Friday, November 24, 2017

Record Store Day Black Friday 2017: The Importance of Independent Record Shops on Black Friday

Vinyl Bay 777, Long Island’s music outlet, takes a look at what makes Record Store Day’s Black Friday event important



The wait is finally over! Today is Record Store Day Black Friday! Like its parent event in April, Black Friday is a chance to find exclusive releases while supporting the independent record shops that foster the music community.

Now in its seventh year, Record Store Day Black Friday emerged out of a necessity to bring independent shops back into the fold of holiday shopping. According to their website, the event “gives record stores exclusive releases as part of an attempt to redirect the focus of the biggest shopping day of the year to the desirable, special things to be found at local stores.” This year’s event will feature titles from the likes of Paul McCartney, the Grateful Dead, the Brian Setzer Orchestra, Tori Amos, Twisted Sister, Queen, Willie Nelson and hundreds more. All exclusives are released in limited quantity and once they are gone, they are gone.

Black Friday itself has been around since 1952. Taking place the day after Thanksgiving, it is considered to be the start of the holiday shopping season. The first profitable sales day of the year, the event is named for the black ink used to mark profits in a business’ sales ledger (losses are marked in red). In more recent years, Black Friday has become even more of a phenomenon, with scores of shoppers lining up at ridiculously early hours (sometimes ON Thanksgiving) to take part in deep discounts and sales.

Much of the time though, Black Friday feels like it is reserved for the big retailers. Those are the stores that run the biggest deals and draw the biggest crowds. And while Small Business Saturday is a thing, it’s not quite as big as the behemoth that is Black Friday.
Such is the need to celebrate local, independent record shops during the holiday season, as well as all year long. These are the places where music communities grow and thrive, where people discover new music and the classics. There no better place to find gifts for the music lovers in your life than from people who know and love music.

Record Store Day has been a very profitable event for locally-owned and independent record shops all over the world for the last ten years. The annual April event has played a large role in the vinyl revival, helping it to become the only physical medium to grow in albums sales year over year. Record Store Day has also been proven to raise retail sales at independent stores. This past April’s event earned the biggest non-Christmas retail sales in more than a decade. So if anyone can bring attention to local stores during the holiday season, it’s Record Store Day.

While Black Friday is often geared more towards larger retailers, Record Store Day is aiming to bring some of that attention back to locally-owned and independent shops with their Black Friday event. After all, it is these Independent record shops that have had a big part in creating community around music. Through exclusive releases, the event hopes to help draw in business and give music lovers an added reason to shop locally this holiday season.

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Shop for music gifts locally this holiday season at Vinyl Bay 777. Long Island’s top new independent record shop has thousands of titles to choose from in a variety of genres. Check out exclusive Record Store Day Black Friday exclusives while supplies last or browse our wide selection of new and used vinyl records, CDs, cassettes, music DVDs and memorabilia in store and online at vinylbay777.com. New titles are being added to our selection all the time, so you never know what you might find at Vinyl Bay 777.

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