Vinyl Me Please (store, exclusives, swaps, etc)

Dead C said:
They've had a number of exclusives sell out rather quickly lately and plenty more sell put eventually, often through swaps. I monitored it in real time though and we discussed it when it was happening and, without a forum to hype each other up, shit took a hard lull after the shift to N&G and it was noticeable. Neither oth Big Thief album flew out the door. TLC did not vanish for awhile. The last wave of Mr Bongo titles and the JuJu releases were kind of the last drop before the shift.

That was my point. Once the reddit sub became more active and they had some hype again, that's when they were dropping Madlib or Danny Brown and they started selling out day one again. It can either seem ironic that that's when they fumbled the ball, once they had some of that footing back, or like it was inevitable and unavoidable. A lot of the other sellouts were ROTMs and were fabricated through low initial presses and repressed like Outkast or Tical.
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Tys1 said:
Here’s my suspicion.

Ever since their birth, they’ve proven to be awful predictors of trends. Awful. They place far too many orders for albums that are unpopular and don’t press enough for others. In a way, this attributed to their success... they became a name amongst rarity collectors, and the built in scarcity helped! They got cocky, overvalued their product, and undervalued the importance of the community. Through it all, they still proved to be AWFUL at predicting their customer. They got the idea that if they wanted to take it to the “next level” they needed to change things up. They thought they could come out with a lot more exclusives, raise margins, and ignore both the community and the lessons from past failures. They invested heavily on their brand, and on more failed projects (the Woodstock box was a massive financial failure for them). They started to borrow money, lots of it... thinking that the next step was just around the corner... but never improving on their ability to predict trends or recognize the true value of what it is they had created. The rest is history, if you use your credit card to buy a bunch of designer handbags thinking you’d definitely land that big promotion (spoiler alert: you won’t), it won’t work out in your favor.
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If we had screenshots of the shutdown announcement thread from the last forum, you could see how many members spoke out about the invaluable resource for customer feedback and insight that could be mined, which so many other businesses dream of, yet VMP was tossing out the fucking window.
 
andyf said:
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You could post Tabakin, too, but the shift was abrupt between the forum being there and the weeks that followed, even if it wasn't as abrupt as the shift from pro-VMP "downvote any critique" to torch wielding mob that reddit has seen over the last few weeks. The reason A$AP Ferg was a joke is because it was an anomaly and Tabakim ultimately still sold out because of the forum.

I remember the Crumb exclusive drop and the comments about how people were happy that nothing good was released, because it was so close to RSD. I commented that I actually thought it was good. Lee said the same. Then it was one person after another asking for a link until the shit snowballed and it was gone. Tina"d, Tina'd, Tina'd. How many members did you see buying Plantasia and commenting on how they didn't know why they were buying a plant album, but the forum hype got them to buy it?

It might seem like a stretch to believe we affected it that much, but not really. A lot of "non active" members chimed in as the forum sank about how they watched from afar to get those scoops. We hyped releases based on substance and recommendations, while having a stock thread constantly updating us. It was all at our fingertips which makes a difference when you're releasing a lot of stuff that nobody has any prior reference for. Everything was going out the door in a few days, if not the first day. Those were small runs. For weeks to months after the forum went down, several exclusives with runs of only 300 were still in the shop. I watched it slow down, because I relished in it at the time. VMP shifted their FOMO so that it was generated even more by the secondary market.

It's really not that complicated. How did Still Woozy sell out within 10 to 15 minutes after the drop? Is it because of the announcement that they sent everyone AFTER it was already sold out? It's because they were able to reform some variation of community on reddit that interacted and hyped each other up about it, not only to alert each other to look out for it, but to know that it was coming at all. Likewise, the customers of reddit are starting to heed warnings about even joining. I couldn't even see today's store drop on reddit, because it, apparently, got downvoted so hard. And that's the method that they've chosen to have staff do official announcements on?

It's true that most customers aren't aware of the scope or magnitude of issues with VMP, but they still know they haven't received their shit or gotten CS responses. They might assume they are the only ones with issues and it's a fluke, but check the last 10 or so IG posts and the comment section is nothing but fist shaking and demanding answers letting people know they aren't alone. They have 142k IG followers. 142 THOUSAND. Facebook is just as bad, if not worse, and they have over 276k.

I thought killing the forum was stupid, because they could at least control the platform. They got control of the narrative for a while on reddit, but have really let that get away from them as of late. But with their social media soaked with this much poison... I don't know how they contain this, but it doesn't feel like ignoring it and hoping everyone goes away is going to be too effective.
 
