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

[bdm105]

We ordered similar amounts of Ramones to what we ordered for Black Moses, Joni Mitchell, and DMX.
Based on the announce reaction (people complained about 2 Ramones, milquetoast boilerplate about "Lost Sounds Found") , we assumed that'd be fine. Given how many Joni, DMX and Isaac we have on hand now, we especially thought we were fine

Swap out rate for Ramones was near historic lows for Essentials. Something like 1/4 of as many people who swapped OUT of DMX and Joni swapped out of Ramones

Swap IN rates (ie people swapping from Rock, Classics or another track into Ramones) were sky high compared to past months.

Which lead to us being oversold.

So instead of it being a lottery for who will or will not get a copy, we made a tough decision

We decided to prioritize people who were subscribed to Essentials as the priority.

So, if you swapped into Ramones, we needed to remove that. Which is what we said in the email.

It's less than ideal, but it's the only choice we needed to make: Essentials members get the priority over people who swapped into it. We also swapped anyone who was on a free promo subscription to Too Tough to Die, because we prioritized only PAYING Essentials members

Basically, it was a shit decision that we were forced to make. We want everyone to get the record they love, but it's not an infinite inventory pool.

There will be no repress (google the Ramones and see why)

I understand the logic and only disagree with forcing people on the promo sub out. That seems shitty. But also, this shouldn't happen in the first place and this should be communicated by email.

 

[Twentytwo]

I will let my subscription expire but it has nothing to do with the Ramones and everything to do with country sub going away and their records being overpriced. With that said if they have something that i want, I will absolutely buy from them again.

 

[Melt Face Molly Drop]

i feel like people say this every time VMP fucks up, then they reissue something people want and they hop back in hah.

i'll be back to just monthly drop ins if i want something in the future.

can't wait to see how many Gus Cannons they press hah

Yeah, there’s always exceptions, but I’ll never sub for more than a month, no matter how many free records they throw at me*

*24 free records and I’ll jump back in

 

[avecigrec]

I mean, this doesn't seem to be THAT egregious. Their logic feels sound to me in terms of prioritizing who does and doesn't get the record. Should they/could they have made better forecasts around the demand, yeah that's **probably** an oopsies but I also don't know what actual data they have to justify pressing a bunch more of a particular record versus past months.

So… three things….
1. This is the third time this happened this year and
2. They’ve failed to cap rotm which is pretty much what everyone has told them to do
3. This is a response from the a&r guy on discord instead of a formal apology from the company to everyone… so you only know if you are engaged and if you were affected.

This is very much the kind of messaging that should go out BEFORE people find out their shit was changed on them, rather than to a select few after.

It. Really. Isn't. That. Difficult.

 

[successfulbagel]

So… three things….
1. This is the third time this happened this year and
2. They’ve failed to cap rotm which is pretty much what everyone has told them to do
3. This is a response from the a&r guy on discord instead of a formal apology from the company to everyone… so you only know if you are engaged and if you were affected.

I believe affected people got an email prior to this - but I'm not sure. I swapped out and had to email them to get my $15 bonus credit (which I receive this morning). It generally doesn't feel like something you'd announced to people who are otherwise blissfully unaware though.

 

[avecigrec]

I swapped out and had to email them to get my $15 bonus credit

Absolutely ridiculous that you and to chase them down for what they offered.

 

[Ghost]

So… three things….
1. This is the third time this happened this year and
2. They’ve failed to cap rotm which is pretty much what everyone has told them to do
3. This is a response from the a&r guy on discord instead of a formal apology from the company to everyone… so you only know if you are engaged and if you were affected.

The egregious part is the tone of it, while again using excuses to hide behind their lack of accountability.

This is very much the kind of messaging that should go out BEFORE people find out their shit was changed on them, rather than to a select few after.

It. Really. Isn't. That. Difficult.

Yeah, y'all are right. FUCK ‘EM!

 

[Nee Lewman]

I believe affected people got an email prior to this - but I'm not sure. I swapped out and had to email them to get my $15 bonus credit (which I receive this morning). It generally doesn't feel like something you'd announced to people who are otherwise blissfully unaware though.

It effects their biggest sub and caused a whole lot of nonsense. Less people were affected by the mystery box shenanigans but they felt compelled to apologize to everyone for that. It’s also a company that has promised more transparency.

 

[MikeH]

So… three things….
1. This is the third time this happened this year and
2. They’ve failed to cap rotm which is pretty much what everyone has told them to do
3. This is a response from the a&r guy on discord instead of a formal apology from the company to everyone… so you only know if you are engaged and if you were affected.

the capping thing is interesting because i bet the way they use the shopify software doesn't allow them to do it. But there has to be some way for them to get an auto notice to trigger, even if manually, to put the tracks on standby.

from what i've seen, they essentially have a bucket that's for swaps, a bucket for subs and a bucket for add-ons. the inventory for all 3 has to add up to the total they have, but they cant limit, say swaps to 2,000, mains to 8,000 and add-ons to 2,000 as those numbers can greatly fluctuate. i imagine there has to be some better system though. not a shock that their site doesn't account for it.

Absolutely ridiculous that you and to chase them down for what they offered.

from what i saw, they are going back and doing this now and the process wasn't automatic. some people, rightfully, just wanted to get it squared away straight away.

 

[Nee Lewman]

I believe affected people got an email prior to this - but I'm not sure. I swapped out and had to email them to get my $15 bonus credit (which I receive this morning). It generally doesn't feel like something you'd announced to people who are otherwise blissfully unaware though.

And furthermore none of the emails before kicking people off where that this was a possibility or honest about the fact that they didn’t have enough to go around.

