Angus Kidman – anguskidman.show

When ALDI decides to flog a few vinyl records, it generally picks substandard releases featuring re-recordings and other shenanigans. Rival Coles also sells vinyl sometimes, but it takes a different approach.

For starters, you can’t actually buy the discs in store. Vinyl records are amongst the many random products which Coles sells as an online-only Best Buy. But those still get promoted sometimes in its regular catalogue.

We can see that in the current Coles catalogue, which highlights three titles: Michael Jackson’s Thriller, Elton John’s Goodbye Yellow Brick Road and Kendrick Lamar’s Good Kid, M.A.A.D City. Each is available for $59, with free delivery.

Unlike ALDI, these are genuine original albums, and that’s reflected in the $59 price. That’s still quite a good deal though. JB Hi-Fi would charge you $67.99 for the Michael Jackson album, and $76.99 for Kendrick Lamar. It doesn’t have any stock online for Elton John. Remember, you’d have to pay postage on top for those, unlike Coles.

The other obvious online option is Amazon. It has Thriller for $48.99, which is somewhat cheaper than Coles (assuming you have Prime and can score free delivery). The Kendrick Lamar album is currently $74.19, which makes Coles a better bet. Ditto for Elton John, which is selling for $69.56 as I write this.

Savvy shoppers quickly worked that Elton was a relative bargain. When I checked this morning, Goodbye Yellow Brick Road had sold out completely. There were 14 copies left of the Kendrick Lamar album, which probably tells you something. Thriller, a record that can be found in almost any charity shop (as well as more cheaply at Amazon), still had 29 copies left.

Coles’ Best Buys are often viewed as an inferior offering to ALDI. Its vinyl deals are actually better, but I still can’t imagine using them for anything more than the occasional very good special.