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

Skalap said:
You know this forum is not about VMP anymore? There are 4 VMP threads IIRC and hundred of others non VMP.
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Of course! I do lurk on some other threads too and love the Needles&Grooves forum in general, but I'm mostly active on the VMP threads! I love the Wax Buyers Club thread, the Fresh Grabs, What's Spinning, Jazz, Hip-Hop and other threads, but I'm 90% active on the VMP threads! 🙈

I love this Needles&Grooves community though! I love you and everyone on here! And I love how caring everyone on here is too! But I mainly go on Needles&Grooves for the VMP threads and I just know most people's sentiments towards VMP at this moment with what has just occurred, is very negative (understandably so). And I'm such a baby too! I think I just don't want to see all the posts I'm seeing right now in the next 2-3 weeks. I'm more than happy to read all of it now and talk about it and I'm happy everyone is discussing their feelings, but I just know I'll be a bit heartbroken hearing about how everyone is dropping out and why everyone is cancelling their membership and this and that. Will be good for me mentally to have a break too! When I got banned from the VMP forum and took 3 months off it, I got used to it and didn't mind it actually. So I might try it again, but only for around 2-3 weeks! ☺👍
 
Kyuuji said:
From my experience between VMP and seeing your communications and responses from people subbed to Wax Buyer's I'd honestly say it could be as basic as a matter of care.
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Well, as I much as I want my record club to be bigger, the comparaison can't stand. Wax Buyers Club is microscopic and a one man "business".
uvwxVinyl said:
That's what I thought and expected they would do but many on here said the test pressings only come in black.

Imo VMP is big enough to have a proper picture of the record before they sell it. They should have a product in hand rather than some mockup made from someone's interpretation.

I always found that to be a cop out to say "actual colour might vary" when your whole model is based on providing an exclusive colour.
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A classic TP is black. If you want a TP to get a good idea of what the variant will look like, it costs much more money. But I think VMP can afford it.
The option we've choose at Wax Buyers Club is to get our ROTM at our HQ and then take it in picture. It is a bit complicated but at least there is 2 avantages :
- the mockup is specific
- I'm sure i can send ROTM on time. And this is a pretty huge deal.

Maybe the "actual colour might vary" is usefull for special vinyl like splatter? Because in this case every record is different?

Skalap said:
I am surprised it's not more than 1% but I believe a lot of record buyers don't even know they have damaged records. Back in 2016, BBC did a study that showed that 48% of people who bought a vinyl last month have yet to play the record. It also says that early half of vinyl buyers (45%) said they had listened to the record on a streaming service before buying the physical copy (so do they actually play the record they bought). Also, a good number are both record collectors and music lovers. I don't want to offend anyone but many of us can buy the same record with different colors, artwork, pressing plant, etc... They certainly check the item visually but probably won't play the same record for the eleventh time so if there is a pressing defect on their copy, they'll maybe never know it. Then there are the flippers who may not even unpack their purchases.
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It must be more than 1% yes. I was just sharing our figures at Wax Buyers Club.
About vinyl buyers who do not hear their records, I might be one of them from time to time… I've got some records here in my collection I've just listened one time and forgot I got it. :(
 
Rowan said:
To be honest I think it gets lost that there are people like yourself who actually work for VMP and who will be mega impacted if they go under as opposed to the likes of me that can just shop elsewhere. I'm not entirely sure you and other staff there are necessarily at the forefront of their mind when they do shit like this
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Hey there! Stop trying to make me look as if I am sponsored by VMP, only care about VMP! 🚔🚨🆘

I shop at a few record stores here in Melbourne (On Monday, I'm going to go to my local to get PJ Harvey, Talking Heads and Joy Division), and get records flattened occasionally, buy cleaning stuff and sleeves etc, and shop at other record places to get high quality releases (Speakers Corner, Sam Records, MoFi, Analogue Productions etc)! I'm a current of Wax Buyers Club and will survive completely fine if VMP go under and happen to not exist in the future. I'll be all good! I just love VMP so much, that is all! ☺🤝
 
I just signed up for the year at 299 breaks down to 25 a month anyway, Plus if I do the swap credit I;m guessing they'll give me the full 43. Gonna try and see if they'll offer the same deal on my 2nd account even though it's not active, at the rate that they're losing customers they might. If I can open a 3rd at that price it'll be the exact same I'm paying now.
 
