Message from Ernie B about EBrecords/EBreggae

[Ernie B]

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

[Leo5]

So it will mainly be old records and other genres?

<edited by moderator>

[Ital Dokta]

Best of luck with the new venture Ernie, I've been ordering from you since the mid to late 90's (the old "phone book" catalogue days, wish I had kept those). Your packaging and customer service were second to none, in all those years and over many orders there was maybe two occasions where something arrived not right and you immediately took care of the situation. Admittedly I hadn't been ordering as much the last few years, if I can offer some advice if you are going to be selling used/vintage items please try to be more competitive in your pricing; if new stock will still be a part of the plan I would hope to see a renewed focus on reggae (though I didn't object to the idea of expanding to other genres per se). Cheers and best wishes, a good part of my reggae collection was built up from you!

[markp]

Being based in Europe my main issue was the shipping price. The item price itself was always low for new items but adding the 2 it's not possible to compete with European webshops. I don't know if you count mainly on the US market with the new webshop, but if not try to find out what can be done about it. US sites like dustygroove.com offer very reasonable shipping prices to Europe and if you can manage it the same way/via the same channel, it might become interesting again to order. Good luck anyway

[Ranking Glasses]

Best of luck Ernie B. I know how difficult it can be to sell used records!

[DubOrganic]

Ernie B's always paid my (tiny) label as agreed upon and we never had any issues with contacting him. I've heard positive things from other small label owners as well. If it's possible and profitable to pay labels more for wholesale and more promptly why has no other US distributor stepped up to fill the void since EB's shut down? I think it's tight business all around as far as reggae vinyl profits in 2017, except maybe for some rarities being sold used.

Best of luck to you with the new business Ernie! Thanks for making quality reggae affordable and available in the USA and worldwide for many years.

[Ernie B]

Leo5's label by any chance?

I suppose anything is possible but I have no idea who Leo5 is. Who is it? Why don't people use their names? Is there a need to remain anonymous? And why does the moderator allow random attacks on members?

[jb welda]

I thought that was a pretty rude comment myself, but I think you addressed it properly. I appreciate that the moderator let it stand, I also appreciate that there remain places one can make their comments without using their "real" names, for whatever reason they may choose to do that. It is ironic someone posting using a pseudonym is complaining about others doing the same but i am getting used to irony in this world and it hardly seems worthy of comment anymore. Best on your new venture Ernie.

one love
jb

[Ranking Glasses]

I agree it was rude and potentially slanderous so the Moderator should have intervened. It sounds like Leo has a genuine grievance from his perspective but I think it should have been raised with Ernie B direct rather than on a public forum. Otherwise it's character assassination without recourse.

It's not this label is it?

[B&F Moderator]

Thread edited by moderator.

If more editing is necessary please let me know.

I'm always available via PM.

[dubstar]

my final order worked out well enough:

FORMAT SUMMARY OF ITEMS SHIPPED
---------------------------------------------
5 $77.25 7"

ITEMS SHIPPED
---------------------------------------------
1 x 7" $4.29 Hopeton Lindo - Black History / Mikey Dread, Prince Jammy - Recollection Rock (Version)
1 x 7" $18.69 USED ITEM: Tony Falcon - Dread To Rahtaid / Version (ORIGINAL PRESS)
1 x 7" $26.19 USED ITEM: Isiko - Merry Go Round / Version (ORIGINAL PRESS)
1 x 7" $18.69 USED ITEM: Tony Murray - I Am Coming Home / Version (ORIGINAL PRESS)
1 x 7" $9.39 USED ITEM: Richie Mack - It's Not What You Say / Herman - Circy Cap (ORIGINAL PRESS)

---------------------------------
$77.25 Purchase Total
$4.46 Shipping
-$60.00 Gift Card Discount
$21.71 Invoice Total
-$21.71 Payment (PayPal)

Sad to see it go, but looking forward to the new venture. I certainly scored many records off EB that are no longer available, or available at prices 2 to 50 times what I paid.

[guillaumebougard]

Sorry to learn that Ernie B is no longer, happy to see Ernie starting a new venture

For the record: his company was super decent and paid TABOU1 on time

On a personal level: Ernie Boetius is a great guy, I have great memories of our exchanges and phone conversations on non-Reggae issues

Ernie, if you need anything like advance product to help you get started again, I'll ship a couple hundred copies of recent stuff. Just let me know.

PS = f*ck the haters

[Akee123]

I always felt bad when Burning Spear bad-mouthes Ernie B. It never seemed to make sense.

I too have find memories from ordering from the catalog...hard copy, of course

[riddleithat]

I always felt bad when Burning Spear bad-mouthes Ernie B. It never seemed to make sense.

I too have find memories from ordering from the catalog...hard copy, of course

As bad mouthing as Burning Spear gets when it comes to Ernie B... it would seem that Ernie B was (allegedly) doing some serious thief stuff on Spear.

With that said, did anyone ever see Ernie B selling Spear bootleg product - especially on even a short term basis. When this all started up, I don't remember Ernie B selling Spear bootlegs...

I may say more on this issue but I'll wait and see if anyone reports anything factual that states Ernie was doing Spear wrongs...

[Chaz]

Check the previous thread on this issue:

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=40813&p=299014&hilit=ernie+b#p299014