Joe Mac said:
It’a not that I dislike them, it’s that I feel let down by them, I see that they’ve made gargantuan errors. I don’t trust what they’re saying and I would be reticent to give them more money.
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I didn’t dislike them until both their arrogance and disdain for customers became clear as day. They’ve lied multiple times throughout this migration mess alone and been found out for those lies, yet there have been no apologies or anything to address them.

They just stay quiet and hope it’ll blow over soon so you forget about it all and spend your hard-earned money on the most bland and uninspired David Gray exclusive possible that is not only less attractive than the retail release, but will show up three months after it too.

I wish they could right the ship and hope they do because the old VMP was incredible to be a part of. But they’ve scaled too quickly and don’t have the correct, competent staff with the relevant knowledge, or the ability to manage resources, to handle it.

To be the “4th largest US online seller of vinyl” and behave like they have continuously for an extended period time (their reactions to each fuck up they’ve made speak louder than the fuck-ups themselves) is a How to Prematurely Kill Your Potentially Massive Company With Your Own Hands for Dummies book in the making.
 
SJR said:
I didn’t dislike them until both their arrogance and disdain for customers became clear as day. They’ve lied multiple times throughout this migration mess alone and been found out for those lies, yet there have been no apologies or anything to address them.

They just stay quiet and hope it’ll blow over soon so you forget about it all and spend your hard-earned money on the most bland and uninspired David Gray exclusive possible that is not only less attractive than the retail release, but will show up three months after it too.

I wish they could right the ship and hope they do because the old VMP was incredible to be a part of. But they’ve scaled too quickly and don’t have the correct, competent staff with the relevant knowledge, or the ability to manage resources, to handle it.

To be the “4th largest US online seller of vinyl” and behave like they have continuously for an extended period time (their reactions to each fuck up they’ve made speak louder than the fuck-ups themselves) is a How to Prematurely Kill Your Potentially Massive Company With Your Own Hands for Dummies book in the making.
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Yeah, that’s David Gray exclusive is ugly! What were the colour variant designers even thinking 🤦‍♂️

Mmmmm I agree with what you’re saying though. Like VMP didn’t have the staff, including Saddle Creek warehousing staff, as well as Information Technology, Quality Control staff etc 🥴

And lying only makes things worse.....🤥
 
Joe Mac said:
It’a not that I dislike them, it’s that I feel let down by them, I see that they’ve made gargantuan errors. I don’t trust what they’re saying and I would be reticent to give them more money.

Honestly my instinct is that it’s 60/40 in favour of them being gone but if it does happen it’ll be quicker than June.

If you think the problems began with the migration then you’ve been burying your head in the sand for a long time. The migration issues are not an anomaly, they are symptomatic of the the types of mistakes VMP has been making since I’ve been a member, that’s March 2018, 21 months ago.
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Ok, so I’m only going to renew my membership for 3 months! Because I’m sure they will last that long. I purchased so much credit - $500 (thankfully I can use it on the membership renewal - CS confirmed for me). So I won’t have to spend much money at all really on vinyl for the first 4-5 months in 2020!

Mmmmm that last paragraph you wrote is true! Big problems have just been continuously for VMP since early 2018!

Let’s hope VMP fixes and refunds everyone who want to cancel their membership and pre-orders etc, replace all vinyl that is lost/damaged and refund all those who don’t even receive an order in a timely manner. Hopefully from tomorrow! Then they can start fresh in 2020 and hopefully still continue. They just have do less exclusives, but really attractive ones!!!
 
gafacaode said:
What a load of crap
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Come on, I'm not asking for replacements, I just want everything cancelled and refunded, should be a quick thing to do.
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They sent me a “Checking in to let you know that we are still working on answering your question.” email that told me not to send multiple emails (I only sent one) then 9 minutes later sent me the same email you’ve attached above, ironically again reminding to only send one email..
 
SJR said:
They sent me a “Checking in to let you know that we are still working on answering your question.” email that told me not to send multiple emails (I only sent one) then 9 minutes later sent me the same email you’ve attached above, ironically again reminding to only send one email..
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Same tIming.
I did update my initial email to let them know that part of the problem was solved (via PayPal resolution center).
I have now escalated the undelivered sidesubs charges.
 
gafacaode said:
I don't think it's a love/hate situation.
They are a business and people are pissed of because they suck at doing what the are supposed to do.
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Mmmmmmmm. It’s so heart-breaking how downhill the company is going! 😢

Makes me literally think to myself in a way “what the fuck am I doing still in a warehouse” 😂

That’s how frustrating it’s becoming to me 😅
 
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