Vinyl Me Please (store, exclusives, swaps, etc)
- Thread starter Captainfog
- Start date
Btsvinylfarm
Active Member
See, I guess this is where I disagree. Or at least it shouldn't be hard to judge - do they really not know their customers that much?
I feel like if folks here and on the Reddit sub have a great idea and feel for the popularity of a given title; VMP should, too. Maybe my mistake is putting faith in them to be good at such a basic element of a business - knowing your customer.
oldschoolkirby
Well-Known Member
Any opinions on Hud Dreems? Considering this or one of the Townes Van Zandt albums as a swap. 
Ponman2003
Well-Known Member
Basically happened last month with Aretha, Roots, & El-P when Freedom Rider showed up as a late swap (though it was also briefly available for purchase at full price). But just swap Essentials. Even the fastest moving essentials recently (QOTSA and De La Soul) had at least one month in SWAPs.
Ponman2003
Well-Known Member
The package is nice, the discs look great, sound pretty good. But it's available elsewhere. I'd go TVZ if you're 50/50.Any opinions on Hud Dreems? Considering this or one of the Townes Van Zandt albums as a swap.
Rahawk2
Well-Known Member
Chaos, Bedlam and Anarchy
GelloJive
Member
Any opinions on Hud Dreems? Considering this or one of the Townes Van Zandt albums as a swap.
TVZ is also available elsewhere (unless it’s sold out?). I really like HUD Dreams, although I got the black version and original cover from Turntable Lab.
I’m actually considering TVZ. With this crazy swap business (can only swap once which I didn’t know), I have a TVZ swapped for Caroline Rose and Blackalicious swapped for Classics. I’m thinking it might be good to expand my collection with country/folk, but I also might ask customer service to take it off.
mdmost
Well-Known Member
I've wondered before if we may be discounting there are probably a decent amount of people who don't even bother seeing what the swaps are and just have the ROTM come in. I'd guess that number isn't particularly large but I could see there being a segment that just signs up for a service and doesn't bother to swap or look at the options. How much is this site and Reddit versus their total number of subscribers? Also, I'd imagine when they enter into an agreement with the labels, a certain number of records have to be produced.
Turbo
Well-Known Member
You should be able to do that right now if you search a little. It's been leaked for several weeks.
(full disclosure: I really like it. I also loved her previous album).
Ponman2003
Well-Known Member
I keep telling myself to stream the TVZ albums, but I'm stuck in discovering early 2000s indie rock. It was just before my time, and I'm realizing how tasty it all it is.
Ponman2003
Well-Known Member
I'd guess the number actually is very large.
Heath
Well-Known Member
This is me. Which makes me a little annoyed at the whole "swap exclusive thing"...here are choices exclusive to members...as long as they're members who decided they don't want the thing VMP curated for them. I don't see my membership going on for much longer so it's not a big deal, it's just an interesting subset of members to choose to offer the remaining stock of exclusives to.
bettim84
Well-Known Member
I'd wager you're actually describing the majority of their members (if anything because most of us who followed them closely have already jumped ship!).
Yeah, I'm not thrilled with the idea. I never swap because I signed up for the VMP curation. It's cool they offer swaps, but to not be able to access to these unless I decide to not get one of the curated choices kind of sucks.
But oh well. Can't make everyone happy.
Dark Star Boogie
Well-Known Member
Caribou - Suddenly shipped.
Thought I’d have to wait until next month’s box,
so that’s cool.
Thought I’d have to wait until next month’s box,
so that’s cool.
Heath
Well-Known Member
Yeah, in a way it makes sense since it's presumably titles with super limited stock that would otherwise go too quickly, and on top of that it's stuff that we had a chance to buy already before, so I won't lose any sleep over it.
Jeff Lerner
Well-Known Member
So are Aretha Now and Lucille
Yeah, fortunately for me I don't really sleep on exclusives I want since I have bad FOMO and know I don't swap. So hopefully it doesnt ever hit me that hard. Still a surprising decision to me though.
I suppose they had to do something to improve swaps though with all the complaints (though I think it's cool they even allow swaps for all 3 tracks in the first place). This seems to make people happy so good for them.
MikeH
Well-Known Member
Here and the Reddit sub make up a very very small section of VMP user base. I have friends who subscribe to VMP who don’t use Reddit or forums and didn’t even know you could swap tracks. The subscriber base is so diverse partially because VMP doesn’t know who their customer base is and they are trying to throw everything at the wall. You have the people who are just getting into vinyl, you have audiophiles who are buying the AP pressings they just released, you have hip hop heads, people signing up to get 1 album, etc. I mean just look at this months’ options—they are all over the place. You also have the benefit and the curse of social media influencing people’s choices. I feel like 70+% of people who bought something like Still Woozy hadn’t even listened to it and just bought it because people online had hyped it so much.
VMP has had a number of albums I was SURE would sell out that ended up being in the store for months and months (I was so sure Lil Wayne would sell out quickly because it’s a great rap album and was hard to find on vinyl. We know from Storf that they thought Fancy Free and Paramount Tapes would sell out really quickly and those are still in the store a year+ later. I don’t think it’s as easy as you’d think to know what their customer base wants because they don’t really have a typical customer demographic they have been reaching out to.
the other thing I think you may be forgetting is that these albums are already pressed way before the public knows what the records are. So for all the people against something like Patrice Rushen, we have hindsight to judge that pick whereas VMP doesn’t really. To be fair, I don’t think I ever would have chosen that as the ROTM anyway...but a lot also has to do with partnerships, connections, etc.
I don’t think they know who their customers are and a bunch of that is their own fault. Getting rid of the one month subs was an effort to get an idea of how many people are locked in as subscribers but swaps makes it harder to predict who wants what. And with their curation seemingly becoming weaker, swaps are even more prevalent. I’ve seen quite a lot of people not even wanting any of the three ROTMs and just buying based on resale or what other people are hyping.