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

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.
 
spilledleche said:
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.
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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.
 
MyWifeHatesTrain said:
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.
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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.
 
hatfieldpdx said:
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...
www.vinylmeplease.com

Community Updates

In an effort to be as transparent as possible with our Community, we wanted to take this opportunity to bring back the Community Updates page on our website, designed to keep you in the loop with all the essential happenings here at VMP! We will continue to update this page as frequently as...
www.vinylmeplease.com www.vinylmeplease.com
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Wow, didn't realize they turned off Paypal. They must be hurting if they are worried about Paypal fees.
 
spilledleche said:
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.
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That sounds way more complicated than just having the program track the total number available and counting a swap to, add on and sub as a sale. A swap would return one to inventory just like a cancelled sub would.
 
Joe Mac said:
I swapped out of essentials and was able to cancel.

Gave their curation a stinking review in the cancellation reason field.
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But… I’m saying you weren’t autoswapped. There are a few outliers on discord who were not promo accounts and were kicked out of their primary essentials sub.

They don’t help themselves by Storf saying this or that happened and this or that didn’t. Just tell people if it was anything other than a swap to contact CS.
 
spilledleche said:
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.
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As far as I remember they were perfectly capable to cap subs and take records out of swap when they were fully booked. First classics, hip hop and country subs were limited and had a wait list after the initial allotment sold out
 
MikeH said:
We also swapped anyone who was on a free promo subscription to Too Tough to Die, because we prioritized only PAYING Essentials members
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This is incredibly dumb for 2 reasons - While there are outliers like Nathan, for the overwhelming majority of these, someone *did* pay for it. To denigrate them like this is a bad look. And even more egregious, these are the types of people you should be aggressively courting the most instead of actively doing things that push them away. They've received free exposure to your service, and now how many of them who just went through this debacle are likely to pay for their own sub?

And it is so laughable to me that we're repeating the Nilsson issue all over again just a few months later, albeit in new, dumb ways. Did they really not comprehend that the people complaining about 2 Ramones records when it was announced weren't actually complaining about RtR?! It's easy to forecast as one of those records people like but don't necessarily think to pick up and now they could get it without having to put forth any effort... or so they thought.
 
serotonein said:
This is incredibly dumb for 2 reasons - While there are outliers like Nathan, for the overwhelming majority of these, someone *did* pay for it. To denigrate them like this is a bad look. And even more egregious, these are the types of people you should be aggressively courting the most instead of actively doing things that push them away. They've received free exposure to your service, and now how many of them who just went through this debacle are likely to pay for their own sub?

And it is so laughable to me that we're repeating the Nilsson issue all over again just a few months later, albeit in new, dumb ways. Did they really not comprehend that the people complaining about 2 Ramones records when it was announced weren't actually complaining about RtR?! It's easy to forecast as one of those records people like but don't necessarily think to pick up and now they could get it without having to put forth any effort... or so they thought.
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Yeah, I got both Ramones albums and thought having them in the same month wasn’t great. Would have preferred to spread them out, particularly given the other issues with curation.
 
serotonein said:
This is incredibly dumb for 2 reasons - While there are outliers like Nathan, for the overwhelming majority of these, someone *did* pay for it. To denigrate them like this is a bad look. And even more egregious, these are the types of people you should be aggressively courting the most instead of actively doing things that push them away. They've received free exposure to your service, and now how many of them who just went through this debacle are likely to pay for their own sub?

And it is so laughable to me that we're repeating the Nilsson issue all over again just a few months later, albeit in new, dumb ways. Did they really not comprehend that the people complaining about 2 Ramones records when it was announced weren't actually complaining about RtR?! It's easy to forecast as one of those records people like but don't necessarily think to pick up and now they could get it without having to put forth any effort... or so they thought.
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They are saying people that they send records to, not gift subs. It’s still dumb because if I’m an influencer, which I’m not, probably because they wouldn’t like what I’m getting ready to say, I would sure as hell look into what happened and report out on it. ESPECIALLY since they seem determined to keep it in their bubble.
 
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