Wall of Sound

Pop Music is a boutique record store. We pride ourselves in the fact we don't look like your Dad's basement. You won't find dozens of vinyl crates on our floors or dingy cardboard boxes with random records jolting out.

Originally published July 18th, 2018.

Pop Music is a boutique record store. We pride ourselves in the fact we don't look like your Dad's basement. You won't find dozens of vinyl crates on our floors or dingy cardboard boxes with random records jolting out. Much of our brand vision was about elevation and looking sharp. Being only 400 square feet, product presentation completely dictates how successful we can be in this space. Every inch needs to be utilized strategically to highlight key offers.

One of our strengths is being able to pick the right records to showcase. In a time when dozens of new vinyl releases come out every Friday, it's about knowing your market and choosing wisely what gets exposure. We do this with new releases and we also do this with new legacy releases too. It seems like there's always some sort of anniversary happening and the labels chose to celebrate them with a unique vinyl releases.

In our original store design, we decided that having two rows of "rails" (thin shelving) above our A-Z section would be enough to highlight legacy titles. At HMV, we had a similar vision and it allowed my team to choose albums that were trending at the time. Whether it was a timeless classic like Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon" or something more contemporary like Tragically Hip's "Fully Completely". Giving these titles some extra attention always proved prosperous.

When we opened our doors, we didn't anticipate how valuable space on these rails would become. Choosing what to highlight became more challenging as we learned what albums our customers responded to. After much thought about feasibility and accessibility, we developed our plan to install a third rail. Taking advantage of the moment, we also decided to upgrade our secondary feature wall with a similar rail-like system. We never quite satisfied with how this feature wall landed in the first place, so this was pure bonus.

With the installation of our new third rail and upgraded feature wall, we can now highlight over 50 “must own” albums at any given time. Creating the opportunity to focus on more of the specialty genres like Jazz, Soul and Electronic. So much about what we do at the shop is creating awareness for what's out there. It's never about the hard sell, but rather letting fans know what's out there.