The reverbmedia crew is busy doing some space planning and trying to figure out the best way to build inventory in this posting.
After our equipment was delivered and put into storage, it was time to get to work putting together the inside of the store. New member Heather Stohl, a talented art major, took the reigns in gathering the materials and in putting together a plan for painting the store and putting in the equipment.
For four days, members worked in shifts to lay down the layers of sky-blue paint on three sides of the room (the fourth side consisted of large windows). After this, we placed a warmer, red paint into an alcove in the back; this would be our sitting/lounging area. After the first layers were dry, Heather went back and painted a vertical design on opposite walls?short rectangles that slowly contorted into larger squares near the ceiling and floor. This imitated the sound signals found on recording consoles, and also kept with the ?square? theme while adding accents of warmth in the store.
While the team worked on this, we also began planning an event to continue gaining inventory. We actually held the event before we began painting the store.
We planned a luncheon event on campus in conjunction with the Curb Caf?the hot new eating place on campus. The Caf?ould offer a special buffet deal on pizza, and we would set up a booth to buy used CDs. It seemed like a good idea for college students?get money for CDs, and use the money to buy food! We posted fliers around campus, put mail-outs in most student mailboxes, placed an announcement on the Belmont website, and attempted to post fliers on nearby college campuses (this attempt was ultimately thwarted by rainstorms that blew through the area, drenching our efforts). However, despite all the publicity and the offer of food, the endeavor was a flop. I don?t think we focused enough on the people outside of Belmont?s campus; also, a round of door-to-door visits might have been more convenient for students because their CDs would have been right there. You have to take chances?sometimes they work, sometimes they don?t.
On the bright side, we did have our first customer; Joe Drake bought a Clay Walker CD that someone brought in during the luncheon. We took his pic right there in the Caf?nd started playing the CD there on Geoff?s laptop. I think part of being a capable entrepreneur is looking at any situation and bringing good out of it; the Curb Caf?lop may not have been good for our inventory, but it was good for our team. It gave us time to get to know each other better outside of meetings; it helped us to become a closer-knit band of entrepreneurs instead of a large group of students.
We were aware, however, that there was a large risk that we could fall short on inventory even with events like the luncheon, so we had continued looking for wholesale suppliers specializing in used CDs. We also looked on E-bay again to find deals on bulk cases of CDs that we could buy instead of bid on. We found a several small packs (around 75-100) that we considered, but only bought a couple. Eventually Joe Drake found a supplier in New York who listed each of his CDs there on the website. This was great because we knew exactly what we would be getting. The CDs were all in good condition and came shrink-wrapped. After obtaining price quotes and other information from him, we had a late night business meeting to determine how many ?current? CDs (late 90s-present) we should purchase and how many ?older? ones. We decided on a mix of about 2/3 older CDs and 1/3 of the newer ones, because the newer ones were a bit more expensive. We put in our order the next day.
Catch the entire reverb story at this link.
Jessica Phillips