Hi All,
I am sad to officially report to you what is obvious: EBrecords (formally Ernie B's Reggae) will be closing soon. Trying to grow and maintain the company proved to be impossible for me due to the highly contentious partnership (two owners is one too many, especially family). I couldn't keep it glued together any longer. As a last ditch effort I sold my half ownership to my brother back in 2015 (and promptly put my proceeds back into the business) but even that didn't fix it.
I feel very bad for the customers and vendors because at the end of the day it was you who were 99% responsible for it's amazing success. That's why I hung in there for so long and put every last drop of energy and money I had into it (besides the fact that I didn't want to go out and get a real job!).
I am starting over with a new company, called Millions of Records. You can sign up for emails on my website but it's not taking orders yet (
http://www.MillionsOfRecords.com). Please sign up for the emails asap - important to keep you in the loop (it's going to be a fun loop to be in). Website will be accepting orders in about a month.
My new website will be a lame, simple website at first. I might as well be honest, the new website is super simple and lacks some important features. It will function OK but it's very simplistic. Please bear with me while I work on the "real" website while this lame one is providing me with some desperately needed income at the start. After I gain some momentum I will launch the redesigned/upgraded website with all of the great features EBrecords.com had, plus many more (and without the kinks and idiosyncrasies of course).
I sure wish I could have kept EBrecords going. It's a lot of work starting from scratch! Luckily, and I mean VERY lucky, I have made a lot of friends who have reggae collections and they are letting me sell some of their records on consignment through my new website. Some pretty crazy reggae oldies! Thousands and thousands of killer 70s-80s singles and LPs. Lots of CDs too. Way more used reggae than Ernie B's ever had. Someone also consigned a huge stock (over 100,000 units) of tapes and CDs (all genres) so overall there will be a great selection of all genres on all formats, new and used. Records stores will have a field day as well. It's good to have friends because without them I would have no records to sell!
With your help I can build this up to even better than what Ernie B's was in it's heyday. That's my goal. It's going to take a while because I literally have to start from the ground up. I've done it before though so it will be easier this time.
Thank you for all of your support. You wouldn't believe the emails I am getting from customers; the support is almost overwhelming! That keeps me going. I promise to put in some serious effort in providing great selection, prices and service.
That was a wild 24-year roller coaster ride, mostly at the top (a lot of fun watching cartloads of reggae ship in and out every day). The roller coaster never went down, actually it crashed at the top and left me dangling over the edge. I finally just let myself drop to the pavement. I'm OK though and I'm ditching the roller coaster and boarding the rocket-ship while we build this up again. Rockets rise slowly during liftoff so please hang in there a bit while I get this going. The good news is that as I am typing this message I am surrounded by records - I don't know where to start! Give me records and a computer and that's all I need.
It's fun to get your emails after you open your boxes. I always loved your stories and anecdotes about record you bought from me. If you are like me you can remember exactly where and when you bought every record in your collection. I hope you join in on the fun, I can't play all these records myself!
Best regards to all,
Ernie