Brendel and bricks-and-mortar
Apr. 30th, 2007 10:13 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
khiemtranOn Saturday, I picked up Alfred Brendel's Philips cycle of the Mozart Piano Concertos, which I've had on order for some time.
I got it from Michael's Music Room, which is one of those places that are slightly better as an idea than they are in practice. It's the sort of place that makes the city richer for having for it - a dedicated classical music and opera store where the staff are all musicians and they claim they can find anything for you if you can hum a few bars. They do have a truly impressive range of often obscure opera recordings and it *is* gratifying to be able to order something like the Quatuor Ysaÿe's recording of Mozart's Haydn quartets without needing to explain that I'm really not interested in CDs "by" Ysaÿe or Haydn and that they might be listed under "Ysaÿe Quartet" depending on where the import was from. As such, I always try to at least give them (or another bricks-and-mortar store) the first crack at my money.
The problem is the gap in customer experience between the ordering online and from a bricks-and-mortar store. In five minutes online, I found three different reputable webstores which all had the Brendel Mozart cycle listed. They could give me the price instantly, plus an estimate of shipping time, links to reviews and even the disc numbers. It took at least a ten minute phone conversation to order from Michael's, during which I was told first of all that the set I wanted didn't exist (I was about to quote the disc numbers, but fortunately they found it after a few more clues). They couldn't tell me how long it would take to order. They couldn't tell me how much it would cost (they gave me an estimate which turned out to be out by AUD 20 - not enough to stop me buying it, but irritating enough for me to dump a webstore that did the same thing).
It might seem like a good idea in principle to be able to get in-store recommendations or someone to "name that tune", but in practice, the internet already does that job far better. If I want to hunt down a particular recording, it turns out it's far easier to do all my research before I get to the shop, plus then I get the benefit of potentially thousands of opinions, rather than just whoever happens to be in the shop that day. Their key selling point is already a negative compared with the online competition.
I will, of course, keep going back to places like Michael's since I value their presence. But I fear for them surviving much longer into the future, unless they can find a way to be more competitive.
I got it from Michael's Music Room, which is one of those places that are slightly better as an idea than they are in practice. It's the sort of place that makes the city richer for having for it - a dedicated classical music and opera store where the staff are all musicians and they claim they can find anything for you if you can hum a few bars. They do have a truly impressive range of often obscure opera recordings and it *is* gratifying to be able to order something like the Quatuor Ysaÿe's recording of Mozart's Haydn quartets without needing to explain that I'm really not interested in CDs "by" Ysaÿe or Haydn and that they might be listed under "Ysaÿe Quartet" depending on where the import was from. As such, I always try to at least give them (or another bricks-and-mortar store) the first crack at my money.
The problem is the gap in customer experience between the ordering online and from a bricks-and-mortar store. In five minutes online, I found three different reputable webstores which all had the Brendel Mozart cycle listed. They could give me the price instantly, plus an estimate of shipping time, links to reviews and even the disc numbers. It took at least a ten minute phone conversation to order from Michael's, during which I was told first of all that the set I wanted didn't exist (I was about to quote the disc numbers, but fortunately they found it after a few more clues). They couldn't tell me how long it would take to order. They couldn't tell me how much it would cost (they gave me an estimate which turned out to be out by AUD 20 - not enough to stop me buying it, but irritating enough for me to dump a webstore that did the same thing).
It might seem like a good idea in principle to be able to get in-store recommendations or someone to "name that tune", but in practice, the internet already does that job far better. If I want to hunt down a particular recording, it turns out it's far easier to do all my research before I get to the shop, plus then I get the benefit of potentially thousands of opinions, rather than just whoever happens to be in the shop that day. Their key selling point is already a negative compared with the online competition.
I will, of course, keep going back to places like Michael's since I value their presence. But I fear for them surviving much longer into the future, unless they can find a way to be more competitive.
