FOPP Reviews Summary

Staff and Service

Pros:

• "Staff are cool, knowledgeable and enthusiastic."
• "The staff is veeery competent so you'll always have someone to help you there."
• "Record-seller who served me was super polite, friendly and very efficient."
• "The staff are so friendly great customer service all walks of life inside this store also and you don’t get judged I love it."
• "Staff also very helpful and always at hand to assist."
• "Shout out to Kat for handling the Vinyl Week line so professionally."
• "Staff are super friendly and helpful."

Cons:

• "However, upstairs they were playing the worst kind of jazz imaginable."
• "Immediately someone practically leapt at me demanding 'Can I help you?' in a tone clearly meaning 'what the Hell are you doing here?'"
• "One guy with the handlebar moustache I think harbours some serious dislike of customers."
• "I changed my review from five to one star because today I went to buy a DVD and the service was really bad."
• "Horrible custumer service."
• "Pathetic ‘customer service’. Suspected of shoplifting (a £3 DVD no less), I was followed around the aisles of the basement by the ‘assistant’ working the floor."
• "The staff at the counter couldn't be bothered to pause their conversation while dealing with my purchases."

Product Selection and Pricing

Pros:

• "A gigantic place with lots of vinyls and cds."
• "Has great collection of CD too."
• "Perfect for picking up the latest music and film releases, as well as golden-oldies, foreign/world and a great selection of indie."
• "Some awesome Blu ray offers that what I go in for the selection the price I got Akira on Blu ray for so cheap."
• "Great collection vinyl and DVD / Blue Ray with some unexpected titles for a reasonable price."
• "They have all year promos of 2 books for £5 and great new reads at a lovely reduced price."
• "Packed with super cheap dvds, especially cult classics."

Cons:

• "Their international film collection was heartbreaking. Indian films (there was only 1 that I found) being categorised under the Middle Eastern section."
• "The store has seen better days. Now they are as desperate as the modern rubbish culture they cling to."
• "However better deals can often be found elsewhere, and it's a shame to see the Asian section continually decrease in size."
• "But not every song genre you can find here especially heavy metal music."
• "However, I picked up a dvd... and took it to the counter to purchase it. However the cashier picked up the £15 addition and charged me for that one instead."
• "Pre-lockdown there were a lot of bargains to be found. Sadly but understandably this is now a memory with vinyl and cd's priced at the high end."
• "There are sometimes strange gaps in their stock."

Store Atmosphere and Accessibility

Pros:

• "Located at the corner of Earlham Street and Shaftesbury Avenue the ground floor exhibits a selection of DVD'S, vinyl and books."
• "Easily found just a couple of minutes walk from Tottenham Court Road or Leicester Square station."
• "With everything going online was nice to experience music stores like the old days."
• "It's so hard to find anywhere selling physical CDs in Central London."
• "The layout of the building looks familiar and makes me think it used to be a Tower Records from back in the day."
• "Very nice store, good selection, amazing experience."
• "Centrally located (Covent Garden/Cambridge Circus), it's conveniently situated en route to the West End, Soho and Theatreland."

Cons:

• "Small cramped store with a horrible dingy basement that was sweltering."
• "It’s an alright big music shop... But in the End it’s HMV and they’re offering a lot of cheap poor Turntables and strange merch."
• "The store layout is a bit confusing for a quick visit, but good enough for browsing."
• "Cramped shop but that’s because there so much stock and delights to be found!"
• "Couldn’t stay long as I became so hot down there."
• "Can get quite crowded at times and the ground floor is not that big."
• "Can often get very crowded on a weekend."

Customer Experience

Pros:

• "I would urge both customers and fans of the store to try and patronize both FOPP and HMV to save them from bankruptcy."
• "Everybody loves FOPP and so will you."
• "Great service and everyone happy to help."
• "Great prices and stock of items."
• "This place is great. I go at least once a week."
• "Interesting and well stocked music and video entertainment store."
• "Lovely to browse and listen to music."

Cons:

• "The store has seen better days. Now they are as desperate as the modern rubbish culture they cling to."
• "No one answered my long distance call. I was left on hold for 38 minutes until I hung up."
• "One of the worst customer service experience I had experienced in a long time."
• "I said hello to the man in the till and he simply ignored me."
• "Saw a mouse downstairs once which was weird but I guess that is central London though..."
• "Wanted to pick up an item and had my bicycle with me... He laughed in a demeaning manner and said ‘no’."
• "I spoke to someone completely unhelpful who made me feel like my brief query about what they have in stock was an irritation to his day."