Frequently Asked Questions
Below you’ll find the questions our team get asked the most.
Shipping & Delivery
Domestic subscriptions and orders ship through Royal Mail & Evri. Subscriptions within the UK ship free, and record store orders qualify for free shipping over £65.
Our shipping services come with a tracking code that updates when a delivery attempt or the package has been delivered. We find this level of service provides the best balance of cost and service for our customers in the UK.
Should you wish for an express or tracked service, please speak to our team.
For our international customers, we use a mix of Royal Mail & Ascendia services, and these costs vary per country. As the prices also change twice a year, the easiest way to get a quote is to pop in your shipping address at Checkout, where our system will quote you our shipping cost. If you think a quote looks wrong, speak to our team.
We make no money on our international shipping rates and are constantly reviewing couriers to make our subscription boxes as cost-effective for members as possible.
Customers in the EU will be charged the appropriate VAT import duties when we calculate your shipping costs. This ensures your items arrive without any additional costs or fees.
This method removes administration costs imposed by local couriers and results in packages moving through international networks seamlessly- a win win!
For new releases, we will ship mint and sealed with 2 record stiffeners inside a sturdy mailer, keeping your wax nice and secure in transit.
If your record is at all in used condition, we will professionally clean and sleeve your order. This includes both brand new Blake Sleeves and inner Antistatic Sleeves for the perfect balance of accessibility and protection for your album.
We ship our boxes in “bookwrap” style mailers which are designed to protect all of the corners of your records, ensuring a smooth and safe delivery of your musical treasures as they are transported to your door.
For UK deliveries, Royal Mail asks us to wait for up to 2 weeks before we can begin the investigation for a lost or stolen parcel claim. For international parcels, this can take up to 4 weeks.
To prevent disruption, please speak to our team if you think your package is late and we will verify your shipping address, double check the tracking information, and speak to Royal Mail about opening an investigation as soon as we can.
We ship our boxes through Royal Mail for the UK and the majority of International deliveries (USA exc.) We include free UK shipping for all of our domestic deliveries, which is Royal Mail’s 48 service.
This is a service which comes with a tracking code which updates when there has been a delivery attempt or the package has been delivered. We find this is the best balance of cost and service for our customers in the UK.
For international customers, we use an untracked service called Royal Mail International Priority. This is a priority untracked service. If you would like to upgrade to a tracked service, please speak to our team. We do not offer this as standard as we feel the untracked service from Royal Mail is the best cost effective option for our subscription box.
Returns & Refunds
We do accept returns! As a subscription box service providing hand-picked choices, we know that having assurances that your box isn’t final is helpful.
- For non-subscription products (e.g. you bought an album from us) we offer a quibble-free 14 day free returns period.
- For subscription products we offer a quibble-free 14 day free returns period for:
- Incorrectly received items
- Damaged items
- For subscription products we offer a quibble-free 14 day paid returns period for:
- Changed mind
- Didn’t like the choices but were correctly chosen
At our discretion, we may choose to waiver return fees for the above paid charges (and if you’re nice to us, we’re nice to you!)
Yes, we do offer refunds! Bad refund and return policies are infuriating. You feel like the company is just trying to keep you around when your mind is set. We never want you to feel that way, so our refund policy is simple: If you’re ever unhappy, contact our support team and we’ll take care of you.
With that, here are some of our specific policies that relate to our recurring services.
Examples of full refunds we’d grant.
- If you were just charged for your next month of The Retro, but you meant to cancel, we’re happy to refund that extra charge.
- If you forgot to cancel The Retro a couple of months ago, we’ll process a refund with receipt of goods sent out.
- If you received a box full of items you didn’t want, we’re happy to refund that box upon return of items.
Examples of partial refunds or credits we’d grant.
- If you forgot to cancel The Retro a few months ago but have gifted/lost your deliveries. we would look at how we can best re-compensate you.
- If we were unable to fulfil a subscription for more than 2 weeks, we would look to offer credits against future payments.
- If you bought a cancel-anytime prepaid package and had not completed your subscription, we would refund unshipped boxes.
- If you’ve received items you didn’t like, we’ll swap them over for you (but we wouldn’t cover free shipping returns for these unless the items were damaged in transit or not within your genres chosen)
If you have received the same choice from The Retro across multiple subscription deliveries, we will happily cover this and offer a replacement free of charge.
If you have received an album already in your record collection, unfortunately we have no way of knowing whats in your entire collection, and thus are happy to exchange this for you for another item upon receipt of the item. (Note that we may not offer free returns in this scenario!)
If you have subscribed to a duplicate-free plan, we will offer free returns and have a replacement included in your next subscription shipment.
Joining The Retro
Our offers and plans are often tweaked and changed in line with the stock we have, and different types of service. Our core line-up of product costs is below:
Vinyl Subscription Box
Rolling Subscription, £35 inc. UK shipping
3 Month Prepaid Subscription, £34 inc. UK shipping per delivery, billed at £102 every 3 months
6 Month Prepaid Subscription, £32 inc. UK shipping per delivery, billed at £192 every 6 months
12 Month Annual Prepaid Subscription, £30 inc. UK shipping per delivery, billed at £360 every year
Gift subscription pricing can vary, as this includes extra onboarding, bespoke plans and no renewals.
