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

max_stacks said:
To your first point, they ended 15% of their business (international subs) that they were losing money on. The international subs were not profitable. It’s unfortunate that our international friends are being cut out, but I see why they had to make that call.
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Main problem was shipping costs and shipping a record every two days instead of bundling was not the best idea. Might be a Shopify, Paypal or Saddle Creek issue though, not VMPs of course. They are never to blame for anything.

EDIT: I am currently waiting for three packages, one was shipped last week on Thursday, another on Monday and the last one on Tuesday.
 
Skalap said:
Main problem was shipping costs and shipping a record every two days instead of bundling was not the best idea. Might be a Shopify, Paypal or Saddle Creek issue though, not VMPs of course. They are never to blame for anything.

EDIT: I am currently waiting for three packages, one was shipped last week on Thursday, another on Monday and the last one on Tuesday.
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I bet a loss was only a small part of the decision. I am willing to bet when the crunched the numbers for the increase they realized that the associated increase for international customers would probably equate to a mass exodus anyhow… why bother with all the added cost to make the offer, just do away with it.
 
That was an interesting video, although the host seemed to ignore a hell of a lot of issues and going straight for the compliments.

Its a mess for sure and I think Matt was being very careful about his answers, so im not really sure what new information it provided, if any?

Cracked me up at the end:
"Reading these Reddit boards, you know people are just like man, I don't know what's going on but that Gus Cannon is really cool, its awesome that that's coming out"
 
Skalap said:
Main problem was shipping costs and shipping a record every two days instead of bundling was not the best idea. Might be a Shopify, Paypal or Saddle Creek issue though, not VMPs of course. They are never to blame for anything.

EDIT: I am currently waiting for three packages, one was shipped last week on Thursday, another on Monday and the last one on Tuesday.
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THIS!

Its not even that tricky to understand. If they are saying that the shipping costs are too high then collate the records and send them out once a month in a single package rather than 3-4 in a month. Thats a huge saving right there.
 
Selaws said:
That was an interesting video, although the host seemed to ignore a hell of a lot of issues and going straight for the compliments.

Its a mess for sure and I think Matt was being very careful about his answers, so im not really sure what new information it provided, if any?

Cracked me up at the end:
"Reading these Reddit boards, you know people are just like man, I don't know what's going on but that Gus Cannon is really cool, its awesome that that's coming out"
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I think they chose him because he was a friendly space.
 
Regarding the price increase, it’s still not terrible for 12 months. Of course you need to believe the company will exist in 12 months, but if you can find a referral buddy you can get your monthly per record pre-tax cost down to $31 (($529 - $160)/12). If you don’t want to count $80 of the referral towards the annual then it’s $38 per record and 2 free add ons.

Not trying to defend the price increase, but with some game planning (referral swap) you can get the price per month down to reasonable levels. I guess the drawback is you might lose out on Loyalty Program perks because you would need to have an inactive sub for month for this to work. The jury is still out on whether the Loyalty Program will ever happen.

I wouldn’t defend any other term as $47-$55 per is ridiculous. To no one’s surprise they’re clearly incentivizing folks to go longer term with pricing.
 
max_stacks said:
To your first point, they ended 15% of their business (international subs) that they were losing money on. The international subs were not profitable. It’s unfortunate that our international friends are being cut out, but I see why they had to make that call.
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They have included international subs since the beginning in 2013, no? If they have been running in the red on international subs for over a decade and have never attempted to rejigger their business model before haphazardly pulling the plug this year, that is just bad business.
 
My favorite part of the video (note that I could only get through the first 10 or so minutes) had to be Matt sharing his qualifications to be CEO: "because I won a rock, paper, scissors match against Tyler". It didn't go well the first time, and yet they somehow decided that bringing him back would solve their problems.
 
Nee Lewman said:
And it may be cynical but his motivation in doing the video was to calm the talk of they’re in trouble. They are most definitely in trouble. They spent a lot of money on a plant with no return. They forced three likely large exits of their customers:
1. They ended 15% of their business by doing away with international sub
2. There are a lot of people who will be coming to the end of yearlong subscriptions in the next three months that will not be renewing because there is no 8 album incentive and because of #3
3. They just increased their annual membership by a large percentage on top of an increase that is going to make a lot question whether or not their quality (in terms of mastering, package) and curation are worth the elite product pricing, not to mention the fact that GZ is not an elite pressing plant.
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No doubt, they have their work cut out. They have a significant backlog to work down and existing order fulfillment obligations, as well as keeping the train moving ahead with subs and not fall further behind there. Matt's motivation is his 1/3rd ownership of the Offbeat Ventures LLC that is VMP to recoup his initial investment and the 2018 cash influx from investors.

Since the other 2/3rds (unclear if Tyler is only other owner or if Cameron was given equity as CEO) of that ownership are now out of the day to day management and in a legal fight, Matt's lawyers have to clean that up as well. Technically, I imagine they are still part owners unless they are bought out.

As mentioned in their countersuit, they believe the lack of severance pay is to force that ownership sale to pay legal bills, so there's bad blood there.

For a 30 plus year old, Matt has a load of problems on his plate. I imagine you will see more of these types of interviews as guerilla PR to try and work through the issues with customers and overall perception.

I do think finding a pressing plant in the US that can mass produce and maintain quality would help VMP. If there are more shipping and transport strikes (currently threatened), getting stuff pressed overseas and shipped to US will only worsen their backlog.

Ultimately, I suspect no one wants to buy Offbeat Ventures LLC in this current state unless it is a firesale.
 
max_stacks said:
Regarding the price increase, it’s still not terrible for 12 months. Of course you need to believe the company will exist in 12 months, but if you can find a referral buddy you can get your monthly per record pre-tax cost down to $31 (($529 - $160)/12). If you don’t want to count $80 of the referral towards the annual then it’s $38 per record and 2 free add ons.

Not trying to defend the price increase, but with some game planning (referral swap) you can get the price per month down to reasonable levels. I guess the drawback is you might lose out on Loyalty Program perks because you would need to have an inactive sub for month for this to work. The jury is still out on whether the Loyalty Program will ever happen.

I wouldn’t defend any other term as $47-$55 per is ridiculous. To no one’s surprise they’re clearly incentivizing folks to go longer term with pricing.
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The new pricing would not be “Not Terrible” if they were offering an audiophile product. They have produced some albums that would qualify as audiophile but it’s a bit of a gamble. Many have pressing errors or have sloppy QC issues. Not to mention If I am gonna pay nearly $50 an album I want to be buying an album that I know I am gonna love. Nothing about their recent curation has told me that I am gonna get 12 albums that I truly love.
 
TenderLovingKiller® said:
They have included international subs since the beginning in 2013, no? If they have been running in the red on international subs for over a decade and have never attempted to rejigger their business model before haphazardly pulling the plug this year, that is just bad business.
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They may not have known they were running international at a loss. I've seen this before - in bigger companies - that have no idea what cost of sales are for different customer types or even lines of business, because they are all in a single cost accounting pot on the income statement.

I'm willing to bet that, as the crisis grew, VMP brought in an outside consultant to look at the business, and uncovered this and other issues.

It is not a bad business move to jettison unprofitable customers. Optics are bad, but in a crisis, survival is foremost.

And, again having been in these situations in my career, when you are in survival mode, optics are bad all around anyways. You need to shed cost, and do it fast.

But shedding cost is by nature a negative activity. You have to do it carefully, and with experienced hands, or a death spiral can be created.
 
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