After more than a year of gradually decreasing sales, the owners of CD and record store Dr. Wax are calling it quits.
A sign on the front window of the store, 1615 Sherman Ave., advertises a going-out-of-business sale. Talks of the store’s closure began about a year ago, manager Jason Hoffman said.
“(We’re) really just not making enough money,” he said. “We haven’t been profitable, but we have been able to keep the bills up. But over time, things have been steadily declining.”
Last month, sales dropped to the “lowest of the low,” Hoffman said, decreasing by at least 70 percent from December 2006.
The store is having a 50-percent-off sale to get rid of stock because it will not re-open anywhere else, he said. The final closing date of Dr. Wax is still undetermined.
“We just need to liquidate and get out,” Hoffman said.
He added that although there have been more sales in the past two weeks, when the sale began, than in the last two months, he’ll be surprised if they are able to get rid of half their stock.
Jonathan Perman, executive director of Evanston’s Chamber of Commerce, said he isn’t surprised that the store is closing. “I’m pretty familiar with the industry,” he said. “It’s going through some tremendous changes. People are much more likely to download music either for free or for a small charge.”
Competition from iTunes is almost exclusively what caused Dr. Wax’s drop in sales, Hoffman said.
Still, some were unhappy with the announcement.
Customer Kevin Pearce found out about the closing when he walked into the store on Wednesday. This is the second time he will witness a Dr. Wax closing – the branch he frequented in Edgewater closed in 2006.
“I’m pretty depressed,” he said. “They have a lot more obscure stuff than they have at Target or Best Buy.”
Not all music stores have experienced negative effects from online competition. Vintage Vinyl, 925 Davis St., grew its mail order business from 2 percent to 80 percent of total sales when it introduced online sales, co-manager Christian Olson said. Also, managers at both stores agreed that Dr. Wax and Vintage Vinyl attract different types of customers.
“Stores like Dr. Wax buy records from people, but they don’t care about the condition of the records,” Olson said. “Record nerds, the people who are collectors, they want the records to look flawless like they looked 30 years ago, or whenever they were made. They care about quality.”
Hoffman highlighted the difference between a used-record store and a place for collectors.
“(Olson) does a very different kind of business,” Hoffman said. “By and large, it’s collectors’ market stuff. There’s always a market for that.”
Hoffman said he understands the appeal of iTunes and music downloads, but if people want to see a record store, they have to support it.
“They really are dying at rates that are very, very shocking to a lot of people,” he said. “Just keep going to used record stores. Keep them alive.”
