I don’t know why but there’s something wrong with buying from local, independent record stores. In a time when vinyl is popular again and everyone – myself included – is spending $60+ on a re-issued record that was $15 in 1995 (because CDs were the go, vinyl was inferior), and I kinda want to receive what I ordered. It’s a reasonable request
I should say that while I’ve started to buy vinyl again, I still don’t have a record player, but I still do have some records I’d bought in the ’90s. I’ll be investing in a record player one day, maybe when we get a bigger house or something. But anyway…
I know we should be supporting the “small guy” rather than the larger retailers, but my shopping habits turning out to be like a Wish.com offshoot, where instead of getting a dodgy Chinese product that hardly resembles what I ordered, they have trouble sending anything because they can’t get it from their supplier.
I’ve ordered some Dieselhed and Scandal records – yes, one record store in Melbourne was advertising Scandal (4 weeks wait for delivery which was fine) – and the waiting, waiting, waiting went for 3 months. I got refunded both times after questioning the existence of the records.
My last purchase was a pre-order of the new Virgil Shaw album (he was also in Dieselhed, and I love his solo work), ordered direct from his label, and just after it was released they said there was an error with the postage, something how that it’s usually $26 but has now gone up to $46. I’m guessing they gave up and paid the extra as the tracking come through the other day. That’s a record I can’t buy anywhere else, so I just had to.
When ordering from Amazon, Sanity, CDJapan and JB HiFi I’m getting my goodies in less than a week. I really want to help the independent record stores, but I feel that I’m wasting their time and mine by buying from them. That’s pretty sad because they deserve to earn a good living from selling goodies people want, and take business from the retailers who sell records amongst TVs and rice cookers. It’s just a shame they’re advertising stock that doesn’t exist and I’m the one buying it.
Maybe it’s just me trying to buy something ultra-rare? Maybe the clerks are like “OMG! Someone bought that? Crap!” when the order email comes through. Maybe I should stick to CDs until I get a record player.
Anyway, that’s my whinge for the day.
Update 19/11: One of my record store t-shirts has arrived, 8 weeks after ordering. The record from USA which had been posted has been faffing about in California for over two weeks, travelling from San Francisco to Los Angeles and driving all over town. The last tracking update three days ago says the flight has departed. It could be in Australia, it could be coming here via Europe. Fingers crossed it comes soon.
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