Indie Record Store Profile: Strictly Discs in Madison, Wisconsin – Billboard

While attending the University of Madison-Wisconsin as a Journalism and Marketing major from 2003-2006. Rick Stoner fondly remembers wandering the aisles of Strictly Discs, the Monroe Street record store he acquired from longtime owners Ron and Angie Roloff last fall—just as the world was on the cusp of the digital music explosion.

“Strictly CDs is where I bought CDs before I had an iPod,” says Stoner. “That’s another way of saying I’m 40 years old.”

Buying the beloved local business, which Ron opened in 1988 as an 800-square-foot, single-level store (he later expanded by converting the store’s 1,700-square-foot basement level into retail space) was a full-circle moment for Stoner—though not one he actively sought. “I wasn’t looking for a record store,” he says. “I was looking for a business at a certain price. And the fact that I saw this list was a very happy coincidence.”

The relatively quick five-month acquisition process ended exactly one year ago, on Halloween 2023. And in January, after serving in consulting roles for three months during the show, the Roloffs completely exited the business (which was subject to Billboardseries “In a Pandemic” from 2020 to 2021) to officially begin their retirement, leaving Stoner to pilot the future of a store that has been part of Madison’s cultural heart for 36 years. It’s a legacy he doesn’t take lightly, and to foster a sense of continuity, he felt it was important to keep as many of the store’s existing employees on board as possible.

“Retaining the team was really my number one priority,” says Stoner. “Keeping the business, keeping the customers – to me, all of those things are achievable if you keep the brain trust, the knowledge and the vibe that comes with a team that’s been there for a long time.” All of the store’s staff stayed on after the acquisition, including long-time employees Evan Woodward — who now serves as GM and runs the store day-to-day — and Mark Chaneywho serves as assistant GM. “We all worked together really well,” Stoner adds. “I think they appreciate maybe a different approach to things, a bit more structure, and I certainly appreciate the knowledge of music they bring.”

Stoner’s 18 years of experience as a high-level advertising executive focused on managing and developing new business at companies including Brado, Derse, BBN and Bader Rutter makes him well-equipped to expand into new areas and build on this, which the store already does well. One of the first changes in his remit was to implement a new inventory management system that would be able to handle about 500,000 used vinyl records in the store in addition to new product (he chose a system that was originally designed for grocery stores ).

Another major item on Stoner’s to-do list was already in motion before he acquired the business: converting 1,000 square feet of Strictly Discs’ 5,000-square-foot warehouse in neighboring Cambridge, Wis., into a second retail location that has officially opened on Oct. 19 on a Wednesday-Sunday schedule (a grand opening is planned for sometime in November once the store’s permanent exterior sign is installed). “We have a lot of customers who are not in downtown Madison, and it takes them a while to drive downtown through the traffic, to find parking,” he says of the new store opening. “Now those people will be able to come here. Plus, I think we’ll be serving a rural customer who maybe just isn’t exposed to the cultural curiosities that come with a record store.”

Stoner is currently considering creative strategies to build interest and excitement at the new location, including giving customers access to the music lover’s paradise contained in the back 4,000 square feet of the building, which boasts most of the used products of the business. While Stoner hasn’t decided what that will look like yet, some ideas include quarterly container collection days and a “buy a crate and fill a crate” promotion.

Strictly Discs’ mountain of used products is one of the business’s key strengths. In early 2010, Ron Roloff focused his energies on acquiring large private music collections in Wisconsin and beyond, leading the store to become known as home to a treasure trove of hard-to-find records in all different genres. “I think what sets us apart is the volume and quality of the more niche genres: jazz, classical,” says Stoner. “We have an extensive soundtrack collection that, before I bought the business, I could never have imagined or guessed how well it would work for us.”

Those used records are key to another big initiative Stoner has in mind: creating a subscription model that would allow customers to select a certain number of new or used records per month — which would require integrating the store’s website with the Shopify platform — and choose to have their chosen product delivered to the store or delivered to their homes. The idea was partly inspired by similar plans offered by the likes of Vinyl Moon and Vinyl Me, Please — although, as Stoner points out, those companies don’t allow customers the kind of choice that Strictly Discs can offer. “If you pay $50 or $100 a month, especially if you live in a rural area, the record store comes to you,” he says. “And I don’t see many stores doing that.”

With the goal of launching some iteration of the subscription model during this year’s holiday shopping season, Stoner and his staff are currently focused on what he calls the “Herculean effort” of cataloging the store’s inventory. Stoner aims to initially target customers in Wisconsin but outside of Dane County (where Madison is located), drawing interest through targeted ads online and through the store’s email newsletter. “I think my main concern is that it doesn’t cannibalize our store,” he says. “So hopefully someone can subscribe to that, pick up stuff in the store, get a discount in the store for being a member, and that will allow us some growth and customer loyalty.”

The focus on launching the subscription plans ties in with Stoner’s primary goal of boosting Strictly Disc’s e-commerce efforts. On that front, the Roloffs were already ahead of the game with a sales mix of 70% in-store and 30% online (within that, the mix is ​​90% vinyl and 10% CDs; while 65% of vinyl sales are new product.) “I learned , that this is quite atypical,” he says. i think [we have] the highest online [sales percentage]at least to the record stores in our coalition [the Coalition of Independent Music Stores].” And long-term, he wants to turn those statistics on their head: “I want those 70-30s to look like 20-80s without hindering the growth of the store,” adds Stoner, who hopes to triple the store’s business through online sales.

The plans don’t end there. In addition to expanding the store’s activities for Record Store Day—this year, the store closed off part of Monroe Street with the city’s permission and hosted a block party for the event—it’s looking to launch pop-up record stores at music festivals and other events outside Madison to expand the geographic reach of the physical store.

For all its ambitious plans, the store’s longtime customers probably won’t notice much of a difference. Like Ron, Stoner currently intends to keep Strictly Discs a purely music store, eschewing merchandise and other non-musical items – which would be difficult to introduce in any case, he says, given the store’s relatively small footprint – and keeping intact what people loved about him in the first place.

“[In] our main record store in Madison … almost nothing has changed, and that’s intentional,” says Stoner. “It will be a staple of the community for the next 36 years, just as it has been for the last 36 years.”

More in this series:
Twist & Shout in Denver, Colorado.
Grimey’s in Nashville, Tennessee.
Home Rule in Washington, DC
Sweat Records in Miami, Florida.