Ever wanted to operate your own record store, but didn’t want to have to deal with the hassle of building a reputation for it from the ground up? Let alone all that pesky ‘stock’ and a customer base.

Well then this really is “a unique and once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to live the High Fidelity life!” All you’ll need is £300,000… and an eBay account.

Skipping the sticky real estate market entirely, the owner of On The Beat Records has placed the entire store up for sale on the online auction website, as NME reports. “Live your dream and enter a rock’n’roll lifestyle – your chance to run a record shop!” reads the online listing.

Listed with a ‘Buy It Now’ price tag of £300,000 (approximately AU$ 506,531), just 19 days are left on the bidding date for the vintage London store, located in Hanway Street, near Tottenham Court Road; “right in Soho and just around the corner from Tin Pan Alley.” Funnily enough, the eBay listing also stipulates that there’s no returns, but “will post to United Kingdom” for the music store.

On The Beat Records’ Tim Derbyshire first opened the store in 1979 in the wake of the burgeoning punk era, and around 35 years later, continues to stock and sell an impressive collection of vinyl, music magazines, memorabilia, and CDs, running the gamut from psychedelic to garage, punk, jazz, soul, country, folk, and more; “an Aladdin’s Cave of musical gems,” writes the owner.

“I’ve given it my heart and soul for all these years but it’s time for me to step down and let another passionate music lover take over,” writes Derbyshire in the online listing, by way of explanation of getting out of the business he’s been passionately running for decades. “The Beat must go on. Keep my dream alive!”

It seems that Derbyshire has no illusions about the store still turning big profits the way it used to, especially during a tough economic climate that has brought even major record chains like HMV to their knees.

The listing reads: “if you’re at the stage in your life when you don’t have to worry about making money but can live the bohemian life, meet interesting people every day and the occasional pop or rock star, here’s your chance to take over the oldest record shop in the centre of Swinging London.”

(Image: On The Beat Records. Source: eBay)

If someone fails to scoop up the eBay offer, the shop will shut down, as Derbyshire writes in definite terms. “Without someone buying it, it will disappear,” says the listing. “A vinyl treasure trove with a pulsing, groovin’ history steeped in its very walls. You can make history and take it over!”

The £300,000 is quite cheap when compared to one of the world’s largest record collections, the 3 million plus collection dubbed ‘The Archive’, belonging to Pittsburgh resident Paul Mawhinney, who’s been struggling to offload his historic collection for $3m for years, but “basically, no one gives a damn.”

The general apathy towards physical media in an increasingly digital age, where music is widely available for free, may make both Mawhinney’s and On The Beat Records’ offers seem like a tough sell, especially when industry reports from the US show that album sales are at an historic all-time low.

But then again, by contrast, vinyl is experiencing a huge boost. While still carving small numbers, sales of vinyl are healthier and increasing, rising by a third this year from last year in America, while doubling here in Australia across the same period.

Over in the UK, it’s even stronger, with sales of the vintage format being the highest they’ve been in a decade, as Billboard reports, helping independent record stores get their groove back, experiencing a 44% boost in sales – helped in large part by the success of this year’s Record Store Day.

Maybe it’s not such a bad time to buy up a indie record store on the cheap, after all? Anyone wanna split the costs?

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