Record Store Day was three weeks ago now. The dust has settled, the eBay flippers have either made their money or are sitting on stock they can’t move, and I’ve had time to look at what actually happened in my shop versus what the press releases said would happen.

Short version: the format isn’t broken yet, but it’s getting there.

What we sold out of in the first hour

The Aretha Franklin live recording everyone expected would go fast. Sold all twelve copies before 9.30am. People queued from 5am for it.

The Tame Impala 10-inch. Gone in 90 minutes despite us getting a generous allocation.

The Smiths “Hatful of Hollow” Australian-only pressing. Surprised me a bit. We had eight, sold them all by 10.30. Local pride still counts for something.

The Velvet Underground “Loaded” peel-the-banana variant (yes, another one). Honestly sold faster than it deserved to. Four copies out the door before lunch.

What I’m still sitting on

The Damon Albarn solo record I won’t name. Thirty copies. Sold four. Heavily discounted now and still moving slowly.

The various jam-band live archive releases. Got a stack of them. They were never going to be RSD hits in Melbourne. I knew that going in but allocations are allocations.

Three different “deluxe gatefold” coloured-vinyl reissues of records that came out twelve months ago in standard black. The audience has caught on to this trick and is no longer buying duplicates.

The pop-punk nostalgia tier. Yellowcard, Story of the Year, that whole bracket. Four releases between them and we sold maybe a third of stock. The people who care about this music are now in their late 30s and don’t have the disposable income they did three years ago when this nostalgia wave started.

What the queue looked like in 2026 versus 2024

Shorter. Noticeably. We had maybe 80 people in line at opening, compared to 140 in 2024 and easily 200 in 2022.

The demographic has shifted too. The under-25s are largely gone. The bulk of the queue this year was 30 to 50, with a notable bump in the 50+ bracket. The kids who were the lifeblood of vinyl revival 2017-2022 have moved on, or at least moved on from caring about RSD specifically.

This is consistent with what other shop owners told me when we caught up at the Northcote pub the night after. Greville Records, Polyester, Title, Round and Round. All reporting smaller queues, older buyers, more cautious spending.

The flipper situation

The flippers have largely gone too, which is actually good news. The economics of buying RSD releases to flip on Discogs or eBay have collapsed because:

1. Allocations are bigger relative to the queue size, so true scarcity is rare
2. Australian eBay buyers have gotten wise to the pattern and won’t pay 2x retail for things they can find at half a dozen shops a week later
3. International shipping costs have made the export-flip model uneconomic for anything under $100 retail

I had two known flippers in my queue this year. Both bought modestly and moved on. In 2022 I’d have had ten of them with shopping lists.

The financial reality

Let me be straight about the numbers. RSD 2026 was profitable for us, but not as profitable as 2024 and well below 2022. Margins on RSD product are tight to begin with (we’re paying close to retail from distributors and marking up modestly to keep prices in line with bigger shops). The day’s value comes from foot traffic and the second-hand sales that happen alongside RSD purchases.

This year, the second-hand sales were strong. People who came for the Aretha bought $200 worth of second-hand soul on the way out. The Smiths buyers picked up jangle-pop catalogue. That’s the real win.

What I think happens next

The official RSD list this year had something like 320 releases. That’s too many. Distributors are going to have to cut allocations to stop independent shops getting stuck with stock, which means actual scarcity returns, which might bring back genuine queue energy.

I’d guess RSD 2027 has fewer titles, smaller pressing runs, and a more focused list. The format works when it’s curated. It doesn’t work as a mass-market dump.

The other thing that has to happen is acknowledgment that the casual vinyl buyer is gone. The pandemic-era TikTok-driven vinyl boom is over. What’s left is a smaller but more committed buyer base. RSD needs to talk to that audience instead of trying to recreate 2021.

My RSD 2026 verdict

Worth doing. Always worth doing. The day gets people through the door who haven’t been in for months and reminds them the shop exists. But anyone treating RSD as a financial pillar of their record store business in 2026 is going to be disappointed.

Real money in this business still comes from used stock, from knowing your regulars, from sourcing well, and from being a useful presence in your local music ecosystem. RSD’s a marketing event with some sales attached. Treat it as that and you’ll be fine.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have thirty Damon Albarn records to write descriptions for.