Returning Vinyl

C

clevemojo

Member
I have been to alot of shops in the past few weeks and have noticed a few that have in plain sight "No returns on Vinyl" or the one I saw today in Bowling GReen Ohio said "Vinyl sales are one way" ....I thought geee.. i just shelled out 30 bucks and i got a warped record?

My question to you fellow lover of Lp's.....Do you buy your vinyl from a shop that has that policy? When was the last time you returned a new record? How did your exchange go?

I have returned (warped,mistracked)one with no problem.
 
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In all my life, I only returned one LP: Blondie's Parallel Lines, back in 1979. There were bubbles in the grooves of three songs. The record store manager wasn't pleased, but my state's had an implied merchantability warranty in place for decades, so he was obliged to swap it for a good copy.
Tom
 
I would never buy from a store with such a policy, unless they had a turntable set up in the store and you could play it before you bought it.
 
I have purchased from Soundstage Direct, with no problems, but Seth's customer service has been documented here, and is stellar.

My local audio pusher, uh, dealer, has replaced records with defects, no questions. Before I left with my replacement, we checked it to make sure the new one was good. He considers LPs to be part of his merchandise, just like all the other goods, and he stands behind all of it.

He's also a Fest exhibitor and donor. Glenn Sinclair, at Audio Two, here, in Windsor.
 
My local used record store will take back bad vinyl and like luvinvinyl I have purchased from Soundstage Direct a few times and had to send something back. Seth was great to deal with.
 
Good to hear about SoundStage Direct. I was kind put out at the no return policy. Might aswell say "thanks for your cash and screw you!"

I am going to inquire at the shops were I do most of my buisness here in cleveland
 
I got a badly warped record from Amazon, and had absolutely no problem returning it.

Unfortunately, Amazon still has a packaging issue for LPs
 
I've returned new LP's to Soundstage, Elusive and Music Direct with absolutely no problems whatsoever. I don't buy many new LP's locally, mainly becuse of the limited selection.

Used LP's are more of a problem. The store won't know if you screwed up a record you're trying to return or if it was already damaged.
 
Any shop worth going to has a return policy for used product, usually it's for exchange within a given timeframe.

New product is a bit trickier, but at least at the store I worked at we made exceptions to our no returns of new product that has been opened policy for warped vinyl. Ultimately for me it was a case of either potentially losing a customer forever or letting them exchange the warped LP for another one. But I would always open up the other one to ensure that it wasn't warped as well as frequently that would be the case.

The real problem though is that LPs are frequently poorly packed and/or stored by the distributors before they reach the stores. Hopefully as vinyl becomes more resurgent with consumers they will figure out that stacking hundreds of LPs vertically at the warehouses is a bad idea.
 
I have talked with two used shop owners about this and in both cases they said they had to do it as a survival tactic.

Now I have no idea if this is whats going on elsewhere but the Shop I really like in Salem and one of the many shops I hit in Portland have both said they did this to stop people from borrowing the LP's to record.

One of the guys in Portland said they were seeing a good 20% of their used vinyl sales being returned by younger people. And suspected the LP's were being recorded to MP3 devices or HD.

I have bought a number of Albums from them and always gotten very good quality for my money.
 
Mark W. said:
I have talked with two used shop owners about this and in both cases they said they had to do it as a survival tactic.

Now I have no idea if this is whats going on elsewhere but the Shop I really like in Salem and one of the many shops I hit in Portland have both said they did this to stop people from borrowing the LP's to record.

One of the guys in Portland said they were seeing a good 20% of their used vinyl sales being returned by younger people. And suspected the LP's were being recorded to MP3 devices or HD.

I have bought a number of Albums from them and always gotten very good quality for my money.
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I worked at Everyday Music for about five years, we let people exchange just about anything for full credit within two weeks of the purchase.

However, we would give them an exchange receipt, so if they tried to exchange the exchange we would know and would sometimes deny them. If we did do it we would label it a "second exchange" and generally those sales were final.

I left about a year and a half ago so maybe things have changed since then.
 
As long as they will let you open it and play both sides on a decent setup before buying, I don't see a problem. If not, don't do business with them. ;)
 
I bought a new LP (Capitol Records) here at a small independent shop in NYC and it was warped - badly. They replaced it but said "No cash refunds". THe replacement was warped too. I couldn't get cash back - they gave me a third copy which was only very slightly warped. I'm stuck with it, but I figure it's mostly because Capitol is making them in a defective way. And I wanted the album.

Regardless of how big the "No Returns" sign is, I don't think any store should get away with denying a refund if the merch is new and proves to be substandard. I would have fought. Next time I will.
 
KeninDC said:
The local LP shop I frequent is cool about returns.

I spend a lot there, so...
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That helps. Actually, I don't even bother my fav local about returns because every trip there we sort of negoitate a meggy price for the haul. Complaining about a few junkers wouldn't help that understanding.
 
I returned "Fresh Cream" and a Fariport Convention to Soundstage Direct because of bad pressings. Both are 180 gram. I am willing to pay a premium but expect quality in return. Seth was great about the return. I got the returns today but there was a problem. I got GOODBYE-Cream, not Fresh Cream. I e-mailed Seth and about 15 minutes later he called me. He said I should keep Goodbye and he would pack Fresh Cream with my new order. I've spent a lot of money at Soundstage and as long as they maintain this level of customer service, that will continue.
 
good reads

I have been going on a rampage buying vinyl and hitting record shops all over Ohio, southern Michigan, Kentucky and west PA for about 6 months. You see aot of price variations....it really seems that if your local is a buck or two more and they have a good retrun pollicy, it's a buck or two well spent
 
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