The Retro Store – Parcel 2

My second parcel from The Retro Store arrived today and it was much improved from the first one I’m happy to report. I received a hand written postcard from Peter, who owns The Retro Store, regarding my previous rather scathing review and it was good to see that the customer experience is something that he is concerned about and does want to improve. There will, of course, always be teething problems when a company undertakes new ventures but my original comments based on the experience at the time still stand, hopefully, as the company matures, that sort of thing will be rare.

(Peter, that you spent any money on a Paul Young record means you were ripped off!)

So what was in the parcel? Well, a duplicate to begin with. The note from Peter did advise that they are working on a system for tracking duplicates, which I believe is vital for  venture like this to work. For somebody who is new to record collecting it isn’t so much of an issue, in fact, I would say that this avenue is an excellent way to build up a collection when starting from only a few. In my case I do already have quite a lot so the likelihood is that I am more susceptible to duplicates. The good news is that the album that I already had is absolutely knackered as a result of a drunken night in 1984 where many of my old records where walked over having been left out of their sleeves.

The Psychedelic Furs – Forever Now

I loved this album when it came out in 1982, and was in my last year of school at the time. I couldn’t afford my own copy then but bought one when I started working in 1983. I’ve been listening to it tonight for the first time in years and still love it. The whole ‘John Hughes Pretty In Pink multiple single issues’ thing did put me off the Furs for a while, but those first three albums are really very good indeed, namely this one, Talk Talk Talk and The Psychedelic Furs, some great tracks on them. So score 1 for the Retro Store even if you got lucky that I screwed up the one I had.

Eric Clapton – Slowhand

I don’t have a copy and, to be honest, am not a big Clapton fan, I tried, but what he does I can’t seem to connect with. I like some of the tracks over the years but that’s about it. Undeniably this is a decent album as it appears in a lot of lists of best of this and best of that so a lot of people rate it highly. I like his take on ‘Cocaine’ and I used to play it in a band years ago, but still prefer the J.J.Cale original. I despise ‘Wonderful Tonight’ and Clapton’s version of John Martyn’s ‘May You Never’ is actually shit. The rest is ok though. Not complaining about receiving this one.

The Story Of Star Wars – Original Cast With Narration By Roscoe Lee Browne

Ok, let’s be absolutely clear hear, this is basically an audiobook on vinyl that tells the Star Wars story, it is, quite frankly, ludicrous. Yes, it comes with a booklet with stills of the film and yes it has dialogue from the film and yes I listened to it twice already and yes, I bloody love it and have no idea why! And yes, I could have bought a copy for a couple of quid but I didn’t and probably wouldn’t have, so that is probably the point.

I would think by now you would desperately want to hear some of this record yourself, and I can oblige with the first ten minutes, the rest is out there if you are of a mind to find it.

This all went much better than last time and it will be very interesting to see what arrives next.

 

The Retro Store – Vinyl Subscription

As a reminder, I placed my original order on 27th August, I e-mailed the company around October 15th to ask where my first package was and was advised that they are in the process of moving from what was, essentially, a bedroom business so there are inevitable delays. I then wrote again, 9th November, and was told on 11th November that they had a few issues with Royal Mail but my box is on its way to me now, if I don’t have anything by next week get in touch.

Next week came and ended and I had nothing. On the 17th November I wrote again and said “I have still not received anything. At this juncture I feel it appropriate to refund my payment and call it quits”. It had been 82 days since I placed my order.

40 minutes or so later I received a reply “All of our packages are out in the post with Royal Mail. I can have a proof of postage sent over to you tomorrow afternoon when I jump into the office. Going forward logistics will be much slicker, you’ll be happy to know!”

Actually, no not really, at this point I don’t really give a shit, and I’ll tell you why, because on the 11th November I was told my package was on its way to me, and it wasn’t, because the package, which arrived today is post marked 17th November. I have much less of an issue with the delays than being told something that isn’t true, NEVER lie to your customer, be honest always and the customer will understand. Lie to them and you’ve lost a customer.

