In my local high street (Wimbledon) there was a shop called CD Warehouse for a few years which I think was part of chain. It bought and sold second hand CDs and was pretty good. It shut down a couple of years ago. I presume downloading, home burning, ebay and all that killed off the market for used CDs. But it did what it did well when there was a call for it. Opposite what was CD Warehouse is a shop called Wilkinsons which has been dubbed “the new Woolies” in The Times today. It sells stuff that you want/need. I went there the other day and came out with: a cat litter tray, a teapot, a ball of string and a much-needed new tin opener. Now that’s what I call an exciting shopping experience these days.

but it doesnt sell the Titan Shaver. This an ingenious fruit and vegetable peeler shaped rather like a.......shaver. The TV advert selling it was very impressive but I baulked at paying nearly 20 quid. I shall have to see if it is cheaper elsewhere. The problem with these adverts though is when you actually get the product they are selling it never works for you the same as it does for the bloody magician using. Etch a sketch and spirograph were great examples of this as was the Stylophone.

I like Cash Converter style shops as they sometimes have half-decent second-hand CDs in for reasonable prices, and sometimes all they have are rubbish CDs.

Mainly secondhand CDs, some new stuff but an abundance of cheap promos out of the rep's van. Like an auction in reverse, the price starts at, say, £6 but if it does not sell it gets reduced by £1 over several weeks. If it eventually reaches £1 unsold it goes into the 3 for a £1 box. The trick is to pick up a bargain before someone else does.

Or should that be hope. Am I naive to think there will be a volume of individuals who will be ditching (or have) their physical colections in favour of a virtual world on their computers and i-pods instead; there are several bloggers on here who suggest so. For those of us who can only scratch the itch by physically rummaging thru' hard copy, these will soon be our only outlet. Sadly these will not be the longstanding specialists who love the music- such shops have been falling by the wayside as quick as the retailers of new. It will be the entrepreneurs seeing a buck in CDs, DVDs, games and anything else.

I lovelovelove 2nd-hand record shops, but if anything's going to kill them it's going to be Ebay (and the ilk) rather than downloading or the credit crunch, as it sucks away both buyers and supply of "new" product...

To answer the original post, I think I'm right in saying that the major labels absolutely hate the 2nd-hand business, and always "hinted very strongly" to retailers that if they opened 2nd-hand sections then they could expect to have their supplies of new stuff cut off. The videogame industry did the same thing, but eventually some store group (either Play or Game) broke the embargo and now I think everyone does it.

And I may well be talking out of my rear, but I even think there was a test case where a label tried to sue someone for selling 2nd-hand records (against that "not for resale etc. etc." tiny boilerplate message on every record), but it was thrown out of court and led to the definition of "Fair Use", which includes copying for backup, personal and - little known fact! - friend & family use, and (of course) being able to sell it on later.

Yes, I read Daveys comment about his getting rid of hard copy in the adjacent strand and remembered e -bay. But e-bay is even more impossible to browse unless you know what you are looking for, to an far greater extent than the Amazons, Plays etc etc, where they will at least have genres and sales and "those who bought this also" etc etc. Type used cd into e bay and you get an impossible list, I would expect. (I've only ever looked up specific and unavailable anywhere else records and then either been put off entirely or been able to purchase on eventual re-release (Ocean Colour Blue) or by application of "Fair use" from friends on this site.)

They're called "cex". I know little about them except my local branch has a whole floor of second-hand CDs and DVDs. Unfortunately, most of the CDs are Snow Patrol and Feeder though

http://www.cex.co.uk/products/music/

Interesting. Take That CD. We buy for 30p, we sell for £2.50. Er, no thanks I'll either hold onto it or sell it myself on Ebay.

Have a look at Amazon. You can sell all unwanted CDs/DVDs through them. I've been buying and selling via them for years with no problems. The good thing is you can set your selling price unlike EBay, so you don't have to get rid of them for nothing.