Okay. So hello, Damien, and welcome to the My Local Marketer podcast. Hi Maria. Thank you so much for coming on. It's great to be here today in Pop Classics. Yeah. Yep. Welcome to Pop Classics. great little shop here in Caversham. So yeah, I'm so glad to finally get to speak to you. Thank you. Welcome. So for any of our readers who aren't for readers or listeners, I should say, watchers, who aren't familiar with Pop Classics, could you just tell us a little bit about you and well, the shop itself?

Well, the shop has been running for just a year now as a retail outlet in Caversham. Prior to that, we'd been online for, we'd been selling records online for nearly over 20 years. So that was our business. were, we were a mall or the collectible final and pop memorabilia business and was sold all around the world. And we got to a point where we decided we really wanted to try our hand.

Maria Lloyd (02:22.7)
a physical retail shop rather than doing it all online. So me and my wife, it was my wife's idea really to do it and to do it in Cavisham because she was familiar with the area. We're we're reading people. So there was a chance and opening here to do it. And that's how we've ended up here. All right, that's brilliant. And we're going to come onto the shop in a lot more detail later on, which is great. So there's so many questions I want to ask you.

So obviously, like you said, you're from Reading itself. What do you like about living in Reading? Well, both me and my wife have always lived in Reading. We were born in Reading and have never moved away. It's kind of all we know in the respect of living anywhere, but we do love the town, which is probably where we stayed for all of our lives. We love that it's a multicultural, diverse area with the feel of a city, but still...

It's still a town. it's kind of like, get the good and the bad. So you get the good bits of being in the city without the bad bits, if you know what I mean. So it's like being in London, but not being in London. yeah. And you're still close enough to London where you can go into it if you need to. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. 25 minutes away. So we get lots of customers jump on the Elizabeth line now and come straight to us. So it happens almost daily. We see customers coming in from London. So it's great. That's brilliant.

great location. Yeah, of course. And we're so close to the station as well. So it's really good. Yeah. Yeah. Well, as you said, just a little while ago that now we've just celebrated pop classics has celebrated its first birthday in its physical store. So what has the last year been like for you? Is there anything you would have done differently in hindsight? Well, we opened, we opened it, not really knowing what it was going to be like and what they expect. We had no expectations. just, so, so there's nothing we change.

but we were able to adapt. So things need changing. We can do it as we go. There's everything seems to be falling into place or we can respond to customers' requirements. And if they come in and ask for something, we can make sure we get it in for them. yeah, I mean, it's been interesting trying to working out what people actually want, what they listen to. Because when you...

Maria Lloyd (04:48.204)
When you're this close to it, when you're a fan of music yourself and this is how you've ended up doing this is because you start off as a collector. So I liked what I liked and that was my area. And then when you open the shop, you have to cater for all tastes. So it's learning about what people's demands are or expectations of what stock they want to buy and all of that. So that's the biggest learning curve really, because

I never knew there were so many sort of things that I'd always sort of never really considered as being things like, you know, like the sound of music soundtrack. I wasn't expecting to get requests for that, but that's one of the ones that people ask for all the time. Wow. Yeah. I love a vinyl. I've got a vinyl player and I like soundtracks, but I like the ones with just the music background with no sound. I'd know like Indiana Jones, for example.

anything like that. So what do you collect? Well, I've stopped collecting really now because it's very hard to do and collect. I still hang on to a core collection of blues records, mainly 70 hates that no one's really interested in apart from a very small amount of collectors. But my I used to collect all sorts of things really 60s, 60s R &B psychedelic records, a big soundtrack collection.

but I, I stopped when I started dealing mad order online, in the, in the late 90s, early 2000s, I kind of shared my collection and, and, and, and focused on, on, on the selling side of things. So yeah, yeah. If I was a collector, it would probably be psychedelic singles and blue 78s. Interesting. I love hearing what people collect.

