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

Enoch said:
I don't think even joking about death threats is "just a joke," talking about violence against a person or org jokingly or not is just in poor taste, especially when said people and org actually received real threats.
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Hey, I get it. You are a little uneasy talking about and hearing about VMP from some, but it wasnt directed at anyone in particular. Everyone just needs to take a deep breath and move on. All is well
 
Enoch said:
Hey guys, if you want to actually engage in what was shared, I am for it, if you are just going to give me a hard time I just won't interact with you and share anything that you may find relevant in the future
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VMP has said they were gonna do this thing and gonna do that thing for years and years without following through. That's their prerogative, but that is their established history of behavior. Anyone familiar with the history of VMP understands that, overwhelmingly and with few exceptions, they're just spewing words that are not backed by actions. This is not debatable.

I gotta ask: why do you think anything you are sharing is different? The impression I get is that for whatever reason you, to some degree, define yourself by your historical behavior of buying (nearly?) anything exclusive that VMP puts out, and perhaps this makes you take things too personally when someone gets irritated with VMP.

They're just a retailer. Just one of a ton of places to buy records. I've butted heads with them in the past and been banned from their forum a few times, eventually permanently. I still don't have animosity toward them. I purchased the Anthology set. I have an understanding - based on years of history as a customer of theirs - of how they act and what to expect.

Do I personally care what VMP says they might do? Nope. I judge them on their actions, not their words. I might buy from them again in the future and I might not. Depends on if the product seems compelling.

Do I care about your conversations with people at VMP? Nope, not a bit, but others might. Share away if you want, but history has labeled their words as nearly meaningless.
 
High Rant District said:
VMP has said they were gonna do this thing and gonna do that thing for years and years without following through. That's their prerogative, but that is their established history of behavior. Anyone familiar with the history of VMP understands that, overwhelmingly and with few exceptions, they're just spewing words that are not backed by actions. This is not debatable.

I gotta ask: why do you think anything you are sharing is different? The impression I get is that for whatever reason you, to some degree, define yourself by your historical behavior of buying (nearly?) anything exclusive that VMP puts out, and perhaps this makes you take things too personally when someone gets irritated with VMP.

They're just a retailer. Just one of a ton of places to buy records. I've butted heads with them in the past and been banned from their forum a few times, eventually permanently. I still don't have animosity toward them. I purchased the Anthology set. I have an understanding - based on years of history as a customer of theirs - of how they act and what to expect.

Do I personally care what VMP says they might do? Nope. I judge them on their actions, not their words. I might buy from them again in the future and I might not. Depends on if the product seems compelling.

Do I care about your conversations with people at VMP? Nope, not a bit, but others might. Share away if you want, but history has labeled their words as nearly meaningless.
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He is sharing this because some of us have asked for him to keep us up in what they are saying. It doesn't matter if what he is saying is different or not. He is just telling us what they said to him. He doesn't have the answers. Just the messenger. You don't usually shoot those.
 
Enoch said:
You missed that this is a VMP thread on this forum and some people still care (to what degree is up to them). If you don't care that is great you don't have to. If you don't care may I ask why you are even in this thread and feel the need to comment on this? You have checked out, so check out. I know this is very direct, but this thread is set up for people to still follow and get info about VMP and I just gave info, that is the point.
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I don't give a rats arse about US politics, but if its in my face, I'll still read about it and add comment, so settle down. If you don't want to be given a hard time, show the same courtesy! Your 'reflections' comment made no sense 'to me' and I'm curious about your role as the VMP's spokesperson, this makes less sense.
 
goodoohuru said:
I don't give a rats arse about US politics, but if its in my face, I'll still read about it and add comment, so settle down. If you don't want to be given a hard time, show the same courtesy! Your 'reflections' comment made no sense 'to me' and I'm curious about your role as the VMP's spokesperson, this makes less sense.
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And you didn't ask me to clarify, you immediately put me down and said this wasn't helpful because most no longer care.
 
All sounds like positive intentions to me. Thanks for sharing @Enoch.

My only real problems with VMP are the shipping issues and overselling as well as regular damages in transit and uncertainty about replacements. Its a Vinyl subscription company so those things are IMO the most important things in need of fixing and it sounds like they do have plans in place.

