More Than Music in New Marbecks Stores

Auckland-based music retailer Marbecks is launching a new ground-breaking store format it believes will help recapture shop sales lost to illegal downloading.

Marbecks has been a leading name on the retail music scene for 75 years but it is not resting on its reputation in the face of stiff online competition.

The company is about to open a new state of the art entertainment store in Dunedin, one of five planned for major centres during the next 12 months.

As well as traditional CD and DVD products, the new Marbecks stores contain a café, a book store and clothing to attract a wider ‘browsing’ type of customer. They also house new touch-screen listening-post technology and in the near future, customers will be able to download DRM-free digital music in store.

The company website at marbecks.co.nz has been upgraded with product delivered quickly from any one of the company’s current 35 stores nation-wide. A new customer relations programme is designed to bring customers closer to the business by improving understanding of their needs.

And in a nod to ‘back to the future’, the new format stores are also stocking vinyl which is enjoying a reprise with audiophiles.

The Dunedin store launch coincides with the rebranding of around 35 CD & DVD Store shops nation-wide to Marbecks after the company that owns the former brand bought out the latter in 2006.

Marbecks managing director Roger Harper says music retailers have been battered by the digital onslaught so the company needs to adapt or die.

“Our stores have been trading well but there are many who have suffered. Wholesale CD sales have declined around 40 per cent since 2001 and that was why initially we moved in to DVDs at the CD and DVD Store.  Now DVDs are feeling the effects of piracy and digital downloading too – we had to do something to survive.”

Mr Harper says the new format stores have attracted very favourable comment from music and movie industry people both locally and offshore.

“When we first showed our suppliers what we are doing, we got some great feedback. The Sony people in Australia called it ‘world-beating’ and said the eyes of the entertainment industry would be on us.

“For us it was a matter of embracing the technology and turning it to our advantage. So we have brought digital in to the store and expanded our offering to appeal to a wider audience. We’re not simply a music store, more a specialist entertainment retailer.”

New format stores are planned for Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch in addition to Dunedin.  The company is also scouting a fifth new location.

Touch-screens in the café enable customers to browse their favourite titles while enjoying a coffee and snack and the new format stores will also stock vinyl. The screens are also positioned strategically throughout the store.
 
A broad range of fiction and non-fiction books is being stocked – from music and movies to travel, business, politics and literary subjects. Clothing is oriented towards the entertainment and fashion market.  The design of the store is described by Mr Harper as “fashion meets music, movies and books – the new store is visually stunning”.

Mr Harper says eventually there will be around 15 Marbecks stores in the new format. The new Dunedin store is in the Wall Street precinct.