It wasn't, but that color sucks. For this album, how in God's name do you choose "institutional grey" over WHITE IT'S IN THE FUCKING TITLE YOU JACKASSES
Vinyl Me Please (store, exclusives, swaps, etc)
- Thread starter Captainfog
- Start date
hlaveta
Well-Known Member
I'll always take Clayton's version over the Stones.
BjorgenFjorgen
Well-Known Member
They're doing Townes exclusives, what, a year after the Townes ROTM?
Btsvinylfarm
Active Member
Okay but paying back the investment isn't their only cost and not their only outstanding liability, nor should it be their primary focus, either. Their focus should be on profitability growth/margin expansion and securing revenue streams long term.
At 30K unique subs, and let's use $27 per sub per month as an average, that's ~$9.7M in annual revenues from subscriptions.
At 30K subs, that's 360K records on an annual basis. Using $15 as a unit cost (and who knows, because I don't know their licensing structure), that's $5.4M in cost. Then there's the outbound freight cost, let's assume $3/shipped album. That's $1.08M.
I think Storf has mentioned VMP has ~25 employees. This one is a challenge without knowing all the roles and salary/wage structure, or benefits. But for grins, let's assume the CEO, CFO, and 3 other executive levels are taking a $100K salary. Then next 10 employees, maybe assume $60K? For the remaining 10, let's assuming they're full-time hourly at $13/hr? That puts your total salary and wages at just shy of $1.4M. Now, I have no idea if VMP offers health care, 401K, profit/revenue sharing, etc. And I have no idea what the overtime usage is like. We can just tack on a 30% benefit rate and shrug. That's $0.42M.
With all of that, VMP is left with $1.4M in EBITA (a 15% margin, and ~$120K in profit per month) before we tack on any other incurred expenses.
VMP certainly pays for advertising on social media, and has marketing expenses; maybe they contract with an agency for that. Same goes for their web platform (and I'd ask for a refund at this point). They also are paying for warehouse space for excess inventory, basically utilities, basic office supplies and travel expenses for someone like Storf. I can't make informed guesses on what that all adds up to. But it certainly starts to eat away at that EBITA. Taxes, interest on debt, etc...It all adds up. Maybe my assumptions aren't 100% spot on, but I don't think they're way off, either. Point being is that out of that $10M annual revenue, not much is left at the end of the day. And there's likely some months where they run in the red on the income statement.
Again, it's not a highly profitable business. It's why there isn't a viable alternative popping up at the slightest hint of problems at VMP.
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YimYames
Member
After all the shit Woozy caused with members why the hell would you post on IG bragging about it selling out at record pace? Mind boggling.
Murfocakes
Well-Known Member
I like the look of those Townes albums. But that’s it. VMP doesn’t deserve my money. It doesn’t deserve your money. I’d respect them if they pulled dropping exclusives and fixed things instead of trying to drop shiny objects to distract us
KenKaniff
Well-Known Member
As a human being, I honestly and genuinely hope the workers they contract at the warehouse/shipping (who I'm sure are underpaid) that have to work extended hours and throughout the weekends to fix VMPs mistakes; get to spend quality time with their loved ones during this holiday season.
Thank you for tackling this. I saw that comment and cringed a bit but I was not about to type a paragraph and explain it, all while actually doing some of the calculations now.
If anybody is actually working any extra hours...
Ericj32
Well-Known Member
It feels like they're intentionally stoking the flames of customer frustration and hoping it results in more visibility for their brand. I wonder how many new subscribers they've gotten to sign up off the basis of seeing complaints about VMP on social media. Sadly, it's probably somewhat effective.
Waitressboy
Well-Known Member
This.
Or blue, since the cover has all those blue spots.
But no, of course they went with grey. I wonder what color are the variants in all the other stores.
AudioAce
Well-Known Member
Sent an email. Mobb Deep hasn't moved since the label was made on the 5th for the shipping which is weird. Also asked about 4 other records that I have waiting to be shipped. Just wanna know if I'll actually get Pinkerton or not.
YimYames
Member
Bad press is better than no press, I guess.
Btsvinylfarm
Active Member
The main release is on white vinyl (available in David Gray's store and Amazon)...for a few bucks less, too.
Wes C. Attle
Well-Known Member
White variant:
- David Gray - White Ladder (2020 Remaster)
David Gray:White Ladder (2020 Remaster),LP,ROCK
www.bullmoose.com
4LP White/Black:
- David Gray - White Ladder (20th Anniversary Edition)
David Gray:White Ladder (20th Anniversary Edition),LP,ROCK
www.bullmoose.com
EDIT: Not sure where these are pressed, or if they’re from the original tapes, but I’m assuming it’s the same?
YimYames
Member
They probably already were, they work in distribution and it's 2 weeks from xmas.
So that was just kind of a lie, lol.
I’m baffled they did White Ladder on Concrete Grey vinyl what the fuuuuck. Like a nice white with blue swirl didn’t cross anyone’s mind, and if it did they were still set on GREY? I guess the silver lining is there’s no way they’re gonna sell out of that uninspired package so we’ll be able to swipe it in swaps.
SIDE NOTE: Wonder if the version on Amazon is 2LP 45RPM as well.
SIDE NOTE: Wonder if the version on Amazon is 2LP 45RPM as well.
Heath
Well-Known Member
So VMP can't manage to email members about the delays, but heaven forbid I log into the site without buying anything, because 2 seconds later I can bank on receiving a "Something catch your eye?" email from them.
And this is pretty low on the list of problems with the migration, but not for nothing, I hate it when companies send these "hey I saw you were browsing and didn't buy anything, ARE YOU SURE??" emails. If I want to buy something I will...get the fuck out of my inbox.
This time I didn't even add anything to my cart or even look at a product page...I literally just logged into my account to make sure my sub hadn't been changed from m2m to annual and then dipped back out.
And this is pretty low on the list of problems with the migration, but not for nothing, I hate it when companies send these "hey I saw you were browsing and didn't buy anything, ARE YOU SURE??" emails. If I want to buy something I will...get the fuck out of my inbox.
This time I didn't even add anything to my cart or even look at a product page...I literally just logged into my account to make sure my sub hadn't been changed from m2m to annual and then dipped back out.
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spilledleche
Well-Known Member
they have a 142k followers on instagram. the amount of those who know about their shit practices are a drop in the bucket, so there's no incentive to not act like they put out something awesome and it sold out immediately. they get to control the narrative of their brand because while their frustrated customers are vocal within certain channels, it's still a wild minority.