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

I recently finished-up a brief foray back into membership. Here's my experience:

I'll preface all of this by saying I came into this with very low expectations. I absolutely despise the company (as many of you know) for all of the reasons that have been regurgitated over and over again. All of that being said, I am a consumer and I wanted the recent run of hip-hop albums, which I didn't previously own on vinyl and where important to me growing-up.

I knew what I was in for: pressing issues, shipping issues, packaging issues, customer service issues, and expensive records that are fine, but probably not worth what I was spending on them - eh but what's new. Well, let me say that VMP met my expectations on nearly all fronts. I've had to contact customer service multiple times, I've received over-stuffed packages with no padding or protection and shock dented corners, minorly to majorly warped records, and the ATLiens saga continues with no resolution.

When dealing with customer service they have been polite and fairly responsive however it's unacceptable to me to have paid for a product that has a pressing flaw and not have them replace it or at least refund me. I (like many others) have contacted customer service multiple times (about once per week over the past month) to check on the "decision" status. I mean Lebron didn't take this long to take his talents to South Beach. My subscription is up and now I just have this thing hanging out there.... waiting... waiting... waiting... for them to just keep screwing-up.

I splurged on my Sept. package getting Wu, PE, and Lee Morgan. They were crammed into a small to medium mailer with no padding and were crunched in shipping. The Morgan also had the hype sticker only on the package about 75% of the way. So it was rolled up and torn. Not a big deal but it shows a lack of care in the manufacturing and lack of QA during distribution.

Everything has had minor warps.

All of these things are minor. They're annoyances mostly, but what gets me is the experience of buying a supposedly premium product (albeit from a company I knew gave zero shits) hasn't improved at all since Matt Fiedler and his merry band of douche-bros booted us all from their start-up $ smoke fest however many years ago, under the guise of self-improvement and a better customer experience.

Will I still buy something from them if I want it? Sure - maybe... but I'll have to want it pretty bad and that's pretty much how it's been for me since 2019. Is buying from VMP equivocal to buying something from Amazon?- yeah kind-of... except that when I pay that evil corp. I'm almost certainly not paying $40 per record. At least Amazon isn't trying to be something they're not imo.

Anyway, just thought I'd share my experience. VMP is fine and if they, me, you, we, keep doing the same thing and expecting a different result...well... we get what we get.
 
jaycee said:
I recently finished-up a brief foray back into membership. Here's my experience:

I'll preface all of this by saying I came into this with very low expectations. I absolutely despise the company (as many of you know) for all of the reasons that have been regurgitated over and over again. All of that being said, I am a consumer and I wanted the recent run of hip-hop albums, which I didn't previously own on vinyl and where important to me growing-up.

I knew what I was in for: pressing issues, shipping issues, packaging issues, customer service issues, and expensive records that are fine, but probably not worth what I was spending on them - eh but what's new. Well, let me say that VMP met my expectations on nearly all fronts. I've had to contact customer service multiple times, I've received over-stuffed packages with no padding or protection and shock dented corners, minorly to majorly warped records, and the ATLiens saga continues with no resolution.

When dealing with customer service they have been polite and fairly responsive however it's unacceptable to me to have paid for a product that has a pressing flaw and not have them replace it or at least refund me. I (like many others) have contacted customer service multiple times (about once per week over the past month) to check on the "decision" status. I mean Lebron didn't take this long to take his talents to South Beach. My subscription is up and now I just have this thing hanging out there.... waiting... waiting... waiting... for them to just keep screwing-up.

I splurged on my Sept. package getting Wu, PE, and Lee Morgan. They were crammed into a small to medium mailer with no padding and were crunched in shipping. The Morgan also had the hype sticker only on the package about 75% of the way. So it was rolled up and torn. Not a big deal but it shows a lack of care in the manufacturing and lack of QA during distribution.

Everything has had minor warps.

All of these things are minor. They're annoyances mostly, but what gets me is the experience of buying a supposedly premium product (albeit from a company I knew gave zero shits) hasn't improved at all since Matt Fiedler and his merry band of douche-bros booted us all from their start-up $ smoke fest however many years ago, under the guise of self-improvement and a better customer experience.

Will I still buy something from them if I want it? Sure - maybe... but I'll have to want it pretty bad and that's pretty much how it's been for me since 2019. Is buying from VMP equivocal to buying something from Amazon?- yeah kind-of... except that when I pay that evil corp. I'm almost certainly not paying $40 per record. At least Amazon isn't trying to be something they're not imo.

Anyway, just thought I'd share my experience. VMP is fine and if they, me, you, we, keep doing the same thing and expecting a different result...well... we get what we get.
Click to expand...

Yeah same brief foray back in, same disappointing experience. They still haven’t bothered to send my September package yet despite them now seemingly taking more than a month to get to Ireland after dispatch. It actually feels like I’m paying $16.66 extra a record from my last sub (3 month international) for a worse product, worse customer services and worse shipping.
 
Joe Mac said:
Yeah same brief foray back in, same disappointing experience. They still haven’t bothered to send my September package yet despite them now seemingly taking more than a month to get to Ireland after dispatch. It actually feels like I’m paying $16.66 extra a record from my last sub (3 month international) for a worse product, worse customer services and worse shipping.
Click to expand...
I decided not to renew my Subscription for the first time. I’ve been somewhat insulated from these issues until the recent Mars Volta and OutKast pressings. CS have been responsive though.
The issue for me is the price rise. Still. Swaps in the middle of the night. Delivery delays (somewhat beyond their control). The new international rate plus the 10% tax we pay here Down Under is just a very tough set of numbers.
Maybe I’ll miss it and come back in. Who knows.
 
December_boy said:
I decided not to renew my Subscription for the first time. I’ve been somewhat insulated from these issues until the recent Mars Volta and OutKast pressings. CS have been responsive though.
The issue for me is the price rise. Still. Swaps in the middle of the night. Delivery delays (somewhat beyond their control). The new international rate plus the 10% tax we pay here Down Under is just a very tough set of numbers.
Maybe I’ll miss it and come back in. Who knows.
Click to expand...

Yeah I got to that point in January 2020 and quit then. This last 3 month run and a certain amnesia got me back in, Their international shipping was shit pre COVID and they use the cheapest economy service DHL offer. My parcels always went US to Paris to Germany, around Germany on a scenic Rhineland bicycle tour, and then to Ireland. When it took three weeks prior to COVID it was kind of annoying, 5 weeks plus after COVID and them not being dispatched by now is just a bit pathetic to be honest.
 
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Joe Mac said:
Yeah I got to that point in January 2020 and quit then. This last 3 month run and a certain amnesia got me back in, Their international shipping was shit pre COVID and they use the cheapest economy service DHL offer. My parcels always went US to Paris to Germany, around Germany on a scenic Rhineland bicycle tour and then to Ireland. When it took three weeks prior to COVID it was kind of annoying, 5 weeks plus after COVID and them not being dispatched by now is just a bit pathetic to be honest.
Click to expand...
You make a good point. I buy some records from big suppliers in Japan. I buy a box… pay. It’s at my door in Sydney 5 days later. With DHL. I’m not sure why it’s so different but you are probably right - because they don’t actually bundle records, shipping costs must be very significant so the lowest tier offering from DHL is the only way that can work for them.
 
They used to bundle their records and they’d all come out in a box once a month. Ironically that broke when they “upgraded” their webstore in late 2019. They used the same bizare cheap shipping back then too. The answer really is that they ultimately don’t give a fuck.
 
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