The Deleted Scenes - Goody Two Stores
Take a look at this screenshot of just the photo from a tweet I saw recently: Now depending on your age, how often you go to malls, and how closely you follow the troubles of brick-and-mortar retail, you might have two reactions to this picture. One: okay, a Sam Goody store. Two: there are still any Sam Goody stores left? Obviously, there are. This one, of course, which is in St. Clairsville, Ohio. And this one, in Medford, Oregon. Here’s a screenshot of the Google photos (no neon on this one): And…no others. There are just two Sam Goody stores left in the United States. (Here’s a Reddit thread on them.) So here’s a screenshot of the whole tweet, from a neat mall-focused account: Now, if you look at the Oregon store, you can see banners declaring “FYE exclusive.” That’s because the parent company of FYE—which still has over 200 stores!—bought a whole bunch of music store chains over the years, including Sam Goody. From Wikipedia:
So the company was basically finished, and the FYE parent, for whatever reason, kept these two stores alive. But they are, aside from the names, FYE stores. The Ohio location is very old—the logo dates to the early 1990s—so perhaps in a smaller, older mall they saw no point in paying to rebrand everything. “Lasts” are always interesting, especially in regard to the challenges of keeping all the corporate infrastructure running—offices, logistics, store brands and centrally produced materials, etc.—as the number of stores dwindles. How does that even work? Arthur Treacher’s, the fish and chip chain, once had approximately 800 locations and now has only two, plus a handful of franchises. Or K-Mart, with three U.S. locations left. How do you scale down a massive chain’s infrastructure to almost nothing? These Sam Goodys don’t really have that issue, do they? But maybe their signs do. When the signs stop lighting up and can’t be fixed, maybe that’s when the rebranding happens. Related Reading: Thank you for reading! Please consider upgrading to a paid subscription to help support this newsletter. You’ll get a weekly subscribers-only post, plus full access to the archive: over 600 posts and growing. And you’ll help ensure more material like this! You're currently a free subscriber to The Deleted Scenes. For the full experience, upgrade your subscription. |
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