Wow. I’m extremely bummed by this news. I think I’ll do a 3 or 6 month to kind of hang around (12 is just too much to allocate to this company right now).....but man this sucks. A 30 some plus in increases across the board i have no idea how this company stays afloat. I’m mainly bummed at what it’s gonna do to this community considering many will cancel because $43 repressed of records that are easily accessible doesn’t seem like the best business model.
 
duke86fan said:
audiophile hip hop reissues are completely ignored and its not like VMP really does a great job there either...
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MoFi is doing a 2LP 45rpm cut of Raising Hell: Run DMC - Raising Hell (Numbered 180g 45rpm Vinyl 2LP)

duke86fan said:
the highest level pressing they did for one was slowthai since it was pressed by QRP, and besides that snoop dogg sounded fantastic... i want a hip hop title pressed on a high quality record... give us 2pac or kanye or the beastie boys on a high quality pressing (like how KSG is on RTI)
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Nothing Great About Britain was actually pressed at MPO I believe.

This is another problem with their business model. They're platting at QRP and then pressing elsewhere (most often GZ which isn't great; though MPO is generally halfway decent). Why plate at the premium/expensive plant if you are going to press it at the Czech plant known for
being a bit lower on the quality side?
 
Kyuuji said:
giphy.gif


Wasn't there also times people got in on free international shipping without being members because of the magazine links? Not sure if I’m misremembering.
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No comment 😂

I may have got a copy of when the pawn for member price with free int shipping despite not having been a member then.

Edd said:
There is plenty of pressing plant. If one screw up a pressing with 15% of bad records, easy to take another one. Especially with so much quantity from VMP.
And about the mockup problem, pressing plant CAN « test press » the colour. So the mockup could be done with a real picture.
Really, I don’t get it. :(
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Kyuuji said:
From my experience between VMP and seeing your communications and responses from people subbed to Wax Buyer's I'd honestly say it could be as basic as a matter of care.
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I agree Edd. I get the impression from the interaction with staff in the old forums that they’re run by a relatively young and immature staff and that they’re all about the fun of picking records and nice colours or are all about maximum profits. I get no impression that there is anyone there with the knowledge, care and interest in logistics to ensure that the they provide their target customers with the best possible product, delivered quickly and in tact at the right price.
 
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NathanRicaud said:
Of course! I do lurk on some other threads too and love the Needles&Grooves forum in general, but I'm mostly active on the VMP threads! I love the Wax Buyers Club thread, the Fresh Grabs, What's Spinning, Jazz, Hip-Hop and other threads, but I'm 90% active on the VMP threads! 🙈

I love this Needles&Grooves community though! I love you and everyone on here! And I love how caring everyone on here is too! But I mainly go on Needles&Grooves for the VMP threads and I just know most people's sentiments towards VMP at this moment with what has just occurred, is very negative (understandably so). And I'm such a baby too! I think I just don't want to see all the posts I'm seeing right now in the next 2-3 weeks. I'm more than happy to read all of it now and talk about it and I'm happy everyone is discussing their feelings, but I just know I'll be a bit heartbroken hearing about how everyone is dropping out and why everyone is cancelling their membership and this and that. Will be good for me mentally to have a break too! When I got banned from the VMP forum and took 3 months off it, I got used to it and didn't mind it actually. So I might try it again, but only for around 2-3 weeks! ☺👍
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My guess is that this thread will die down a bit. I’d definitely stay off reddit though 😂
 
Rahawk2 said:
I just signed up for the year at 299 breaks down to 25 a month anyway, Plus if I do the swap credit I;m guessing they'll give me the full 43.
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I assume you would get 1/12 of what you paid if you go for swap credit. When paying $299, you would get about $24,90. It used to be that way the recent months.
 
