Sonic Rage

23-2, Jalan Kristal AS7/AS, Persiaran

Bestari, Seksyen 7, 40000 Shah Alam,
Malaysia.
Opens 2:30 PM – 9:30 PM

Sonic Rage is a music store that sells metal and punk music and is located at Section 7,
Shah Alam. Even though the store is classified as a music store, it also sells other
memorabilia such as vinyls, cassettes, CDs, accessories, figures and even t-shirts related to
the metal genre.

Sonic Rage's Facebook Page

Strength

Even though metal heads and the genre itself go through prejudice from almost everyone,
they are no different from regular people. The metalhead community is strong therefore
Sonic Rage have a lot of regular customer that consider the store as their second home,
most of which are there just to socialize and browse through the large gallery of music. One
of the prides of the owner of the store is that they sell original and vintage pieces of music
collected from everywhere in the country. The collection ranges from rare vinyl to the most
sought-after albums.
Weakness

One of the weaknesses of the store is that it is located on the second floor of the building
with no signs or directions to the store. Aside from that, music stores in general does not
have the allure that it used to have back in the days. Youth nowadays are not fond of the
idea to physically walk into a store and buying a physical record which ultimately end up
placed somewhere in the house and taking up space. In fact, a short survey around the
faculty reveals that they prefer to have music in their phones which they could listen to
anytime and anywhere.

Opportunity

According to the owner, the store is currently in a transition into a ‘fusion’ store, which means
that Sonic Rage will infuse a more digital approach to the store and modernize the old and
aging way the store has been run. The store has recognised the potential that selling music
digitally would do, therefore decided to change how things has always been done.

Threat

With the rise and change of technology in the last few decades, productions of cassettes and
vinyls have started declining. It can be argued that our traditional and old ways of listening to
music are gone with most of the future generations opting for online streaming of music.
However, according to the owner, the store faces difficulties dealing with pirated and
counterfeit CDs. This causes a lack of customer to Sonic Rage and to the music industry in
general.

“A lot of the consumers these days would rather buy counterfeits in night markets than buy
original CDs. They don’t know the feeling of buying a piece of history with your hard-earned
money”, the owner says.

As one of countries with the highest number of sellers of pirated and counterfeits products,
this is a concerning matter to vendors and merchants selling genuine and authentic products.