Every now and again I look around the shop and think: how the fuck are we still here?
Willy Banjo started in 1993.
That sounds quite respectable when you write it down now. “Established 1993.” Lovely. Makes us sound like we had a business plan, matching stationery and some idea what we were doing.
We didn’t.
We’ve just sort of kept going.
The world around us has changed completely. The markets went. The festivals changed. The internet arrived. eBay turned up. Amazon swallowed half the high street. Facebook arrived, then Instagram, then TikTok. Shops disappeared. Businesses got bought, sold, closed down or turned into flats.
And Willy Banjo is still down the same bloody stairs on Lowthian Street.
Not because we’ve done everything right.
Far from it.
We’ve been banned, warned, threatened, ceased-and-desisted, kicked off platforms and, on at least one occasion, accidentally wandered into international humanitarian law.
And that’s before we get onto the customers.
Amazon: gone, back, possibly gone again
We got banned from Amazon years ago.
Properly banned.
Then about ten years later we somehow managed to get back on.
You’d think that would be the end of that particular story.
No.
Now Amazon wants us to produce a letter from RAW in America specifically authorising Willy Banjo to sell RAW products on Amazon.
RAW. The smoking-paper company.
We’ve sold RAW for years. Loads of sellers on Amazon sell RAW.
But apparently we now need to go and get a special letter from RAW in America, otherwise we risk getting banned again.
We’ve yet to find another ordinary retailer waving this magical letter around.
So that’s currently going well.
After more than thirty years in business, some days are still basically:
“Can somebody in America please write a note saying Willy Banjo is allowed to sell cigarette papers?”
If you actually came here looking for papers rather than Amazon bureaucracy, our rolling papers are here →
Then eBay accused us of pandemic price gouging. On wet wipes.
This might be my favourite.
During Covid we sold one of those diversion safes disguised as a packet of wet wipes.
It was actually quite clever. There were genuine wet wipes at the top, then underneath was a little hidden storage compartment.
The whole point was that it looked like an ordinary packet of wipes.
eBay saw the listing during the pandemic, noticed the price of cleaning products had gone up and decided we were price gouging wet wipes.
They banned the listing. We weren’t profiteering from a national shortage of disinfectant.
We were selling a fake wet-wipe packet with a secret compartment in the bottom.
You cannot make this shit up.
Around the same period, eBay also decided we couldn’t list loads of the smoking stuff we’d been selling for years — papers, grinders and all sorts of accessories getting caught up in tobacco restrictions.
The funny thing is we’ve been on eBay since 2003.
We now have more than 23,000 feedback, 99.5% positive over the last twelve months, and Top Rated Seller status.
So depending which bit of eBay you speak to, we’re either one of their most reputable sellers or an organised wet-wipe profiteering operation.
Meanwhile, our actual herb grinders are here → if you’d rather skip the bureaucracy.
TikTok has banned us twice
TikTok has banned us twice as well. I can’t even remember what both bans were for now. They didnt like our sign..
That probably says more about us than it does TikTok.
At this stage, if a massive internet platform hasn’t tried to remove Willy Banjo at least once, I’m not sure we’ve properly introduced ourselves.
And then there’s the folder called “Sue Me”
Yes, we genuinely have a folder called Sue Me.
It contains the legal letters.
Over thirty-odd years, quite a few people have wanted a word.
Volkswagen America.
Zippo Lighters.
The anti-nuclear protest movement of Denmark.
The Medicines Control Agency, back when we were selling herbal remedies.
Smiley Face Inc.
There was some money involved with that one and some kind of agreement that apparently means we aren’t meant to talk about it.
NDA? Is that what it is? Fuck knows. Anyway, nothing happened. Never heard of them.
Then there was the Geneva Convention. That sounds much more impressive than what actually happened. We’d used a Red Cross on
some promotional material because, presumably, our thinking went:
Red Cross = medical-looking thing.
Turns out the Red Cross is an internationally protected humanitarian symbol and you cannot just stick it on your advertising because you think it looks handy.
Who knew?
Well, quite a lot of people apparently.
We know now.
Some businesses collect awards.
We collected a folder called Sue Me.
The weird thing is, the customers seem to understand us perfectly
This is the bit that actually matters.
We can put all the respectable stuff on the website.
Trading since 1993.
23,000-plus eBay feedback.
