It was recently announced that Musicland group is closing all 61 Media Play locations across the country. For those of you who are not familiar with Media Play, they are a large big box store focusing on Music, Books, Movies and Software.
I first encountered Media Play when I moved to a new city in 1997. Where I lived before we had Hastings which was similar to Media Play so I started going into Media Play. Until a few years ago they had a large magazine selection, music selection, and book area. In the last five years they have added more software, added games, and made the other departments smaller.
A few weeks ago I went into Media Play and was not impressed by what I saw. The store had several failings and you could clearly see why the store was faltering and why ultimately they are being closed.
While many of its failings ultimately come from not finding its niche, I will also discuss other reasons for its demise that lead up to the lack of a niche and how you can avoid the problems.
Lesson #1 on Media Play's failing was that it tried to be all things to all people. When I first went in there they had a fantastic selection of books and magazines. But, as the market changed their answer was to add items and cut down on their other departments and instead of having some very good departments with good selection, they had many departments with small selections. The last time I went into Media Play a couple of weeks ago I found nothing I was looking for so I went elsewhere.
So lesson number 1: Do not try to be all things to all people.
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