Outside our London Shop

Finally you found us!  For over fifteen years we’ve been running our ‘real’ London record shop, now one of the last places to buy treasured vinyl in London at reasonable prices, with customers travelling from all over the world to come and visit.

Of course, we fully appreciate that not everybody can get to London and see us, particularly if you are outside of the UK. With this in mind we created our own virtual record shop, uncomplicated and advert free, with over 10,000 LPs and 7" Singles to browse through online. (Link below)

We have also been selling on ebay for nearly ten years, and in that time things have certainly changed. As record collectors ourselves, we're often disappointed by the way other sellers deal with purchases. Slow mailing times, poor packaging, inacurate grading, and general lack of responsiveness are most common. Talk to most record collectors and they'll give you an ebay horror story.

At Retrobloke we hope to be completely different. The people who run Retrobloke love records, it's their passion, not just a job. We were those sad whistfull teenagers who dreamed of one day owning their own vinyl store, the ones who gasp in awe as a Mint 1960s rock LP slides from its inner sleeve. The ones who spend more on the stylus than the deck.

Second Floor of our London Shop

Desperately Trying to Be the Friendliest Seller in the World!!

We're not sure why other record sellers don't feel the same, but the most important thing for us, is to treat each customer how we would want to be treated ourselves. This means sending their order as quickly as possible, and packing it nicely so it doesn't get damaged in the mail. If it's an expensive item or parcel, then we'll pay the insurance, or express delivery costs ourselves.

With our dedicated mail order office, we are well equipped to handle all enquiries quickly, and unlike those ebay sellers struggling with a pile of parcels at their local post office, we are royal mail account holders and have our parcels collected daily.

We also email all our customers when their item is sent. We can't be the only ones who find it annoying that rival sellers don't acknowledge payment or let the customer know when their parcel is despatched. We don't use standard email at all, we like to deal with our customers personally. No awkward automated payment and invoice systems either, just straight forward paypal and ebay. We're also happy to take UK cheques and postal orders. Ebay or site items can even be picked up at our London shop if arranged.

Our Postage Prices Haven't Changed for Ten Years!

While other sellers seem to be charging more and more on top of ebay purchases, we try our best to keep things simple. Despite constant rises in actual postage costs, mailer prices, paypal charges, and ebay listing fees, we've kept ours postage charge the same for ten years.

At just £2.00 to send an LP within the UK, we fall quite short of covering our costs, but we know our customers love the consistency. It is so annoying to win a bargain LP auction, only to be confronted with a seller who doubles the cost of postage, and adds on extra for paypal fees. Not with us. We also only charge £1.00 per additional LP you order/win at the same time, so for example, you could win eight LPs and have them arrive via recorded delivery in multiple mailers for just £9.00.

Worldwide postage is similarly well balanced, for example we send ten 7" Singles in the UK for just £3.25, or £6.00 to the rest of the world.

Pity The Poor Record Dealer

Of course, being a record enthusiast who actually sells records for a living has its down sides. Some of the records we've sold over the years have been very hard to let go, rarities like David Bowie's first Decca LP, Turquoise Led Zeppelin 1, The Artwoods first Album, and a Mint pink vinyl Five Leaves Left, have almost caused tears in the office. One of the saddest goodbyes was when we sold a possibly 'one of a kind' Beatles Demo Single, 'Dear Prudence' (still visible on the Popsike site). The only plus side, is that all their respective new owners were very very happy with their purchases.

So, I hope this page has helped convince you to give us a try. And if you do, we hope we can keep you coming back for more! If you would like to be updated when we list the kind of music you are in to, then email us at retrobloke@aol.com with the styles of music or artists you collect, and we will add you to our database. Long specific wants lists aren't something we find it easy to deal with, but if it's just one or a few records you've been searching for, we are happy to add you to the database, as you never know what's going to come into stock. Huge thanks for reading!