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

wynn72 said:
I know. My point is, the logistics may be significantly improved with just another track or 2 going out in the normal monthly Shipping cycle.
As opposed to a few exclusives every week that could be shipped right away, or be grouped with your monthly shipment, and are often delayed, or have inventory misplaced, etc, etc.
They have the most control over their ROTMs. If logistics are going to improved, they should focus there.

CS responses were ALOT quicker in the days when there were only monthly shipments and exclusive drops once a month.
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It was also quicker then because they had a website that worked and fewer customers and less buckets.
 
MikeH said:
So you're saying that VMP is a company that sells physical goods but has issues with inventory, shipping, fulfillment and customer service. What could possibly go wrong by adding more inventory, shipping fulfillment and customers?
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I'm not making excuses for them. But yes, a more streamlined process with only monthly tracks would almost definitely help. The inventory issues are not as prevalent with the ROTMs (especially because they can press more when initially oversold). And they all go out in the same cycle each month. Every order would be a combination of 4 separate records.

I know we all like to trash on VMP and it's certainly deserved a good amount of the times. But I'm not pulling this out of my ass. They did used to be alot better in terms of logistics (especially CS) and it's when they had a much more straightforward shipping and exclusives setup. A new track or two would fit much more easily into a streamlined fulfillment process than the exclusives that have so many different factors, some of which are outside of VMPs control completely (like release date delays, and inventory being shipped to the wrong place).
 
MikeH said:
It was also quicker then because they had a website that worked and fewer customers and less buckets.
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Well it's seemingly confirmed that another track is coming so that's that. I've been way happier with them in terms of fullfillment since sticking almost exclusively to tracks and I don't think more tracks will change that. If they scale back elsewhere even better
 
wynn72 said:
I'm not making excuses for them. But yes, a more streamlined process with only monthly tracks would almost definitely help. The inventory issues are not as prevalent with the ROTMs (especially because they can press more when initially oversold). And they all go out in the same cycle each month. Every order would be a combination of 4 separate records.

I know we all like to trash on VMP and it's certainly deserved a good amount of the times. But I'm not pulling this out of my ass. They did used to be alot better in terms of logistics (especially CS) and it's when they had a much more straightforward shipping and exclusives setup. A new track or two would fit much more easily into a streamlined fulfillment process than the exclusives that have so many different factors, some of which are outside of VMPs control completely (like release date delays, and inventory being shipped to the wrong place).
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I was being somewhat facetious but yes, they were better at logistics when they were smaller and offered less products. That simply makes sense. They were also better at logistics when they did not have swaps and fewer tracks. But in the past year- year and a half, they have been absolutely AWFUL at knowing inventory. There have been times where VMP didn't even know how many store exclusives were pressed of certain titles. Remember when someone had to tell them that they actually pressed 1,500 of the Bon Iver exclusive instead of 1,000? They have also proven to be awful at estimating which albums will be popular and which won't (see: this month's BVSC fiasco).

Them fixing their logistics without bringing in new leadership or management is going to be insanely difficult. There is no communication at all between departments. Their "new" website is awful. Their inventory is awful. They don't have enough CS reps. Everything trickles down and ends up in CS's laps. Pauly said on reddit that they don't need more CS when someone brought it up. All sides of their business are delusional. Their CEO doesn't understand when to invest in things like logistics because he has said that he only cares to spend money on things that make them money. They try to cut corners in nearly every aspect of their business to keep their margins up.

I get that I'm often hard on VMP but I truly want them to succeed. They have good product for the most part. They have a built-in fan base that is very enthusiastic. And yet they cannot get out of their own way. 99% of their problems are avoidable.

Your idea, in theory, could work well. But in practice, if they cut down the number of store exclusives (or totally get rid of it) that's a gigantic amount of revenue stream they would be losing every week, causing them to make cuts in other areas which they simply cannot afford to do without further tanking the company. From a business perspective, they need to have money rolling in constantly otherwise their operation budget becomes difficult to manage. If everyone has a 3 month sub, for example. that is paid up front and they go 3 months without additional income from those customers without store exclusives. It reaches a point where the number of new subscribers drops off drastically, limiting the amount of new capital you are raising each month.
 
ThePakoBuelna said:
Eh fuck It. I'll swap for the 20% extra. I'm thinking they will overpress and will be able to grab it down the line in a sale lol. Plus this probably won't be shipping till October right?

Probably grab one of this AP Pressings y'all are raving about... 🤔
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You could do an add-on track, swap that for BVSC to lock it in and then swap your main for credit? You'll still get it (just not until October) and get the extra money for the swap...
 
