Scotland's Coda hit by retail chill.(News)

Scottish indie retailer Coda Music has succumbed to the pressure from supermarkets, low margins and downloads by pulling the plug on its three main stores.

In a move anticipated recently by the closure of Leicester's long-established Ainleys store and a number of other indie retailers, Codas founder Dougie Anderson says that he has already closed his Glenrothes and Livingston stores and will shut up shop at the Waverley Centre store in Edinburgh in the next couple of weeks. He says he took the decision after resolving that there is no future for music retailing in the current environment.

"The record business is crap," says Anderson, who has been retailing since 1990. "It is crap returns, apart from the supermarkets."

Anderson says both legal and illegal music downloading has hit his bottom line; he estimates that sales have been cut by up to 7% because of downloads. He adds, "Other people in, say, clothing retailing laugh at record retailers with our 25% margins and if we don't sell stuff we are stuck with it. Others have ...