Delivering the Vinyl Revival

Located in the heart of England, the our warehouse facility at Bicester is helping sustain the vinyl revival in the UK. Despite the advent of streaming, physical formats - vinyl, CDs and cassettes - are still crucial to the British music industry and responsible for 20% of the value of the market. Our Bicester warehouse has become the epicentre of physical music distribution in the UK.

A symbiotic relationship has developed between the digital and analogue worlds in the music industry as Gennaro Castaldo, Director of Communications British Phonographic Institute, the UK trade association for record labels, explains, “Often, particularly among super fans, they will stream for their general discovery and day-to-day needs, but when they come across an album that they love, they will go out to the local store or online and buy it, collect it and cherish it.”

Releasing material on vinyl is prestigious for artists according to David Sharpe, COO Universal Music Group UK. “Every artist loves to see their work on vinyl.” he says “It’s good for them to see their own artwork and their music in a physical format.”

Satisfying the demand for new releases as well as artists’ back catalogues is vital. “Physical supply chain is very important to the industry where over 50% of retail sales are through independent vinyl shops that are key to the long-term future of the business,” says Sharpe.

Anthony Brown, Operations Support Manager, Bicester has witnessed vinyl revitalised since he started work in 1999. “I was actually told to ignore the vinyl section, which was very small at that point, it was probably 20 m long,”  he says, “The exact words used were, ‘It's a bit like Betamax, it's not going to be here tomorrow, so don't even look over there.’ But luckily it's made a huge comeback and now I would say it's at least 60% of the floor space physically in our distribution centre.”

Distributing music to record stores and direct to fans is a fine art, and we handle seasonal peaks and the flurry around new releases and accompanying promotional events. Anthony explains we can turn an order around to ship very quickly. “We get a phone call from client services or customer services requesting something to go out to a signing or an unpredicted concert for instance,“ he says. “Sometimes a cab is being called whilst we’re in the process of keying the order, and we can get that order keyed, printed, picked, and ready to be dispatched via courier in 20 minutes.”

The ability to fine tune distribution efficiently is vital, explains Castaldo. “It's important that that distribution works well to get the items out to the stores and selling as quickly as they should,” he says, “So DP World is very much the beating heart of how our physical music industry operates in the UK.”

For record store owners having a reliable supply chain from artist through to end consumer is not just keeping the industry alive, it’s supporting British culture. “I think the supply chain from supplier through to the shops all have a mission at heart, which is to make sure that the artists are seen and feel like they can contribute their art to the world and feel listened to" says Matt Baghurst, Manager at Rough Trade in London’s Denmark Street. “A massive part of this shop is allowing people's ideas to be heard. That's not just for the shop, that's for labels, for suppliers, the artists' teams, and then ultimately the fan who wants to hear the music.”

The success of that process is down to a mixture of experience and innovative technology that sees staff work alongside autonomous robots as Castaldo has witnessed. “The technology levels at the DP World facility in Bicester are just off the scale: not just the size of it, but the logistics organisation. Seeing robots find the particular item they need and then take it to the distribution point. It's a remarkable level of efficiency and it's needed because the market has to operate as efficiently as possible, so having a cutting edge distribution service is critical to that. And I think that warehouse is really as good as it can be.”

Read how we're Transforming Trade: Delivering the Vinyl Revival.