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

Anyone else having trouble with VMP's site today? When I log in, it looks as if I don't have an active account. I was going to try and add Classics for June, but all I get is the option to join the club. Anyone else see this?
 
Mather said:
There's an awful lot of hand wringing going on here with little, to no actual information at hand. The only way this new credit system is bad for anyone, is if the swaps become severely limited, there isn't really any indication of that yet. Sure they posted some titles that would be available in swaps, they didn't post all of them however. IF it ends up that only 4 or 5 exclusives are in there then yes, that's a step back. But maybe wait and see what's in there before coming to a conclusion that this is bad for everyone.
In terms of internationals getting a better deal out of this somehow, we don't. We pay far more for our memberships than US based members, so of course we get a few more credits per month, but those credits aren't given to us for free, those are direct dollar values of how much we pay. So if we're able to get an exclusive in store with our ROTM credits, and a US member falls short, it's because they haven't paid as much as us therefore they don't have as many credits. It's not a "deal" for us at all. Also don't forget we have to pay the exchange rate on these memberships, so up in Canada we pay a full 40% more than the US dollar value of our memberships. My monthly ROTM costs me $48 in Canadian funds. So yes, getting $36 back in credits may seem like a deal, trust me it isn't.

And I did not see anything that stated you can't still manually ask for a swap. I mean with CS times being what they are good luck, but I don't believe that this avenue has been shut down or anything.

Ultimately I think this is a good thing UNLESS they severally limit available swaps. In which case yes, it's probably a net loss for members. But swapping for more valued albums has always been a privilege, not a right... and as much as I'd prefer to be able to do it, and I may still be able to, I understand them adjusting the way this is done. And ultimately this now means that you aren't forced to buy an album you don't want month to month which I think is a great thing. Also the idea of using credits for an AP title if theres no swap I'm interested in is not a bad thing by any means.
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Yea--I didn't mean to say that international members get a better deal, just compared to other options for buying vinyl, VMP's shipping seems to be one of the better deals in terms of vinyl retailers. @dhodo said it way better than I did hah. I'd be a VMP subscriber if I was international too.
 
Andy said:
not for me :(
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Have you tried on different devices like cell phone, notebook etc? Sometimes it also helps when being on the phone to open the VMP site with desktop view. Once I wasn't able to buy something from my phone while being on a trip, and getting into desktop mode did help.
 
wmeugene said:
Secretly allows swaps via email to just about anything they have in stock. The other thing about them is that my membership costs $12.50 a month versus $30 (after tax) with VMP. I'm watching carefully and this may push me to be out (again) if swaps dry up.
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Did you get a black friday deal or somethin?? I think mine is $20 shipped so still not bad...but $12.50 is mental hah. I like Secretly so far but their music options are severely limited IMO.
 
wmeugene said:
It was $150 for the year at Black Friday.
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Yea. I almost bit on that but to be honest, the ROTM are too hit or miss for me and the archive/store doesn't have as much stuff as I would like either. I'm on a 3 month sub which I am enjoying but I already skipped a month and don't have much to swap to that I'd want to own right now.
 
MikeH said:
The more in-demand albums always sell out before swaps. So if it gets to swaps and members haven’t sold it out, then they have collectively said that it’s too expensive. Why would VMP include the Woodstock box set in swaps? Because they want to get inventory off the shelves. The longer a record sits on an inventory shelf, the less profit VMP makes on it. They do not have their own warehouse space. They are paying to rent it elsewhere. VMP’s CEO confirmed this in an interview recently. These are arbitrary numbers, but making $15 off of an album in swaps instead of $22 if they sell it at full price is worth it because they spend less on inventory space.

And as for people not knowing you can swap, I don’t think that’s true because if it was, their site wouldn’t have crashed when swaps were announced last month...

Think of it like their credits are a foreign currency. The exchange rate used to be 1 VMP GoodVibes buck = 1 record no matter what. You sign up for a 3 month subscription, you pay 3 goodvibes bucks and get 3 records no matter what, because you can swap for anything in stock. Then one day, VMP raises the prices of albums so that 1 VMP goodvibes buck can be exchanged for Anywhere between 0.8 records and 0.6 records now. How is that a benefit to customers? VMP raised the prices of their records but it didn’t matter to most of us because we could still get those albums in swaps. But now that we won’t be able to, the prices are crazy. Why do you think Shabaka has over half of its copies left in the store? Because it’s a $22 album on black vinyl that is being sold for $40 in VMP’s store. It still wasn’t in swaps last month even though it was already released.

IMO the fairest thing is as follows:
* have member and non-member pricing. Similar to what they have done with Fiona’s exclusives. Secretly Society does this for members too (10% off for members).

*have TRUE VMP exclusives. Members only. Never open up store exclusives to non-members.

*allow swaps for anything in stock.

*allow swap for credit if you don’t want any swaps or the ROTM and want to buy a preorder instead

This makes it fair to everyone, makes a membership worth it and gives people a lot of flexibility.
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The only thing I'm not 100% with in this post is that Shabaka is actually on an orange vinyl.
 
MikeH said:
Yea. I almost bit on that but to be honest, the ROTM are too hit or miss for me and the archive/store doesn't have as much stuff as I would like either. I'm on a 3 month sub which I am enjoying but I already skipped a month and don't have much to swap to that I'd want to own right now.
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I am in my 2nd year, and it's definitely a little all over the place, but for $12.50 a record, even if I get something I play once or twice it is not a huge investment loss and there's enough hits for me over the course of the year that I don't sweat the weaker months.
 
So I was getting ready to cancel (again) and noted that my account is set to renew at $54 for 3 months on July 1st. Which led me to thinking...if I left everything alone, what are the chances I would stay subscribed indefinitely at $18/month? It looks as though the term is set to change, so probably no dice. Anyone else seeing this?
Screenshot_2020-05-26 Account.png
 
Bluecloud777 said:
Should be in about 90 minutes if I'm not mistaken, best check at 22:45 German time as they often put things up earlier.
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Crap thought it would be earlier today.

I'm not going through this again like last month and getting annoyed and annoying my wife again right before bed.

I sent my preemptively sent my swap request 3 days ago (no reply still) so I guess that gives them a few more days to sort out my order.
 
hatfieldpdx said:
So I was getting ready to cancel (again) and noted that my account is set to renew at $54 for 3 months on July 1st. Which led me to thinking...if I left everything alone, what are the chances I would stay subscribed indefinitely at $18/month? It looks as though the term is set to change, so probably no dice. Anyone else seeing this?
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Haha, I have to admit I have had the same thought before. Same for me, except for me it says $72 for being International. I assume they will fix it, or maybe not. 🙃
 
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