After four years of research and work, independent music stores have a digital storefront option.

On Friday, May 1, thinkindie.com opened the door and in doing so raised the bar for all other download stores. Put that in your pipe and smoke it, Mr. iTunes.

Designed and created by the Coalition of Independent Music Stores, cimsmusic.com, Think Indie was crafted so all indie stores could work together yet still retain their separate identity selling downloads on the Web.

DRM-free and the highest quality mp3 available, 320kb, Think Indie opens with more than 240,000 tracks hand selected by indie retailers and initially focused on independent labels.

iTunes and Amazon don’t offer mp3 files this large, not even their premium files are equivalent, and with the new “variable pricing” employed by these well-branded competitors, the Indie Store Web site can also boast offering high quality files at a price point designed to make even the Waltons sport a woody.

The download store enables indie music stores to build a custom store front (for example: homers.thinkindie.com and homersmusic.com) to feature albums and tracks these fiercely-independent, music geek weirdos want to share with their customers, just like they do everyday in their brick-and-mortar stores.

Getting labels to agree to offering 320-bit rate mp3s was a bit of a challenge and is a contributing factor, along with a crazy paranoia of the Web, to why the store opens with no major label content. However, Think Indie is close to closing deals with a number of major labels and is in deep negotiations with the others and new content, hand selected by indie store staffs, is being added daily.

Nonetheless, you’ll find major indie labels like Merge, Saddle Creek, Subpop and more on the site.

Up-front costs associated with getting access to major label content, particularly at 320kb, makes lawyers representing content owners move slowly so CIMS members were patient realizing there is merit to creating the Honda Cars of download stores. The goal was to build something they could believe in and sometimes that takes time. Sure, indies may be a little late to the party but they’re still bringing the best sh*t. And, the indies are counting on the fact that many of their customers, currently using a download store, are more than willing to shop local, now through this initiative.

And now the notoriously reclusive and famously anti-advertising Black Sheep has come on board as a spokesperson.

“When the Think Indie people approached me, my first inclination was to tell them to f**k off!” stated Black Sheep, “but when they told me what the site was all about – what they were about – the fact that Think Indie is born out of real bricks and mortar record stores, and brought to life by real people who are doing this because they really love music, not just to make a buck, well – that’s when I realized this could be the first digital music download site that wasn’t a big self-serving wank, staffed by a bunch of suits working for the man.”

It’s been a big last 30 days for independent music stores. Record Store Day, on April 18, was an unqualified success, moving the national sales music needle 16 points, from a year-to-date decline (nationally) of minus 15 percent to a bump of up 1 percent, a 16 point swing. Vinyl sales nationally, up again almost double this year, just like last year, spiked more than 220 percent in the week of RSD and overall biz for indies was up almost 30 percent. That may not sound like a big number, but when you factor in hundreds of stores, some of which had no special RSD activities planned, then the efforts of those with RSD events generated so much extra business it pulled the entire group forward.

And now this. Think indie. Do different.