Most of the other stuff like pre-announcing records, swaps, how they do pre-orders, transparency about upcoming features, the forum (sorry), etc is really up to them as a company and doesnt ultimately impact my overall enjoyment of the service. I just want them to continue pressing great records, let me buy way too many of them, and send them to me on time and in good condition each month
 
supahypeag said:
Oooooooohhh.....I totally didn’t get that the first read through. I get the tone now. Sarcasm is tough to detect in text form!
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I knew it was sarcasm, but sarcasm about people receiving death threats seems incredibly insensitive to what they actually go through receiving them. I get it is stupid to get to that level about a vinyl company but it doesn't change the fact that real people are behind the receiving end of the threats.
 
Enoch said:
But the new platform will allow for some of this and an actual loyalty program (think tenure and order position). Basically, the new platform will provide a lot of options to try things out, create a more customer-friendly service.
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Anyone who actually believes that any sort of loyalty program is coming is delusional at this point. This, along with MANY other things, is something that's been "in the works" for over three years now, without anything to show for it. I'd go as far as to say VMP is actively anti-loyalist. How is overselling a record, and then randomizing who gets their orders canceled and who doesn't, a positive for loyal customers? Hell, people say it all the time that, when they cancel their VMP membership, they get offered a free record to stay subscribed. VMP literally give more freebies to people who decide to leave than those who have stayed for years. Couple that with the sudden forum closure, and the complete lack of clear communication, and VMP is practically begging us to realize they don't care about loyal customers in any way.

None of this is against you, Enoch. I'm glad you're communicating this information to us, and shedding some light on what exactly VMP higher-ups are saying. The problem is 1.) the fact that what they're saying essentially amounts to "we're working on it" for the trillionth time, and B.) the fact that you have to basically give us the inside scoop on a one-on-one conversation in order for anyone else to learn what's going with VMP. When it comes to questions as simple as "What's going on with all these promises you've been making for years?" or even "What is going on with the product I purchased?", Lloyd "going out of his way" to tell you all of this, and then you relaying it to us, doesn't make up for the fact that they took away major platforms for these questions to be asked publicly in the first place
 
Enoch said:
Reflections from my two and a half hour meeting with Llyod (neither of us expected it to go that long).

First and foremost, the employees of VMP are people, they have had some recent issues with threats, please keep that in mind; they are fine with criticism of the company but personal attacks are not cool. I don't any of really fall into that category.

Llyod seems to have a good head about directions to go. He definitely is great at communicating. We talked quite a bit about that and where it has been a struggle in the past. I emphasized some staff need to pause before responding or even just run their response past someone else as again they are invested and take things personally when maybe it isn't so much.

We talked about new things versus fixes needed within the company. My emphasis was on perception. I 100% understand them taking on new things to help fund what needs to be done but the consumer doesn't always see that. I, at times, get frustrated that they are say doing Anthology when shipping is still a mess. But things like Anthology help them fund for the fix. That said a new platform through Shopify is coming (as seen with Anthology and mentioned before.) Once that is up and running VMP will have actual inventory control and numbers which you might be able to make a connection on what they would mean in terms of the future of shipping.

Concerning Weyes Blood and Hatchie, this goes with my thought I had when I heard about WB (as upset as I was/am), extrapolate if VMP had stuff missent what that means overall.

They are working on a new way to receive feedback on what is going right and what needs work. It isn't fully fleshed out yet but is in process for the next few months. Once settled it will be announced in some manner.

There are ideas on how to keep the same type of service but bring in some new ways of going about it. I would like to know a little bit more about it before I think it is a good idea. I advocated for the pre-announce model that Classics started off with. The big obstacle he shared about that is some label want their albums not announced or even they pull out right before pressing begins (this mainly affects Essentials). But the new platform will allow for some of this and an actual loyalty program (think tenure and order position). Basically, the new platform will provide a lot of options to try things out, create a more customer-friendly service.

I talked about my idea of having a damage report window. So maybe for three weeks, they collect damage reports and then they can rank them and potentially collect data on if there is an overall issue; SC messing something up (same corner dings, VMP can get a refund for that, or a pressing issue like Stars mostly is). He liked that idea, we also discussed potentially just sending out the damaged part, so if your disc is warped you just get a disc, sleeve damage you get a sleeve. They had someone come in and essentially audit the requests and there was at least one person claiming damage on every item they received. Which is why sending out just the item in the package that has the problem would prevent the abuse of flipping. What is to stop someone from dropping their album and claiming shipping/packaging damage to get a second copy to flip.

