Vinyl has once again led to a new trend in physical music sales, why people are buying physical music, and what this means for the music industry.
With vinyl’s resurgence in popularity, vinyl shops are beginning to be found in some UK cities, and Cardiff is no exception.
On the second floor of jacobbss market in Cardiff, there’s a used record store that’s only been open for eight months, which has a collection of hundreds of records and attracts vinyl lovers to choose from.
“Every time I go to the second-hand record store, it always surprises me. I even once found records by Young Prisons, who have released two albums in total!” Customer Alisa said.
More than 5.5 million vinyl records were purchased in the UK in 2022, proving once again that vinyl is enjoying a resurgence in the music industry. The popularity of vinyl records has also provided new business opportunities for new sectors of the market.
“I started out repairing Musical Instruments, guitars and things like that. But I actually started collecting vinyl more than twenty years ago, but at that time the whole music industry was at a very particular stage, and even records were starting to decline, and people were mainly downloading their music. What we did. Of course, I don’t think even music streaming existed back then. But now collect physical music, whether it’s CDS or vinyl, or even cassette tapes these days. Tape has become particularly popular in the last two or three years. That’s what I’ve seen over the past two decades and why I chose to open this record store, “said Ali, the owner of tortoise music exchange.
“Because vinyl and collecting physical media are becoming more and more popular again. Although I haven’t been open for a long time, I’ve only been open for about eight or nine months. But I’ve found that in the eight or nine months that I’ve been in business there’s always been a demand for vinyl and CDS. In my personal opinion, this is because there has been a resurgence of interest in vinyl over the past six or seven years, and this interest is likely to keep growing well in the future. And I hope it continues to grow. Because I want second-hand vinyl stores to be part of a network of stores in South Wales and Bristol and elsewhere that are meeting that demand. So I hope this trend continues.” says by Ali.
Print production is also expanding in the UK, largely in response to the resurgence of vinyl. This has also brought new development directions for the new economic market in Britain.
Ali says, “I have a steady stream of regular customers and they usually come to me with specific needs. I add them to my wish list and do my best to find what they are looking for.”
The revival of vinyl records offers new opportunities for music industry in the United Kingdom.
“Selling music, especially in Substantial form, is a very different way to the rest of the retail industry. This is because everyone has different tastes in music, thinking that this store doesn’t have something for me because it doesn’t have a specific type of music. Similarly, someone will come in and say, I can tell this record store is interested in folk, rock, indie music, shoe games, music, so they might stay, they might buy something. What I want to do is make sure that I have enough stock and enough range to make sure that it sounds cliched but works for everyone. Well, that way, anyone who comes in will have something to be interested in, even if they don’t like the music I like, or even if they like bands that haven’t been around in years, or even new music. I’m looking for new music because more and more bands are releasing music on vinyl, CDS and cassettes these days. I want to make more tapes, that’s my next step, “Ali says.
