We recently visited Soojib, the latest K-pop shop to open in London. Here is what we found.
Soojib opened in February this year, and although we had been meaning to visit it, we had not been in the area. That all changed on Monday, when we took a detour to Great Portland Street and took a look.
The shop itself is quite large and spacious, with a nice vibe, there are large windows and an outdoor seating area where you can sit and look at your buys.
Once you enter, you are welcomed by the usual music – BTS, Le SSerafim, New Jeans, to name a few. It was actually fairly busy for a Monday afternoon, with a fair number of people mostly shopping for Photocards.
There is a Photoism booth towards the back with the usual props and accessories to wear during your shoot.
There’s a discount section where all albums on the shelves were slightly discounted, which had quite a random selection, mostly NCT.
There was a BTS section where you could get Lightsticks, Albums, and Merch for the upcoming concert.
There was a small amount of other albums, a couple of the newest Stray Kids, Enhypen, Ateez, Blackpink, Itzy, and Kickflip
Compared to Sokollab’s or K-pop Playground, it’s pretty meager.
Some official Plushies were available, mostly BTS, StrayKids, Hello Kitty, and Zerobaseone.
Then, a whole wall dedicated to Photocards for pretty much most groups, but you have to shuffle through them to see if you can find a member you want. There was a random lottery for Stray Kids and Ateez on the side of this.
Lastly, there were lightsticks again, a small selection, we are guessing, for the upcoming London shows, so more maybe added.
Now for the important part – what were the prices like?
Well, we aren’t talking HMV prices, which are extreme, but it was fairly close!
Plushies were around £35-£40 each
Photocards were £12 each
Albums ranged from £28 to £60
The random Lottery was £10-£12 each go.
Lightsticks were £65-£100
I mean, this isn’t the most expensive, but it’s not great..
Overall, we are still wishing for the Myeongdong CD shop in Seoul to suddenly appear in London with the same sort of prices, but that’s not likely to happen with import tax and the like. So, for now, I guess we rely on our internet shops and wait for the day we can open our own shop!
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