I will add more if I remember anything else of import. I think hiring Llyod may be a good turning point for VMP, but we will see and that is what I told him.
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I am not trying to give you a hard time, so please don't take it that way, but I feel like this is really not a lot of information. Maybe it's just that my expectations of setting up an in person meeting with the COO meant that there was going to be more things said of greater import, or maybe even it's just that there are things missing from here that I would have asked if I felt so inspired as to try to get a question to Lloyd, but that's my take. I feel a lot of this stuff is what many have already guessed about their directions. It seems to me as if meeting with one of their biggest customers and most active N&G forum member like this may have been more a PR move than anything.

I don't think anyone should have to receive death threats, but I'm not sure why he felt it necessary to tell you that. It would make sense to me if people from this forum were responsible for threats or if we were personally attacking them. I hope that's not the case. At the same time, I receive threats at my workplace all the time. I work in the ICU of one of the biggest hospitals in the world. People threaten my life to my face. Violently. People attempt to assault me and sometimes successfully do. And yet, I still am expected to do my job faithfully and I do.

My main takeaway from your posts is that there is no real replacement for the forum coming and that that was another lie as well.
 
High Rant District said:
VMP has said they were gonna do this thing and gonna do that thing for years and years without following through. That's their prerogative, but that is their established history of behavior. Anyone familiar with the history of VMP understands that, overwhelmingly and with few exceptions, they're just spewing words that are not backed by actions. This is not debatable.

I gotta ask: why do you think anything you are sharing is different? The impression I get is that for whatever reason you, to some degree, define yourself by your historical behavior of buying (nearly?) anything exclusive that VMP puts out, and perhaps this makes you take things too personally when someone gets irritated with VMP.

They're just a retailer. Just one of a ton of places to buy records. I've butted heads with them in the past and been banned from their forum a few times, eventually permanently. I still don't have animosity toward them. I purchased the Anthology set. I have an understanding - based on years of history as a customer of theirs - of how they act and what to expect.

Do I personally care what VMP says they might do? Nope. I judge them on their actions, not their words. I might buy from them again in the future and I might not. Depends on if the product seems compelling.

Do I care about your conversations with people at VMP? Nope, not a bit, but others might. Share away if you want, but history has labeled their words as nearly meaningless.
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I finally canceled today, after letting my final 3 month plan run it’s course. And you perfectly distilled my feelings today as I was clicking the cancel button...’they’ve become just another retailer’ to me. Without the community fueling it, the magic is gone for me, and I don’t really care why they did it. Even on its worst day, it was still one of the kindest, most inclusive places on the internet. And from a business perspective, they pissed away one of the coolest, organically grown focus groups a company could ever dream of, one that marketing firms get paid big $$$ to replicate... ‘‘Twas a great ride, but I’m over it, happy to have made the migration to N&G with all of you.🍻
 
NathanRicaud said:
Omg, so cuteee! It’s so cute and funny that you’re getting your wife vinyl for Christmas 🤭

There’s something badass, high school and ghetto about CrazySexyCool, like gangster’s and playa’s so would’ve had sex while that album was playing in the background! So your wife’s ghetto vinyl library is just getting better and better 🙌🎃😁
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Glad you're back @NathanRicaud !!!

Joe Mac said:
read reviews (the U.K. paper the guardian and the Irish times are my two go tos).
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I really like those Guardian reviews. Also this forum is great at helping with curation, the Colemine rabbit hole is amazing (and dangerous for wallets) and the N & G AoTM threads (great picks for Vol 0 and Vol 1, @Skalap and @Murfocakes did an awesome job!)
 
wynn72 said:
All sounds like positive intentions to me. Thanks for sharing @Enoch.

My only real problems with VMP are the shipping issues and overselling as well as regular damages in transit and uncertainty about replacements. Its a Vinyl subscription company so those things are IMO the most important things in need of fixing and it sounds like they do have plans in place.

Most of the other stuff like pre-announcing records, swaps, how they do pre-orders, transparency about upcoming features, the forum (sorry), etc is really up to them as a company and doesnt ultimately impact my overall enjoyment of the service. I just want them to continue pressing great records, let me buy way too many of them, and send them to me on time and in good condition each month
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I get the sense by hiring Lloyd, who seems to know what he is doing (again seems) that this might actually be where they fulfill things they have said in the past. It is still to be seen if that is the case. He gave a brief rundown of how they were essentially patchworking the tech side and notes were not well kept. That is changing now with him on board and moving to Shopify (as he said no longer trying to recreate e-commerce). His hope is we will see a change by the end of the year but it is tech and it sometimes takes longer than expected. I hope this isn't more talk but based on their history I am skeptical because we have been hearing this for a while (though we have seen some changes whether better or not is debatable).
 
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