RECORD STORE TALES Part 182:  Overstock

In a way it was a nice problem to have.  We sometimes ended up with more CDs than we were physically equipped to store.  When we first opened we had plenty of space, and it seemed like we’d never fill it.  A few years later, we had so many discs, that the shelves were literally crammed.

I remember customers flipping through the discs, which would always seem to hit the floor, because the shelves were so packed to the brims.  They seemingly jumped off the shelves, startling people.  Sometimes, the Bargain Bin was so full, we had piles and piles of discs behind the counter waiting for space in there.  If they were good titles, you’d pull something crappy (ie, Mariah Carey) out of the bin to make room for better stuff.  You’d probably try to send this overstock to other stores too, but they usually wouldn’t want your crap because they might have had all the same junk in stock.

We came up with a few solutions.  One was obvious — we added more shelving.  That tided us over for a couple years.  Then when DVDs took off, we had to add more shelving again.  It felt like a never-ending cycle/struggle.  Sometimes you’d have buy 2/get 1 free sales just to relieve space.  Space became a major commodity.

The bigger problem, in my eyes, was storing stuff behind the counter.  That was a much smaller space, and we had a lot of stuff behind the counter.  You see, because we were a used disc store, we kept empty cases on the shelves and all the discs behind the counter, safe from theft.  Once you hit well over 10,000 discs, that tends to take up a lot of space.

Eventually we had a system of storing these discs in jewel cases, in big cardboard boxes on the floor behind the counter.  I tripped over these boxes frequently – probably at least once every day.  But before that we took an ill-advised misstep.  Here’s a tip:  Don’t ever store your discs in plastic baggies.  Ever!  The result of plastic rubbing on plastic is ugly scuffs.  In fact, some of the worst damage to a disc that I’ve ever seen was caused by us, storing the discs in plastic baggies.  Baggies are great for keeping sandwiches fresh!  Not so good for keeping discs in.

NEXT TIME ON RECORD STORE TALES…

The final Classic Quotes!