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

Lee Newman said:
Venture capital will keep many an unprofitable company afloat for many years. It is a weird system this capitalism.

I agree the optics on this is just weird. I mean, the idea is to get more stuff sold. Just have a veteran's day sale. I'm just not sure I want to go through a back ground check for a discount. There is enough of my data out there with folks who don't really need it, you know what i am saying...
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Sure. But people have said they are gonna go out of business for like 5 years now. I just don’t see it. It’s not some liquidation because they are going bankrupt. To your point about just having a Veterans Day sale—They had a Veterans Day sale and then at least one other 40% off sale.

They can want to sell stock and also wanna give a discounts to students, vets and healthcare professionals. I just find it weird people seem annoyed that they are offering discounts. First VMP is stupid for doing a discount code anybody could use. Now VMP is stupid for giving a code that requires validation. Seems like whatever they do, a bunch of people will crap on it.
 
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MikeH said:
Sure. But people have said they are gonna go out of business for like 5 years now. I just don’t see it. It’s not some liquidation because they are going bankrupt. To your point about just having a Veterans Day sale—They had a Veterans Day sale and then at least one other 40% off sale.

They can want to sell stock and also wanna give a discounts to students, vets and healthcare professionals. I just find it weird people seem annoyed that they are offering discounts. First VMP is stupid for doing a discount code anybody could use. Now VMP is stupid for giving a code that requires validation. Seems like whatever they do, a bunch of people will crap on it.
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Yes. Lol
 
MikeH said:
Sure. But people have said they are gonna go out of business for like 5 years now. I just don’t see it. It’s not some liquidation because they are going bankrupt. They had a Veterans Day sale and then at least one other 40% off sale.

They can want to sell stock and also wanna give a discounts to students, vets and healthcare professionals. I just find it weird people seem annoyed that they are offering discounts. First VMP is stupid for doing a discount code anybody could use. Now VMP is stupid for giving a code that requires validation. Seems like whatever they do, a bunch of people will crap on it.
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I don’t think they will go out of business. I do think they will eventually sell to Sony or WEA and over time their quality, uniqueness, and customer service will continue to slowly degrade as their prices continue to rise and at some point some VP looking to consolidate things in an attempt to raise stock prices will discontinue the brand and cut jobs but by then no one will really give a shit anyways.
 
TenderLovingKiller® said:
I don’t think they will go out of business. I do think they will eventually sell to Sony or WEA and over time their quality, uniqueness, and customer service will continue to slowly degrade as their prices continue to rise and at some point some VP looking to consolidate things in an attempt to raise stock prices will discontinue the brand and cut jobs but by then no one will really give a shit anyways.
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At this point, I assume it will be Craft. I assume they are just waiting to see if the press is worth having.
 
MikeH said:
Sure. But people have said they are gonna go out of business for like 5 years now. I just don’t see it. It’s not some liquidation because they are going bankrupt. To your point about just having a Veterans Day sale—They had a Veterans Day sale and then at least one other 40% off sale.

They can want to sell stock and also wanna give a discounts to students, vets and healthcare professionals. I just find it weird people seem annoyed that they are offering discounts. First VMP is stupid for doing a discount code anybody could use. Now VMP is stupid for giving a code that requires validation. Seems like whatever they do, a bunch of people will crap on it.
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These codes are more in order to get rid of stock before they move, isn't it?
Edit: I mean, not these three specifically, I am including the ones we had before. Except BF sales I don't remember such random and huge discounts in the past.
 
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Skalap said:
These codes are more in order to get rid of stock before they move, isn't it?
Edit: I mean, not these three specifically, I am including the ones we had before. Except BF sales I don't remember such random and huge discounts in the past.
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I’d guess the generic codes at the end of the year were to pump sales numbers for the end of the tax year. I don’t think their warehouse/fulfillment center is moving is it?
 
TenderLovingKiller® said:
I don’t think they will go out of business. I do think they will eventually sell to Sony or WEA and over time their quality, uniqueness, and customer service will continue to slowly degrade as their prices continue to rise and at some point some VP looking to consolidate things in an attempt to raise stock prices will discontinue the brand and cut jobs but by then no one will really give a shit anyways.
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Curious what the point would be for a label to acquire them? These labels could make their own subscription service any time they want (see: the Interscope one). I guess the pressing plant could make them desirable but that’s a separate entity really. I also doubt that Craft wants to get into manufacturing. The large majority of their business is licensing.
 
MikeH said:
Curious what the point would be for a label to acquire them? These labels could make their own subscription service any time they want (see: the Interscope one). I guess the pressing plant could make them desirable but that’s a separate entity really. I also doubt that Craft wants to get into manufacturing. The large majority of their business is licensing.
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Brand name, subscriber pool and consumer goodwill. Same reason any big company buys out a competitor doing something similarish in the same sphere.
 