Like I said, you're online for 20 years and then obviously in the last year. We still are. We still maintain it at a base. Without interest, what made you want to open a physical store? Because nowadays you see independence, unfortunately closing, left front and centre. I imagine it's a big challenge as opposed to just being online. Well, it is. Yeah. And I mean, when we started off online, the global marketplace was expanding. was, was, was, they were great days. You know, people

Maria Lloyd (07:16.342)
would get in their heads around the idea that you could buy a record from Australia or America or Canada and have it in the UK the next week. Whereas, you know, when it was a mail order situation back in the 80s, you're always a bit sort of nervous about would the record arrive and post it. So the postal services were getting better and the links to finding records overseas was a lot better. And eBay was a big, big selling point for that. could

You had all the protections of that. so people managed to sort of global marketplace from a collecting point of view just blew up really. And it was great for sales. So you'd have people in America buying really weird things that you couldn't sell in the UK. And there was different markets looking for different things. But then of course, happened. And overnight, it shrunk that marketplace. Because when I buy in Italy,

or it's Spain or Germany or wherever in that, I can't remember what they call that region, the Schengen region or whatever, any of those European countries that we were once in the European Union with, when they now buy a record, they have to pay upfront their country's tariff that they impose on them. and they're like VAT in the UK is 20%, but in different countries, it's roughly about the same, but in some countries it's higher.

As soon as they buy a record for say 20 quid, they've got to another, as well as their postage, they've got to pay their customs charge on top. So it makes it really a really expensive thing to do. So we lost all of pretty much all of our European customers, which was, and they were a big part of it. And it's not just us, it's all, it's so many businesses in the UK that are involved in the export market. It was never thought through. So.

overnight we lost all of that. that was kind of like 50 % of our trade that went as a result of people deciding they didn't want to be part of a customs union in Europe anymore. We promised there might have been a customs union when it got initially voted in, but that never happened. So we're high and dry really. And the problem is just seems this is getting worse and worse to a point where in December all sales to Europe effectively would have to stop because of the

Maria Lloyd (09:44.92)
the red tape involved in getting stuff over there, still maintain the same trading relationship with Australia and America and Canada, Norway, those countries are still as they were before. So that can continue, but they were a small part compared to our European customer base. So because of that, and we were getting orders from like people who live within a 15, 20 mile radius of us. So we thought, well, you know.

If those people knew that we have a store, they could come and look and buy themselves. So that was really what drove it, you know, to, to, to put records out there for people to come and have a look at themselves rather than having to buy them online. That's great. And as we said before, it's a whole different, shopping experience actually having the physical store. You need to stock things up people.

like you get to have those relationships with customers. It's a lot more intimate than just online buying a record from people. it is. And people can come and they can inspect the record. They can see what conditions it's in. They've got the option to listen to it in store if they want to. They can engage with us. We can talk about music all day long, is a great, which is the really nice part about it. it's brilliant. Those local connections.

Obviously you've been doing a great job because you've been nominated this year for Pride of Reading Award for Independent Retailer the are, it's something we're incredibly proud of. Congratulations. you. So, you know, I want to ask you couple of questions on that. Do you know, why do think it's important to have something like Pride of Reading and what it means to you to be nominated? Let's do that first. Well, it is important from

to be recognized for any business that wins it. And there are so many businesses that deserve it more than us really. I Hickeys in Reading have been going so long and they're such an important part of the town that even though we've been nominated, they kind of deserve it really. But there's so many other little bits in Pride of Reading where lots of local people get recognized for great things they've done.

Maria Lloyd (11:53.772)
And those things are important. from a shop point of view, although it sounds really cynical, it's great for it's great free publicity really is. but also, it's nice that people realize they, they, they, what we do, we just do. And it's nice to know that people just think, that's cool. You know, they're doing this and people come in and chat and we do events, but we're not doing it really for any other reason than, than to bring people together.

