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

Melt Face Molly Drop said:
PSA: If you don't have proper mailers, don't sell your records online. I once had an OFFICIAL (according to them on discogs) record store send me a record wrapped in an old Home Depot box. Thankfully arrived in OK shape, but at the very least it's unprofessional.
Click to expand...

Those of us who ordered from flightless back in the day have stories of literal pizza boxes. From Australia.
 
mcherry said:
I’ll leave it up to those N&G users who also mod over at that subreddit whether they’re ok with this, but we would prefer that questions for reddit mods stay over at reddit. Our users are here to engage like everyone else and I don’t want them to have to carry that mod hat over here if they don’t want to.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I mean - I agree, and appreciate the sentiment. If you really wanna get in touch with me about something mod-related on Reddit, just shoot me a DM or something. I have a full-time job and various other social obligations, so I may not get to it right away, but I'll definitely respond.
 
DeadwaxDude said:
Hot take?

VMP mailers are better than 99% of all other mailers I recieve from online orders.

I always keep them, and have never had one issue with damage when selling on Discogs with them. Of course I ship with the sleeve outside of the record, but I find them to be rather perfect..

Any corner ding I've ever had from VMP never effected the whole package, just one record (clearly before it left the warehouse)
Click to expand...
This is my experience as well. 🤷‍♂️
 
siremobunny said:
Also, how does not bundling orders save them time? (What would THEY do with more time?)
Click to expand...

Let's talk about bundling. Bundling (or kitting as it's often called) is really hard to set up in inventory management systems. The idea is that you have a product on hand and when someone orders that product, they're going to usually other products that accompany it. Think about painting a wall - if someone orders a gallon of paint, they may also want things like brushes, buckets, etc.

Inventory management systems get set up to kit or bundle the most commonly associated items together. The bundling process is meant to be static. However, in VMP's case, there are a couple of factors here which make me think this is a wholly manual process. Their orders change month to month - you can't assume that because someone orders a Classics subscription it should also be bundled with RHH or Essentials. You also have a ton of exclusives coming in and out of stock every month. Everything about their process is a moving target because they rely on scarcity as opposed to stability.

Think about how when you order from them, you get an individual order number. That's on purpose. For a system to realize that all orders belonging to person X that are in stock this month should ship together is a tough thing to systematize. So yeah, with them being backed up so badly, it makes sense to take the time that people would spend trying to bundle orders and just get them fulfilled. For example, I ordered four different items from Amazon at four different times on Saturday. They all showed up Monday in individual boxes as separate shipments.

VMP should absolutely be knocked for all of their bad business practices, especially this piss poor migration during the busiest time of the season. But bundling is pretty much a value add (both for their customers and themselves) and if it's not feasible right now, they do have an inconvenient workaround. They're really bad at this, but this shit is also really hard to get right, even for mature organizations.
 
AnthonyI said:
Wow, catching up on this thread is always exhausting, I don't think I'm going to do it anymore, lol.

So to all, I would like to wish a happy Holiday Season, best of luck with whatever your given issue is with the "Dark Side", and most of all, be mad, be pissed, speak your mind, use, or lack of use, your wallet as a weapon................but most importantly BE GOOD TO EACH OTHER ;)
Click to expand...
giphy.gif
 
It's interesting seeing people posted that they're seeing "fulfilled" for Aretha but not B.B. King and others. I'm seeing "fulfilled" for B.B. King but not Aretha or the other 9 I ordered.

Hoping there's someone out there that wants B. B. King more than Aretha who I can trade with in case we don't get both. Anyone want to pinkie promise on this?
 
Btsvinylfarm said:
The bold is likely out of reach for them. We did the math the other day, but I can't imagine they can really handle many more salaried positions for IT/support/etc.
Click to expand...
Oh, I think they need a little more staff on salary, but I was more referencing getting out of this current slump. Specifically my comments were related to poll asking about holding off on a January release.
I think VMP needs to take their medicine, and get temps/contractors in ASAP... like 2 weeks ago, lol.
I have more I could expand on, but honestly VMP isn't going to fix it, so I'm not going to bother.

I'll just be over here working on chargebacks and eating popcorn watching the VMP show. I've very ready to start a betting pool on when what day they announce a buyout or shutting their doors.
 
Satchmo2go said:
LOL, I remember not too long ago, I got a record from amazon that was in the plastic outer only. You know those plastic drop cloths that you use for piling leaves, or for painting...well it looked like that by the time it got to my door.
Click to expand...
I actually had a bad luck streak with amazon a couple months ago. I received a record in just an envelope, and another with the shipping label attached to the record itself. needless to say the outer sleeves were completely destroyed.
 
displayname said:
They need to put on their big boy pants and hire some temps to get this done. This problem is so much bigger than a ROTM. If they staffed up with seasonal workers (like every other online retail company) they could be packing boxes literally 24/7.
Click to expand...
They use a 3rd part logistics company that could probably clear any backlog in days. Saddle Creek ain’t the problem. Saddle Creek doesn’t know what to ship to who.
 
DeadwaxDude said:
Hot take?

VMP mailers are better than 99% of all other mailers I recieve from online orders.

I always keep them, and have never had one issue with damage when selling on Discogs with them. Of course I ship with the sleeve outside of the record, but I find them to be rather perfect..

Any corner ding I've ever had from VMP never effected the whole package, just one record (clearly before it left the warehouse)
Click to expand...
Oh, I think Bullmoose mailers are head and shoulders above VMP - whenever I get 2-3 records from VMP I get 6-10 corner dings. Acoustic Sounds packs their records like a tank, and Amoeba always does a great job of packing up records (bubble wrap and corner protection)
 
trickyseven said:
Ugh, email to CS time. After the migration, I checked my account and my address details were wrong (old address, I haven't lived there in months). I quickly changed it there knowing that shipments would go out shortly after and if I fixed it, there wouldn't be any problems.

Well, my package just went out, guess what address they shipped it to? Since they are so backed up, I'm guessing I won't get a response/fix until it's too late. I'm hoping to catch it in Informed Delivery, but then there is a charge for package intercept.
Click to expand...
trickyseven said:
Update on this. My USPS tracking info updated, it's delivering to my actual address. VMP is still showing my old address so let's hope that is just an error on their side.
Click to expand...
Another update. Something happened when mine went out for delivery and only shows as "Forwarded". I thought that maybe they went to deliver to my old address, then realized they needed to forward to my new address, since that is still turned on. Except...

I haven't had an update in a week and my package was in my town. I randomly checked my VMP account today and saw that there is ANOTHER order with a different tracking number that is in process with USPS (same record). I never got an email about a new shipment, but I have been getting the other CS mass emails. My working theory is that when they didn't deliver it to my house, they just sent it back to Saddle Creek and now they are preparing to send it again? On the off chance it's just sitting at my post office, I'm going to head over there tomorrow to see if they have it. I'm also still waiting in the CS queue for them to answer my question from a few weeks back.

The saga continues.
 
tvham said:
Oh, I think Bullmoose mailers are head and shoulders above VMP - whenever I get 2-3 records from VMP I get 6-10 corner dings. Acoustic Sounds packs their records like a tank, and Amoeba always does a great job of packing up records (bubble wrap and corner protection)
Click to expand...

Ditto about Acoustic Sounds. I’ve received orders from them that were triple boxed. Double boxing is standard for them.

Elusive Disc and Music Direct also pack very well.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top