Tower Records in trouble again
Each Tower Records location used to have its own buyer to stock inventory so that it reflected the preferences of the local population. But when it decided to centralize its buying so that all stores carried more or less the same titles, the company began to feel like the big chain it had become, VanCleave said.
That's the problem.
When I walked into a Tower in NYC in 1996. I was delighted and amazed to find they had a divider card for my old U-M classmate Karolina Eiriksdottir. That's the kind of place it was.
Comments
Posted by: jeffrey smith
Posted on: August 27, 2006 10:42 PM
This dialogue really happened between myself and a buyer visiting from corporate headquarters:
"We need you to send us more stuff in size 11 1/2."
"But we can track our inventory, and we can see that there's not enough of a demand to justify sending that size. No one really buys size 11 1/2."
"Well, of course they don't. We don't have 11 1/2s to sell them. How can you track sales of inventory you don't stock."
"There's not that much of difference from 11 or 12, so they can just buy that."
Not having sold a shoe in the real world himself recently, it's easy for him to say that.
Posted by: J
Posted on: August 28, 2006 09:46 AM
I think the last time I went to Tower Records in NYC, it spanned two stores. this was near Julliard's.