Why I Buy Vinyl Records
At the end of each month, I have a ritual that drives some people crazy.
I go online and start searching for rare music releases, on vinyl.
I have a list of around 100 albums that I’m trying to source. That number is growing steadily and it seems that I’ll never get to ‘music-list zero’.
Here’s the thing that people can’t get their heads around.
I subscribe to YouTube Music, Apple Music and Spotify Music.
Those three services constitute over 250 million songs and I pay a combined total of R201.97 per month for them.
At the same time, each vinyl record I buy contains an average of ten songs and costs anything between R350 and R1000.
There’s not a single vinyl record I’ve purchased that cannot be found on streaming channels. Still, I budget an additional R1500 per month to support my vinyl hobby.
Yup, you say ‘addiction’, I say ‘hobby’.
Potato, pot-ah-to.
Let’s just say that I consider vinyl record shopping a ‘healthy’ habit, since I don’t indulge in booze and I don’t eat much junk food.
Despite this, some of my friends and family still cannot understand it.
My daughter said it straight, “Dad, this is stupid. Why not just stream the stuff you’re looking for? I mean, you’re already paying for all those songs.”
In her estimation, vinyl is an outdated, flawed medium. It’s poor-quality, non-transportable and inefficient.
In response, I explained that:
Vinyl offers me a tactile relationship with my music.
There is something special about having to get up from the couch and turn the record over, rather than yelling, “Hey Siri, play ‘next song’!”
Vinyl forces one to listen to the tracks in the order they were intended by the artist.
Vinyl offers detailed liner notes and unique artwork, which personalises the experience even further.
All these points are still not satisfying to my daughter.
To her, it remains a waste of time and good money.
The truth is, I can’t really explain it. I’m aware that the investment/return ratio doesn’t make much sense.
Perhaps, it’s the same as how some people feel about collecting stamps when you can send emails.
Or how some people collect Marvel figurines when you can stream any of the MCU movies at any given moment.
Or the way my teenage daughter collects battle passes in her Overwatch game.
Yep, she also has her own addiction (sorry, ‘hobby’).
I do know that part of it is based on the quest.
There is a kind of thrill in looking for something for ages, then finding it after going down several rabbit holes.
Like in 2013, when I found the special twelve-inch remix of Bob Marley’s Iron Lion Zion. After ten years of searching, I eventually found a mint copy in a Rastafarian secondhand shop in a dodgy backstreet of Croydon in London.
When I handed over my twenty quid, I felt like I’d just obtained Jesus’ cup from the Last Supper.
These days, finding vinyls has become a lot easier. This ‘dead’ technology has seen a surprising resurgence and vinyls have recently overtaken CDs in global record sales.
I still like the offline aspect of chasing vinyls. Often I’ll go to Revolution Records in Obz or check in at the Hout Bay Harbour Market on Saturdays.
One of my all-time favourite places is Bantu Records, which sells African Jazz, Afrobeat and local artists you won’t find anywhere else. The founder of Bantu, Nteboheleng, is also the first ever subscriber to Heavy Chef. I have a strong sense of loyalty to Nteboheleng and his remarkable business. He is a jazz purist and epitomises the small business niche entrepreneur.
Honestly though, I find most of my vinyl records on Takealot, Loot or Bobshop.
These platforms are sometimes called ‘massive online marketplaces’.
Something I’ve noticed is that, recently, I’ve been buying more and more left-field and esoteric items from these marketplaces.
For example:
Plant pots for my garden.
Retro kitchen gadgets for my guest cottage.
The Crocs I recently bought on special on Takealot.
(Yes, Crocs. I need them for my garden, okay. You can stop judging now, Judgey McJudgerson.)
Looking ahead, the marketplace sector is about to receive its biggest shakeup yet.
The worst-kept secret in South Africa is that Amazon is going to launch their behemoth platform on our shores.
How big of a deal is this?
Well, Andrew Smith was telling me that they had 50,000 SKUs (stock keeping units) when he was running Yuppiechef with his business partner Shane Dryden.
Takealot, in comparison, has 50 million.
Amazon has over 600 million SKUs.
Six hundred million.
That’s more units than there are songs on YouTube, Spotify and Apple combined.
So, what does the rise of massive marketplaces mean for entrepreneurs in South Africa?
Well, it’s kind of a very big deal for us.
If we are selling anything niche, selling on a large online platform can be a game changer for us.
If we’re selling vinyl records for example (or, hey, anything from leashes for pet chickens, Nicholas-Cage-print pillows to cat-butthole tissue dispensers), we can suddenly find a much, much bigger market than we’d have if we just sold on our own lil websites.
Clearly, this is important stuff for our ecosystem. To unpack the ramifications of all this activity, Heavy Chef has invited two speakers who are authorities on massive marketplaces to appear on an event later this month.
We’ll be at Workshop17 on the 18th April.
Peter Allerstorfer is the Co-Founder at Silvertree Holdings, which owns Faithful-to-Nature.
Yaeesh Moosa is the Head of Marketplace at takealot.com.
I’ll be MCing the session. I will be asking Peter and Yaeesh about how to place products on online marketplaces, how to strategically use the massive audiences on Takealot and Faithful to Nature to sell more products, how to position your business on large platforms - and, ultimately, who should be selling our stuff on these channels?
Cool, hey?
I know.
This is an unprecedented opportunity for entrepreneurs selling vinyl records, pot plants, chicken leashes, Nic Cage pillows, cat-butthole dispensers or anything else we can think of.
You can book your ticket here.
Alrighty then. I’m off to feed the dragon, *cough*, I mean, ply my hobby.
I’m currently searching for a vintage copy of Weezer’s Blue Album, 25th Anniversary Edition, with previously unreleased tracks.
If I find it, I’ll be happier than a teenager who’s just sourced another battle pass in Overwatch.
See you on the 18th.
