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

Not sure if VMP has acknowledged it, but sure seems like this is clearly a consequence of consolidating tracks coupled with a likely reduction in pressing quantities to help move away from the warehousing bottleneck that recently led to a "re-boot" of their wholesale program. While it was always going to be tricky to navigate this transition, they seem to have dropped the ball in epic fashion. Again.
 
Not sure if VMP has acknowledged it, but sure seems like this is clearly a consequence of consolidating tracks coupled with a likely reduction in pressing quantities to help move away from the warehousing bottleneck that recently led to a "re-boot" of their wholesale program. While it was always going to be tricky to navigate this transition, they seem to have dropped the ball in epic fashion. Again.
The tracks haven’t reduced yet though. Next month. Country and rock were still in play.
 
Interesting. I haven't been a member in ages, gratefully, and have only been following the headline news. Still likely they reduced pressing numbers, no?
I reckon they just had really poor Rock and Country picks so everyone bailed and went to essentials (and classics which also looks sold out). Basically just didn't plan for the exodus that some piss poor curation inspired
 
Just checked the discord, to get more of a flavor. Storf is suggesting that they have been making business decisions based on "response", or reaction to various picks, when the reality is that they are primarily (only?) listening to the tiny sample size of VMP worshippers hanging out in the discord. A situation that they created with intention, I might add. Hard not to shake your head.
 
Just checked the discord, to get more of a flavor. Storf is suggesting that they have been making business decisions based on "response", when the reality is that they are primarily listening to the tiny sample size of VMP worshippers hanging out in the discord. A situation that they created with intention, I might add. Hard not to shake your head.
They're the Donald Trump of record clubs. 99% spin and gold foil.
 
I reckon they just had really poor Rock and Country picks so everyone bailed and went to essentials (and classics which also looks sold out). Basically just didn't plan for the exodus that some piss poor curation inspired
I don’t know that Nickel Creek was poor curation. Just didn’t make any sense given the fact that there was a high quality audiophile version available. They had the nonesuch thing going, Dotted Line needs a repress….
 
Funny story here.
I had some store credits that I wanted to use before my sub ends at the end of the month. So since there was a B2G1free campaign I decided to buy a couple records. Instead of adding the three to my cart (which means 2x$36 + 20% VAT). I added only two, used my credits and paid the remaining with my CC (with the 20% applied on the remaining only).
Then I sent an email right after explaining the situation and asking to add a third record, free, to this order.
Believe me or not but they already shipped the two records I purchased on Sunday and no sign of any free record 😂😂😂
 
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.
Their logic seems sound if they were new to this business model. There are several pretty obvious red flags they should have accounted for, like lame other tracks, the fact that people that were bummed about two Ramones titles were not likely bummed about Rocket To Russia, and the fact that the past three LP essential titles underperformed meant there were even fewer desirable swaptions.
 
Someone on Discord brought up that there was an office hours on Thursday with Paulie and Storf before this news broke.

This could have been a good time to get ahead of the mess, take a bullet and give us the game plan.

However, Storf reacted and said they didn't know about this issue yet, which I find hard to believe considering the office hours ended at 1pm ET and the first $15 swaption email came exactly 2.5 hours later.

No way they discovered this issue, got direction, and built a new email in sub 2.5 hours.
 
Their logic seems sound if they were new to this business model. There are several pretty obvious red flags they should have accounted for, like lame other tracks, the fact that people that were bummed about two Ramones titles were not likely bummed about Rocket To Russia, and the fact that the past three LP essential titles underperformed meant there were even fewer desirable swaptions.
I like the Ramones. I think It's Alive is one of the great, great live albums. I think Too Tough to Die has 55 seconds of brilliance, 4 minutes of pretty goodness and the rest is waaaaaaay, waaaaaay down the list of anything I'd ever pull if I wanted a Ramones fix. I'd guess that after it was announced people streamed it and binned it.

Outside the hardcore fan base having a copy of Too Tough on the shelf is a prime example of having a record for the sake of having a record. They were always going to be left with a gazillion of them
 
Someone on Discord brought up that there was an office hours on Thursday with Paulie and Storf before this news broke.

This could have been a good time to get ahead of the mess, take a bullet and give us the game plan.

However, Storf reacted and said they didn't know about this issue yet, which I find hard to believe considering the office hours ended at 1pm ET and the first $15 swaption email came exactly 2.5 hours later.

No way they discovered this issue, got direction, and built a new email in sub 2.5 hours.
Seems like the exact type of scenario they created the community updates page for ("in an effort to be as transparent as possible with our community"). Yet, five days later and no update...
 
it's hilarious to me that they're like 10 years into this thing and still haven't figured out how to cap monthly subscriptions around their pressing totals and run swaps.

as some of you have mentioned, even the most rudimentary inventory systems allow you to do this kind of stuff on a reservation of stock model. it's pretty much what they're built for and still they futz along using Shopify and never really knowing how much demand they have of things.

i'm all for them running lean and not keeping a ton of stock on hand, but they're so bad at all of this and it's been a decade at this point. you aren't a cute little start up running out of a condo.
 
it's hilarious to me that they're like 10 years into this thing and still haven't figured out how to cap monthly subscriptions around their pressing totals and run swaps.

as some of you have mentioned, even the most rudimentary inventory systems allow you to do this kind of stuff on a reservation of stock model. it's pretty much what they're built for and still they futz along using Shopify and never really knowing how much demand they have of things.

i'm all for them running lean and not keeping a ton of stock on hand, but they're so bad at all of this and it's been a decade at this point. you aren't a cute little start up running out of a condo.
At this point, my recommendation to them would be don’t offer up swaps on the current rotm. Put a hard cap on add ons. Should solve the problem and allow them to grow sustainably. You could keep rotm in the swaps for the next two month. Release to the member ship for two months at like the 3 month sub price (whatever a rotm breaks down to) then make them full price Moving forward. I would imagine this would result in A lot less saving shit for a sale etc.

And if they add the swap only track, make everything but primary track unswappable.

These things would probably be unpopular but you’re running a fucking business and I’d rather not be put in the situation of having to tell people they aren’t getting what they ordered.
 
At this point, my recommendation to them would be don’t offer up swaps on the current rotm. Put a hard cap on add ons. Should solve the problem and allow them to grow sustainably. You could keep rotm in the swaps for the next two month. Release to the member ship for two months at like the 3 month sub price (whatever a rotm breaks down to) then make them full price Moving forward. I would imagine this would result in A lot less saving shit for a sale etc.

And if they add the swap only track, make everything but primary track unswappable.
it feels like they could also just stagger the swap dates - have people already subscribed for the next month commit to keeping or swap between a window and then you're locked in (ie 10 days out til 5 days out). you then know your capacity to 1) allow new signups for the upcoming month and 2) swaps and allow those to follow (5 days out to 1 day out). Once that capacity is gone (minus your overhead for replacements), close the signup for that track. they'd both know their shipping numbers for the next month, not piss people off by overselling, and also probably run with less stock.
 
Back
Top