MikeH said:
You could do an add-on track, swap that for BVSC to lock it in and then swap your main for credit? You'll still get it (just not until October) and get the extra money for the swap...
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That actually doesn't sound that bad... Will meditate it for the rest of the day 🤔

So what's the total with the 20% extra? I'm bad at maths
 
ThePakoBuelna said:
That actually doesn't sound that bad... Will meditate it for the rest of the day 🤔

So what's the total with the 20% extra? I'm bad at maths
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If your main track is essentials and you are currently set to receive BVSC, swapping for credit will get you whatever your monthly price for your main track is plus an additional 20%. Not sure what you are paying as an international customer on your current plan so I cannot tell you exactly how much credit you would be getting...
 
MikeH said:
Ohh I was confused about where you got the "I'd only get $20 from credit" thing but forgot that they re-did the $20 off 3 months deal. I thought you were on a regular 3 month.
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yeah i only rejoined for john mayer and spiritualized because "oh hey now its 60 instead of 81 dollars i can do that for john mayer, spiritualized, and whatever is available for BVSC"

but now because of that i only get 20 bucks for my main sub and now i am nervous i wont have enough money overall
 
MikeH said:
If your main track is essentials and you are currently set to receive BVSC, swapping for credit will get you whatever your monthly price for your main track is plus an additional 20%. Not sure what you are paying as an international customer on your current plan so I cannot tell you exactly how much credit you would be getting...
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I'm not on international, but I am on a grandfathered price... Hopefully they won't notice that lol
 
SpinningSince85 said:
Right, but the wording is vauge. It doesn't say if you swap out your essentials, it says if you're currently signed up to receive BVSC (I am , as an add on track) and swap for credit then you get 20%. It doesn't say if you swap IT for credit, just that if you swap for credit. I fully suspect they meant exactly how you laid it out, but that's not exactly what it says.
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I read it the same way. I am currently signed up for BVSC & Classics. So I added R&HH, then swapped for credit. 🤷‍♂️
 
SpinningSince85 said:
Right, but the wording is vauge. It doesn't say if you swap out your essentials, it says if you're currently signed up to receive BVSC (I am , as an add on track) and swap for credit then you get 20%. It doesn't say if you swap IT for credit, just that if you swap for credit. I fully suspect they meant exactly how you laid it out, but that's not exactly what it says.
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I think you can infer what they mean though.

*This offer is only available for those currently set to receive ‘Buena Vista Social Club’.*

If you have an add-on track that you swapped for BVSC, you cannot swap it again since they are locked in if you swap. If it is your add-on track, you are being charged $23 USD and will get $27USD to swap out of getting BVSC. They aren't gonna give you $32.40 to swap out of your RHH track haha.
 
MikeH said:
I was being somewhat facetious but yes, they were better at logistics when they were smaller and offered less products. That simply makes sense. They were also better at logistics when they did not have swaps and fewer tracks. But in the past year- year and a half, they have been absolutely AWFUL at knowing inventory. There have been times where VMP didn't even know how many store exclusives were pressed of certain titles. Remember when someone had to tell them that they actually pressed 1,500 of the Bon Iver exclusive instead of 1,000? They have also proven to be awful at estimating which albums will be popular and which won't (see: this month's BVSC fiasco).

Them fixing their logistics without bringing in new leadership or management is going to be insanely difficult. There is no communication at all between departments. Their "new" website is awful. Their inventory is awful. They don't have enough CS reps. Everything trickles down and ends up in CS's laps. Pauly said on reddit that they don't need more CS when someone brought it up. All sides of their business are delusional. Their CEO doesn't understand when to invest in things like logistics because he has said that he only cares to spend money on things that make them money. They try to cut corners in nearly every aspect of their business to keep their margins up.

I get that I'm often hard on VMP but I truly want them to succeed. They have good product for the most part. They have a built-in fan base that is very enthusiastic. And yet they cannot get out of their own way. 99% of their problems are avoidable.

Your idea, in theory, could work well. But in practice, if they cut down the number of store exclusives (or totally get rid of it) that's a gigantic amount of revenue stream they would be losing every week, causing them to make cuts in other areas which they simply cannot afford to do without further tanking the company. From a business perspective, they need to have money rolling in constantly otherwise their operation budget becomes difficult to manage. If everyone has a 3 month sub, for example. that is paid up front and they go 3 months without additional income from those customers without store exclusives. It reaches a point where the number of new subscribers drops off drastically, limiting the amount of new capital you are raising each month.
Click to expand...

Agreed on almost all points except that getting rid of exclusives would lose revenue. The subscriber numbers from the tracks are almost certainly much higher than the exclusives. And I would have to think profit is better for those as opposed to just ordering a small quantity of a colored variant (though with licensing costs, etc I could be completely off base there and could change significantly month to month). But they would certainly save money on shipping with only one a month rather than the many that have been going out since their bundling system “broke”.

