Sam Goody

Sam Goody

Type	Electronics
Industry	Retail
Founded	1956
Defunct	2006
Headquarters	Minneapolis, Minnesota, U.S.
Products	DVDs, CDs, Videos, Video Games, Posters

Sam Goody was a music and entertainment retailer in the United States and United Kingdom, and was owned and operated by Trans World Entertainment which also runs FYE, Saturday Matinee, and Suncoast Motion Picture Company. It specialized in music, video, and video game sales. In 2008 Trans World converted most Sam Goody stores into f.y.e., though some still operate under the Sam Goody name.

History

Sam "Goody" Gutowitz (1904-1991) of New York City opened a small record store on New York's 9th Avenue shortly after the advent of vinyl long-playing records in the late 1940s. Although he did some retail business, most of his volume was in mail-order sales at discount prices. He became something of a folk hero among impecunious college students as the first successful large-scale LP discounter.^[1][2][3]

Later, The Sam Goody name was applied to a chain of record stores established in 1951 by Sam Gutowitz. The company was acquired by rival Musicland, based in Minneapolis, in 1978.^[4] Sam Goody continued to grow through both acquisitions and organic growth, including the launch of its website. The stores averaged 4,600 square feet (430 m²) but varied in size from 1000 to 30,000 square feet (2,800 m²).^[5] The Musicland Group was once the largest music retailer in the country, operating at its peak more than 1300 stores, over 800 of them Sam Goodys, and earning over $2 billion in annual revenue.

Best Buy

Best Buy attempted to diversify its retail holdings by purchasing Musicland. Best Buy's attempt to transform Musicland into a youth-oriented small-format technology hub failed after two years of ownership. Losses were exacerbated by a decline in physical CD sales in line with the general decline in CD sales, and by competition from big box retailers. Just weeks before Best Buy was prepared to liquidate the entire chain of stores (and after closing several hundred), they found a buyer in Sun Capital Partners, a private equity firm out of Boca Raton, Florida, which acquired the chain in a cash-free transaction by acquiring Musicland's liabilities.

Musicland bankruptcy

Under Sun Capital, the company closed more stores and tried to get the business back to basics, but ultimately the challenges of competition and lackluster music industry releases proved too much and in January 2006, The Musicland Group filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York. In February 2006, the company announced the closing of 226 Sam Goody and 115 Suncoast Motion Picture Company stores. Following the closings, the Sam Goody chain was left with 191 stores.

Acquisition by Transworld

In March 2006, Trans World Entertainment, which had been acquiring their competitors for several years, announced the purchase of 400 Sam Goody and Suncoast stores. Trans World kept 345 of the stores open around the country and closed 55. In the fall of 2006, Trans World Entertainment Corp. began changing the names of mall-based Sam Goody stores to f.y.e., the company's signature retail store. Trans World retained the Suncoast Motion Picture Co. name on about 170 stores.^[6]

After a dismal fourth quarter 2006 and a lackluster year in general, Transworld admitted that it failed to anticipate some of the challenges that remained associated with the remaining Musicland stores that it acquired, especially the "Sam Goody Rural" concept located in small communities. As a result, they announced more store closings, many of which were likely to be former Musicland stores.

Trans World has announced their intention to focus on the f.y.e. brand and convert all Sam Goody stores to f.y.e stores in the future. As of February 2008, Trans World removed the Sam Goody brand from its corporate website. They did keep one store in San Diego branded Sam Goody due to the cost of changing the signs, until late 2012.^[7]

Sam Goody in the United Kingdom

In the 1990s Sam Goody entered the UK market and established a presence in a number of English towns, such as Milton Keynes, Weston-super-Mare and Stockport, with a "deep catalogue" retail format that included a large amount of "recurrent" music albums and videos. However, whereas this format might have been successful in the United States in the 1980s and early 1990s, in the United Kingdom it came under pressure from a range of price led and established retailers. By the start of the 2000s Sam Goody had exited from UK marketplace, selling its stores off to rival retailers.

Stockport

The Stockport store was launched to much "fanfare" in a new retail development at the end of the Mersey Way shopping centre over two floors and mezzanine, with a special listening post area with a view of the entire mall.

However Sam Goody misjudged the marketplace and opened its store directly across the way from the slightly cheaper Our Price store, as well as nearby the successful Stockport value retailer Music Zone (Trade Direct) and HMV. Even though the store featured a larger amount of stock than its rivals and more obscure records, this was not enough to tempt the shoppers of Stockport away from the English companies, who preferred to shop around for the best deal. The store closed and the unit is now taken by a building society.

Weston-super-Mare

After Sam Goody had decided to exit the tough English market, the Weston-super-Mare store was sold to American rival Tower Records who rebranded it as Tower Express before they also decided to quit the UK market.

Photo gallery

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  Typical Sam Goody pre-1994 concept

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  Typical Sam Goody 1994-1998 concept

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  Typical Sam Goody 1998-2006

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  Typical Sam Goody - Best Buy era concept

References

External links

• Sam Goody in the UK