Opinion: Bodily music retailers have an instrumental function to play for rising musicians
Roger Foxcroft, A Main Music Provides
It’s no secret that the world is shifting more and more on-line, and music isn’t any exception to that. From streaming providers changing vinyl and CDs to purchasing sheet music and devices on-line, I’ve witnessed the shift first-hand.
On the identical time, music schooling in colleges is in decline. A scarcity of funding and an ever-increasing deal with STEM topics over the humanities is letting our younger musicians down.
What we can’t do is let music retailers disappear from our excessive streets. The following era of musicians will depend on them.
UK colleges are taking part in a bum notice
It’s broadly recognised that musical schooling is useful for cognitive capability. Studying an instrument comes with an intensive rap sheet of advantages, together with improved reminiscence, participating numerous mind areas concurrently, and even improved social connection and more healthy psychological wellbeing.
But, in response to Ofsted, the trajectory of music schooling in recent times has been one by which colleges have diminished key stage three (11-14 years) provision, and trainee major academics have been provided shrinking quantities of music coaching. The uptake of music schooling in key stage 5, the ultimate two years of secondary college schooling the place many pupils start to plan their future careers, has fallen during the last ten years.
At our music store, 40% of our enterprise was once with colleges – that quantity has fallen considerably. Actually, a 2025 report by unbiased suppose tank Demos recognized a £161.4m shortfall within the authorities’s finances for music schooling.
In Stoke-on-Trent, the place A Main relies and the place my kids reside, we struggled to search out many faculties which even supply a music GCSE. Suggestions from colleges within the space exhibits they’re having to chop total topics, together with music, as a consequence of prices.
So, what does this imply for younger musicians? Restricted entry to devices and gear, fewer courses and studying alternatives, and lack of specialised academics.
Why do we’d like music retailers?
Bodily music retailers are on no account a alternative for well-funded music schooling in colleges. What they do supply younger musicians is the chance to speak to consultants, since most music retailers are owned by musicians themselves.
They can provide tailor-made recommendation, demos of devices, and troubleshoot issues on the spot.
Musicians can achieve hands-on expertise with gear that they could by no means have seen earlier than. They will contact, play, and listen to devices. They will really feel the load of a guitar, check the keys of a piano, or hear how a saxophone sounds in actual life.
Balancing the scales
For all these causes, it’s important that music shops preserve a bodily presence on UK excessive streets. That mentioned, having a strong digital presence isn’t simply useful, it’s a recreation changer for store homeowners attempting to fill the gaps and preserve their enterprise shifting ahead.
For instance, highway works outdoors the A Main retailer in 2024 induced a noticeable dip in gross sales. With out a web-based presence, occasions that restrict in-person gross sales might be detrimental to the enterprise.
There are clear advantages of a web-based contact level for purchasers. We inventory over 10,000 SKUs, and providing these on-line too means the shopper base instantly expands from folks in your native space to musicians all around the nation. That improve in gross sales helps the bodily enterprise financially.
One other profit is that clients can extra simply examine costs. It’s usually presumed that on-line giants like Amazon promote merchandise cheaper, so folks don’t even trouble making the journey to the store. In our case, it’s most frequently not true. So, by itemizing our merchandise on-line, clients can clearly examine our inventory and costs with different sellers.
Aligning on-line and bodily presence
At the moment, our store strikes about an 80/20 revenue ratio, with 80% being in-person gross sales. It’s our purpose to deliver this to 50/50, so we will proceed to supply an important in-person service to clients, supporting younger musicians and people searching for skilled recommendation. In the meantime, we will construct a web-based earnings stream which maintains monetary stability throughout quieter in-store intervals.
Final yr, we introduced on DMAC Media, a digital advertising and marketing company, to assist with the store’s web site. We wished clients to obtain the identical stage of professionalism and experience that A Main supplies in our bodily retailer and attain a wider viewers than we’re capable of in individual.
In a single yr, our on-line gross sales elevated by 17% and the worth of every order elevated by 12%. Classes rocketed by 109%, which means there’s extra folks looking our merchandise and conscious of the enterprise after they’re able to make a purchase order. When revenue margins are minimal, this makes a big impact on our capability to maintain the bodily retailer operating.
Bodily music retailers are important for the music trade and for serving to fill the hole left by the decline in music schooling in colleges.
However they need to transfer with the instances and recognise the function performed by having a web-based presence.
These should not competing enterprise fashions; they’re complementary approaches to reaching the last word purpose – higher entry to musical schooling and devices.
