When Jeffrey and Lisa Stothers were sizing up a new home for Southbound Records six years ago, one thing was very important: how does music sound in this room?

"We couldn't have a space that was too harsh to be playing music in," says Jeffrey. "We had someone come in and test it. It had to be a place where music sounded good."

When Southbound moved from its original home near the top of Mt Eden to 132 Symonds Street six years ago, it effectively moved from one end of Uptown to the other.

"We're basically the beginning of Uptown!" says Jeffrey. "We did look at other locations, but this was a really good mix. Just walkable from the city fringe – and you could get a park. And T. White's Bikes seemed like a good fit as a neighbour. It's turned out, we were right."

There are other advantages. When Jeffrey's prized record bag finally fell apart after years of wear, bringing it back to life was just a matter of popping over the road to the experts at Gemmell’s. And then there's Burger Geek (founders Peter and Pene Barton live in the same building as Southbound), Gina's, Galbraith's and, says Jeffrey, "the best sushi in Auckland".

Although he spends most of his time in the upstairs office of Southbound's distribution business, Jeffrey has a long background in record retail, having worked for 13 years at the giant HMV store in Oxford Street, London. It's a grounding shared by the rest of the shop staff: Roger Liddle, Kerry Buchanan and Troy Ferguson have been selling and recommending music since before some of their customers were born.

"There's probably more music retail experience put together here than in any other shop," Jeffrey declares.

Record shops are different now, of course – in that, overwhelmingly, they sell records. While the HMV Store might have sold CDs by the truckload, in the age of Spotify, people come to Southbound for vinyl.

"People might be listening on digital, but they want to own the record. People are proud of their records. One thing that's surprised and pleased me is that there's a few more women buying from us. I don't see that in a lot of record shops – it's often a bloke's environment."

"We're seeing more and more women come in," Lisa agrees, "and young people too. They've got their grandad's turntable and listened to their parents' vinyl collection and then they want to come in and buy vinyl."

The changes in the industry also mean that Christmas might still be busy, but it's not all about two or three big releases.

"In my time at HMV you'd know for months before what your big Christmas album was going to be," Jeffrey recalls. "It doesn't work that way with vinyl. You sell catalogue. People will come in and say, ‘we're getting Dad a turntable’, and they'll buy him a new copy of Dark Side of the Moon."

That means stocking a large and broad catalogue. Jeffrey says Southbound's 7000 titles represent the biggest range in the country. Along with perennial best-sellers, there are also releases the store has been able to get because he still has contacts with distributors he worked with years ago.

The biggest day in Southbound's calendar is usually World Record Store Day, when a queue stretches around the corner by opening time. That's been stymied by Covid-19 this year, but Southbound keeps up a sense of event – largely at the hands of Lisa, who manages the shop's social media and weekly newsletter.

"I like to think we always have a reason for people to come into the shop," she says. "It might be a drop of second-hand 7"s, or we've reduced some stock, or we've had a delivery from Soul Jazz. It's all about getting them into the shop, where they might see something else they like."

It's not possible (for me) to visit the building without having a browse, so I pop into the shop to flick through the new and second-hand releases. What, I ask Roger Liddle behind the counter, is the best thing about working here? He barely pauses before replying:

"Turning somebody onto an album that they have no idea about. Talking about it, letting them hear it, giving them a bit of history – and then them coming back in a week or so saying, ‘wow, that was fantastic, what else have you got?’ That's what I've been doing since the 1980s and it's the biggest thrill you can have."

Now that's an experience you're not going to have with a website.