Vinyl Sales Are Up – But They’re Only Part of the Bigger Picture

You’ve likely felt the panic this week: Vinyl sales are in the United States reportedly down by (a somewhat ironic) 33.3%, marking the first decline in 17 years. Inflation and industry greed are to blame.

But these headlines didn’t paint the entire picture.

These articles referenced a weekly report from Billboard called “Market Watch,” which automatically updates with data provided by Luminate. On October 15, Luminate confirmed that the original reported data was incorrect. Vinyl sales are up 6.2% in the U.S.

Luminate has been the gold standard for physical music sales for decades. However, at the beginning of this year, the company changed its reporting process, angering many record store owners and industry personnel.

The vinyl industry is just one facet of vinyl culture, and Discogs can uniquely report on record collection trends, not just record consumption. We understand what record collectors are doing because they come to our platform to research music, evaluate vinyl prices, and catalog records they purchased from across the market.

And more record collectors are coming to Discogs now than ever before in our 20+ year history. Although Discogs’ Marketplace continues to experience increased engagement – vinyl sales are up by 51% since 2020 – collectors are buying records from a variety of places offline instead of relying on e-commerce. Over 80 million items were already cataloged in Discogs’ Collections this year so far, and not all of those records are reflected in the 57.5 million album sales reported by Billboard Market Watch. 

Discogs has been a pillar of vinyl culture since 2000, and today we’re witnessing the heightened power of local, independent record stores. 

“Independent record stores remain the backbone of vinyl culture. We want to set the record straight: Vinyl is still in demand, indie stores are thriving, and the market is growing,” said Jeffrey Smith, Vice President of Marketing at Discogs. “We remain a source of truth for physical music trends and we are committed to supporting the indie market and other small businesses that use our platform as a marketplace, as a point-of-sale system, and as a resource for pricing their inventory, whether they sell here on Discogs or in-store.”