Pre-Order Thread

POGunter said:
I think you are probably right on this one. This may be one of few times I have buyers remorse.
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I already know that there is at least one photo of me and my kids in this book. We went to 24 National shows between the record release show at The Bowery Ballroom on Sept. 7, 2017 and my last Nats show in Boston on Oct. 24, 2019. On the rail for maybe 19-20 of them, 2nd row for three. There may be a few pix of us in the book. I can't wait to get it.
 
TenderLovingKiller® said:
Oh, I missed the Walmart exclusive. The Now, That’s What I Call Music series thing is interesting. Like I don’t have or own any of them but they seem to do a good job at putting together compilation to fit each albums themes. The Vol. 1 & 2 of their yacht rock comps are pretty decent mixes too. They are like the modern day version of those Time/Life collections that they used to sell via infomercials.
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I have both Yacht Rock comps. They are great - I'm partial to #2 as I think it has a stronger tracklist.
 
Space Wanderer said:
It’s called “retail therapy” baby, and it’s the only thing getting me through this (hopefully) final stretch of COVID lockdown.
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Yes. I’m with you. Music and vinyl have been a key crutch this year trying to stay safe and sane. So I’m good no worries.

But that said, I get most of The National CT exclusives and they often sell out quickly so there is instant pressure to make a fast decision. Not the best consumer environment. Without the already sold out over-the-top blue version and the jerky refresh on the website from so many hits I might have waited on this one to see if the vinyl pops up without the book.

And, the price of many exclusives (not just Cherry Tree) have been rising so fast I have been trying hard to be more selective. Some days I do better than others. :-)
 
POGunter said:
Yes. I’m with you. Music and vinyl have been a key crutch this year trying to stay safe and sane. So I’m good no worries.

But that said, I get most of The National CT exclusives and they often sell out quickly so there is instant pressure to make a fast decision. Not the best consumer environment. Without the already sold out over-the-top blue version and the jerky refresh on the website from so many hits I might have waited on this one to see if the vinyl pops up without the book.

And, the price of many exclusives (not just Cherry Tree) have been rising so fast I have been trying hard to be more selective. Some days I do better than others. :)
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Yeah but the complaints that “the exclusives sell out too quickly” and “the prices on the exclusives keep going up” are somewhat in tension with each other, right? Based on what happened with the early reissue exclusives, it feels like if they had dropped the stand-alone 8 song vinyl in the exclusive colorways at $25/$30/whatever, it would have sold out in minutes and traded at $100-150 on eBay/discogs. Bundling it with the photo book seems like a kind of solution to that problem (not that that was necessarily their motivation).
 
Space Wanderer said:
Yeah but the complaints that “the exclusives sell out too quickly” and “the prices on the exclusives keep going up” are somewhat in tension with each other, right? Based on what happened with the early reissue exclusives, it feels like if they had dropped the stand-alone 8 song vinyl in the exclusive colorways at $25/$30/whatever, it would have sold out in minutes and traded at $100-150 on eBay/discogs. Bundling it with the photo book seems like a kind of solution to that problem (not that that was necessarily their motivation).
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Yeah, this gap between primary and secondary market is really the toughest thing for artists of any kind to deal with all well as anyone in the collectable sphere. This is especially true when people will inevitably put their feelings about it back on the talent. I saw this a ton in the concert sphere pre-COVID too. Either artist prices were too low, sold out, and then-resellers were able to make a profit on it, or the prices were too high and there was a perception of greed for a half-filled house.

I don't know how many entities have really ever hit that perfect equilibrium on this, I imagine The National is probably just saying "if we don't truly know, we'd rather price out some people than undersell it, make less money, and have people give the same cash to re-sellers". Hard to blame 'em IMO.
 
Space Wanderer said:
Yeah but the complaints that “the exclusives sell out too quickly” and “the prices on the exclusives keep going up” are somewhat in tension with each other, right? Based on what happened with the early reissue exclusives, it feels like if they had dropped the stand-alone 8 song vinyl in the exclusive colorways at $25/$30/whatever, it would have sold out in minutes and traded at $100-150 on eBay/discogs. Bundling it with the photo book seems like a kind of solution to that problem (not that that was necessarily their motivation).
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waruv said:
Yeah, this gap between primary and secondary market is really the toughest thing for artists of any kind to deal with all well as anyone in the collectable sphere. This is especially true when people will inevitably put their feelings about it back on the talent. I saw this a ton in the concert sphere pre-COVID too. Either artist prices were too low, sold out, and then-resellers were able to make a profit on it, or the prices were too high and there was a perception of greed for a half-filled house.

I don't know how many entities have really ever hit that perfect equilibrium on this, I imagine The National is probably just saying "if we don't truly know, we'd rather price out some people than undersell it, make less money, and have people give the same cash to re-sellers". Hard to blame 'em IMO.
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There is no tension. A fair price for an item and not creating artificial limitations is how you avoid a stupid secondary market. Anything else is just bullshit really
 
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POGunter said:
Yes. I’m with you. Music and vinyl have been a key crutch this year trying to stay safe and sane. So I’m good no worries.

