Need a vinyl fix? LPs delivered to your door
Vancouver-based record stores including Audiopile will bring you music during pandemic
With many small businesses in lockdown and people in quarantine, we are all in a state of shock, if not withdrawal, as we miss our usual routine.
Spare a thought, too, for the poor vinyl addict — the one for whom a visit to the neighbourhood record store was once a weekly or at least monthly ritual. To help, Vancouver record stores are adjusting their business model. In mid-March, Audiopile on Commercial Drive began a vinyl-to-go service.
“We had a quick meeting after a busy weekend and after seeing the bad news — the government hadn’t stepped up at that point — we locked the doors and asked, What should we do, should we just go home? Or should we try to get records to people who still want them — and can afford them?” store manager/buyer Mark Richardson asked.
Owner Geoff Barton, Richardson and another employee, Corey Woolger, opted for the latter.
Richardson had read that Easy Street Records in Seattle had implemented something similar. So they came up with a $75 minimum order for free delivery (via bike) for most of the city. After they posted the offer on Instagram, people began inquiring about stock.
“So we flooded our Instagram feed with minute-long videos showing 20 or 30 records each, and the next thing you know we were getting messages from people who wanted a bundle of records to be delivered.”
Soon after, the store added a (contact-free) pickup option, with no minimum order. “Seventy-five dollars isn’t always within reach,” Richardson said.
Interested parties also can see what the store carries at audiopile.ca and on Discogs. com, the online record hub.
“We had 200 titles listed before the outbreak,” Richardson said. “Now I think we’re at seven or eight hundred.”
This has opened Audiopile to the international market. But local delivery and increased international shipping aren’t long-term solutions. “Overall, sales are down,” Richardson said.
To add to those woes, the tide of new records has just about ceased. Richardson said Audiopile had at least 20 requests for Gigaton, the new Pearl Jam record released March 27, but the supplier — F.A.B. Distribution in Quebec — is shut down. And border restrictions make a visit to Blaine to pick up shipments from American suppliers unfeasible.
That said, the store was “pretty well-stocked” as of this writing. “We happen to have bought a couple of really good used record collections at the beginning of the year,” Richardson said. “Our classic rock section is as well-stocked as it’s ever been.”
Other local record stores taking it to the streets include Red Cat and Neptoon. For an $8 fee, Red Cat will deliver within Vancouver and the Lower Mainland. Its selection is posted at discogs.com.
Over at Neptoon, a skeleton staff fills orders for pickup and occasionally delivers if the location is nearby.
“We’re trying to make the best of it,” store manager Ben Frith said. “We’re doing lots of stuff within the store, going through our back inventory, making sure we have as much product as possible is out, so that when we reopen it will be the best it can be.”
When life does normalize, whatever that looks like, Richardson doubts Audiopile will keep up the delivery service.
“Nothing beats going into the record store, going through the New Arrivals, checking out the display wall, and chewing the fat with the person behind the counter.”