Joe Mac said:
Brand name, subscriber pool and consumer goodwill. Same reason any big company buys out a competitor doing something similarish in the same sphere.
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Sure but if a label buys them, then they’ll be limited to one label’s catalogue and no store exclusives that aren’t their own label. I don’t know that any big label would see it as a sustainable model. Part of why VMP is successful at the moment is the range across labels they release. There’s kinda something for most people curation-wise (price aside). And subscriber numbers can easily disappear. There aren’t any patents or valuable assets from VMP for an acquisition and doubt they are stealing enough business from major labels to warrant a purchase and then gut it. At the same time I guess you have a place like Mondo that gets purchased by Funko in what seems like a terrible move so anything is possible…

I dunno…just don’t see it. Places like Rhino are trying to do D2C and not doing a great job at it. But it’s not like solid infrastructure or good communication is a selling point at VMP haha. Labels are making money from VMP by doing practically nothing at the moment.

The plant could be a selling point but I imagine it would be hard to scale to something like GZ any time soon to press all the Adele albums and crap. And there’s nothing stopping major labels from opening their own plants. The fact that most haven’t by now though is pretty telling. They don’t seem to want to get into manufacturing.
 
MikeH said:
Sure but if a label buys them, then they’ll be limited to one label’s catalogue and no store exclusives that aren’t their own label. I don’t know that any big label would see it as a sustainable model. Part of why VMP is successful at the moment is the range across labels they release. There’s kinda something for most people curation-wise (price aside). And subscriber numbers can easily disappear. There aren’t any patents or valuable assets from VMP for an acquisition and doubt they are stealing enough business from major labels to warrant a purchase and then gut it. At the same time I guess you have a place like Mondo that gets purchased by Funko in what seems like a terrible move so anything is possible…

I dunno…just don’t see it. Places like Rhino are trying to do D2C and not doing a great job at it. But it’s not like solid infrastructure or good communication is a selling point at VMP haha. Labels are making money from VMP by doing practically nothing at the moment.

The plant could be a selling point but I imagine it would be hard to scale to something like GZ any time soon to press all the Adele albums and crap. And there’s nothing stopping major labels from opening their own plants. The fact that most haven’t by now though is pretty telling. They don’t seem to want to get into manufacturing.
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Yeah I don’t see the logic but they are the reasons for such deals and tbh I rarely see the logic in any large corporation buying out a smaller rival operating in a more niche area of the same business. They regularly do it all the same to avoid having to build that part of their business organically.
 
Joe Mac said:
Yeah I don’t see the logic but they are the reasons for such deals and tbh I rarely see the logic in any large corporation buying out a smaller rival operating in a more niche area of the same business. They regularly do it all the same to avoid having to build that part of their business organically.
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Something like Samsung buying Roon makes sense to me because they get a subscriber base, are mostly a hardware company so buying a software company is a good fit and they likely got a bunch of patents. A major label buying VMP just makes no sense. But like you said, these things happen all the time.
 
MikeH said:
Curious what the point would be for a label to acquire them? These labels could make their own subscription service any time they want (see: the Interscope one). I guess the pressing plant could make them desirable but that’s a separate entity really. I also doubt that Craft wants to get into manufacturing. The large majority of their business is licensing.
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Why does do bigger companies acquire smaller ones? Conde Naste coulda started its own music site, but Pitchfork had the name brand and street cred. I promise you Interscope service has a fraction of the subscriber base that VMP has currently. It would cost a lot of money for a Sony to build and grow a successful music club and even if it did it would still be in direct competition with VMP. If a big corporation thinks it can make money off of a subscription service like this it’s likely more cost effective to buy one than start from scratch.
 
MikeH said:
Something like Samsung buying Roon makes sense to me because they get a subscriber base, are mostly a hardware company so buying a software company is a good fit and they likely got a bunch of patents. A major label buying VMP just makes no sense. But like you said, these things happen all the time.
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But who's going to acquire Bandbox? That's the REAL question. Maybe we pool our Bandbux?
 
hayema7 said:
But who's going to acquire Bandbox? That's the REAL question. Maybe we pool our Bandbux?
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They get some good exclusives, but I ask myself on the regular who wants to pay for something that you never know when you are going to get. I am fully expecting them to fold this year. I mean the delays have been going on for two years straight, this is no way to run a business I know that.
 
Twentytwo said:
They get some good exclusives, but I ask myself on the regular who wants to pay for something that you never know when you are going to get. I am fully expecting them to fold this year. I mean the delays have been going on for two years straight, this is no way to run a business I know that.
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I feel like it's at least that bad with Brooklyn Vegan too. I'll never order from them again. Going on a year delay for a record there. At least when Bandbox does deliver they've sent me a quality product. And honestly knowing that's their MO and so far I've gotten most of what I've ordered eventually for great prices, I'm fine waiting forever and being surprised. I wouldn't order something from them that I want asap if there were other options though.
 
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