But that said, I get most of The National CT exclusives and they often sell out quickly so there is instant pressure to make a fast decision. Not the best consumer environment. Without the already sold out over-the-top blue version and the jerky refresh on the website from so many hits I might have waited on this one to see if the vinyl pops up without the book.

And, the price of many exclusives (not just Cherry Tree) have been rising so fast I have been trying hard to be more selective. Some days I do better than others. :)
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While I'd also love for them to sell the vinyl separately (and fingers crossed that a RSD release happens, even if that's a pipe dream) the whole reason for this is to help Graham sell his photo book. They are doing him a favor putting it up in their shop. It's very unlikely that he'd sell a ton of books without them. He's a great guy, I've met him multiple times, but it is his affiliation with The National that's selling his prints and now his book.
 
Space Wanderer said:
Yeah but the complaints that “the exclusives sell out too quickly” and “the prices on the exclusives keep going up” are somewhat in tension with each other, right? Based on what happened with the early reissue exclusives, it feels like if they had dropped the stand-alone 8 song vinyl in the exclusive colorways at $25/$30/whatever, it would have sold out in minutes and traded at $100-150 on eBay/discogs. Bundling it with the photo book seems like a kind of solution to that problem (not that that was necessarily their motivation).
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Quality art books are expensive to print so the book isn’t that overpriced. It will be nice. I just do not want to infringe to much on my always under pressure vinyl budget by buying to many extras. Same reason I don’t buy to many tees. Only so many $$$s to spare.
 
Joe Mac said:
There is no tension. A fair price for an item and not crating artificial limitations is how you avoid a stupid secondary market. Anything else I’d just bullshit really
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Ideally sure but outside of financial reasons which would compel a limited issue there’s logistics preventing what is functionally a make to order system on most of these items. Like sure if you’re Taylor Swift you can pull an open pre order system on a bunch of variants but other artists likely don’t have that sway. And I am going to guess if you ask 10 of us what a fair price for something like those Cherry Tree items are you would get many different answers.
 
waruv said:
Ideally sure but outside of financial reasons which would compel a limited issue there’s logistics preventing what is functionally a make to order system on most of these items. Like sure if you’re Taylor Swift you can pull an open pre order system on a bunch of variants but other artists likely don’t have that sway. And I am going to guess if you ask 10 of us what a fair price for something like those Cherry Tree items are you would get many different answers.
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Oh no doubt an art book is expensive to make and sell. But it’s a really niche product for a small market of die hards. Tacking on the records, which at 8 live tracks is incredibly meagre, smacks of doing the barest minimum to drag in a much larger audience into buying a really dammed expensive item that’s not as essential as it might appear. I really don’t like that.

Also it’s easy. Don’t ever set a number. Either press to order or release 1,000/2,000 whatever, if it sells out order more and repeat until it stops selling out.
 
Joe Mac said:
Oh no doubt an art book is expensive to make and sell. But it’s a really niche product for a small market of die hards. Tacking on the records, which at 8 live tracks is incredibly meagre, smacks of doing the barest minimum to drag in a much larger audience into buying a really dammed expensive item that’s not as essential as it might appear. I really don’t like that.

Also it’s easy. Don’t ever set a number. Either press to order or release 1,000/2,000 whatever, if it sells out order more and repeat until it stops selling out.
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The National did that with their HV reissue - the initial club exclusive sold out quickly so they added another one, which is still sitting in the shop to this day.
 
Space Wanderer said:
The National did that with their HV reissue - the initial club exclusive sold out quickly so they added another one, which is still sitting in the shop to this day.
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Which is fine. And that’s hardly dead stock, it’s only a year later and one of their biggest albums, it’d be weird if they didn’t have some stock in their own webstore. I don’t get your point here though.
 
Joe Mac said:
Which is fine. And that’s hardly dead stock, it’s only a year later and one of their biggest albums, it’d be weird if they didn’t have some stock in their own webstore. I don’t get your point here though.
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I don’t know enough about the band’s business model to opine on whether or not it makes sense for them to press more of these than they’re going to sell in 12 months. I think it’s pretty clear from their subsequent behavior that they don’t think it’s optimal. But you can’t say they haven’t tried it.
 
Space Wanderer said:
I don’t know enough about the band’s business model to opine on whether or not it makes sense for them to press more of these than they’re going to sell in 12 months. I think it’s pretty clear from their subsequent behavior that they don’t think it’s optimal. But you can’t say they haven’t tried it.
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Yes but I can criticise doing the meagre minimum to artificially increase the value of what have already been an expensive piece both more expensive and more FOMOish to a rabid fan base. That’s what I’ve been getting at. Even a full live album of one of the shows would have made it more palatable at the price, even if it would still not have been my thing.

Non-limited and pressing/repressing on demand rather than artificial limitations on quantity are more where I want the whole market to move in general because right now there is something hugely rotten about this whole endeavour.
 
TenderLovingKiller® said:
I don’t know why everyone is Laughing this is a pretty decent collection of songs. Comps aren’t typically my thing but this looks like a good one.
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I’d be on board if it was done by the Pure Moods people. There’s a “celtic moods”, and an “instrumental moods” but they haven’t yet given us “Outlaw Country Moods.”
 
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