Top Rated Seller.
Google reviews.
Real shop.
Proper suppliers.
All true.
But none of that really explains why people keep coming back.
The reviews probably do a better job.
“Best place in the entirety of Preston hands down… anything you need at ALL, go and see the wizard.”
There you go.
Thirty years of branding work and apparently I’m the wizard.
“Beautiful staff. Smells devine. 4/5 dentists would recommend.”
We still don’t know what happened with dentist number five.
“The only Head Shop in Preston worth visiting.. Great Prices and a Gnome type person called Mr Munky who normally hides behind his counter…”
Our reply was:
“He’s the enigma :)”
Which is about as much explanation as Mr Munky requires.
Then there’s possibly my favourite Google review:
“Very nice interior, I enjoyed the food.”
We have never served food.
Not once.
So I replied:
“Lol, what did you have, I’ll tell the chef :)”
Maybe they went somewhere else afterwards.
Maybe there’s a restaurant hidden even further down the stairs that nobody has told me about.
Anything is possible at this point.
Some of you have been coming in for decades
One person on Facebook called us:
“Not just a shop but a local institution, nowhere in Preston can compare.”
That one’s lovely.
Another remembered buying records from us in the 90s.
That stops me a bit.
Because when you’re actually doing it, you don’t really notice the years stacking up.
Somebody comes in for records in the 90s.
Maybe they see us at a festival.
Years later they buy something off our eBay shop.
Then twenty or thirty years after that they’re leaving us a Facebook review on a phone.
Meanwhile we’re still in the basement.
That’s the bit you can’t manufacture.
If you want the longer version of how all this started, we finally wrote it down in The Willy Banjo Story →
The festivals were another lifetime on their own
For years the shop was only half the story.
The other half was us disappearing off to festivals with vans, stock, marquees, questionable planning and whatever disaster happened that weekend.
We did Glastonbury for 21 years.
We worked Knebworth when Oasis played.
We did Leeds for years.
Sometimes it looked like a successful festival business.
Sometimes it looked more like this:
There are plenty more of those stories elsewhere on the blog — Glastonbury, Knebworth, Leeds and all the stupid things that happened in between.
We’ve even managed to offend Keith Lemon
Back in 2013 we decided Keith Lemon looked fitter with long hair.
So naturally we told him.
He replied:
“@willy_banjo your rude. Just saying. I’m chopping all off soon.”
Fair enough.
We probably were rude.
Still think he suited the long hair though.
We don’t pretend to know everything
This is another thing I think people like.
If you ask us something and we know, we’ll tell you.
If we don’t know, we’ll say we don’t know.
One customer actually praised us for exactly that — saying if we don’t know something, we’ll go and find out.
That’s probably one of the nicest compliments we’ve had.
There is already enough bollocks on the internet.
I don’t see the point in adding more just because pretending to know something might make a sale.
We’ve been selling this stuff for decades. We know a fair bit.
We don’t know everything.
Nobody does.
So why are we actually still here?
Not because Amazon likes us.
Clearly.
Not because TikTok does.
Definitely not.
Not because we’ve avoided making mistakes.
We could probably wallpaper the shop with evidence to the contrary.
We’re here because people kept coming down the stairs.
They kept ordering online.
They told their mates.
They came back.
They left reviews.
They forgave the occasional cock-up.
Some of them first shopped with us when they were young and are still customers now.
Some have been shopping here longer than some of our staff have been alive.
That’s mad.
There are bigger shops.
There are slicker websites.
There are companies with enormous warehouses, next-day everything, call centres, algorithms and marketing departments.
We’ve got a basement in Preston, a folder called Sue Me, Mr Munky hiding behind a counter and apparently four dentists on our side.
And after more than thirty years, people still choose us.
That’s the bit I’m proud of.
Still here. Still selling weird stuff.
If you actually came here to buy something rather than read about wet wipes, lawyers and Keith Lemon, here you go:
And to everyone who has bought something, visited the shop, found us at a festival, ordered from the website, left feedback, recommended us, argued with us, made us laugh or walked down those stairs thinking:
“What the fuck is this place?”
Cheers.
You’re the reason it’s still here.
Willy Banjo
13a Lowthian Street
Preston
PR1 2EP
Phone: 01772 887772
Since 1993. Still here. Somehow.