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

Hemotep said:
I don't know about the second part. Even with their numbers after the huge push last year they still make up a very small percentage of vinyl sales, even if we only consider US sales. Vinyl sales have grown year in and year out for the last 17 years. While they're a part of the story, I think members greatly overestimate how important they are to the vinyl industry. It was already trending in the right direction before they came along. They pulled in some folks, but I don't think they got more than a small always online segment, which is why it seems like they were more influential than they really ever were to the industry as a whole.
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I agree that from a sales perspective, they probably made a small dent, if that. But I think VMP was influential in a few ways.

It helped give viability to a monthly release/subscription model for vinyl that actually worked for 10 years. No other company really survived this long while getting multiple releases out every month. Labels definitely took notice. Interscope doesn’t do their series without VMP. Rhino may not be doing rhino HiFi without VMP.

They also showed that there was a market for “audiophile” quality of music outside the typical Chad, MoFi and Jazz releases. They were not the only company to do this but their output was probably the most varied. I don’t doubt that companies like Craft saw titles selling pretty well for stuff like Fania and decided to do their own reissues from some of those labels that were often neglected in the past. We saw them release more Chalino after VMP’s sold well too.

The pandemic seemed anecdotally to me to give a big boost to vinyl sales and also the amount of people getting into vinyl. So VMP was also a bit in the right place at the right time.

The problem I always saw with the model was that they rely on labels to license them stuff. If labels just don’t license good stuff, they have no product. And that can happen at any time. The other problem is if there too successful, it was just a matter of time before labels just said “we can do this ourselves”. It’s like Blue Note with Music Matters. MMJ showed there was a market for high quality BN reissues cut AAA with nice jackets. BN said hey let’s hire KG and Joe and do the Tone Poet series ourselves. VMP has lost the ability to do anything from Interscope. They do a lot of Sony stuff still but Sony could start their own series and not let VMP license anymore.
 
MikeH said:
I agree that from a sales perspective, they probably made a small dent, if that. But I think VMP was influential in a few ways.

It helped give viability to a monthly release/subscription model for vinyl that actually worked for 10 years. No other company really survived this long while getting multiple releases out every month. Labels definitely took notice. Interscope doesn’t do their series without VMP. Rhino may not be doing rhino HiFi without VMP.

They also showed that there was a market for “audiophile” quality of music outside the typical Chad, MoFi and Jazz releases. They were not the only company to do this but their output was probably the most varied. I don’t doubt that companies like Craft saw titles selling pretty well for stuff like Fania and decided to do their own reissues from some of those labels that were often neglected in the past. We saw them release more Chalino after VMP’s sold well too.

The pandemic seemed anecdotally to me to give a big boost to vinyl sales and also the amount of people getting into vinyl. So VMP was also a bit in the right place at the right time.

The problem I always saw with the model was that they rely on labels to license them stuff. If labels just don’t license good stuff, they have no product. And that can happen at any time. The other problem is if there too successful, it was just a matter of time before labels just said “we can do this ourselves”. It’s like Blue Note with Music Matters. MMJ showed there was a market for high quality BN reissues cut AAA with nice jackets. BN said hey let’s hire KG and Joe and do the Tone Poet series ourselves. VMP has lost the ability to do anything from Interscope. They do a lot of Sony stuff still but Sony could start their own series and not let VMP license anymore.
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The other thing is that the pandemic gave a huge boost to vinyl sales, and we now have a "flew a little too close to the sun" moment as demand is not as hot as it was and prices have skyrocketed, not just because of inflation, but because companies think they can sell for the secondary prices that in demand records were going for during the COVID years. I feel like VMP was not really prepared to pivot into the post-pandemic world in a way that would continue growth (for many of the reasons that you cite).
 
wmeugene said:
The other thing is that the pandemic gave a huge boost to vinyl sales, and we now have a "flew a little too close to the sun" moment as demand is not as hot as it was and prices have skyrocketed, not just because of inflation, but because companies think they can sell for the secondary prices that in demand records were going for during the COVID years. I feel like VMP was not really prepared to pivot into the post-pandemic world in a way that would continue growth (for many of the reasons that you cite).
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Yea--even just anecdotally speaking, probably half of my close friends bought their first turntables during the pandemic and were buying records a lot during that time. They weren't spending money on going out or vacations, etc so some of that extra disposable income was going towards records and they had the time to enjoy listening to records at home. When stuff opened back up, they slowed down a lot on purchasing records.
 
I need to decide whether to stick or twist in the next month. As an international there is zero value in 3 month subs but VMP are going to give me a referral discount to reflect them introducing it the day after I signed up last year. And for all its faults I like the product (generally) but not sure how keen I am on sinking a years cost on what may be a sinking ship.

But I’ve been thinking about this and when I first subbed it was all Big Bill Bronzy, Pinkerton, Ben Webster Quintet and I was more than happy. Maybe less choice may make them work a bit harder but less subs will create some of that early inventive variety.

Finally got around to spinning the Sly bundle too which just confirms that for all VMP’s quirks. When it gets it right it’s great.
 
yukbon said:
I would be bummed out about it. When they do a good job, they really do a good job. Cadet and miles anthologies are stellar. A lot of the jazz has been great as well
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Same. They can do great things but so far their best department is CS (and have been for years). If they were great, they would not need a CS at all but they keep repeating the same mistakes...

I will just share a new example. I moved to a different area in France, like 6h far from where I used to live. I went ahead and changed my shipping address on VMPs way before the shipping window. In the meantime, I had to ask for replacements for my previous box. Without asking, instead of keeping the new address, they put back my old address (which I had deleted) and shipped my new box to the old address. I immediately sent them an email so they could change it but only replied a couple of days after saying they were sorry and were shipping another box to my new address... Now, I have two monthly box shipped, one to the old another to the new address, and no news on replacements...
 
Skalap said:
Same. They can do great things but so far their best department is CS (and have been for years). If they were great, they would not need a CS at all but they keep repeating the same mistakes...

I will just share a new example. I moved to a different area in France, like 6h far from where I used to live. I went ahead and changed my shipping address on VMPs way before the shipping window. In the meantime, I had to ask for replacements for my previous box. Without asking, instead of keeping the new address, they put back my old address (which I had deleted) and shipped my new box to the old address. I immediately sent them an email so they could change it but only replied a couple of days after saying they were sorry and were shipping another box to my new address... Now, I have two monthly box shipped, one to the old another to the new address, and no news on replacements...
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Some of their processes make no sense. I have learned the hard way to be proactive about emailing them about a change in address. Deleting it and updating doesn't seem to work on old orders or subs.

They really do just keep shooting themselves in the foot. So many things just make no sense for a company that has been around for 10 years.
 
MikeH said:
Some of their processes make no sense. I have learned the hard way to be proactive about emailing them about a change in address. Deleting it and updating doesn't seem to work on old orders or subs.

They really do just keep shooting themselves in the foot. So many things just make no sense for a company that has been around for 10 years.
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BTW, what is happening to the Discord? It's like a ghost town...
 
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