Nathan Parsons' Blog

Future Shop, Canada’s leader in home electronics announced that it will be opening a store-within-a-store in West Vancouver, where it will sell musical instruments.  These products will also be offered online through futureshop.ca.  It seems curious that they would opt for such a move, considering the market they are targeting is the low end, beginners instrument market.  If there is one thing to be said for beginner musicians, it is that they don’t stay beginners for long.  Guitar players, who seem to be the major target for Future Shop, will either quickly give up, or will start to develop increasingly rich tastes in instruments.  This begs the question, why is Future Shop trying to build a community of musicians that are going to outgrow their products?  Customer acquisition costs appear to be far too high, and the whole “flipping the funnel” model is completely lost.  Brand evangelists will be few, and Future Shop will need to focus their marketing efforts on the mass market, those who currently do not play instruments but are considering taking it up.  Companies such as Long & McQuade, Canada’s largest instrument retailer, rely on building long term relationships with customers, offering beginner instruments, but focusing greater effort on the high-end products that developing musicians eventually demand.  The result of Future Shop’s online instrument sales will be interesting, as none of the major Canadian music retailers currently have established positions in online sales.  Future Shop has already established itself as a leader in e-commerce.

http://www.futureshop.ca/en-CA/press/future-shop-opens-its-first-musical-instruments-shop-in-vancouver/pc8119.aspx?path=2fc45e8454e69ab92d05c7b3106aef54en08