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

Nee Lewman said:
Full disclosure, I have not watched this (currently watching Nothin but a Good Time)
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This is an interesting interview. I give kudos to Matt for taking the time to do damage control, being candid, and not side stepping criticisms. There wasn't the usual VMP ego there. The short of it is they admit they took on too much got bloated, and they are now stripping things back to basics. They are aware there are problems.
Rocco tried his best to sell that Gus Cannon at the end. 😉
 
Biscuit said:
This is an interesting interview. I give kudos to Matt for taking the time to do damage control, being candid, and not side stepping criticisms. There wasn't the usual VMP ego there. The short of it is they admit they took on too much got bloated, and they are now stripping things back to basics. They are aware there are problems.
Rocco tried his best to sell that Gus Cannon at the end. 😉
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I agree, still don’t like Matt. That’s a personal thing.
 
Nee Lewman said:
Also, there are various times he corporate double talks… they definitely over sold Rocket to Russia or they wouldn’t have had to cancel people’s swaps.
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I think he was differentiating between semantics of intentionally overselling it vs it happening due to some folks using the 5 tracks to load up on R2R. They haven't figured out how to maintain swaps for non abusive members to have flexibility vs someone probably stocking up to flip a title.

If 10 members are in Essentials track, they likely order 15 copies (fake numbers). However if those 10 members were in 3 tracks and used their other 2 picks to swap for the Essentials pick (x3 per person ), VMP under estimated and under ordered. That makes forecasting difficult. It's within their rules but screws with the logistics.
 
Biscuit said:
I think he was differentiating between semantics of intentionally overselling it vs it happening due to some folks using the 5 tracks to load up on R2R. They haven't figured out how to maintain swaps for non abusive members to have flexibility vs someone probably stocking up to flip a title.

If 10 members are in Essentials track, they likely order 15 copies (fake numbers). However if those 10 members were in 3 tracks and used their other 2 picks to swap for the Essentials pick (x3 per person ), VMP under estimated and under ordered. That makes forecasting difficult. It's within their rules but screws with the logistics.
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Simple solution though. Say you can only receive one copy of a rotm per month and only let it be swapped for the following month
 
Biscuit said:
I think he was differentiating between semantics of intentionally overselling it vs it happening due to some folks using the 5 tracks to load up on R2R. They haven't figured out how to maintain swaps for non abusive members to have flexibility vs someone probably stocking up to flip a title.

If 10 members are in Essentials track, they likely order 15 copies (fake numbers). However if those 10 members were in 3 tracks and used their other 2 picks to swap for the Essentials pick (x3 per person ), VMP under estimated and under ordered. That makes forecasting difficult. It's within their rules but screws with the logistics.
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I would not think they would ever intentionally over sell something. Regardless of the mechanism, there are people who wanted a copy who didn’t get one because they did not allow anyone to swap in to it and cancelled people who were on promo subs. He used that example because it is the most palatable explanation.
 
bdm105 said:
Simple solution though. Say you can only receive one copy of a rotm per month and only let it be swapped for the following month
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It’s another have your cake and eat it moment for VMP.
They dont want to lose those sales, but don’t want to oversell.
Same with Customer interaction, they want to sell and create fomo via forums, but they dont want any criticism on forums.
 
bdm105 said:
Simple solution though. Say you can only receive one copy of a rotm per month and only let it be swapped for the following month
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This would be the natural reaction to the practice but they also want fomo and to sell out. So I don’t think they’ll go that route. Also given the fact that they can’t figure out how to make PayPal work with their storefront and Shopify, I doubt they’ll would be able to implement such logic.

I mean he made it sound like they gave people lost of notice (they got 24 hours over a weekend). They had done the swaps by Friday. I don’t think they’ll literally looked at each order as he claims they did.
 
ByersVinyl said:
It’s another have your cake and eat it moment for VMP.
They dont want to lose those sales, but don’t want to oversell.
Same with Customer interaction, they want to sell and create fomo via forums, but they dont want any criticism on forums.
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And this is why I don’t like him. He talked a big empathy game in the interview but showed a distinct lack of it when they nuked the forums.
 
And it may be cynical but his motivation in doing the video was to calm the talk of they’re in trouble. They are most definitely in trouble. They spent a lot of money on a plant with no return. They forced three likely large exits of their customers:
1. They ended 15% of their business by doing away with international sub
2. There are a lot of people who will be coming to the end of yearlong subscriptions in the next three months that will not be renewing because there is no 8 album incentive and because of #3
3. They just increased their annual membership by a large percentage on top of an increase that is going to make a lot question whether or not their quality (in terms of mastering, package) and curation are worth the elite product pricing, not to mention the fact that GZ is not an elite pressing plant.
 
Nee Lewman said:
And it may be cynical but his motivation in doing the video was to calm the talk of they’re in trouble. They are most definitely in trouble. They spent a lot of money on a plant with no return. They forced three likely large exits of their customers:
1. They ended 15% of their business by doing away with international sub
2. There are a lot of people who will be coming to the end of yearlong subscriptions in the next three months that will not be renewing because there is no 8 album incentive and because of #3
3. They just increased their annual membership by a large percentage on top of an increase that is going to make a lot question whether or not their quality (in terms of mastering, package) and curation are worth the elite product pricing, not to mention the fact that GZ is not an elite pressing plant.
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To your first point, they ended 15% of their business (international subs) that they were losing money on. The international subs were not profitable. It’s unfortunate that our international friends are being cut out, but I see why they had to make that call.
 
Nee Lewman said:
And it may be cynical but his motivation in doing the video was to calm the talk of they’re in trouble. They are most definitely in trouble. They spent a lot of money on a plant with no return. They forced three likely large exits of their customers:
1. They ended 15% of their business by doing away with international sub
2. There are a lot of people who will be coming to the end of yearlong subscriptions in the next three months that will not be renewing because there is no 8 album incentive and because of #3
3. They just increased their annual membership by a large percentage on top of an increase that is going to make a lot question whether or not their quality (in terms of mastering, package) and curation are worth the elite product pricing, not to mention the fact that GZ is not an elite pressing plant.
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but if they lose money on the international subs letting them go would be a good idea even for a well running business.
a problem for them with intl subs running out and people onboard because of discounted subs letting theirs running out may be, that a lot of people wanting to get rid of their credits before cutting ties with vmp which means moving a lot of product without getting any cash in.
 
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