That there Entertainment Retailers Association has elected the MD of zavvi, Simon Douglas, to be its Chairman for the next year. Ben Drury from 7Digital will be the Deputy Chair.
Despite the continued decline in record sales on the high street, and all that credit crunch malarkey, on accepting the Chairman role Douglas seemed optimistic about the entertainment retail sector. Given that his own company just this week announced a 10% increase in sales in the last year he's probably right to be optimistic, though as we all know, it's by transforming themselves from being record sellers (represented by the British Association Of Record Dealers, as they were known) to wider entertainment product sellers (represented by the Entertainment Retailers Association, their name since 2006) that such optimism is now justified.
Anyway, here's what Douglas said regarding the entertainment retail sector's current challenge: "Entertainment retailers operate in some of the fastest-moving consumer goods markets around. They are used to moving quickly and decisively in response to consumer demand. Our challenge is to apply that same decisiveness we apply to product to our own businesses."
And on the role of ERA, he continued: "There are more entertainment products on the market than ever before and consumer demand for entertainment products is greater than ever before. This means that the need for trusted intermediaries who sit between the producers of entertainment and those who want to buy it is greater than ever. In a world of near infinite choice retailers are the recommenders and navigators who help consumers make sense of what's out there. The key to our future lies in our ability to communicate product to the consumer and in turn to represent the consumer back to music, film and games companies".