Way back in the early/mid-80s, I worked for Shulman Record Company of Cinnaminson, Nj - these folks owned/operated the Listening Booth and the Wall-To-Wall Sound stores in nearly every mall in our region.
When I first started with them as a High School job, the stores offered a massive inventory of LPs, Cassettes, 45s, and even small stock of 8-Track tapes.
HOWEVER, when the first CDs began to appear - I remember when our initial store stock consisted of a mere 8 - count them, EIGHT CDs - available to the customers; and then, that number "jumped up" to the high-thirties in over the next month or so.
Then ONE DAY... These men with specialty hand-trucks came into the store through the rear of the store. The had a large Shulman company truck parked out back; and, they began REMOVING ALL THE LPs - with the exception of the top 30 current hot-sellers FROM THE STORE, en mass!
I was stunned, to say the least.
It was like an Invasion from Hell.
I asked the store manager why these men were taking the LP inventory away, and where was it going?
She told me that because CDs "are the new thing", a directive came down that all the stores would surrender their inventories of LPs for what was essentially amounted to a "confiscation" and the LPs would be taken back to Shulman's huge warehouse... or possibly, the dump.
I was informed that the mass-production problems which made titles on CD limited and sporadic in the beginning had been solved/eliminated, and "very very soon EVERYTHING will be available on CD".
So, the LPs HAD to go.
I asked, "... but, what of our loyal customers who have LPs, want LPs, do not want CDs - which had a crappy sampling-rate in the early days - and, do not own a CD player?!?! Where is our customer's right to a choice?!?!"
To which "Irv", the District Manager - a particularly odious personality I still shutter to think of 40 years later and can never forget - excitedly rubbed his fat little sweaty hands together, and with a big smile on his face, replied while laughing: "Well... they are all just going to have to buy one.. and, they get to choose which one!".
He thought that 'choice of model CD Player' was particularly clever.
And with that, I then watched the workmen start carting in a huge inventory of new CD players.
It was absolutely the grossest display of market manipulation and orchestrated customer abuse for profit I have ever witnessed in my life.
The whole thing still makes me sick to my stomach to think about to this day.
The ending of the story?
The once pervasive and ubiquitous Listening Booth stores and Wall-To-Wall Sound stores, eventually vanished from the Mall landscape over time.
Serves them right. - Sherm Natman