Shelter skelter: record stores during the pandemic and the new selling of old stuff

Abstract

In this essay I draw on observations about how the pandemic impacted sales of vinyl records, in order to describe a (further) dis-embedding of brick-and-mortar second-hand stores from their local economies and communities. Before the pandemic, the majority of vinyl was already being purchased online; while buyers and sellers were sheltering in place, the vinyl marketplace’s reliance on the internet became total, and vinyl traffic skewed more than ever toward used records. Nearly all record stores had an online presence before the pandemic, and shops that already had an online sales system in place and a customer base accustomed to buying online had an enormous head start toward staying solvent while sheltering in place. During the pandemic, Instagram joined sites like Discogs and eBay as a platform for vinyl sales, and social media graduated from primarily functioning as a means of promotion for record stores and became a requisite component of sales infrastructure. I ask how local merchants of vintage goods like records can maintain a local orientation despite shifting away from local customers.