Retail Trade

Tesla's Attempt to Revolutionize the Auto Industry May Have Hit a Road Block in Texas

As they try to carve out a permanent niche in the ultra-competitive American car market, Tesla and billionaire founder Elon Musk have had to position themselves as sprightly Davids disrupting the lumbering Goliaths of Detroit and Japan. They have no other choice. They can't afford the untold billio ... More >>

Former Gamestop VP Pleads Guilty to Stealing $2 Million from Company

Chris Olivera was for several years vice president of corporate communications and public affairs for Gamestop. Part of his job was serving as a public face and spokesman for the Grapevine-based video game retailer. He did that just fine. It was the other part of his job, processing invoices from ve ... More >>

A Day in the Life of a Doc's Records Clerk

Adventures In The Vinyl Trade: Doc's Records' Dave Howard

Every so often, we get to wondering what people in the local music community do all day. So, we asked them. Today, Ken Shimamoto checks in with Doc's Records employee Dave Howard, and learn a little about the life of a record store clerk in 2012. I grew up in record stores: from the musty, dusty s ... More >>

Preview: Record Store Day

Saturday, April 21

Record Store Day Roundup: How and Where To Celebrate Music's Greatest National Holiday

Good RecordsIt's hard to beat Good Records' yearly Record Store Day celebration. They always manage to put a solid lineup together, but this one trumps any from years past. Thanks to Sunday's Edgefest, Good's Chris Penn was able to procure performance slots for Ting Tings, Civil Twilight and Switchf ... More >>

Record Store Day Comes Early This Year as Record Stores Celebrate Black Friday

​If you're reading this blog, it's likely you frequent a record store, and there are several good ones in the area to choose from.  But, if you didn't realize that purchasing music online is a mild sin, and if your record store of choice is the iTunes store or Amazon.com, you might be out of ... More >>

How Many Record Stores Do You Think Exist in the Dallas-Fort Worth Region? Really. Guess.

​Tomorrow, as you now doubt are well aware by now, is the fourth annual official Record Store Day, in which we all get together and celebrate the brick-and-mortar shops that have managed to survive through the economy and the Internet stealing all of the action.But, really, just how bad are things ... More >>

A Piece of the Record Pie

A Store-by-store Breakdown of this Year's Record Store Day Events Around Town

Pretty Paper, Pretty Ribbons

Wine, Wine, Wine (Beer Too): Once More, a Petition Push to Make All of Dallas Wet

Flickr user: lopolis​A little while ago, Rudy Bush posted an item about a new push to allow beer and wine sales citywide, thus eliminating the so-called "dry" parts of town in which booze can't be sold for off-site consumption. Big news, to be sure, but also old news: I called Gary Huddleston, the ... More >>

Valley View Center Loses One More Tenant, as Borders Closes the Book on Waldenbooks

​A Friend of Unfair Park sends word: Borders Group is removing from its shelf 200 Waldenbooks locations across the U.S. -- including, as you can tell from the headline, the longstanding Valley View Center location, which opened in October 1999. Employees there only found out about the closure, sch ... More >>

RadioShack's About to Get an Extreme Makeover. At Least, the Name Is. Kind Of.

​That's right -- get ready to call the Fort Worth-based chain "The Shack" starting Thursday. The name change ain't official: It'll still be known by its more formal and familiar moniker. But according to Lee Applbaum, RadioShack's chief marketing officer, well, just forget about that whole "Radio" ... More >>

Food For Thought 5.6.09

"Speculation that Starbucks is losing retail market share to competitors has been grossly exaggerated. Our customers are not trading down." (Howard Schultz, chairman of Starbucks, announcing lower pricing on certain items in some markets to combat slower sales. The Seattle-based chain reported a 77 ... More >>

Turns Out, All It Takes to Kill Dallas's Convention Business Is a Little Swine Flu Scare

Something called the Food Marketing Institute was scheduled to hold two events in Dallas beginning May 4: a "Future Connect leadership development conference" on May 4-6, followed by a "MARKETECHNICS® technology event" May 5-8. According to Tradeshow Week, the events were to take place at the Hyatt ... More >>

Echoes and Reverberations: The Twisted Fate of a Lifetime Crate Digger

Many of them were tucked away in suburban strip malls, their storefronts always the black sheep of the retail family. They were usually owned by a single lifelong music fan, someone who relished the opportunity to dog-paddle in the eye of the pop culture hurricane. Sometimes they smelled like incens ... More >>

New York State Of Mind

Short Circuited City

Wrote the real-estatin' Friend of Unfair Park who alerted us to the news of Circuit City's imminent demise today, "Getting ugly out there." Indeed: Just two months after Circuit City included its N. Central Expressway and Meadow Road location as one the 155 "underperforming" stores being shuttered, ... More >>

Neimans Had a Lousy Christmas

Flickr photo: Wednesday181 It was but a month ago that Neiman Marcus president and CEO Burt Tansky insisted that sooner than later, the "aspirational shopper" and "loyal customer" would once again stroll through the store's doors with money to burn. At the time, the Dallas-based high-end retailer ... More >>

Will 2009 Be the Year Valley View Center Goes Bye-Bye? Hope Not.

Dallas's real estate market in 2008 in a nutshell: OK, then not. Which is more or less the analysis offered by GlobeSt.com today as it sizes up the year that was and sneaks a peek at the year that will be or won't, depending on folks' fortunes. Among the prophets lined up for the piece are folks fro ... More >>

Consume, Consume, Consume

Town East fights recession with bands

Seasons Savings

Get Gifted offers a night of deals

Alas, Not Even Sarah Palin Could Keep Neimans From Losing Money

Switching Scenes: Or, Will Fort Worth's Loss Turn Into Dallas's Gain?

Reikyu Sushi is a Hip Hibachi

Gosh, That Street Corner Could Really Use Another Bank Branch

Mom Jeans

Dallas Is So In Fashion

Statute Stomp

Virgin No More

SuperSore

The sins of Wal-Mart get the documentary treatment

Best Place for Cheap Kids Clothing

Old Navy

Best Place to Buy Comic Books...Sorry, Graphic Novels

Titan Comics

Best Furniture Store

Design Within Reach

On the Download

Is the online music store the Apple of digital music's eye? It should be.

When Online Got Off Base

Or: How Mark Cuban would have--and could have?--saved the music biz

Industrial Evolution

The record industry crippled Napster with litigation. But has it made things worse for itself?

Best Place to Wax On

Er'Go Candle Outlet

Buzz

Chump change

Ransom Notes

Can one man convince millions of people to pay for their "free" music?

Best music browsing mecca

CD Source

Best women's re-sale clothing

Revente

Best place to buy candles

Er' Go Outlet

Pain & Ink

Creatively, comic books are healthier than they've ever been. So why is everyone rushing to bury the industry?

Take a nap

Maximum Records lines up to lead the fight to keep Napster alive. Oh yeah, and to promote its bands too.

Hash Over

Drink up

Penney pinched

Falling sales and claims of sexist, insular management plague Plano-based J.C. Penney. Can a woman -- from Wal-Mart of all places -- turn the troubled chain around?

Slipped discs

Are Virgin and Tower really the enemy, or can the indie stores fight back?

LiL' Things, big problems

Why no one is winning the battle of the baby superstores

Accidental Deaths

Wars between the electronics giants are killing Dallas' independent music stores