Wax and Beans owners Ben Soothill and Louise Jackson

Music fans can listen to any song, by any band or artist, at the touch of a button online. Yet Louise Jackson and Ben Soothill, owners of Wax and Beans in Bury, northern England, have still managed to build a thriving business selling music in analogue format.

When it launched in 2019, Wax and Beans, which won the UK People’s Choice award in the FedEx Small Business Grant 2021, was the realisation of a 25-year dream for Soothill. It combines music retail with café culture, selling vinyl records and music merchandise alongside coffee and food, and running live music events.

“My vision was for a record shop but in 2019 that wouldn’t work – the margins [on vinyl sales] are too low,” he explains. “Obviously coffee culture is huge. There are a lot of coffee shops that are really good in Bury, but our unique selling point is the records and the space that we’ve created.”

After the couple opened their first shop, they quickly realised they would outgrow the small unit they had leased. They purchased a bigger space, completing the sale in March 2020, days before non-essential shops like theirs were required to close under lockdown restrictions in the UK.

“It was a blessing and a curse,” Soothill says of the lockdown. “It gave us a few months to regroup and work on this building and turn it into a space that we were really passionate about.”

The temporary closure also allowed the e-commerce side of the business to develop. “We did have an online presence [before the pandemic], but we weren’t actively selling,” explains Jackson. However, with people stuck at home looking to spend their money on ways to stay entertained without leaving their house, Wax and Beans’ online sales took off.

Now, the business has several thousand customers across the brick-and-mortar shop and the website – plus a team of 18 staff bringing it all to life.

Soothill and Jackson share the lessons they’ve learnt through building a thriving community around their business.

Soothill was enthusiastic about music and vinyl long before opening the shop, and Wax and Beans now has some equally passionate customers. For example, on Record Store Day, an annual event to encourage sales at independent record shops, he expected the most dedicated fans to start queuing a full 24 hours before the event begins.

He says a big part of the job is simply chatting about music to the customers that walk through the doors of the shop or get in touch online. “Every day I’m still learning about music; I think that’s why people feel like we’re just like anybody else that’s a music fan. We were one of that 1 in 1000 that decided to open a record store.”

Although the vinyl enthusiasts are a key part of Wax and Beans customer base, those who come in for coffee or buy one beloved album on vinyl receive the same amount of attention. “The pensioners who come in for a coffee and a piece of cake – they will not buy a record but they will stop me and tell me about their collection that they used to have in the 70s. And that’s perfect – for them, that’s the connection,” says Soothill.

Coming from a corporate career working with discerning professional clients, Soothill was used to meeting a high standard of customer service. And bringing that into the business was a high priority. “We’re passionate about customer service and making sure that every experience every time someone comes in is positive, so when they leave they can’t wait to come back,” he explains.

It’s not without challenges: finding the right mix of staff who will follow Soothill’s example and actively engage with customers has been hard, he says. But prioritising good service has paid off: Wax and Beans has an average five-star rating from more than 200 Google reviews, not to mention its high levels of repeat business.

“It’s the single biggest part of the day. I fit everything else I need to do around the customer service. I can’t emphasise it enough,” he says.

For the team at Wax and Beans, meeting customers’ needs sometimes requires taking a more expensive or time-consuming option. For instance, they have decided to invest in more durable packaging for the records they sell via e-commerce. But according to Soothill, it’s worth the expense to provide a better and more reliable service.

“A lot of people are wary about ordering stuff [records] online because packaging from a lot of businesses is not sufficient. Records are very delicate and people who collect them, who are paying [up to] £40 for a record, don’t want it to turn up with a bent corner,” he explains.

The team also makes a wide range of new releases available for pre-order online each week, which involves several hours’ of uploading product descriptions to the inventory system. However, it makes a difference to customers. “People have said to us that even huge record stores don’t have some of the titles that we have available for pre-order,” says Soothill. “For example, this week we have 72 items available for pre-order; it’s a huge task to manage. But it’s driving more people to the website, it’s giving more people options.”

Each package sent out by Wax and Beans contains a hand-written note to the customer, complimenting their choice of record or thanking them for their purchase. “We could just put a leaflet in there from the business, but we try to do something a little bit different with a bit of a personal touch,” explains Jackson.

They are also developing music quiz questions to send with online orders, including a hashtag to encourage customers to engage with the business on social media. It’s these small touches, Jackson says, that helps to keep customers coming back. “We try to keep it fresh; we’ve recently started giving out stickers and pin badges. It’s trying to give a little bit back to our customers and give them something they weren’t expecting.”