 

[MikeH]

I believe affected people got an email prior to this - but I'm not sure. I swapped out and had to email them to get my $15 bonus credit (which I receive this morning). It generally doesn't feel like something you'd announced to people who are otherwise blissfully unaware though.

i think they did email nearly everybody who was affected. but at the same time, they shortened the swap windows so i doubt many people even saw the email during a holiday weekend where they were given less than a day to swap out to something else. i don't even know if you could manually swap out after that or if it was locked.

 

[MikeH]

And furthermore none of the emails before kicking people off where that this was a possibility or honest about the fact that they didn’t have enough to go around.

yep. the only email where we could read between the lines was the "hey--swap now and get $15!"

just the perfect storm of VMP fuckups + no transparency about it.

 

[Nee Lewman]

the capping thing is interesting because i bet the way they use the shopify software doesn't allow them to do it. But there has to be some way for them to get an auto notice to trigger, even if manually, to put the tracks on standby.

from what i've seen, they essentially have a bucket that's for swaps, a bucket for subs and a bucket for add-ons. the inventory for all 3 has to add up to the total they have, but they cant limit, say swaps to 2,000, mains to 8,000 and add-ons to 2,000 as those numbers can greatly fluctuate. i imagine there has to be some better system though. not a shock that their site doesn't account for it.


from what i saw, they are going back and doing this now and the process wasn't automatic. some people, rightfully, just wanted to get it squared away straight away.

I don’t need you to use their Shopify excuse for them.

 

[MikeH]

I don’t need you use their Shopify excuse for them.

at a certain point, if shopify doesn't do half the shit they want, then maybe its time to uh not use shopify??

 

[successfulbagel]

I figured the $15 thing would be manual, and I also expected to get it at some point, but the email clearly said it would be added 9/1 so... just do that.

 

[max_stacks]

We ordered similar amounts of Ramones to what we ordered for Black Moses, Joni Mitchell, and DMX.
Based on the announce reaction (people complained about 2 Ramones, milquetoast boilerplate about "Lost Sounds Found") , we assumed that'd be fine. Given how many Joni, DMX and Isaac we have on hand now, we especially thought we were fine

Swap out rate for Ramones was near historic lows for Essentials. Something like 1/4 of as many people who swapped OUT of DMX and Joni swapped out of Ramones

Swap IN rates (ie people swapping from Rock, Classics or another track into Ramones) were sky high compared to past months.

Which lead to us being oversold.

So instead of it being a lottery for who will or will not get a copy, we made a tough decision

We decided to prioritize people who were subscribed to Essentials as the priority.

So, if you swapped into Ramones, we needed to remove that. Which is what we said in the email.

It's less than ideal, but it's the only choice we needed to make: Essentials members get the priority over people who swapped into it. We also swapped anyone who was on a free promo subscription to Too Tough to Die, because we prioritized only PAYING Essentials members

Basically, it was a shit decision that we were forced to make. We want everyone to get the record they love, but it's not an infinite inventory pool.

There will be no repress (google the Ramones and see why)

Transparency!

 

[max_stacks]

I’m usually very forgiving when VMP does an uh-oh, but this is embarrassing. Swaps are not a guarantee?! Feels like some compensation needs to be thrown to those who were screwed over just following the Swap rules.

 

[Nee Lewman]

at a certain point, if shopify doesn't do half the shit they want, then maybe its time to uh not use shopify??

I have never encountered another vendor who blames as much shit on Shopify as them. Yeah, it sucks. But it is widely used and they are the only people that can’t seem to get PayPal running, so I go back to that instagram post above and say maybe they just don’t know how computers work.

I am just as likely to think it is their current scapegoat as they are also scapegoating going international with their temp cs team… wasn’t a problem except at holidays over the last couple of years so maybe something else is up - like a revamp of how they handle cs but that’s my tinfoil hat talking.

Storf’s answer is telling though. They play a game that is always gonna bite them in the ass. You shouldn’t be forecasting on people swapping the sub away. If you are then you are doing yourself a disservice that also goes against their whole fomo mindset.

Certainly you should press more if you think an album is gonna be a huge seller but it shouldn’t fundamentally change the way a cap would work.

If you have 20000 subs. You should always have 20000 copies on hand. If you are forecasting that you are gonna have 5000 swap that title away… maybe don’t do that record? So you decide whatever % you want for replacements and whatever % you will generally have for swaps. You can play with that last one if you think it’s gonna sell well.

Hell having the damn thing put you on a wait list every once in a while is good for them. It builds the fomo model they so cherish.

As a side, imagine they start this whole swap sub and kick people off of that or auto pick another album for them.

The solution doesn’t make sense and the “we’ve done everything but fix it” since it happened the first time is just what they do.

I also think it is interesting, even if the logic is sound, that they nuked the runaway most active thread in the discord following this.

 

[Nee Lewman]

I’m usually very forgiving when VMP does an uh-oh, but this is embarrassing. Swaps are not a guarantee?! Feels like some compensation needs to be thrown to those who were screwed over just following the Swap rules.

I think the utter lack of accountability or resolution to vault boxes shows that’s not something that’s gonna happen.

 

[Rowan]

I've equal amounts of sympathy and increduity on this. Firstly their modelling isn't always going to be perfect and the order seems justifiable but why can't they buy a system that stops people from swapping when they hit their stock level. Allthat had to happen is when an allocated number was hit people were prevented from swapping.... and I get that people may have been swapping out too and that would have potentially led to them having excess that needed to go up later but surely coming out with 'more people have released the records so we can open a few extra copies up to swaps is better than 'you can't have the record we told you you could have'.

I think the issue that something sold out is just the way it is. I think the way they tried to deal with it with a sweep bonus and a few choice extra options is a reasonable offer. I think the fact they let themselves get there in the first place is total madness.