A&B Sound

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A&B Sound
Type	Consumer electronics retailer
Founded	1959
Headquarters	Richmond, British Columbia
Key people	Fred Steiner
Industry	Retail
Products	Electronics
Employees	over 700
Website	absound.ca

A&B Sound is a Canadian home electronics retailer based in Richmond, British Columbia. The flagship store is located in downtown Vancouver, with a total of 16 stores in western Canada.

1 History
2 Notes
3 External links

[edit] History

A&B Sound was founded by Fred Steiner in 1959. The first store was located in downtown Vancouver, and in 1965 it moved to its current location at 556 Seymour Street. The store initially sold televisions, stereos and radio equipment, adding music sales later that same year.

[edit] Expansion throughout British Columbia

Downtown Victoria A&B Sound

A second store opened in 1977 in Victoria, British Columbia in a building that had previously served as that city's first hospital, and later as a brothel. In 1980, the Vancouver location expanded to three floors, followed in 1981 by the construction of a new store on Hastings Street, near the border of Burnaby. A fourth location opened in 1984 on South West Marine Drive in Vancouver.

Fred Steiner retired in 1987, and his son Nick became president of A&B Sound. New stores subsequently opened in Surrey (1987), Burnaby's Metrotown area (1988), and Nanaimo (1990). Fred Steiner passed away in 1991, the same year that the East Hastings location moved into a larger property at the corner of Hastings Street and the Trans Canada Highway, across from Playland. The following year, an eighth store opened in Kelowna.

[edit] Expansion into Western Canada

In 1993, A&B Sound moved into the Alberta market, opening locations in Calgary and Edmonton in 1993, followed by south Edmonton (1994), a second Calgary location (1995), Lethbridge (1996), and Red Deer and a third Calgary outlet in 1997. Also in 1995, a store was opened in Abbotsford, British Columbia. Expansion continued throughout Western Canada, with new stores in Regina and Saskatoon, Saskatchewan (1999) and Winnipeg, Manitoba (2000). In 2001, Nick Steiner stepped aside as President, retaining his role as Chairman, and long-time CEO Tim Howley became President and CEO.

[edit] Impact on Vancouver's record, tape and CD retail industry

For years, A&B Sound maintained a reputation in the Western Canadian music market for having the lowest prices and best selection on records, cassettes, and later CDs. Often, the chain would out-price other major retailers, including A&A Records and Tapes, as well as Toronto-based Sam the Record Man, which never managed to penetrate the Vancouver market with the same success as it did in eastern Canada. A downtown Vancouver location of Sam The Record Man was located next door to A&B Sound's Seymour Street location until late in 2000 when it was closed. In a 1993 article in The Georgia Straight newspaper it is noted that A&B Sound's aggressive pricing policies resulted in Vancouver having the lowest record prices of any Canadian metropolis. These low prices were not only responsible for other chains closing, but may have been one reason for some chains not opening stores in Vancouver, including Tower Records, which had scouted Vancouver as a possible location to expand into Canada. When HMV finally opened stores in the Vancouver area in 1993, HMV Canada's then-president Paul Alofs said that breaking into the Vancouver market wouldn't be easy. "A&B is certainly a very strong competitor, and we have a lot of respect for what they do."^[1]

[edit] Bankruptcy and a new owner

In the 1990s and 2000s, A&B began to face increasing competition for music, DVD and electronics sales. Vancouver-based Future Shop added music to its product mix, using the same aggressive pricing structure it did with consumer electronics. An attempt by A&B to expand its offerings by adding books to its product mix ended in failure.^{[citation needed]} Besides HMV, other retail giants like Wal-Mart, Virgin Megastore and Best Buy entered the marketplace as well, the latter having purchased Future Shop in the early 2000s. In early 2005, with a debt of C$57 million, A&B Sound filed for protection under Canadian bankruptcy regulations. A sale to American company Sun Capital Partners Group Inc. was announced, but this sale was not approved by A&B's creditors. Instead, the company was purchased by Canadian computer manufacturer Seanix Technology Inc., based in Richmond and led by Paul Girard. He announced that they planned to close down or relocate some of the branches that were losing money and focus on the BC and Alberta markets. That year and the next, a number of employees were laid off, and several locations were closed, including both the Winnipeg stores in 2005, the Hastings Street in January 2006, and in August of 2006 their Red Deer, Regina and Saskatoon locations.^[2] The downtown Calgary store was also closed sometime in this period. Meanwhile, new locations were opened in North Vancouver and Pitt Meadows, while the Kelowna and south Calgary and Surrey stores were relocated. In March of 2007, the downtown Edmonton location closed, with plans to re-open another Edmonton location in the works. The Burnaby location was also closed around this time. On December 15, 2007 a new location opened in Langford (near Victoria). On January 4, 2008 the Delta store, which had re-located from Surrey was closed. On April 3, 2008, it was announced the historical Victoria Location would close it's doors permanently, Leaving 12 Stores Chain-Wide.