Nope not Covid, nor Tottenham’s wait for a trophy, but W.H. Smiths’ pretense that they sell CDs!
At least in my local branch (an hour’s journey from a High Street record shop) anyway.
You can imagine the meeting…
“Stationery?”
“Not bad, W.H.”
“Magazines?”
“So, so, W.H.”
“CDs?”
“Sold none, W.H.”
“How could that possibly happen? Don’t people want to buy the Soundtrack to the Lion King again? Ditch the CD department.”
Further news… the British Heart Foundation had a full run of Sainted D., Deep Purple, Slade and Style Council on CD today. Sainted D. at £2.99 each (the ones without the bonus tracks – gee, thanks Sainted D.), the others at £1.99.
I think we’re going to get more and more of this, and I’m definitely going to be nipping in on a regular basis. The stuff, which two or three years ago might have been farmed off to the specialist shop, is now going straight onto the shelf.
Smug’s (© Private Eye) is one of the nastiest shops in the High Street, and while we should be grateful they remain there, I avoid it if at all possible.
At our nearest store, staff are thin on the ground, the racks on which things are put are too high and close together, and the carpets are perpetually dirty. CDs disappeared about the time all the staff who knew where things were and vaguely cared went.
Carpets??? Jesus, your nearest store must be in a posh area! Lino in most places. Sorry, ‘vinyl floor covering’, to be exact.
Vinlies? I do hope they’re in childish dayglo colours. And ridiculously overpriced.
All re-purposed from their glut of Paul Young albums that didn’t reach the charity shops.
Some people have creaky floors… Mine goes BOO-DOWWW
The nearest store to me is Bridgwater, which is many things, but isn’t posh. The corporate blue carpet is threadbare, with accents of ground-in chewing gum and worse.
It can’t possibly be deliberate, but the impression I get from them is one of complete contempt for their customers.
Taunton Smugs had a few vinlys by the checkout the last time I was in there pre-lockdowns. Taunton HMV still had vynyls today, when I popped in while my partner was receiving her second vaccine dose. Seems to have survived lockdown.
CDs, as in ‘we’ll stock what we want to stock, based upon decisions made by our internal buyers’ finished at WH Smith many years ago – from memory probably about a decade ago.
They signed up to a third party supplier who independently decided what went on the shelves – their CD stock has had little to do with any decisions made by internal WH Smith since then.
I bought my first CD in WH Smith’s. DD will be pleased to know it was by the Clash. Surprised to find something so obscure in there.
Having thought about it, although I bought a lot of my early vinyl from WH Smiths I don’t think I ever bought a CD from them.
I have great memories of browsing through the pop and rock (that I couldn’t afford) upstairs in WH Smith in Watford while my dad browsed through the classical and country racks. I never plucked up the courage to listen to a single in one of the listening booths.
It was great for 45s because you could check them before buying.
I remember one guy having a magnifying glass out to study the best copy to buy… he was doing this for ages!
The record? David Essex – A Winter’s Tale… £1.59 in 1982? In today’s money probably a tenner. You could go to Arsenal-Manchester United or Tottenham-Liverpool for about £1 more.
Actual worth of 45 in 2021 – 10p?
Wonder if he’s still got it.
The other great thing with the 7″ singles is that they were displayed with the record in the sleeve.
You were able to add another record into the sleeve (or two if you were daring), or drop into the 12″ sleeve. Not that I ever did this – the bigger boys told me about it.
In Woolies I would swap a full-price single for something from the 25p bargain bit. Just slip one single into the sleeve of another and vice versa.
So somebody bought Express Yourself by NWA, got home and it was… The Best of Me by Cliff Richard.
An oxymoron Shirley?
You are a criminal. Well done.
….and Woolworths went out of business* 20 years ago.
Coincidence?
Well, yes.
(*sorry, bidnis)
Buying stuff into W.H. Smith, track and trace, “free” school meals, railway tickets, football transfers, local newspapers… is there one example out there of any third-party out-sourcing which hasn’t been very expensive and ultimately a bad deal for the customer?
It was the last straw in my decision to walk away from Premier League – Championship football.
Isn’t it just human nature to get the gig, spend 10% on the product/service and pocket the other 90%?
Market forces, that is, innit.
Smugs charge magazine publishers a quite phenomenal amount to ‘list’ a magazine with them, and thus have it on their shelves and available to be ordered.
Someone up the page mentioned Private Eye.
Anyone remember the fun that we all used to have when presenting a copy of the Eye at Smug’s cash registers during the days the chain refunded to sell the mag?
Perhaps we could start a similar jape with CDs.
Would love to join the fun, but one of the best things about living in Ireland is that, like snakes (all of which St Patrick apparently chased into the sea many years ago) there are no branches of WH Smith.
What did St Patrick say to the snakes as he drove them out of Ireland?
‘Are youse snakes alright in the back?’
WH Smith has irritated me for a very long time. In the last year I have only gone in there to get Record Collector magazine. Now that I have found the Tescoes megastore stocks it I no longer need to go there. That for me is great news even though I an no fan of Tescoes.
The only mag WHS stocked that I sourced there was R2R(nee Rock’n’Reel) but not seen it there for well over a year. I always look, as I have to walk past the mags to get to the post office.