We source albums from private sellers, indie record stores, manufacturers and distributors. When we originally began, we only wanted to provide second hand albums, hence The Retro– however, as our customer base has grown, as has the type of records we need to source.
In general, you will never get a record which is rated both Very Good+ for both the media and sleeve, based on the Goldmine Standard rating system which you can read about here– however a great number of albums we sent out are well above this, including new mint LP’s.
When you subscribe to The Retro, we currently ask you to select three high level genres which best describe what type of music you are suited to. Our aim is to provide you with a balance of artists and albums you would want on vinyl, as well as a smattering of new discoveries to open your eyes to artists new and old.
After receiving your first box, you can provide our team with feedback and we can narrow down (or expand!) the styles of music you would like to receive.
In 2022, we will be experimenting with collecting other details to make sure we are best serving you- this may include your current record collection size, when you first started collecting records, and your Discogs account if you have one.
Our goal is to help you enjoy music new and old and grow your record collection on a budget, so this process may be changed and tested over time.
You are billed immediately when you sign up for The Retro. If you choose a monthly plan, all re-billing occurs on the 15th of each month, and we have a 14 day buffer system in-place to prevent double boxes in your first month.
This means if you join us on the 20th, you will be billed the following 15th. If you join us on the 6th, we’ll skip the 15th and bill you the month after, preventing you being charged twice.
We ship our boxes through Royal Mail for the UK and the majority of International deliveries (USA exc.) We include free UK shipping for all of our domestic deliveries, which is Royal Mail’s 48 service. This is a service which comes with a tracking code which updates when there has been a delivery attempt or the package has been delivered. We find this is the best balance of cost and service for our customers in the UK.
Further afield, we use a mix of Royal Mail services, and these costs vary per country. As the prices also change twice a year, the easiest way to get a quote is to either speak to our team, or to pop in your shipping address at Checkout, where our system will quote you our shipping cost.
For all of our International Shipping, we absorb part of the cost. We make no money on shipping items and we are constantly reviewing couriers to make our subscription boxes as cost effective for members as possible.
Yes! Whilst we genuinely feel our members receive better boxes over time with the more feedback they give us and the more we learn about their musical tastes, you have the ability to cancel at anytime. There is no commitment period and you can cancel from our My Account page at anytime.
Your First Delivery
Royal Mail collect from our office every Friday, so any new subscriptions placed up until the Thursday of that week, stock permitting- will ship out the following Friday from when you have ordered.
Orders in the UK will typically arrive within 3-5 days, and international orders can take 10-20 days to arrive depending on your location!
If your record is mint and sealed, it will ship this way. If your record is at all in used condition, we will professionally clean the album. In addition to this, we will place the album sleeve in a brand new Blake Sleeve and each album will be placed behind the sleeve in an Antistatic Sleeve for the perfect balance of accessibility and protection for your album.
We ship our boxes in “bookwrap” style mailers which are designed to protect all of the corners of your records, ensuring a smooth and safe delivery of your musical treasures as they are transported to your door.
Oh no! If an item or items have arrived damaged, we’ll need some photography proof so we can make a claim to our courier that an item we sent arrived in damaged condition. Once we have this, and before we receive any compensation from our courier, we will ensure to either ship replacement items immediately, or with your following renewal.
You can get the ball rolling on this by getting in touch with our team here.
I’m so sorry to hear you didn’t enjoy one of our picks. You’ve got a few options, whatever is easiest for you. Many of our members who have maybe got an album they didn’t love have sold, gifted or traded them on! We have a wonderful Facebook Group and occasionally members will sell or trade records on there.
If this isn’t something you’d be looking to do, we are more than happy get the record from you and have a replacement popped out in the post. If we think we made a mistake in sending that album, we’ll even cover return postage too!
You can visit our Facebook Group here or speak to our team here.
All re-billing for renewals takes place on the 15th of each month, and we aim to pick, pack and ship all of your orders over the next 5-7 days, depending on how busy we are!
UK orders will arrive 3-5 days after, and International Orders can take up to 10-20 days to arrive after this.
Managing Your Subscription
Yes! You can cancel your subscription anytime from your My Account page online. Our team has a curated selection of offers and processes to help if you are unhappy with your selection, or the service isn’t for you.
The best subscription customers we have are open conversations, and changing your tastes and preferences is part of that. Every month you will receive an email asking for feedback to your selection, where our team can make taste adjustments. You can also add or remove genres to your account at any time.
You can change your account details at any point by visiting your My Account page. Make sure to update the address specifically noted under your subscription for future shipments to be delivered to your new address.
You can change your payment details at any point by visiting your My Account page. Make sure to update the card specifically noted under your subscription for future payments to be taken.
Still need some help?
Contact Derek and Peter on our support team for a quick and helpful reply!
