Saturday Deluxe / 3 August 2024

Rough Trade upset fans with Flip Vinyl initiative

Music fans have poured scorn on Rough Trade’s newly touted ‘Flip Vinyl’ initiative (announced yesterday) that sees the legendary indie retailer entice collectors to “swap your pre-loved records for cash” via a collaboration with German outfit Flip Vinyl (described by RT as “one of the fastest-growing second-hand vinyl buyers in Germany”).

In theory it’s a good idea. You simply sell your records via the Rough Trade website in the same way you normally buy them, by adding them to your shopping cart and completing the transaction. You then print off a free postage label and pop the package into your local Evri Parcelshop collection point and get paid five days.

The problem is, the sums being offered are but a fraction of the item’s true value, and people have been quick to point this out on social media. By way of example, Rough Trade will pay you just £10.06 for the 8LP Nirvana Nevermind super deluxe box set. Since this box set was only released little over a year ago, Rough Trade still have this on sale. They are selling it new for £189.99!

David Bowie’s Five Years 13LP box set from 2015 is now extremely rare and has been out-of-print for a long time. So much so that the cheapest copy from a UK seller on Discogs is currently £800, and even that has “shelf wear”. The median price on Discogs is £626. However, Rough Trade’s Flip Vinyl portal is offering you an insanely low £9.28 for the same item! That’s about 1.5 percent of Discogs median price.

By way of comparison, a good second-hand record shop should give you somewhere between 30 and 50 percent of the item’s true retail value, depending on a number of factors including condition and how rare/valuable the item is. You are not, of course, getting the ‘full value’ but fans accept this because clearly the record shop needs to made money by selling it on and it’s a relatively easy way to shift vinyl or CDs (compared to going the eBay or Discogs route).

This FlipVinyl initiative has been described by fans on social media as “insulting”, “indefensible”, “pure profiteering”, and “an absolute rip-off”. In fact, Rough Trade felt compelled to follow up and defend the scheme yesterday with this tweet:

“Please note! We appreciate this service won’t be suitable for everyone’s needs i.e. those seeking to maximise collectible items. However for anyone looking to trade casually for a quick turn-around i.e. to make space, then this could well be a great solution.”

This did little to change anyone’s opinion and in fact rather poured fuel on the flames. Surely RT will feel compelled to have a serious rethink, or simply ditch this idea that has so antagonised their core audience.

Update: 16.00 BST 3 Aug: Rough Trade have announced they are suspending the FlipVinyl service “to reassess” and say “they understand and appreciate these criticisms”.

Chartwatch

It’s so quiet at the moment, in terms of releases (and reissues), that Eminem’s new album The Death of Slim Shady (Coup De Grâce) remains at number one in the UK for a third week, with a paltry 10,757 sales! And according to Music Week, of those 10k+ sales only 105 units were actually physical sales (all cassettes!). Remarkable.

Blur’s Live at Wembley Stadium album entered the UK charts at number 6 but The Police’s Synchronicity reissue only went in at 30, which is slightly disappointing for what is a great reissue (see the SDEtv unboxing). Having clearly agreed to the project and supplied all those very cool demos, Sting did zero promotion which can’t have helped. With less than 3,500 copies of all formats sold, the concern here is that future Police box set plans will be scaled down or cancelled, because the demand is not there. Let’s hope not!