I hate that the Country section tends to be a catch all of stuff the employees didn't know how to file. "Peggy Lee? I don't know. Put it in the country section."
Mine are simple: * Stores that don't put prices on the albums--you have to take them to the front to find out how much they are going to charge * Stores without bargain bins, or who think $3-4 is a bargain bin.
As others have said excessively loud music that makes it hard to focus on the music you want to buy and record bins that are on the floor. My knees can’t take it for long so I don’t even bother.
Yep. Drives me mad. Price is often so high your jaw hits the ground and you shuffle back to replace the album.
Yeah, music playing too loud, and generally grumpy ungrateful staff used to boil my piss. Also, shops being so cold in winter you could see your breath in them.
The only thing worse than issues with record stores are record shows. There are far too many dealers with overpriced common LPs, often not separated by genre or alphabetized, usually unpriced as well. I quit going as it wasn’t worth my time.
I am working in Oxford today. Planning to visit a fairly new shop that I have never been to before. The reviews talk about a very grumpy owner with a great selection of records. Sounds like a good trade off to me! He will have to go some to beat the now closed one in Exeter for misery. My peeve is albums jammed in so you cannot flick through them properly and new and secondhand mixed. Looking forward to checking it out.
It’s 2023! $3-$5 LPs is definitely the bargain bin when the going rate for nearly anything decent new or used is $30 and up…
We have have a guy that we call "Mr. Stinky"! He doesn't really smell bad anymore but the name has stuck. Like most customers, he doesn't know his backroom nickname.
Well I certainly hate the first one. I don't mind a bargain bin that's higher than a 'dollar bin.' While I would personally prefer to NOT have two bargain bins, we've been trying out a $5 bin that's basically stuff that has been in the store for a long time, titles that are pretty great but not perfect (not trashed), or titles that aren't that well known but are in decent shape. It does help with taking the time out to clean up an album, sleeving, etc. I wanted to call it the 'clean it yourself' bin as a joke. The owner changes his mind every two weeks about what he wants to do so it probably won't be around forever anyways. There is a store I like a lot in St. Louis that has a bargain bin with various prices. I sort of like it to be honest. It's always going to be subjective along with a changing market, but I think something that was a dollar bargain from a couple decades ago can certainly go up in value to a few bucks.
They're probably confused with Brenda Lee. Some younger people just have no clue. I hate finding stuff that I didn't sort out in very wrong places. Geez... just ask where something goes. Or go look it up on Discogs or Google.
Bought couple of secondhand albums today. One was fairly expensive. The Fotheringay album I have been looking for. The shop owner removed the plastic sleeve after selling to me. Bit of a peeve for me. Please leave the plastic sleeve on your more pricey albums. Only me ?!
My one trip to Amoeba Records in San Francisco in 2005 was shortened considerably by their overly loud music. I bought some things but might have spent another $200-$300 if it had been a a reasonable volume. I have run across the occasional store that alphabetizes every artist while lumping all genres together. The one local store that did so is long out of business, most customers don’t want to waste that much time. Another pet peeve is dealers who tape used LPs shut, which aren’t high priced collectibles, I want to check the vinyl condition before buying, not at the counter.
One of my locals have these Instagram flip videos where a faceless hand flips through some newly acquired used vinyl. As he flips through I look at the prices..$60, $85, $50, $100, $80 and so on. After about 20 records they start showing more reasonable prices. So one day I started getting curious so since they put the pressing info on their price label I started looking them up on discogs. Yep. Every one is priced to the max of discogs even though they list everything as vg+. Just a friendly weekly reminder to me as to why I don’t shop there.
One more for the music too loud. I was in a Michigan college town (I’ll leave it at that as I don’t know about rules naming names here) store yesterday and the owner and co worker were playing an obnoxious record and discussing it. Bad enough it’s the kind of stuff I consider created by talentless fools, (some kind of indie/ hard core some such nonsense) but it was already too loud, and before the first track was finished he turned it up louder. I know this is a college town but what makes this guy think any one browsing wanted to hear this crap at that volume? The point is he didn’t care because it’s his store and he’s going to do as he wishes. And I’ll never enter the place again. In all fairness when the record ended the next thing he put on was closer to Leonard Cohen type music…, but still. I’m not giving my money to a clown on purpose. Second gripe, as has been pointed out the prices are getting to be just stupid. eBay top prices including shipping. eBay takes a large cut and the records are actually shipped. Why the hell do you ask the same price? The rent?… that’s what brick and mortar is and anyone paying attention knows the vast majority of used records sold at any brick and motor store are acquired for next to nothing via collections purchased and such. They don’t buy a Beatles record for 60 bucks and sell it for 100 bucks. They get piles of records like Huey Lewis’ Sports, pay a buck or two if that and now ask $15 because that’s what a good copy can go for on eBay. I’m to the point where I think I’m better off sticking to eBay.
My local is a soul and dance specialist who thrived in the 90's, but the shop is now essentially a front for buying collections of rock and pop which are then sold on Discogs or eBay. Predictably, they have a bargain bin in the shop to offload all the scratched up junk and unsaleable rubbish, but literally none of the decent rock and pop stuff they have is for sale in the shop (you have to buy it on Discogs first, then visit the shop to collect. I'd rather inspect before purchase, thanks). To be fair, the bargain bin does throw up the odd item of interest for me, but 99% of it is literally garbage.
1 - titles that are in the totally wrong place, albeit by genre or alphabetically. instruct your employees to ask if they are not sure where something goes. 2 - terribly mispriced items. just because it has a japanese letter on it somewhere doesn't mean its worth 2 to 3 times as much as an american counterpart. this goes both ways, i have many times told a store manager or owner that he is charging to little for something. (i know i should just buy it and resell it somewhere else, but i just can't do that) 3 - cracked jewel cases - put a ****ing new jewel case on something you are trying to sell, you can buy them by the gross, cheap. 4 - do not say 'no returns' if i buy something and i bring it home and it is ****ed up, you should give me my money back, another album of the same title or equal store credit, no questions asked. 5 - not all beatle products are collectible and worth a tom pf money. some places think this is true in all beatles cases, it is not. when i see "1" CD's priced at $10+ i cringe, and they almost always have at least 2 or 3 in the bin at that price. 6 - do NOT embarrass me with ridiculous offers on my trade. i know going in what i am trading, and i know what my trade is worth, and i know what you should give me in both trade value and cash value. i usually preface my trade to the clerk that there are some very nice and valuable CD's in my trade, treat me with respect.
Biggest one for years has been stores with large selections not orienting the cds vertically so you can read each spine. I was browsing through the thousands of used ones at a local store this summer and fainted. It took quite a while to go through them and I'm not sure if my knees locked, blood sugar was low or what.
I'll add "putting stickers on sleeves" as I can sometimes take some of the sleeve with me when trying to take it off, no matter how careful I am.
I don't own one, but found success getting most of them off...but this one was on a laminate cover and just took a chunk right off. I usually wet my finger and try to rub the label. If the adhesive is water-soluble (most are) it makes it easy to peel off. If not, much harder.
