Sunrise at the mall
Canadian-owned Sunrise Records moving into Avalon Mall
Music fans that still like to thumb through a rack of CDS or vinyl records will soon have a new spot to frequent in St. John’s with the arrival of a Sunrise Records store at the Avalon Mall coming soon.
Music fans that still like to thumb through a rack of CDS or vinyl records will soon have a new spot to frequent in St. John’s with the arrival of Sunrise Records.
The Canadian chain, which bills itself as independently operated, released an image through its Twitter and Facebook account announcing that it would soon establish a location at the Avalon Mall.
The company, founded in 1977, faced similar challenges to HMV Canada, Music World, Sam the Record Man and A&A Records — all of which previously operated in the Avalon Mall at one point or another — with the consumer shift towards online music sales, closing its flagship Toronto store in 2014.
In October of 2014, however, Douglas Putnam, whose family also runs Everest Toys, purchased Sunrise Records and he quickly expanded to nine locations in Ontario.
After HMV Canada went into receivership this year and announced it would close all 102 stores across Canada by April of this year, Sunrise negotiated an agreement to take over 70 locations across Canada. As of mid-june, 59 of those locations had opened.
The company also planned to retain as many of the former HMV employees as possible.
A major component of Sunrise’s expansion focuses on the growing popularity of vinyl records, with plans to stock more than 2,000 titles at each location.
They’re also committed to supporting more local artists.
“Sunrise will work to broaden the assortment of music that HMV carried, with a planned 50 per cent increase of CDS, and a massively expanded apparel section including the hottest music and entertainment related merchandise,” the company wrote in a statement announcing its expansion.
“Sunrise will continue to be on the cutting edge of pop culture trends adding licensed figures, plush characters as well as an extensive selection of board games to each store.”