Nonetheless, getting a lot of customers in favor of a competing business doesn’t a monopoly make.

Also, I believe there are several people out there usually of the older generation, who doesn’t buy online, but enjoys Southern Gospel. You just might not have had the product on the shelf long enough for them to find you, or perhaps they don’t buy as much. Maybe they get it from somewhere else. One thing that helps is to have a SG radio station.

I kept our local stores busy with SG purchases long before I bought online. We’re talking around 15 years or so. Sometimes I did mail order when items weren’t in stock and ordering was easier from mail order, but a lot of times I went in and had to have them order. Nonetheless, even before the SG station (although there was a few hour Sunday morning SG program even then), one of the two stores had a nice SG section. Then at least after the station came in the other started carrying a larger section. It also might not have hurt that they did so about the time that Family Christian bought out the other and might not have kept as much SG. They did do some, but I think they probably stuck more with the Gaither stuff and maybe a few of the more popular artists seen on all things Gaither, whereas the local owned store got into some lesser known artists as well.

Two months later, when our corporate office saw the mass amount of product sitting on our shelves, they ordered us to return it all to the vendor. I resisted at first and left a lot of it on the shelf, but in the end, it simply did NOT sell. The people who wanted SG came in and headed directly for the Gaither display, and the ones who wanted anything else either ordered it online or got it at concerts.

Southern Gospel DOES NOT SELL in comparison to the rest of the music genres. The majority of people who buy SG don’t go looking for specific titles; they impulse buy. You can’t depend on impulse buys to carry your sales.

By the way….more than anything, SG buyers never said, “I’m looking for SOUTHERN GOSPEL,” they said, “I’m looking for the GAITHER MUSIC.” Gaither = Southern Gospel. Gotta hand it to the guy, he’s got the monopoly, no doubt!

Given the option to patronize two similar businesses…one owned by non-Christians and one owned by Christians…I would opt for the Christian owned business if everything else is equal. I will buy gas at a store that doesn’t have porn sitting on a rack behind the counter over one that does, even if I have to pay more.

But that wasn’t my earlier point.

The point was that choosing to patronize the Christian owned companies should not include compromises in the areas of service and price. If the price does happen to be more, then the customer service quality should be better to compensate for the higher cost.

Also, I don’t know what you’re basing the “more releases today” theory on. I’ve glanced at release schedules from time to time in the past few years. It doesn’t seem to be any greater now than it was ten years ago. There looks to be a more frequent regurgitation of former releases (see EMICMG’s upcoming slate for June/July), but no significant increase in genuinely new releases.

I’m confused.

So you’re saying that customers should stop shopping at local independent Christian bookstores — even if they are run by “good people” — because those owners made the mistake of employing any less-than-expert staff people?

Okay, then I guess we consumers need to do all our shopping at Christian retail chains?

But no, that can’t be right; chains can be bad. You said the independent local store you worked at declined once it was taken over by a chain; there was no longer an “‘our’ mentality” in the store, and poor decisions were coming from the top management.

OH! That’s right. I forgot. The solution is for us to do ALL our Christian shopping at secular chains or big-box stores, since they don’t have to live up to any expectations at all, except price (which we assume is always lower there). Obviously, we don’t expect these companies to be run by “good” people, and we don’t expect them to offer great customer service.

Wow.

Currently, no…but from 1992 until 1998 when I was actively working as a music buyer, I kept up with the majority of artists that we stocked…even those genres I didn’t count as being among my favorites. I could tell customers that Steven Wiley recorded “Teenage Mutant Youth Group Member” and show them where we kept it on the shelf, for example.

And if that same customer was interested in buying a Bible, I could explain the nuances between a dynamic Bible translation, a literal translation, a paraphrase and an amplified bible. This isn’t because I’m sensationally smart. It’s just that I had enough interest in my job to keep my customers satisfied.

You’re correct that no employee is going to “equally” know every niche in the store. My point is that a reasonably intelligent employee should know the niches well enough to converse and sell you the product you want…IF they work enough hours and have enough experience to know their job.

There really is no excuse for a dumb look when you ask if there’s a new Dove Brothers CD in stock, and it’s an employee who has been working for 30 hours a week for the past twelve months. At the very least, they should be able to get on the computer and see if they’re supposed to have one on the shelf.

That level of basic service should be the premium you receive from paying $2-5 more per CD than you’d pay with no help at all from the employees at Wal-Mart.

It will be interesting to watch because this is a hot group right now. I hope it does work for them. I just cant see people hearing some new songs at a concert and being told they have to go to a bookstore to buy it. I am not sure this works in SG.

I have the utmost respect for this group and manager so maybe they know something I don’t.

Can’t say who it is. I don;t know if that is for public knowledge so I will leave the artist out for now.

As far as the bigger stores, Wal-Mart, in certain cities, has a small selection, primarily Gaither and a few of the Daywind artists, but certainly not in most of the secular stores.

Sure you can find some top-selling “Christian” books in those stores like Wal-Mart, Barnes & Noble, etc. but it’s primarily that not very meaty stuff that Osteen, TJ Jakes, Joyce Meyer and the like write.

Point taken though that the days of the mom and pop Christian retailer being able to make it are coming to a close, but I think that’s the same as with most any mom and pop genre.

With Christian books and music, so many are downloading, ordering through the net, etc. that it has to affect all of the retailers, mom and pop or chain.

“There aren’t enough hours in the day for Christian bookstore employees to become EQUALLY knowledgeable about every genre of Christian music.”

Certainly Christian music buyers should have the best possible knowledge about every genre they carry, but if they have more personal expertise in praise & worship and Rap, chances are that they may not know exactly which SG song tells a particular story.

Customers often think they can ask for songs without doing their homework; they say the song they need is about the love of Jesus, and they just heard it on SG radio. That’s pretty tough for a part-time employee to locate.

I imagine even you, DBM, might find it tough to answer a question about a Christian rap lyric with the same knowledge as one from an SG project.

And for those music buyers who receive free demonstration CDs for their stores, I stand by the statement: There aren’t enough hours in the day to listen to every CD that’s received from every genre. It’s impossible to absorb that many songs from that many artists.

Of course, in spite of all the challenges, bookstore employees who see themselves as Christian music professionals DO keep learning and adding to their knowledge, and it’s time to honor the ones who do a great job — and to patronize the stores that employ people with expertise. And some stores realize they can actually call their vendors to find additional information to answer the questions of their customers; customer service is a team effort, after all.

So, here’s the bottom line:
If the 21-year-old music buyer at your local store doesn’t yet have much knowledge about Southern Gospel, give them a break. They’ll keep learning with time.