Sho' Nuff. (Store Of The Week).

"Business was quiet at the start of the year but I had a really good run into St Patrick's Day and then Mother's Day and April's not been too bad either. Our business is mainly regular customers and, with the schools being off, that has been good for trade.

Since I moved back to open the shop, we've never bothered with singles, only albums. We offer specialist music across the board whatever your musical taste, and we've been doing really well with new releases by artists like Lucinda Williams, The Jayhawks and Brian Kennedy, who has had a lot of local interest off the back of his recent TV show here. The White Stripes album has also appealed right across the board, from young indie kids to older buyers who have been prompted when we have played some of the bluesy numbers in store.

The main block of the shop sales-wise is our Ritz section, which includes a lot of jazz vocals from artists such as Norah Jones and Diana Krall. But we also do well with blues, country, folk, world and reggae and have got good sales from the likes of Erin McKeown, Rory Gallagher and Daniel Lanois. Classic vinyl accounts for about 10% of our business and we sell music books and guitar accessories.

One recent development has been the launch of a Sho' Nuff Unsigned wall, where local bands can sell their demos. We've been doing well with the album by Made In Korea, a local indie band, and Voy Vance, a local solo artist, has also been picking up interest.

Nearby there is a Golden Discs, Woolies and the local Our Price just changed over to Sanity about four weeks ago but, because I'm coming from a more specialist angle, I don't have much bother. I know I can't compete with Woolies on chart. The only way is by customer service and being prepared to order in anything people want. That said, I'm still finding it hard to get out of that Tower and HMV mentality of running campaigns all the time, so we generally have something ...