reason.

 

Hey Taurus,

Soundwaves is where I called. Is there any advantage to ordering from them as opposed to cduniverse et al? When you go to their website you can harly tell they sell music anymore.

 

These are best ordered online obviously unless you live in a big city like NY.

 

There are 4 to 5 million of us here.

I'm surprised Soundwaves didn't have BOC though.

 

Jim: I usually just go up to the counter, ask them if they have "X" title in their system, then just give them my name & ph# - no money involved. I've also ordered them over the phone. IIRC they get shipments in every Thursday and several times I've ordered albums and was called just 2-3 days later to pick them up.

Yea, they sell lots of surf and skater gear. That store is really large though (just the "olden" days before MP3s ) so there is still a lot of music in there too. Nothing like walking into a store within a mile of the skyscrapers of downtown and see row upon row of surfboards!

 

I mean a city with a large record store like NY's J&R Music at City Row. Not Bestbuy's or Circuit City's. Forget those places.

 

You can blame Soundwaves/Southwest Wholesale for the state of the record biz in Houston. There used to be numerous indy record shops here. Southwest Wholesale originally opened as a one-stop to supply these stores, with a handshake agreement that they would NEVER go in to the retail business. This worked great for years, because stores could buy from Southwest cheaper than they could obtain product direct from the labels. Southwest had HUGE buying power. Everyone was happy.

Enter the CD. People were re-buying EVERYTHING. Southwest entered into a partnership with a new store, Soundwaves, who got product from Southwest at cost - MUCH cheaper than all the indy shops, who were paying wholesale prices to Southwest - at the time, $10.81 for a front line new release that usually sold for $12.99 at Soundwaves.

Soundwaves was undercutting the rest of the indy shops on the full catalog(~ $1.00 a disc), and matching or beating Best Buy on new releases. The indys were unable to compete with the combination of Soundwaves AND Best Buy/Circuit City. Net result: almost all indys in Houston shut down. Soundwaves made a killing, opened numerous locations, and Southwest expanded outside of Texas.

HOWEVER, Southwest no longer had anyone to supply in their core market, Houston, EXCEPT Soundwaves. The wholesale business went down the tubes, and all income was derived from retail sales through Soundwaves. This worked great for Southwest/Soundwaves until retail sales began to take a dive. Then, sales through Soundwaves were not great enough to sustain Southwest's buying power. Prices went up, sales went down. Net result: Southwest went bankrupt, and Soundwaves lost their supplier and pricing advantage and became just another store trying to survive.

Cactus, which did not buy from Southwest and depended on depth of catalog and customer loyalty rather than pricing (they tended to charge $1.00 - $2.00 more than Best Buy), was the only major indy to survive this chain of events. However, they could not compete with Best Buy/Circuit City on new releases, and internet shopping provided a greater depth of catalog than Cactus could hope to maintain. Sales declined, depth of catalog shrunk, which led to smaller sales, in a viscious cycle. The owner couldn't sell the store. Net result: You don't have many options for CD shopping in Houston Texas.

 

DWMann,

you should change your handle to UdaMann because that is quite a concise explaination. I used to stop by the soundwaves at the corner of Waugh and Westheimer every Tuesday for new releases when they were $9.99. They were even beating BB and CC and they had the catalog.

I ordered these from CDUniverse last night. Now what is up with the "1-2 days to ship" BS? I ordered last night, payed the extra buck for "2-3 day delivery" and my conformation email say it will ship monday?

I guess the larger point of all this is that record shopping and finding new music hads become a science instead of an exploration and discovery. You have to know who's who's, when something is coming out, where to get it... I miss walking into a store with nothing to do and browsing around, picking something up because the cover looks cool or you read a blip about them in a magazine...

Dang I'm old

 

Interesting.
I had a few friends that worked for Southwest.

Houston does blow for brick and mortar music stores, even used stores.

I buy 95% of everything online now.

 

For Sony product, I have been using Sonymusicstore.com and have been happy with the pricing and service for what it is worth. I ordered on Friday and got the shipping confirmation on Monday.... Still waiting, as their shipment center is in GA and I am in CT, but hopefully I will have the BOC titles today (knock on wood).... steve c