So what was in the package? Well, the opinions below are mine alone, there is every possibility that other people will have completely opposite ones.

Hello This is……. Paul Evans

This is the sort of album I would pick up in a £1 bin, actually, I wouldn’t pick it up, I’d flick past it in the search for something good. It doesn’t fall into any of the categories I listed as a preference. I played it, well, I streamed most of it, hate it. I remember the single ‘Hello This is Joannie’, a catchy but annoying song from 1979 that I had hoped to never have to listen to again. I have a wooden box, full of albums, this is going in there and will probably only see the light of day again if I have a sudden desire to melt albums into fruit bowls.

The single is below, don’t be fooled, repeated listening may lead you to commit terrible crimes:

 

McGuinness Flint ‎– McGuinness Flint

McGuinness Flint was a rock band formed in 1970 by Tom McGuinness, former bassist and guitarist with Manfred Mann, and Hughie Flint, former drummer with John Mayall; plus vocalist and keyboard player Dennis Coulson, and multi-instrumentalists and singer-songwriters Benny Gallagher and Graham Lyle.

It’s folk rock, I have nothing against folk rock, but this particular folk rock bored me to the point I considered pouring molten lead into my ears just for a bit of light relief. OK, that’s a bit harsh, but it is again not in one of the categories I listed as a preference, and it is, to me, quite dull and will probably join Paul Evans in the wooden box. To be entirely fair, I will listen to it a second time before deciding, but I am not hopeful.

David Bowie – The Man Who Sold The World

This would have been a perfectly acceptable choice had I not received a copy as part of a job lot a couple of weeks ago. It is not really in my listed preferences but I happen to like Bowie so, fine, except I already have it, now I have two.

Synopsis? Not great. 3 chances, 3 fails. I may as well have taken £15 in notes and burned them, the outcome would be just about the same. The whole thing has been a massive disappointment.

If you have an even a half decent CRM system you can load a customers entire vinyl database and ensure that you never send something they already have, it isn’t difficult and should be an option. An export from Discogs for example uploaded into a customer portal as a .csv, so it is up to the customer to keep it up to date. Now there’s an idea, if the Retro store are reading this you can have that for free. It is also vitally important to make the first order as perfect as it can be, this was a long way from that, 86 days from payment to receipt of goods and the goods were poor.

I don’t know when I will receive the next package, presumably some time around 17/12/2017, or before 15/02/2018.

So if I tag this post on twitter will I still get a bonus item do we think?

 

 

 

Vinyl Subscription Services – The Retro Store

When vinyl subscription service That Special Record recently closed I thought I’d try another service, this time with The Retro Store. I bought a 3 month plan on 27th August 2017 and received nothing. I wrote to them a couple of weeks ago and was told that they are in the process of moving from what was, essentially, a bedroom business so there are inevitable delays.

As a customer rather than a perfectly genial chap who is prepared to be patient, this is awful, two months and nothing? Luckily I am the perfectly genial chap and my patience was rewarded on the 31st of October when I received a message that Box 1 had been shipped. It is 3 days later now and it hasn’t arrived, but at least it is on the way.

So this subscription service is for used vinyl and for £15 a month for three months you receive 3 used vinyl albums, although it has now gone up to £18. You do get to list your preferences and I am very interested to see how my preferences have been interpreted as I think I made them pretty difficult:

CULT FILM SOUNDTRACKS
AMBIENT
DRONE
ELECTRONICA
HOUSE
POST-ROCK
EXPERIMENTAL
MODERN CLASSICAL

I had meant to put DEEP HOUSE, but it’s too late now. They have example boxes on their web site (which weren’t there when I signed up, and my £45 3 month subscription is now £54) and it will be interesting to see what they make of my genre choices having seen the examples:

I have three of the above and want only 1, none of them really fit into my requested genres though, unless you use a crowbar.

 

When it arrives I’ll let you know how delighted (though I feel it more likely to be disappointed) I am.