In my earlier post I had talked about Bollywood Vinyl Records in general, I have been collecting records for a few months now and have bought all records online or through WhatsApp and the experience has been very different in terms on record condition and pricing.
The most important thing while buying records in the CONDITION of the record, all the retailers have the guidelines but they don't really follow them and you can get very different records for the same condition. The prices are very different based from retailer and condition of records.
I like to listen to the Vinyl LP / EP records on headphones so the condition of the records is very important to me as the listening experience can be spoiled if the record is not good.
In my experience so far, try to stick with a few retailers that maintain and have a proper storage for records, stay away from small / one time retailers / WhatsApp group as they don't take proper care of records.
I had ordered a record from a small retailer and they sold be saying record condition is VG+ when actually it was close to G+.
Below are few websites / retailers that I have ordered so far and my experience with them
- TheRevolverClub - https://www.therevolverclub.com/
This was the first retailer that I ordered from and their service is EXCELLENT. Although they have a limited number of records in Bollywood, but they are very fair with their ratings for Record condition ( grading) and send the records across safely. They use FEDEX for shipping and charge Rs 150 flat as shipping fees.
Their customer service is great and they have policy to return record if something happens during shipping.
The pricing is on higher side, but the records are well managed, cleaned and properly graded. One can also join their membership program and get 10% off code for their new arrivals records.
Return Policy - YES
Number of records bought - 10+
RECOMMENDED - YES, I recommend them !
2. Music Circle - https://musiccircle.co.in/
This online retailer also has a decent collection of records and the records are updated on a regular basis, almost daily. The grading for records is fair and records are well maintained.
You will find almost all products on a discounted price, but the price shown is NOT inclusive of GST ( 18%), so you will actually pay more than the price of the record when GST is added to checkout. Also for some reason, they are charging GST on TOTAL including shipping, which is wrong. This said, new records are available at MRP which is good.
The other issue is that their shipping depends on number of records, if you buy more they charge you more for shipping, which again does not make sense as most of the retailers will either charge flat shipping or give you discount on shipping if you buy more. They have good customer service available and fast shipping (the records are shipped out same day)
Return Policy - N/A
Number of records bought - 6
RECOMMENDED - Yes, I recommend them, but be careful of their pricing.
3. Amazon India - https://www.amazon.in/
Amazon India has lots of records available from sellers both for Bollywood and English records as well. The resellers pricing is an issue as it is very high, I have only bought couple of records from them, which were new and got delivered without any issues.
The major benefit of Amazon is that you can use card offers and gift cards to pay for the records, which is helpful as the retailers themselves will not provide this benefit. Also the shipping charges are low and Amazon will also help in case there are any physical damages.
Return Policy - NO, all records are not returnable category
Number of Records Bought - 2
RECOMMENDED - Neutral ( YES for new records )
4. FlipKart - https://www.flipkart.com/
Very similar to Amazon India, Flipkart also sells Vinyl records through resellers, I have bough a few old records and was disappointed, with the grading of records. One seller sold records as NM when it was G+, the prices are very high for the records. The records are very poorly graded.
As with Amazon, you can use Gift Card for payments and take benefit of credit card offers.
Return Policy - No, All records are not returnable category
Number of Records Bought - 2
RECOMMENDED - NO, stay away !
5. Bollywood Vinyl - https://bollywoodvinyl.in/
This was my second place where I bought my Vinyl records for and they come up if you search for records in Google. They do have a good collection of records and the records are fairly graded. For some reason I only bought ONE record from them, but it was good one with competitive pricing. They are based out of Bangalore.
Customer service is okay, I had an issue where the shipping was taking time and didn't get 100% timely response from the seller, but record arrived after some delay.
Return Policy - N/A
Number of Records Bought - 1
RECOMMENDED - Neutral
6. 123sold - https://www.123sold.in/
This company is based our of Delhi and they have a very large collection of Bollywood records from old ones to new ones. Their pricing is kind of fixed, Rs 1999 for new records, Rs 2000 for old Bollywood records and Rs 3000 for Bollywood rare records. They also have some records with very high price 10,000+ which I feel is bizarre.
They do not update their website regularly, so check with them if the records are available before ordering, I had ordered couple of records and both were out of stock.
I don't really recommend them because of their pricing, but they do have a large selection of records and almost most of the records are available with them, you can give them a try. Also their pricing in inclusive of taxes and shipping, so that is a plus.
Apart from these, I have also used small resellers or people on WhatsApp groups, I will suggest to stay AWAY from them, simply because they don't invest in maintaining, cleaning and proper storage of records and their record grades are way off than what it should be. I have had very poor experiences with such orders. Remember these records are expensive and if you get a bad one, you can't really do anything about it so you have to buy a new one and would end up putting up more money for same record, better buy a good one in first place itself.
The above are all my personal experiences and does not reflect anything on the sellers themselves, as these vary from customer to customer.
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