An Die Musik, the eclectic music store that has earned itself a reputation for a deep inventory, listening stations and a highly informed staff, is the first casualty of a recent infusion of mega-music retailers in the Baltimore region.
Its owners have closed their Ellicott City store on U.S. 40 to avoid what they projected as heavy losses if they tried to compete with the new retailers.
"We took a good look at what is happening in the music industry in the Baltimore-Washington area and decided we could not compete with all of these chain super stores coming in," said Henry Wong, a founder and owner of An Die Musik.
The 12,000-square-foot Ellicott City store closed Saturday. It opened in June 1993, specializing in classical, jazz and rock selections, and carried a selection of first-class high-fidelity stereo equipment.
An Die Musik had signed a five-year lease for the site, but Mr. Wong said he has worked out an agreement with the shopping center owner to pull out early.
Inventory from the Ellicott City store has been consolidated with selections at An Die Musik's flagship location in Towson.
Mr. Wong said he and his two partners in the business had considered paring the Ellicott City operation to about half its size to see if the store could survive until the market settled down after the infusion of new chain operations.
But that option was ruled out as too financially risky.
"There was no point in losing $500,000 while we tried to survive in Howard County and wait for the market to shake out," he said. "We are just out-funded by these guys."
Mr. Wong said he was aware that the store's closing was disappointing to his loyal clientele of Howard County residents.
Towson store stressed
He said the store hopes to retain those customers and encourage them to shop at the Towson location through several incentives.
Those incentives include increasing the purchase discount for Howard County residents who are members in An Die Musik's buying club. The discount will be raised to 20 percent from 15 percent. An Die Musik will also waive the $12 renewal fee for Howard County residents' buying club memberships.
"I know we upset the Howard County market, but we're hoping to make it worth their while to still come over to our Towson location," said Mr. Wong.
An Die Musik's owners had decided to expand into the Howard County market after it was determined that about 15 percent of its membership club roster listed Howard County residences.
Mr. Wong and his partners believed the market would be ripe for their specialized personal service and their staff's extensive knowledge of musical genres and artists because the county has the second highest median household income in the state and one of the highest average education attainment levels in the nation.
Those demographics, the partners say, meant the Ellicott City store should offer a particularly extensive collection of classical music and jazz.
But the county market did not live up to projections that the company would double its sales volume, Mr. Wong said.
"The store did fairly well when it first opened. But then we had the bad weather last winter and things fell off and never really recovered," he said.
First competitor
The first heavy competitor to open in the area was Best Buy, the nation's No. 3 consumer electronics chain.
Last month it opened a store in Columbia's Snowden Square, a regional shopping center off Route 175 and Snowden Square Road.
The 45,000-square-foot store, which mostly features electronics, has 70 listening kiosks where shoppers can listen to music selections before buying.
It also carries a broad inventory from country to classical and lures buyers into the store by offering CDs at heavily discounted prices.
Next to enter the fray was Planet Music, which opened last week in the Westview Mall, just seven miles east on Route 40 from An Die Musik's location.
The chain is controlled by Borders-Walden, Inc, a holding company. Planet Music touts an inventory of 100,000 CDs and tapes in a variety of genres from opera to rap, listening booths and a money-back guarantee if customers decide after purchasing selections that they don't like them.
The store, which stays open until midnight 365 days a year, also discounts many new selections to members of its buying club.
Borders Books & Music
The other competitor for the area's music market influencing An Die Musik's decision to pull out of Howard County was Borders Books & Music.
The Kmart-owned chain plans to open a 20,000-square-foot "super store" in Columbia's Snowden Square early next year.
Borders emphasizes customer service and features inventories of 70,000 to 150,000 books, as well as extensive collections of music on CD and tape.
Mr. Wong said An Die Musik could not compete with the three giants, particularly in the area of discounts.
Such broad discounting would hurt An Die Musik's profit margin, he said.
"We are the hometown, home-grown store that has no ambitions of expanding into other cities," Mr. Wong said.
"We now aspire to be something like JRL Music in New York. They have one store and they sell music and stereo equipment better than anyone else in the city," he said.