We don’t have WH Smiths over here, nor is there really an equivalent. We do have Chapters and Indigo bookstores (currently closed), they sell books and magazines, plus lots of “gift items”. Think they used to sell CDs, but probably stopped about a decade ago, however now more and more stores are selling vinyl 🙂
Not here.
Our vinlys stockists, in a 30-mile radius, is a little old man called Sainsbury’s.
Great for pasta, European wine, and bottled beer. Vinlys? Hmm.
He stocked 20 vinlys in 2017.
He definitely stocked the same 20 vinlys in 2019.
I presume he stocks the same 20 vinlys in 2021.
More a Tottenham Hotspur revival than a vinly revival.
You need to move
I’m lucky (?) in that there are two branches of Smiths close to me. One is actually a halfway decent shop but that’s because they sell books – OK not the range of Waterstones or any other “proper” bookshop but there’s a fair range. The other one is also the main Post Office for the area and that is the only reason I ever visit it – this one does fit the description as above – staff who don’t appear give a fuck or know where anything is, dirty and well just tired. The aisles are small and so it’s well nigh impossible to do any social distancing, half the people going in are determined not to wear masks and are just there (it seems) to cause trouble. In short it’s an awful place to go. The post office bit is right at the end of the shop so you have to walk past all the mouth breathers to get to it. Luckily its usually half empty (wonder why !).
I actually feel a bit sorry for the staff. It’s horrible working in retail when you’re short staffed and I’m sure the foot soldiers wouldn’t want it that way. I do pop into my local one from time to time, usually for a look at the magazines or to buy a birthday card. And stamps.
I shall be making my sole visit to WHS this year in a month or so.
To the Post Office in the back of the store, to send off my CD Swap discs to their fortunate recipients.
I haven’t been in a branch of WH Smith for ages, but recently visited a branch that contains a Typo concession (stationery and gifts). Bizarrely the concession area was decked out with smart wooden shelving, was visually attractive and subtly lit, while the rest of the shop remained resolutely flea-bitten. The ‘bookshop’ upstairs looked shabby and tired without a single browsing customer. It’s hard to escape the feeling that they just don’t know how to get themselves out of the rut of being Britain’s worst retail chain, and don’t really care.
The WHSmiths in Paris is actually pretty good. It’s like a sort of… book shop. Bizarre, I know.
It’s a sort of magnet for lost Brits, isn’t it? The only place in Paris where we can speak and not be deliberately misunderstood.
Our WH Smith’s finally closed a few months ago. It was heading that way for quite a while and the staff usually outnumbered the customers. No CDs on sale but always lots of discounted chocolate which nobody bought. I was still sad to see it go.
Please tell us (me) what Deep Purple album was on offer?
There’s one in the lower floor of Dubai Mall and it’s laid out like one of those small ones you find in older UK airports (like Birmingham). Sells more bottled drinks and LEGO than anything else. Terrible magazine section.
I used to buy records occasionally from the branch in Solihull and it used to have quite a few of those singles with a golden label and an older hit on them. I remember having a copy of Wuthering Heights with The Man With The Child In His Eyes on the flip. Was the label called Golden Oldies?
Old Gold. I had a few, the best was probably Love Train/Backstabbers by the O Jays. They looked like this:’
https://thevinylfrontierbarry.com/old-gold-records-series-239-c.asp
That’s it. I had Nights In White Satin as well. Thanks for the link
Arf, the Solihull one! Did anyone EVER go upstairs to the books and calendars?
Bet it is still open, but HMV opposite has gone, alas, even if I preferred the one, name long forgotten, on the other side of Mell Square. (The tiny) Virgin became Fopp and died in the first cull of Fopp aeons ago.
Happier days.
I used to go upstairs to the books when I was a little kid.
By the other one, do you mean Discovery Records? I spent tons of my spare time in there as a teenager. And Easy Listening in Acocks Green as well. I was brought up in Olton which is probably about halfway between the two record shops.
What was the name of the other bookshop that used to be in the town centre on the small strip of shops as you head out towards the swimming baths (I haven’t lived there since the early 90s so I’m struggling with names!)
Jings, lived in Shirley 1984 – 2004 and I’m struggling to even recall the pool. Oh, wait a minute, Tudor Grange, yes, I know, but can’t recall another bookshop, unless you mean Waterstones, next to the cobblers with the mechanical monkey in the window?
Olton, so you’ll know Zorba’s, the Greek resto, now gone, at the end of Olton Boulevard East, home of very scary hen parties and nights out for staff at East Birmingham Hospital.
I’m thinking the book shop would have along that strip of shops on Station Road next door to what is now a Wetherspoons. It might well have closed by 1984. Solihull is a difficult one to remember stuff like that because shops and restaurants used to open and close all the time fairly regularly. Still the case now as far as I can see on the odd occasion I’ve been back to visit relatives. I really liked Olton as a kid, still looks nice these days too
Used to? Barely a shop or bar from last century still the same. Shocking, and that includes the “new” Touchbrook, which I see has just been sold. Drove there recently as my daughter lives at the bottom of Streetsbrook Rd, opposite where Ric Sanders’ grew up with his parents, Fairport funfactoid lovers….