The death of the music store in the Middle East
When Virgin megastore opened in Dubai few years back, the small record stores eventually went bankrupt. They could not compete with this English brand that was the epitome of ‘cool’ at the time and the brainchild of Richard Branson. The store was opened in Deira City Center in Dubai and was the first in the Middle East. The size of the store was bigger than anyone imagined and was stacked full with record labels and DVDs. Although Virgin dealt with books, the owner never felt the need to make them part of the shop product line. Forward to 2008 and the same store is still the same size, but the record and DVD sections have shrunk to give way to mobile phones, PCS, toys, teenage clothes, gadgets, electronics, flat screens, and of course books. So what happened? Virgin Megastores is feeling the pinch of peer to peer and illegal downloads of music and movies. People here are downloading using torrents, lime wire and a whole host of other peer to peer software. The P to P technology is so good and reliable now that people on the web are determined to democratize music and teach the labels and movie companies a lesson. Damned if you, damned if you don’t both do not seem to have a choice but to continue productions, while complaining to the authorities worldwide to find a way to stop what they term as illegal downloads. However, day in day out, they fail miserably. In a recent interview with the marketing director of Virgin Megastore, she confessed that things haven’t been going well for the music section of the store which led here to be ‘innovative’ in what she sells there to compensate, thus the change in the store content. While Virgin Megastore Dubai branch got a facelift in terms of content, the Kuwait one has shrunk from a 150 square meters to 15 square meters. Virgin cites an issue with the authorities that led to the downsizing; a Kuwaiti I spoke to mentioned otherwise citing that the shop did not meet with the desired popularity it first thought possible. So what is next? If the telecommunication companies improve their internet service in terms of price and speed, the penetration will increase, which in turn means more P to P connections and downloads. Internet penetration in the region is low. However it is growing in leaps and bounds each year and in a few years time it is expected to reach at least 50% and more in some countries. When that happens all Virgin Megastore can do is ebrace itself to become another Toys R Us or Barnes and Noble !
be patient , they’re closing thier 2 flagship stores in NYC.Come this May there will be no more Virgin records in Manhattan, along with a few other large super stores . A combination of the financial times , and the direction of music industry in general . in time we’ll be back to the small town record store that caters to it’s customers again . it’s all a cycle .