Your Media Exchange is returning to Ann Arbor to make a longer-term home in the basement of Kerrytown Market & Shops, replacing its sister business, Diggers, which opened last year.

The buy/sell/trade outlet for new and used music, movies, books, and video games closed its previous location on S. Main in May. Owner Broc Curry says sales had fallen over the last year even as his Toledo store was doing better than ever.

“I just kept hearing over and over, Ann Arbor people don’t go downtown,” he says. “They don’t like to pay for the parking. There’s definitely some homeless issues downtown. I experienced a couple of those myself that were pretty intense.”

Wanting to start again in a bigger location, Curry considered Briarwood Mall, but, “oddly,” calls from him and his broker were never returned.

Meanwhile, Diggers drew seventy-five to 100 daily customers to its 4,000-square foot Kerrytown store, but profitability was elusive given its streamlined model that prices all its physical media, nearly 200,000 items, at just $1.50.

Related: Your Media Exchange Opens
At Diggers, Customers Do the Digging

He planned to close Diggers Aug. 23 and take three or four weeks to convert the space to YMX. It will still have nearly 50,000 unsorted items for $1.50, but the business driver is the ability to offer, say, the latest Taylor Swift album and other catalogued inventory to meet customer requests. They’ll stock more books than the downtown space could hold and fill a local niche for movies on Blu-ray, DVD, and VHS.

Kerrytown’s management was “fantastic to even let us try this crazy concept,” Curry says. “They were being very fair with us on the rent to give us a shot.” And he appreciates its “very Ann Arbor–centric” identity as a “cool little community right there that’s in a neighborhood. We’re pumped to give it a spin.”

Curry’s not giving up on Diggers—he’s still looking for affordable space to open multiple locations over the next five years. “I just think it’s such a great concept. I have more than enough inventory that I can fill up ten of them right now.”

Your Media Exchange, 410 N. Fourth Ave. (Kerrytown Market & Shops). (855) 444–9767 (IGGY POP). Opening late Sept.: Mon.–Fri. 11 a.m.–7 p.m., Sat. 10 a.m.–7 p.m., Sun. noon–6 p.m. physicalmedia.com

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