Record Store Day just keeps getting bigger and bigger

Last year was Avalanche's biggest since Record Store Day began, but this year saw an amazing 55 per cent increase

Thankfully Saturday all went to plan and we even managed to survive the day without running out of the Taylor Swift single. The day just gets bigger and bigger, and after last year being our biggest since RSD began this year saw an amazing 55 per cent increase. The Chappell Roan gigs are shaping up to be the most anticipated of all the August gigs, which given the competition from AC/DC and Oasis is quite saying something. But while many of the fans of the older bands have seen them before for Chappell’s fans, unless they saw her in Glasgow last year, this will be their first time.

While RSD is a nice boost in sales for Avalanche it is not the big deal that it seems to be for many shops, and when it comes to the online sales that follow we take very little part as we are confident that the stock we have will sell in the shop in the coming months. To be honest I’m not very comfortable with just how much of the RSD stock is sold online given the entire point was to bring people into physical shops. Admittedly there was a secondary reason of boosting high street record shop income, but as we all know now, there has been a year-round resurgence in vinyl and shops should be able to cover their overheads without needing a big payout every year.

There is of course a second Record Store Day as such in Black Friday in November, but that is very much an American thing being based around Thanksgiving, and is always a bit of a damp squib. We sold 624 records and CDs on Saturday and by no means were all of those RSD titles. To put that in perspective I saw one of the bigger shops down south, but by no means the biggest, post that their second shipment of online sales was over 800 parcels. That is parcels many of which will have had several items in them and it was their second shipment which would be smaller than their first. I have heard, and I must say I have no proof of this though given I do see sales figures it seems quite possible, that the biggest RSD seller shifts as much as the 50 smallest RSD shops put together when their shop and online sales are added.

We are very lucky in that we move on from the big day and just stay busy, and if ever that point was proved it was on Wednesday when we actually had our highest ever Wednesday takings. It would surprise most people that this was not because we continued to sell RSD releases but because Edinburgh was very busy with visitors here for Easter and the constant rain drove them into the Waverley Market, which was busy already with shoppers meaning we were just about serving people eight hours straight. Rain on RSD however is not a good thing and thankfully it was sunny all day.