Joe Mac said:
No comment 😂

I may have got a copy of when the pawn for member price with free int shipping despite not having been a member then.




I agree Edd. I get the impression from the interaction with staff in the old forums that they’re run by a relatively young and immature staff and that they’re all about the fun of picking records and nice records or are all about maximum profits. I get no impression that there is anyone there with the knowledge, care and interest in logistics to ensure that the they provide their target customers with the best possible product, delivered quickly and in tact at the right price.
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I once asked my brother if he knew someone working in the music industry that could help me to have a job in the industry I love. He had a friend and this friend answered him that they try to avoid music lovers as they react more with their heart and guts than with their mind. I am not saying someone can't work in the music industry and be a music lover (a lot can) but in the case of VMP, they seemed to hire young music lovers to deal with other music lovers. It works when you are supposed to be a club and want to act like a club, it doesn't work when you are a worldwide company and want to make money first, a lot of money.
 
roffle24 said:
I had almost no incentive to leave the month to month, but now I'm considering the $299 for a year since it's significantly cheaper than $43 a month. No chance I'm going to do month to month, or even 3 months at a time, the discount just isn't good enough.

Unpopular opinion to stay subscribed, but I really like their classics track and I'll add and drop RHH and Essentials when I want something.

These changes are definitely going to tighten my purchases up for add-on's to only tracks that I'm dead set on.
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Hold on, there! What? I'm trying to backtrack to see what everyone is talking about. How much are they going to charge for month to month subscriptions?
 
Joe Mac said:
No comment 😂

I may have got a copy of when the pawn for member price with free int shipping despite not having been a member then.




I agree Edd. I get the impression from the interaction with staff in the old forums that they’re run by a relatively young and immature staff and that they’re all about the fun of picking records and nice records or are all about maximum profits. I get no impression that there is anyone there with the knowledge, care and interest in logistics to ensure that the they provide their target customers with the best possible product, delivered quickly and in tact at the right price.
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Nobody at VMP seems to be qualified for any of the jobs they have, which when you’re running a scrappy startup, happens. But when you start selling $10 million/year in gross sales, you probably need to bring in some more/better qualified people. Storf is an “editor” who is a terrible writer and has no grasp on grammar. The design guy is not bad but you can tell that they often resize images without having the right resolution which is why you end up with blurry photos on sleeves. They also can’t be bothered to fix things like the Blossom Dearie sleeve so they just crop it and blow up the image. There’s a complete lack of communication between every department. Nobody seems to read anything before they put it out. And we all know how the new website is going...

it’s just crazy to me that with $10mil+ in gross sales and maybe 20 employees, they they seem to have a hard time turning an actual profit.
 
Skalap said:
I once asked my brother if he knew someone working in the music industry that could help me to have a job in the industry I love. He had a friend and this friend answered him that they try to avoid music lovers as they react more with their heart and guts than with their mind. I am not saying someone can't work in the music industry and be a music lover (a lot can) but in the case of VMP, they seemed to hire young music lovers to deal with other music lovers. It works when you are supposed to be a club and want to act like a club, it doesn't work when you are a worldwide company who wants to make money first.
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As with anything it’s horses for courses. You absolutely do no look for music lovers in the money and logistics side. You get driven results orientated professionals. It can help with empathy in cs and is probably essential in curation if you’re going to try to do anything other than just sell.
 
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Siglet said:
Haven’t they been charging $40 for some of the ROTM? I’m not sure when that started
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Yeah, exactly! I remember former ROTM’s used to be either USD$27 (usually for records that were from 2017 and before) or USD$29 (newer ROTM’s + ones that got repressed like Gorillaz and Fiona Apple)!

Now a ROTM that is a single LP is USD$34 and a double LP at USD$40! Massive price increases there compared to before!
 
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