If you like oldies music and classic movies, get to know Oldies.com
West Conshy family-owned small biz is one of the largest music and movie mail-order companies in the U.S.
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MELISSA Greene-Anderson, 50, of Villanova, is executive vice president of Oldies.com, an online retailer and related catalog for "oldies" music, classic movies and related merchandise. The family-owned company operates from a 60,000-square-foot warehouse in West Conshohocken and is one of the largest music and mail-order companies in the U.S. and one of the largest resellers of vinyl records.
Q: Tell me about the business.
A: In the '80s, we started Collectables Records, which grew to be the largest independent reissue label for music in the country. We have about 5,000 CDs on our label. We did the same with old movies and have about 5,000 reissue movies. We send out 13 million catalogs a year.
Q: How much of the business is via catalog versus online?
A: I think about 75 percent of sales are via catalog.
Q: How much of the business is music versus movies?
A: I'd say about 75 percent is movies.
Q: What's the profile of an Oldies.com customer?
A: We market to anyone who likes movies, music, collectibles, TV, movie culture, movie props of no specific age. The Internet has leveled the playing field, and we can no longer say we mostly sell to men over the age of 50.
Q: Who are your customers?
A: We sell to big-box stores like Walmart and Costco, but it's a much smaller part of our business. Some of our biggest customers are resellers who buy from us and then resell on eBay and Amazon.
Q: What else does the business do?
A: A couple of years ago we started bringing in merchandise. For example, we imported from England all the Beatles things you couldn't find in this country. We have Beatles scarves, hats, mugs and umbrellas, Beatles Monopoly and Scrabble. We have all the prop memorabilia from TV movies that toy manufacturers did.
Q: What's your plan for the 50th anniversary of the Beatles coming to America?
A: We're featuring the DVD of the "Ed Sullivan Show" where most people saw the Beatles for the first time. We've sold hundreds of those. We've got DVDs of all the Beatles documentaries and movies like "Magical Mystery Tour." We have all the vinyl albums, stereo and mono box sets, books, T-shirts, mugs, clocks, lunch boxes, tote bags, mouse pads and bobbleheads.
Q: Where do you get it?
A: We have more than 1,000 vendors. We go to trade shows, buy music from major labels and movies from studios and also independent labels.
Q: How big a business?
A: 100 employees.
Online: ph.ly/YourBusiness