"It's not just a transaction, it's a conversation" – how vinyl record shops are thriving in the digital age

Here's reason to celebrate: UK vinyl sales have reached an 18-year high. But not only is the format thriving, the shops selling it are, too – bricks and mortar stores have increased their share of vinyl sales by nearly a third since 2021, now accounting for 41.2 per cent of all purchases.

So when the UK high street is struggling, just how are record shops bucking the trend? As part of our Vinyl Week 2026 event, we went in search of answers.

A house made of dreams

One of the UK's most forward-thinking record shops is Dreamhouse Records in Leyton, east London. As well as selling sit-in coffee and having an alcohol licence, it runs regular film nights, a monthly dance hall night, hosts DJs, live bands and album launches, puts on live music for the weekly Saturday market outside the shop… the list goes on.

It all helps get people through the door and hearing music they might not have heard of before. But crucially, it also establishes the store at the heart of the community – which is where owner Jon Clifford firmly believes record shops belong.

"It's essential," he says. "People come in here as much for the sense of community as they do for the records. A lot of people come in just to chat about music. And I'm more than happy to do that. If you're just clicking online and waiting for a piece of vinyl to come through the post, you get none of that."

In fact, he says it's the reason he opened a record shop, after years of weekends spent dragging various family members around his favourite ones.

"It’s not just a transaction," he says. "I've got loyal regulars who have really bought into what I'm trying to do here. A very high percentage of my sales aren't just somebody bringing a record up to the counter then paying and leaving. It's a conversation."

And it's these conversations – and the good times they entail – that spread the word about the shop. "We're not in Oxford Street, we're in a side street in east London, the footfall isn't massive," Clifford says. "But if you create a good sense of community, people come back, and they tell other people about it. So it's really crucial to a record shop's survival."

Of Grave concern

For Richard Churchyard, the owner of Raves From The Grave in Frome, the community action extends to sponsoring the Frome Town FC football team, the Frome FM radio station, and the Frome Festival, as well as promoting local musicians. This publicity has helped offset some of the confusion caused by the shop's name.

"The name Raves From The Grave came from my surname," he says. "It's been a downside in some ways, because people think we only sell old music, or dance music. But after nearly 30 years in business, they've worked out that’s not the case."

As well as playing an active part in the community, it also hosts plenty of events, including listening parties for big album launches from the likes of Pulp and Gorillaz, a coffee cart for Record Store Day, DJs playing in store, and more.

"Things like that really help the shop stand out," Churchyard explains. "We're very established now, we get people coming from miles around because they don't have a shop like us near them."

But of course, since opening in 1997, it has notched up its fair share of regular customers too. "You know that certain people are going to come in every Saturday and pick up the new releases, and they always have a chat," Churchyard says. "Some of them stay for two or three hours, because there's always plenty of music for them to explore."

Staying Relevant

Like a lot of other record shops, Relevant Records in Cambridge has an onsite cafe that was part of the store's inception (though it's no longer run by the store). But it also goes big on local talent, featuring Cambridge-based musicians on its website and stocking their vinyl. "We're into the grassroots thing," as owner Andy Powell puts it.

"A lot of local bands want to put out vinyl in small quantities," he says. "And we'll always stock them."

The shop has been a fixture on Cambridge's Mill Road for 12 years, and is much a place to drop in and talk music as it is to buy the latest releases. "It's always been a bit of a social hub, especially at the weekends," Powell says.

Like other independent record stores, it provides a much more fulfilling experience than buying vinyl online. "If you're into the physical media side of things, which a lot of people are, then there's no comparison – shopping in-store is much more of an experience." And not just because of the social aspect. "You might see something you didn't know you wanted and end up buying it. That's always a risk."

Thankfully it's a risk that lots of people are willing to take.

Sound reasoning

Of course Cambridge is a relatively metropolitan place, with lots of diverse influences making for a healthy local music community. Other record shops face a different challenge. As the only independent record store on the Isle of Man, Sound Records has a much smaller pool to choose from for the Sound Sessions it records for its website. Though it is casting the net wider.

"The island is pretty obscure for touring artists because we're pretty small, but we do get quite a few people come through, mostly legacy acts, but some local bands bring people over when they're co-headlining," says the store's owner, Gareth Simon.

Not that being small is any impediment to success. By placing itself at the heart of the local community, Sound Records has developed a strong reputation in the six years it's been in operation, especially with local musicians. That's helped in no small part by the shop stocking music accessories like guitar strings alongside vinyl.

"We help out local musicians any way we can," Simon says. "We're doing a shop-exclusive pressing of a local band called Silo, who are getting decent attention from Radio 1 and 6Music. But it's more about helping the aspiring musicians who haven't got that coverage, and that's really satisfying."

The nature of the island actually helps the store stand out, Simon says, as "there aren't that many interesting shops, particularly for younger people. So people do appreciate having a record shop like ours".

Buying vinyl online not only lacks the curated aspect, it lacks human interaction, too, which can throw up some interesting insights on people's listening habits.

"The teenagers that come in love vinyl just as much as the customers in their forties and fifties," Simon says. "The older lot were obviously there for vinyl the first time round, and the kids have figured it all out – they see vinyl as a way to express their interests in a physical form. But a lot of those in the middle, say late-twenties to late-thirties, a lot of them have no frame of reference. They've really missed out on physical media as a whole, they're like a lost generation. It's a real shame."

Our advice to them? Get down to your local independent record shop and see what you're missing.

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