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An independent retailer's viral plea for business

November 16, 2010 by James Bickers — Editor, Networld Alliance

Here in my hometown of Louisville, Kentucky, one of the most iconic fixtures of the local retail scene for the past 25 years has been the music store Ear X-Tacy. Around here, and elsewhere in the music-loving community, that name carries a lot of weight. It has always been the destination for discriminating music lovers, the kind of place where people hang out for hours, backs arched over row after row of records and CDs, posters and shirts.

Earlier this year, the store had to move to a smaller location or risk going under. There was an uproar in Louisville, a flurry of Facebook and Twitter posts to "Save Ear X-Tacy!" There was much goodwill. The company survived.

But yesterday, owner John Timmons posted this to YouTube:

I'm of two minds about this. On the one hand, the honesty and transparency is refreshing (and frankly, typical of John, who himself is a Louisville fixture). And he wisely points out that shopping at his store has always been an experiential thing. Sure, you can now download the entire Beatles library from home, but you can't casually flip through stacks of full-sized Beatles LPs, or make new friends while idly browsing. The store is a destination, and a truly great shopping experience if music is important to you.

But on the other hand, there's the possibility of backlash here. The first "Save Ear X-Tacy" groundswell came about organically, to a great extent. This one is being prompted, and I've already seen one commenter dismiss it as "begging." I've seen this approach fail spectacularly recently, with a particular independent musician who took to Facebook one too many times with a "sky is falling, I can't afford to make music anymore" message. His fans quickly grew weary of hearing it, and an enormous amount of ill will was the result.

And on a practical note, I worry about John's request to "share this with 10 people, and ask them to do the same." Think about what that will mean for the average Facebook user within the orbit of a fan of the store: They're going to see the same video come up over and over again, and they will get sick of it. And they will always associate that negative reaction with this particular retailer.

So, what do you make of this? Is it a smart approach? What is an independent retailer to do when having a great shopping experience doesn't appear to be enough?

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