you're never going to be a millionaire running a record shop. it's all about, it really is about making a scraping by making a living and doing something positive for the community. And as long as people keep coming and we can do that, we can keep the doors open. We're, we're, we're more than happy to do it. And we really love doing that. So what does it take to, to be like, you know, pride of Reading nominated, what would you recommend for other independent businesses? Cause I think it, like you said, it's about giving

back to the community. So what sort of things can independent businesses do in order to? Well, I mean, we do promotions and we do live events. So people like that, they're always free things whenever we put a band on. Local bands can come in here and say that they've got a record coming out, can we sell it? And of course we do that. We don't charge them anything. We'll use that as, if anyone wants to sell their record, we'll put it on display.

they can put on their Facebook or whatever and tell people you can buy it from there. And we don't charge them. We just pass the money on to them just to keep them going. So those sort of things help local artists try and promote local events. If anyone's got a poster for a local event they want to promote, we do that. We give flyers out for events. Just become part of the hub of people that want to spread spread spread.

read music and events around the town. With a different business, I guess it's the same thing, but for whatever's within their remit of doing things, if you know what I mean. Are there any events or activities that you know that other local independents have done, maybe within their remit, that you think is a good idea? Can you point to anything that you've said, this shop has done this and that was a great event? Well, I mean,

Maria Lloyd (14:11.48)
I'm not really good on anything outside of records and music, be honest. I really struggle with all of those, but I'm sure there are things going on. done, we've got Cavmas coming up, which is our annual Christmas market in Cavisham on the 6th of December. And all the shops kind of do special promotions and we've got DJs in the shop that day and we'd have live music out in the square in the precinct. So,

Yeah, we get the angel bar come down and they do cocktails and stuff. So that's quite a neat thing. And all the businesses kind of all gather outside the shop and promote their businesses for what they're doing. Other businesses, to be honest, I only really know that Cavisham. don't know what's going on in this concept. I think Cavisham's got a great community vibe, which I don't think is always in Reading Centre. At least when I walk through Reading, it's a different feel.

to Caversham, do get that sense of community. do have that here. we do have a sense of community here and everyone kind of knows each other. And it's nice when people come into our shop, especially for the summer, we saw so many tourists come in here that have come down to Henley or Caversham for one reason or another. And they come and they go around all the shops and they're great for business. that's really nice. We've got Terry's next door. They do loads of interesting stuff. People always going in there.

And we've the, and it's really booming. We've got the spill bar opening, which is going to be a live music venue that's on the end of our precincts here. So yeah, it's quite a lively, vibrant hub at the moment, Caversham. I think that's the trick, isn't it? To keep your finger on the pulse. You know what's going on in Caversham, you know, all the other businesses, what you're all doing. And I think in order to, for an independent, you need that, you need that support around you, which I think is key.

That's right. Absolutely. need to, and we need to interact. We're constantly encouraging people to come in and as I say, if they're local musicians, come in, sell your stuff, come in, do an in -store, promote your art, promote your stuff. you're playing a gig in town, your work, the space is here for you to come and do a live show. If you want to get anywhere, we've had, there's some really good people this year. We had Wesley Stakes, who's like quite a big sort of name or was a big name. And he's still, had third lung.

Maria Lloyd (16:33.962)
Record Store Day and they did a Redding Festival special. We've had the... I can't remember Oscar's proper name now but he's called...

Mid Solace is in it. We're just selling this CD at the moment. He's a local lad that does some great sort of trip hop type sort of, that's how you describe it, sort of really good sort of Latin trip hop stuff. So he's really cool. I've got Luke Bates, who's a local acoustic artist, Steve Morello, again, he's released some records and we've got, we plan to do more and more of that. We had Among the Liars who were a big sort of emo rock band. came in and did an acoustic set. So.

