Found out another FYE in the Tampa Bay area was closing with a 50% (new items) to 70% used) off on all inventory. The salesperson stated that the chain my survive but all of the stores that I know of have closed.

Incredible deals as one could imagine, "Wish You were Here" Immerse set for $67.04, Tommy/Quad two pak DVD set for $5.40, Blu-Ray of Boardwark Empire for $28, Uriah Heep Live in Armenia (2cd/1 dvd) for $11.24 and many used cds under $3.00.

So sad to see another chain go under, and even more sad that future visits to malls will be without a music store.

Rick A.

There's a pretty successful one at my local mall but it's hard to imagine a place with such high overhead and high prices sticking around in this day and age... I think it's pretty much inevitable.

The FYE at Tyrone Square began liquidating back before Christmas. I stuck my head in there a couple of weeks ago; the discount was up to about 30-40%, but from the looks of the shelves, the product was not moving at all.

No January is complete without another round of FYE closings (sigh), but the number was significantly smaller this year than in the past, and the company's performance in 2011 was encouraging, at least given the current climate. Wishing them well, in any event...in many states and less metropolitan areas, they have been the only brick-and-mortar game in town, and it would be sad to see them go. I can't overstate the amount of fantastic used bargains I've found at FYE (DCCs, MoFis, DVD-As, OOP titles) over the years.

Joe

Yeah, that was the one I was at. I still had plenty of stock as of Saturday. The crowds were pretty intense. They closed all the Tampa stores and I believe Countryside in Clearwater as well. When I travel to Naples monthly, I usually poked my head inside. Hopefully that location will survive.

Rick A.

What I find sad is that F.Y.E. bought up pretty much every chain that I once loved (Specs, Harmony House) only to fizzle out. That said, that whole business of them trying to dock my credit card $12 a month without telling me really pissed me off.

When I lived in Tampa I would swing by the Westshore Plaza FYE once or twice a month, usually when I was visiting the nearby food court. I never bought things at the regular price but I would check out the sale bins which were a weird mix of budget titles, import CD singles and various artists collections. When I moved in October of 2009 they were having a sale where most everything in the store was $9.99 (or thereabouts...) I bought the then-new Basia album and planned to visit one more time before my move, but never got around to it.

Here in the Northeast corner of Tennessee they have a couple of stores but I'm only in them occasionally, so I have no idea if things are still business as usual. There's not much competition here beyond the typical Walmarts, Targets and Best Buys, so maybe they will survive. In today's economy and with the downloading/streaming/internet-ordering world we live in, however, I'm not betting on it.

Hey GlennS,

Yeah, I visited the Westshore store as well and yeah, that one is now banged up as well. They did have a interesting discount bin and as you say you can find an array of different type of music there.

I remember back about a year ago talking to a FYE manager in Naples about their reduced pricing where most of the discs were now appearing at $9.99 including the UFO remasters and such. But, they couldn't get all of the labels to agree, most did but when some held out they had no choice to raise the prices to meet the non-participant labels. I wish I can remember the details of the conversation (he kept getting interrupted) but it seemed FYE was trying very hard with the labels that without price reductions no one was going to win, the store nor the labels.

What a shame, they tried to renegotiate and even went into the used market where are stores feared to do so.

And Brainiac McGee, here ;s another takeover by FYE, "Camelot".

Rick A.

Does anyone know if there is a posted list of Fye closings? It would be worth a long drive when they hit 70-90%.

Out of curiosity, I popped my head into the Tyrone Square store a few minutes ago. 50% off of new CD's pretty good, except that more often than not we're talking 50% off of $18.99.

At first I was going to pick up some of the Badfinger & James Taylor with the 50% + 10% with FYE card but held off. I had gathered too much stuff by that point.

Rick A.