Kim Bayley writes for Record of the day on 10 years of entertainment retailing Ten years of Record of the Day has witnessed ten of the most tumultuous years in the history of music retailing. Kim Bayley, Director General of the Entertainment Retailers Association – herself celebrating ten years at the organisation – says retailers have been not only the victims of change, but some of its most enthusiastic exponents…

The other day I came face to face with the extent of the changes inflicted on music retailing by the past decade and it wasn't pretty.

We had been clearing out ERA's Bournemouth office preparing for our move to Soho Square, and I came across a long forgotten folder.  It contained notices of administration informing us of members who had gone bust- Woolworths, Zavvi, Music Zone and Fopp. A whole tranche of wholesalers like THE and S Gold & Sons had disappeared. Needless to say there were a lot of indies in there too.

Those notices of administration have gone to the shredder like the businesses whose demise they recorded and it set me to thinking that although it is rarely acknowledged by those on the supply side of the music industry - the artists, managers, record companies, music publishers - it is actually retailers, far more than any other sector, who has borne the brunt of the past decade's tumultuous changes.

It is almost certainly the case that more jobs have been lost in music retailing than in the rest of the industry combined.

Notwithstanding Universal's takeover of EMI, the record business is in broadly the same shape with broadly the same players and certainly led by some of the same people who were there a decade ago. In contrast, retailing is barely recognisable.

In 2002 specialists headed by HMV and Virgin accounted for 50% of the album market, so-called multiples (Woolies, W.H. Smith and Boots - all now out of music ) had just under 20%, with supermarkets on 15% and the internet accounting for just 6%.

These days over 20% of the albums market is accounted for by downloads, and the physical market is split pretty much evenly between supermarkets, home delivery and specialists.

It is a dramatic transformation which has turned a business which was dominated by domestic retailers into one in which the share of US companies is well over 40%.

On this reading the past decade has been disastrous for music retailing. There is a lot to complain about.

And yet it is important to remember that retailers themselves have been agents of this change.

Amazon is a retailer. iTunes is a retailer. 24/7 Entertainment is a retailer. Omnifone and 7Digital are white label retailers. New players in the market retail services as well as products. We are proud to have Spotify, Deezer, We7 and Rdio - virtually the entire UK streaming market as ERA members.

These companies are redefining not just what it is you do when you buy music, they are redefining music retailing itself.

And of course that spirit of innovation is not restricted to the digital domain. Last week's ERA AGM heard presentations of HMV's new MyHMV service which is based on the in-store use of WiFi and of Tribeka's Disc on Demand service which is dramatically increasing the range of titles which can be stocked in physical stores.

Meanwhile independent retailers who many had written off for dead have revitalised themselves by uniting together to create probably the most successful new consumer promotion for music of the past decade, Record Store Day.

So the truth is that retailers are not just adapting to a changing retail landscape, they are agents of that change.

No one expects gratitude in this business. But it is undoubtedly true that the supply side of the music industry has much to be  grateful for in the way the retail sector has stepped up to the challenge of the internet.

It is retailers' technological savvy, their spirit of innovation and entrepreneurialism which more than anything has helped the record business survive the past decade.

One thing which unfortunately has not changed over this period is the lack of interest in the health of retailing on the supply side of our industry. Whether it be lop-sided release schedules which dump all of the key releases into a tiny pre-Christmas window, or over-complex licensing processes, particularly on the music publishing side, there is still far too
much of a like-it-or-lump-it approach on the part of suppliers.

The danger as music becomes more and more the preserve of generalist retailers - just another item in the shopping basket whether physical or digital- is that the terms of trade and margins available from music will be compared more and more with those in other product categories - and found wanting.

My hope for the next decade is that music suppliers learn to treasure their retailers and see them for what they are - the best and most efficient route to the consumer,

Kim Bayley is Director General of the Entertainment Retailers Association.