As for being able to survive on monthly revenue rather than weekly? I have to think the vast majority of their funds are at the beginning of the month when subs are renewed and that would go up significantly with other tracks (maybe one of the reasons theyre doing it). They would need very basic financial management to stretch that the whole month if they removed staggered exclusives. Now whether they are capable of that basic financial management, based on their clear lack of business saavy otherwise, is another story...
 
wynn72 said:
Agreed on almost all points except that getting rid of exclusives would lose revenue. The subscriber numbers from the tracks are almost certainly much higher than the exclusives. And I would have to think profit is better for those as opposed to just ordering a small quantity of a colored variant (though with licensing costs, etc I could be completely off base there and could change significantly month to month). But they would certainly save money on shipping with only one a month rather than the many that have been going out since their bundling system “broke”.

As for being able to survive on monthly revenue rather than weekly? I have to think the vast majority of their funds are at the beginning of the month when subs are renewed and that would go up significantly with other tracks (maybe one of the reasons theyre doing it). They would need very basic financial management to stretch that the whole month if they removed staggered exclusives. Now whether they are capable of that basic financial management, based on their clear lack of business saavy otherwise, is another story...
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It's not so much surviving on monthly revenue vs weekly...it's surviving on monthly vs monthly AND weekly. Say you're selling 3 exclusives a week limited to 500 at $25 a pop, that's almost $40k a week in gross sales if you sell out. You're leaving a LOT of money on the table by stopping that. I know they won't receive that in net profits, but it's still quite a lot of money to leave behind. Adding another track for VMP means they want more revenue, not that they want to make things easier logistically.

To your last point, that's another huge issue. I know there are new subscribers and renewals each month. But I think VMP blows through cash and is likely counting on new subscriptions and exclusives to fund things like Anthologies. They currently have over 4,500 14LP box sets of Grateful Dead sitting on a shelf somewhere in a rented warehouse. Losing out on weekly drops makes one mistake like Grateful Dead fatal for their business.
 
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MikeH said:
It's not so much surviving on monthly revenue vs weekly...it's surviving on monthly vs monthly AND weekly. Say you're selling 3 exclusives a week limited to 500 at $25 a pop, that's almost $40k a week in gross sales if you sell out. You're leaving a LOT of money on the table by stopping that. I know they won't receive that in net profits, but it's still quite a lot of money to leave behind. Adding another track for VMP means they want more revenue, not that they want to make things easier logistically.

To your last point, that's another huge issue. I know there are new subscribers and renewals each month. But I think VMP blows through cash and is likely counting on new subscriptions and exclusives to fund things like Anthologies. They currently have over 4,500 14LP box sets of Grateful Dead sitting on a shelf somewhere in a rented warehouse. Losing out on weekly drops makes one mistake like Grateful Dead fatal for their business.
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I honestly think to your first point that a new track or two would bring in way more funds than the exclusives do AND would make their business run more efficiently. But thats only speculation on my part since we don't know subscriber numbers or net profit amounts of Tracks vs Exclusives. You may just as likely be right if costs are significantly lower to just press a run in an exclusive color of a wide release.

But I honestly think the news of more tracks means a likely end to Anthologies or at least a big de-prioritization. Storf said awhile ago that those other tracks they were planning were shelved in favor of Anthology since it was easier to commit to a theme for one box set than an ongoing track. I think it's obvious, especially with that Grateful Dead set, that this didn't work out. I wouldn't be surprised to see Herbie be one of the last Anthologies. They are just too big of a risk whereas tracks are a bit easier to predict month to month and even if they are left with a bigger inventory of an occasional record, it's not the end of the work.
 
wynn72 said:
I honestly think to your first point that a new track or two would bring in way more funds than the exclusives do AND would make their business run more efficiently. But thats only speculation on my part since we don't know subscriber numbers or net profit amounts of Tracks vs Exclusives. You may just as likely be right if costs are significantly lower to just press a run in an exclusive color of a wide release.

But I honestly think the news of more tracks means a likely end to Anthologies or at least a big de-prioritization. Storf said awhile ago that those other tracks they were planning were shelved in favor of Anthology since it was easier to commit to a theme for one box set than an ongoing track. I think it's obvious, especially with that Grateful Dead set, that this didn't work out. I wouldn't be surprised to see Herbie be one of the last Anthologies. They are just too big of a risk whereas tracks are a bit easier to predict month to month and even if they are left with a bigger inventory of an occasional record, it's not the end of the work.
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I think the exclusives are revenue srream that should actually not cost much work. They get them wholesale from the labels shipped to fullfillment, put them in the store software , sell them and sent them out ( theoretically). Their rotms mean much more work for them. And given they recently sold some exclusives pretty well at prices 5-10$ above our store that should bring in some decent profit. It would probably be better when they managed their logistics properly. The last month i was a member i think i got 4 sepeeate packages in 2 days when i ordered bundled member shipping. Shipping 4 packages to europe instead ofprobably eats a big chunk of profit.
 
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