RTP-area local music and culture

[ron thigpen <ron AT fuzzsonic.com>]

Chris Rossi wrote:

> Me neither.  Seems like a reasonable guess, though.

I have, and it is.  Times may have changed, and I was in a market that 
was particularly good at the time, but here's my experience.

Markup is close to 100% on the used stock and most of it turns very 
quickly.  Many times you buy and sell an item on the same day.  You can 
get inventory turnover of somewhere between 40 and 60  times a year. 
That means, on average, the entire stock is turning over every week.

If you've got 2000 pieces in stock at an average $7 price then you're 
looking at $14000 in weekly sales and $7000 gross profit.  It does take 
a lot of employee effort to do the buying, but hey, it's that action 
that keeps the bills paid.

The trick is not to buy crap and not to get overstocked on copies of a 
given current hit title that will be dead in a week.

Compare that to margins on new stock of about 8-15% and turnover of 
maybe 10 to 12 times a year - worse if you stock a lot of back catalog - 
and you can quickly see why a lot of stores are focusing on the used 
stock.

--rt