Starbucks is backing away from music CD retailing

by billso on Monday, 30 June 2008

I’ve been annoyed at Star­bucks for awhile — it’s the CD racks, coun­ter­top dis­plays and spin­ners that clut­ter their stores.

The Star­bucks on the mauka side of Bishop and King Streets is a prime exam­ple of how this retail ini­tia­tive is a nui­sance to cus­tomers. That store is small — I’ve seen clos­ets that are big­ger. The CD dis­plays make it much harder to stand in line when there’s more than 3 peo­ple wait­ing for a barista. I’m sur­prised there aren’t ADA law­suits pending.

CDs and cof­fee don’t mix

I can’t imag­ine that the employ­ees like deal­ing with these racks, either. What hap­pens when a cus­tomer knocks over some CDs or spills a drink on mer­chan­dise? How do stores con­trol shoplift­ing and shrink­age? What about teenagers and young chil­dren who decide to “play” with the packages?

Star­bucks is phas­ing out its music CD retail busi­ness, accord­ing to an AlleyInsider.com arti­cle called Star­bucks (BUX) Dump­ing CDs. Star­bucks stores will have 4 CD slots per store.

I expect that Star­bucks stores will still sell iTunes gift cards, as part of the WiFi pro­mo­tional cam­paign for the iPhone and iPod Touch.

In addi­tion, Star­bucks has handed over the day-to-day man­age­ment of its Hear music label to Con­cord Music Group.

Related arti­cles and pages on billso.com

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