Vinyl record hunting equipped with smartphone intelligence
My friends from TRUST Zine have just told me that there now is a record-equivalent to that, an app called MilkCrate which is available for iPhone only at this point. You just input the record info and it will give back the Discogs price. Unfortunately we live in a world where most used record buyers are not buying to listen and own, but to monetize by selling what they find in the stores. To me, this is another factor that takes the fun out of used record shopping.
So it is another factor that has ruined the experience of used record stores gradually in times of the internet:
- A lot of used records are not ending up in stores, but go straight to Ebay or on Discogs in the first place.
- Record stores have instore online access and price records according to Discogs asking prices. Mostly the record owner will choose the highest price, effectively making the record too expensive and hard to sell. This drives up prices and makes cheap finds more unlikely. It also means that the owner will sit on the records for a long time and as a potential buyer you keep seeing the same records for a long time.
- In times of smartphones the record buyers in the store also have access to the same online databases to check out prices.
Labels: discogs, ebay, punk vinyl, record stores, records, used books