Music and Video Exchange, Greenwich

It’s one of the weird signs of the way the music industry has changes in recent years that you can can buy a secondhand CD or DVD at Music and Video Exchange, marked down from £12, to £11, to £10, to £9, and congratulate yourself on your bargain… and then the next find the same CD or DVD being sold new for a fiver.

This has happened to me several times. I love the shop. I love the pricing system: every week they knock a pound off the price of every item, so the longer it has been sitting around the cheaper it gets. So if you think something’s too expensive, you can leave it and come back later when it’s cheaper – though of course you take the risk that someone else will have taken it away in the meantime.

What this all means though, is that they can put pretty high prices on their stuff (or what count as pretty high prices these days), knowing that everything will sell eventually, in it’s own time.

That’s why you need to be careful. You will find stuff here that is or that is cheap, or that is out of print, or that is old and hard to track down. But you will also find stuff that you can get cheaper new on Amazon or in HMV.

So think once think twice, but I defy you to go in and browse and come out without buying anything at all.

And apart from anything, these days thank God there are still some independent record shops left, even if they do only sell secondhand.

Part of a decent chain that have a few branches around London and the UK dealing in second hand music. Records, CD’s, DVD’s all at prices cheaper than your usual music outlet… and get this, when something doesn’t sell they lower its price. It’s true. This means you can play cat and mouse with them for weeks until that Sonic Youth LP you’ve been yearning for is about £3. That is of course provided noone else gets there first.

This small second-hand music shop in the Greenwich town centre looks like someone's car boot sale. Posters adorn the wall, CDs and DVDs are stacked in rows on counters and shelves, and there's barely enough room for more than five customers to browse at the same time (not to mention the guys who work there look like they're on a permanent tea break).

However, what looks like disarray isn't really: stock is meticulously ordered depending on genre and price. The categories put any conventional music store to shame. Example: you don't just have "urban" music, you have "classic hip-hop", "UK and indie hip-hop", "mainstream label hip-hop", "hip-hop compilations", "soul", "nu-soul", "funk" and "r&b". Phew! You get the point.

This shop is an excellent place to search for bargains - CDs regularly get priced down to £2, even £1. Brand new albums are sometimes available for a quid or two cheaper than their retail price. The DVDs are varied and affordable and there's also an LP section in the basement.

If you want an even bigger selection, though, check out their Camden branch.