Hopefully more and more people want to come and do that. That's amazing. So your plans for the next year, is it just double down on what you've already done? yeah. Just keep on finding the records that people want. obviously, our shop sells new and used vinyl. although I come from a basis of collectibles and collectible records, which was always my vision for the shop, Martina, my wife, who co -runs the shop with me,

She does all of our new stuff. she ordered every day, she's ordering new vinyl from the record company, Warner Brothers and Sony and all the independents. So if something's been released say today, we normally have it. So Martina makes sure we've ordered copies in and they're ready to go out on a Friday. So we kind of run in.

running them in tandem with each other, new and used. Some collectors really don't like new records. Some don't like used records. So you've got to cover all bases. yeah, build on that. but because we're, you know, we're in our fifties, so we don't necessarily know what, what everyone wants on the new vinyl friends. So we rely on our customers to tell us to order this in, that. And then of course we do record store day, which is another thing which is very much driven by what the customers want. So

Maria Lloyd (18:34.174)
Although we can't guarantee they're going to get it, we say to them, what do you want? Make sure we order it, make sure it's here, get down early and it's here for you. So we're responding to their demands and we carry on doing that. We've got National Album Day coming up in October, which is a a smaller version of Record Store Day. So yeah, we're going to continue with the in -store live stuff and continue with new and used and hopefully people that sell us their record collections when they get fed up with them.

And then we can continually recycle that and turn them over. I mean, they use vinyl from an environmental point of view is great because especially if people got records they don't want anymore. Even if there's kind of ordinary things like, mean, Fleetwood Mac Rumours is one of our best sellers, but everyone's got that. And that sells for like 10, 15 quid all day long. So, you know, we buy them in.

And it saves, I hear horror stories about people throwing their record collections away and we kind of hope they don't do that. They just bring them in here and anything we can't use goes to Age UK, which is the charity shop, just two doors down and they make a fortune on cheap sort of two pound records. Brilliant. So if anyone's got a record collection you don't want, just please bring them down here. Don't throw them away. We'll definitely pay great money for the right stuff and then anything we don't, can't use, we'll find a home.

Yeah, I think that's great that you work with Age UK next door. That's great. So because you've been going for so long, like a bonus question, is there anything, any tips that you have for anyone who maybe is in the early stages of their business because you have such a long experience online? Yeah, I mean, anyone thinking about buying and selling records, using collectible records, you've got to start really small and you've got to start online or at record fairs and then constantly reinvest

whatever you make trade up. And if you go to a record fair, if you know, can go to places like car boots, as you can buy things in cheaply, sell them on a profit, try and double up and then anything you make out of that, then reinvest in collections, advertise, buy collections in and then eventually, you know, you'll get to such a point where you're either overwhelmed with loads of unsellable records.

Maria Lloyd (20:50.968)
and you're dropping them in the age shop or you can you know you can turn it into a business but it takes a long time and to have a shop there's a hell of a lot of overheads and it is it they can be something of a passion project in a way but you can make a living so yeah definitely online and record fair is a great way to start if you're doing if you're thinking about doing a business in selling used vinyl

But new vinyl, you kind of need a shop or an online sales point. But as I say, that's tricky with the European thing. Well, like said, this is a passion project, isn't it? You don't do it to be a millionaire. It's just because you love talking to people about their records. Absolutely, Yeah. yeah. Brilliant. So do you have any final thoughts you want to leave our listeners with?

Maria Lloyd (21:47.884)
I don't know really. mean, think about when you're buying records. If you want to go down that road and you want to collecting records again, if you start from fresh, always buy from start off buying used records. Because if you you're, it's no point going out and buying reissues of a record that's well established and fairly easy to find because it's environmentally it's really very bad. You know, there's companies pumping out all these records. It's not great.

It's not great that Taylor Swift does so many versions of her album. Because, know, Billie Eilish famously went on record this year and said she was really appalled by the amount of waste involved in doing all these limited editions and stuff. We get it, you know, we understand collectors want stuff, but, you know, go for the used stuff, go for the stuff that's pre -loved and make it and love it again, you know, that would be my advice.

That's a brilliant tip. I just to clarify, all my stuff is pre -loved. My viral collection and everything that you've mentioned all those days that you mentioned, I'll make sure they're on show notes page. So yeah, if you've not been here, get on down here. It's brilliant. But thank you so much, Damien. I've really enjoyed talking to you. and subscribe. Yeah. Like and subscribe newsletter. Thank you. Thank you.