News

Rock While You Shop

• 15th Jul 2009

From September the Top Shop group will give over a small bit of floor space in some of its bigger high street stores to the Rough Trade record shop people.

The plan should ensure music retail continues to have a presence on the high street other than in HMV, despite the collapse of Zavvi and Woolies, and the ever shrinking CD departments in shops like WH Smith. It's also good news for the indie music retail sector, Rough Trade being proudly independent both in terms of ownership but also in terms of the music it stocks and champions.

Rough Trade bosses say their partnership with Top Shop is based on their belief there is still much mileage to be had from physical music product. Certainly the Rough Trade Retail Group is doing rather well, despite CD sales being in decline for years, and many of the bigger CD sellers now out of business. The owners of what is now the UK's largest music-only store, Rough Trade East in London, reported a turnover of £2.1 million last year, and increased revenues year on year by 30% in the first quarter of this year.

Confirming the Top Shop tie up, Rough Trade Retail Group director Stephen Godfroy told the Financial Times: “[This decision] supports Rough Trade's belief that the CD format is as popular as ever [and] that it is largely the poor high street retail of CDs that is to blame for declining sales on this format”.

The first Rough Trade outlet will appear in Topman's Oxford Street store as part of an expansion and modernisation programme, scheduled for completion in October.