We were lucky to catch up with Claudia Mendiola-Duran recently and have shared our conversation below.

Claudia, appreciate you joining us today. Covid has brought about so many changes – has your business model changed?

I was fortunate enough to open up the shop in October of 2019, so the pandemic worked out really well for the shop! Just kidding! It was very slow going up until a writer from DCist reached out to me at the beginning of February of 2020 to do a write-up on the shop. My intern and I were praying for rain, figuratively speaking, and this angel brought us the glorious deluge we so desperately needed. The write-up went live at the end of the month, and we were BUSY! Lots of phone calls, lots of followers on our Instagram page, lots of people coming into the shop. It was exactly what we needed. and then not even a month later, COVID hit. And we immediately lost all that momentum. It was so deflating and discouraging. So we had to close for about four months. And we were still so new, that we hadn’t even set up our online store, so that just added insult to injury. But during that time, we had asked our followers on IG to help us in the meantime by buying gift certificates, and that was a nice, albeit temporary work-around. We had a good-sized little cushion come in that way to tide us over, and it was really moving to see all the people that came through to support us after such a short time in business.
Upon reopening, we brainstormed a curbside pickup/shop-by-appointment system whereby customers could reserve timeslots on our website to come by for in-person shopping. It had its limitations (due to our small space) in that we limited our capacity to two shoppers per 30-minute time slot, so we couldn’t take walk-ins, which was hard. It was still in the midst of the worst of the pandemic, so our utmost concern was everybody’s safety. We’ve loosened a lot of those changes since then.

Claudia, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I have been involved in music retail since 2006, when I first started working at Tower Records. They closed shortly afterwards, and I had a friend who was working at a different independent record store who was able to bring me aboard. I was there until I went solo in 2019. During that period, I learned so much; I had all that time to learn about a multitude and variety of all kinds of music. It was a long journey of musical discovery and learning that led me to where I am now. I eventually got to a point where I felt like I needed a new challenge in my professional life; I knew I wanted to stay in this field, but I wanted to make my own connections and forge my own path, so to speak. So after a number of years of flirting with the idea, I took the plunge and enlisted help from my friends and family to help me bring this dream to fruition and open up a shop of my own, Sonidos! Music & More in Beltsville, MD. As far as I know, I am the only 100% Latine and woman-owned record store in the DC Metro area. I love the way that music brings people together, and I truly am so happy with the relationships we’ve built here. And while it’s been slow going with regards to growth thanks to the pandemic, I believe that our consistent Instagram presence has been a big factor in helping us to get the word out.

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

When I was still filing all the paperwork I needed to start the business, I went ahead and started an Instagram where I began posting records from my personal collection. I posted the album art, a description of the album that detailed personnel, style, and other interesting details, and also included an audio clip so people could get an idea of what the recoding’s sound was like. I also posted about developments with regards to the storefront itself. How the space was coming together, and new collections as I acquired them. I made an effort to post every day, which was challenging at times because setting up a store is pretty time-consuming. I basically just started connecting with and following other vinyl/music lover accounts and hoping that people would be interested enough to stick around and see everything build up to where it is now.

Do you sell on your site, or do you use a platform like Amazon, Etsy, Cratejoy, etc?

We sell online on Etsy and Discogs. Etsy has the advantage of being able to sell more than just music. We can sell books, VHS tapes, DVDs, and whatever other odds and ends we come across in the collections we get. The advantage of Discogs is that it’s optimized for records, CDs, and audiocassettes, so something that’s high dollar and rare is able to be seen by individuals who are specifically looking for those particular titles,

Contact Info:

• Website: sonidosmusicshop.com
• Instagram: @sonidos.musicshop
• Twitter: @sonidos_music

Image Credits
Claudia Mendiola-Duran