rad Pope remembers the first time he listened to a compact disc.
“It was just so clean and clear,” he said. “I just sat there amazed — I couldn’t believe the difference. I decided right then and there to open a CD store.”
So Pope and a couple of his friends put up the money for a store on Jefferson Highway. They called it the Compact Disc Store.
That was 20 years ago, and although Pope’s philosophy and business sense have not changed, the market for CDs has dramatically.
The rise of so-called big-box retailers, large national chains such as Wal-Mart and Best Buy that provide a variety of items at low prices, and the shift toward digital music and MP3 players are often blamed for the downturn in the CD sector.
Pope looks around his store, scanning the aisles strewn with CDs and records. The smell of incense envelops the expanse of the store. The walls are covered with pictures of musicians, fliers of local bands and mountains of CDs — new and used.
“This is the way record stores used to be,” Pope said. “We really are kind of an antique.”
Pope said big-box retailers cater to the low price shopper — the customer who values price over service when it comes to shopping for music. For smaller independents, the big-box retailers undercut their prices by a large margin. Sometimes the big-box stores can sell a CD for less than an independent can buy it for, Pope said.
Charles D’Agostino, director of the Louisiana Business and Technology center, has been working at the University for 17 years. Through his research and studies of small business models, D’Agostino said he has seen small businesses blame the big-box retailers for killing their businesses, but says the theory holds no water. He said big businesses can actually help smaller stores draw in customers. 
“Big stores draw traffic and if you’re near that store you will get the run-off and benefit as well,” he said. “But to stay in business, the smaller guys have to beat the big store on service. You have to offer personal service and be more knowledgeable — because not all customers are about the price.”
Back at the Compact Disc Store, a customer immerses himself in the countless racks while an employee aids in the search of an elusive album for another hopeful customer. They prowl the racks, hoping to find that perfect album. After an exhaustive, fruitless search, the employee offers to special order the disc.
Pope knows this attention to detail and assistance is what makes one-time customers regulars.
“I think the reason we’ve survived so long has a lot to do with our service,” Pope said. “For just about [any customer] who comes in here looking for something, one of us will know something about what they need.”
Pope said many independent music stores are feeling pressure from online retailers. As buying CDs online becomes easier and faster, the number of people visiting music stores in person declines.
Online retailers also have broken into the realm of digital music. Since the explosion in popularity of MP3 players, such as Apple’s iPod, the number of digital online song purchases has skyrocketed.
In a press release on its Web site, Apple announced that 5.3 million iPods were shipped during the quarter that ended March 31. 
This increased growth of fee-based digital music Web sites and strong MP3 sales could spell trouble for independent music stores.
Stephen Beck, director of the Music & Art Digital Studio at the School of Music, said as technology advances and the public becomes more familiar with the technology, the general public’s comfort level with digital music will rise.
“As devices get smaller and smaller and they have greater and greater capacity, the whole notion of buying something and having a physical component [such as a CD] is going to the wayside,” Beck said. “We’re in a digital world where it is becoming easier and more attractive to buy assets that exist entirely in bits and bytes.”
Pope leans back in his chair and reminisces about his first job at a record store. It was a small shop on Chimes Street, now inhabited by a bakery. A smile lights up his face as he talks about his first experiences with LP records.
“The sound was terrible, we didn’t know it at the time, but it was just terrible,” he said. “And they only lasted so long, they were easily damaged.”
Pope believes in the sustainability of the CD.
“It is still a viable format,” he said. “I think CDs have a shelf life. Every technology eventually goes out, but by that point I’ll be dead.”
The upsurge in the digital music market may not worry Pope, but others believe the demise of the CD is in the near future.
Thomas Clark, Information Systems and Decision Sciences Professor, said e-commerce is a particularly lucrative market.
Clark said the business theory of demand side increasing returns states that as more people succeed in the digital music business, it becomes more attractive for others to enter as well.
“I would predict digital music will replace [CDs] eventually,” he said. “If there is a demand for CDs, there will be a supply as well.”
Pope sees the changing face of music retail, but he is not daunted.
“Things disappear because they’re just not viable anymore,” he said. “Fortunately enough people are still around that enjoy the experience. It’s more of a labor of love than a profit-making venture.”