As discussions continue this week on a campaign to increase Christian store music sales by 10% in the next three years, one retailer warned of what he said is the coming challenge for many stores.

Aurelio Barreto III, founder and CEO of the award-winning California-based C28 stores that target young consumers with an edgy style and the fashionable NOTW (Not Of This World) apparel, said that he was planning to drastically reduce his mall-based outlets' music inventory after seeing sales drop from 23% to 8% of the store's total sales in the last year.

Barreto said his stores had experienced the impact of digital music more dramatically than other Christian outlets because of C28's youth-oriented focus, but the others should “get ready.”

“With our customers being so young, digital is the way they buy music. CDs are out,” he said. “If you are 30 or 40, you are buying CDs still, but not if you are a young person. A whole generation is growing up that understands music as digital.”

Barreto said he was developing a new category to fill the space left empty by lost music sales. The sudden change had been “a tremendous challenge,” he added. “It has been so fast it was unbelievable. I have never seen an industry change so quickly.”

Recipient of a CBA award for retail innovation, Barreto founded C28 in 2000. Since then he has opened six stores in Southern California and agreed to franchises for others in Northern California and Florida, with several others due to be announced in the coming months.

CBA and the Christian Music Trade Association launched a music-sales drive last fall, with meetings between representatives of the two organizations and retailers taking place at Advance this week.

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