Retail Week has been observing the halo effect of ‘Retro Retailing’ in the wake of the tenth annual Record Store Day, which took place this year on Saturday April 22 and saw vinyl trainspotters nationwide flock to snaffle up the most covetable rare LPs and picture discs.
The event, which launched in 2007, has done wonders to revive the market for vinyl, which at the time amounted to less than 2000 records per year being sold in the UK. Since then the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) has found that annual vinyl sales are now upwards of 3.2 million, the most records sold in this country since 1991, which is music to the ears of the geeks at G&G Review, owner of several thousand pieces of vinyl!
The BPI has identified a synergy between the massive rise in music streaming that left a gap where tangible product used to be, and which is now fulfilled by vinyl rather than the less desireable or long-lasting CDs.
The Entertainment Retailer Association, meanwhile, has said that sales of vinyl rose 56.4% last year to reach £65.5 mn, which strikes a major contrast to the 15 per cent dip in overall sales of physical entertainment products in the same timeframe.
The physical entertainment market is still worth £2.2bn, however, and the growth of vinyl shows that a lot of value can still be added in niche areas.
Visitors to retail trade exhibitions will perhaps not be surprised by the continuing appeal of retro products, with hipster-ish portable record players and old-fashioned looking but high-tech performing radios and speakers emerging quite prominently at design-led shows.
This cultural shift is of course mirrored by the ongoing appetite for retro design of all periods in the home interiors, gift and stationery markets, where everything from Abigail’s Party style kitsch to Art Deco opulence rule the roost and 70’s plants are now flourishing like mad in contemporary home interiors.
Supermarket Sainsbury’s branched out into Vinyl last March, with which it has managed to entice a healthy segment of shoppers (86%) who’ve never bought a CD from them but can’t resist browsing through the records. Urban Outfitters and Tesco have followed suit in the hope of tapping a trend that’s more of a lifestyle choice for many music connoisseurs.
Sainsbury’s has also found that sales of physical books are growing and accordingly dropped its ebook business in 2016, as did Waterstones. Foyles’ bookseller, meanwhile, saw profits increase ten times over in March 2017. The story is the same for greeting cards, which far from being usurped by digital rivals and social media, saw sales move from flat to a step higher to an overall market value of £1.7bn according to the Greeting Card Association.
Adult colouring is an ongoing craze, crochet and knitting are cooler than school, personalised Ladybird and Enid Blyton spoof books are winning national gift awards and fashionistas are sticking enamel pins to their double-denim outfits once again. Holidays to Ibiza are not going to tail off anytime soon, as millenial shoppers strive to retain what’s best from past generations, regardless of whatever is about to come their way from the land of virtual reality.
Back to the all important Record Store Day, the top selling vinyl singles and albums of the weekend saw David Bowie topping the charts.
The Starman’s No Plan EP issued in blue vinyl and adorned with etching was hot tottie for trainspotters and our favourite starship traveler also topped album charts over the same weekend with Cracked Actor, released exclusively for the event. The best-selling vinyl albums of Record Store Day 2017 are:
David Bowie, Cracked Actor (Live in Los Angeles 74)- David Bowie, Bowpromo
- The Cure, Greatest Hits
- Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band, live at Hammersmith Odeon, 75
- Sex Pistols, God Save Sex PistolsThe best-selling vinyl singles of Record Store Day 2017 are:
David Bowie, No Plan- The Smiths, The Boy With The Thorn In His Side
- Pink Floyd, Interstellar Overdrive
- U2, Red Hill Mining Town
- The Beatles, Strawberry Fields Forever
