Students adjust to void left by Used Kids

Cameron Carr
Tue, 13 Sep 2016 04:52:31 +0000
Arts & Life, News, a&l, a+e, arts & life, arts and life, music, record store, used kids

Last spring, the University District lost its last record store when Used Kids Records moved from North High Street to a new Summit Street location, located about a mile away.

The relocation requires students to travel further to reach a record store, joining Records Per Minute, Magnolia Thunderpussy or Lost Weekend Records — which are all relatively equidistant from campus.

This move affects Ohio State Vinyl Club, which hosted many its meetings at Used Kids last year. Paul Fox, a fourth-year in aviation and vinyl club co-president, said the club hopes the move will not deter students from visiting Used Kids.

“They’ve really helped us out, and I think that we’ve really helped them out,” he said.

The store offered free pizza and drinks, extended store hours and discounts when the club met there. Fox said Used Kids also helped design and order T-shirts for the club.

For the involvement fair, Used Kids provided Vinyl Club with promotional fliers to distribute to students.

Still, Vinyl Club intends to host meetings at Used Kids at least once a month this school year.

Fox said Used Kids is his favorite local store, in part, because of the support owner Greg Hall has given to the club.

“It’s almost like having another kid that wants to keep the club going, even though he’s like 50 or something,” Fox said.

As another way of reaching customers, Used Kids provided its previous location at 1980 N. High St., now inhabited by Evolved Body Art, with “Where did Used Kids go?” flyers that featured 15-percent-off coupons and maps to the new store.

“The big thing for students is getting them educated that we’re on the CABS bus route,” Hall said.

CABS and COTA both stop within one block of Used Kids’ new location at 2500 Summit St. The CABS East Residential route makes visiting Used Kids a short and easy trip for students, Fox said.

Hall said Used Kids hasn’t seen a significant decrease in student customers since relocating.

While the move does put the store farther from campus, Hall said he believes students — even incoming freshmen unaware of the previous location — will continue to visit the store.

“If someone is hell-bent on finding music, they’re going to do a Google search anyways and they’re going to find us,” he said.

Though Records Per Minute is now slightly closer to campus compared to Used Kids, the store has not seen a significant difference in the number of student customers, said assistant manager Ian Hummel.

Hummel said differences in record selection, particularly used records, make it important to visit different shops.

“We suggest people just support all these local businesses,” he said. “Plus, it’s just fun to hit a few of them.”

Because record shopping often involves searching for specific albums, Fox said students will likely visit multiple stores to view different inventories. He added that record stores remain a personal choice, sometimes based on a general “feel” of a store.

At the first Vinyl Club meeting last Tuesday, several students asked Fox where to shop for records, some asking about the lack of university district store.

“A lot of people asked about Used Kids,” he said. “Once they get the word out that they’re still the same store, it’s just a two-minute bus ride … I think they’ll be fine.”