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

[Colonel4Bin]

These guys desperately need a COO who knows how to run a business. It’s just embarrassing at this point.

This is my exact thoughts. Pauly said on Reddit that they underestimated how quickly costs were growing compared to sales. You can't just stumble across something like that one day and decide to almost double prices...that's something that has to be implemented gradually. What a disgrace that this company is such a shit show.

 

[wmeugene]

I am just catching up, but I have a few thoughts:

1)There's some issue with their relationship with scalpers, timing cannot just be coincidence.

2) The GD Anthology could have been awesome, but instead it is grossly overpriced and is going to be an anchor and albatross on their bottom line

3) Of course they do this before Spirtiualized, which is going to have a huge demand.

4) Now I have to pay for their dumbass business decisions

I'm considering staying through for September because I really want Spirtualized, but no way I sign up for 2 more months without knowing in advance what they will be and them being awesome. I'm pretty much Spirtualized and out at this point.

 

[Captainfog]

How are you mate? Just dicking about really. The dog and I moved to the seaside and I havent watched a match in over 2 years which, after 40 years of aaarrrgh, now looks to be a hilariously shit time to give up footy.

Hahaha you've missed the greatest 18 months of our lifetimes. Glad you're ok tho. I'm not so bad either.

 

[Btsvinylfarm]

I actually think they're having balance sheet issues. It seems abundantly clear that they need money upfront, which is why there is no pay-as-you-go option for the longer duration subscriptions, and why they invoice you upon order rather than when an item ships. My guess is they're pretty loaded up on debt and have some big liabilities.

VMP likely is not a company with a robust P&L - they make healthy amounts of revenue, but I can't imagine the business is all that profitable. They also probably have a delicate balance sheet, and that's why they can't offer a pay-when-it-ships model. Probably a lot of outstanding liabilities + they definitely recently went through a new round of financing/capital injection. They need the upfront cashflows to sustain in the near term.

So, something like what has happened this past month is going to hurt them.

Now, I don't know if this will make them fix everything, because I'm simply not sure they're capable of fixing anything. But this clusterfuck, unlike smaller ones of the past, is more likely than ever to hit their wallets.

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.

Selling out RotMs and having strong revenues doesn't necessarily translate into having healthy profits, cash flows, or even a healthy balance sheet. We did the exercised the other day - VMP can easily be generating $10M+ in annual revenues and be losing month on a month to month basis.

The fact that they aren't actually processing refunds despite confirming them is a HUGE red flag. Either the system is really THAT fucked, or they don't have the money

I remember speculating on their financial health back during the web integration issues. The price increase announcement isn't surprising to me. I don't think they're a financially healthy organization and this is more evidence. If you have to raise prices above the going market rate, and do not enhance the value proposition and product offerings, you don't have a revenue problem; you have a cost problem (and probably some cash flow/balance sheet issues).

 

[Jan]

Come on guys, you're a little ungrateful. First you complained that swap for credit would not give you enough credit. Now they listenedto you and you're still not happy

 

[Mather]

Just send me my incredibly overpriced Dead Box before you go under please.

 

[Captainfog]

Why will spiritualized have big demand? It's available everywhere cheaply.

 

[wmeugene]

The other thing that just struck me as odd is, how do you expect to charge people this much when most BVSC orders are delayed to November? I mean, for $43, you better have the damn record in your hand ready to go the moment I renew.

 

[Kyuuji]

Why will spiritualized have big demand? It's available everywhere cheaply.

..because Vinceron's already put in an order for 400 of them.

 

[gregathon]

It's available everywhere cheaply.

It's currently pressed by Plain Recordings

 

[wmeugene]

Why will spiritualized have big demand? It's available everywhere cheaply.

That's on Plain, who is terrible.

It's an album that there is high demand for an actual listenable pressing

 

[Rowan]

The other thing that just struck me as odd is, how do you expect to charge people this much when most BVSC orders are delayed to November? I mean, for $43, you better have the damn record in your hand ready to go the moment I renew.

Just got a shipping notice on mine and I'd swapped it to classics.

They can appear a touch inconsistent at times to be sure

 

[Joe Mac]

Why will spiritualized have big demand? It's available everywhere cheaply.

Copy available everywhere cheap is a wank plain copy that’s as dynamically flat as you’ll find.

 

[CCKrone]

This is my exact thoughts. Pauly said on Reddit that they underestimated how quickly costs were growing compared to sales. You can't just stumble across something like that one day and decide to almost double prices...that's something that has to be implemented gradually. What a disgrace that this company is such a shit show.

It's funny because I remember saying the same thing when they closed the forum.
These guys just make the worst business decisions.
While I have my MBA, you don't need an MBA to see how they are running this business into the ground.
I mean, they closed their "community" which was a big selling feature and created a ton of hype for releases for reasons that I can only assume revolve around their egos.
Now they jack up their prices during a global pandemic because they lost sight of their expenses?!?!?
In the past they've made moves that made me think they might be trying to get quick capital and sell the business but it's clear now they are like a bunch of monkeys trying to type Shakespeare

 

[mitchplease]

Maybe... just maybe they should announce them if they're that big enough to warrant these increases. People might be just a tad less infuriated by the news

 

[Ethos99]

This is my exact thoughts. Pauly said on Reddit that they underestimated how quickly costs were growing compared to sales. You can't just stumble across something like that one day and decide to almost double prices...that's something that has to be implemented gradually. What a disgrace that this company is such a shit show.

Its their business to know how quickly costs go up. Hell that's every business, if costs blindside you then you're not good at business.

 

[wmeugene]

And in the US, they jump the prices right when a lot of COVID-19 benefits run out, like unemployment bumps, etc.

It's just tone deaf right now.

 

[wynn72]

Check your account page and see if it says anything about the discount on your renewal price. For me, it shows up there too.

Checked there, nothing.

 

[Pergo]

I remember speculating on their financial health back during the web integration issues. The price increase announcement isn't surprising to me. I don't think they're a financially healthy organization and this is more evidence. If you have to raise prices above the going market rate, and do not enhance the value proposition and product offerings, you don't have a revenue problem; you have a cost problem (and probably some cash flow/balance sheet issues).

These posts you made a while back was actually the first thing to come to mind when I saw the price increase!

 

[Kyuuji]

So the sell is £40 for a record that might be a dud, will likely arrive late and might look completely different to what was sold. On top of support that can take weeks to respond if at all.