CLEVELAND, Ohio – Music Saves, a Cleveland-based online record store, announced that it will be shutting down its vinyl record sales.

“Music Saves is quitting the music business,” reads a statement on the store’s website, written by owner Melanie Hershberger. “The industry has changed in ways I could never have predicted 14 years ago. A lot of it feels really backwards. A lot of it has really worked against us. I feel like, as many other small businesses, small record stores are becoming less needed, as time goes on.”

Originally, Music Saves operated out of a brick building just down the road from Cleveland music venue Beachland Ballroom. The store specialized in selling new releases on vinyl, and it earned local fame for its resident cats.

At the end of 2017, Music Saves closed its storefront, but it maintained its web store in an attempt to keep the business going. However, Hershberger said the web store didn’t go as well as expected -- competition from other websites, including Amazon’s record sales, kept Music Saves' web store from thriving in the market.

“I’ve hoped for so many years that things would get better, but the current situation has forced me to finally give up that hope, and let go of Music Saves record store,” Hershberger said in her website statement.

You can read the full statement at Music Save’s website.

In a phone interview, Hershberger clarified that she hopes the Music Saves name will continue in the future, but that it won’t be focused on record sales. The new business direction, which will be pushed forward in the coming months, will provide a more unique offering to Cleveland’s music fans, she said.

“The most I can say about that is we’re definitely not going to be selling music anymore, once we’re able to get rid of all the inventory we have,” she said. “We are going to be selling something. It’ll be more merch-oriented, though.”