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RSD Black Friday 2019


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31 minutes ago, NapalmBrain said:

$50 that is going to be the one this year that blows up in price, as stated above the allocations were 1 per store (I ordered 8 and when I saw 1 was coming, tried to order more and was told allocations would not allow additional copies). Our only copy sold to the 6th guy in line. Grabbed The Mike Watt 7" (got the color variant) and The Chet Baker, Ya'll need to be hunting the Chet, it's like he is in the room and it's only $25 AAA mono mix cut by Kevin Gray

 

edit: oops meant to quote the poster you were responding to, sorry it's early 

 

33 minutes ago, NapalmBrain said:

$50 that is going to be the one this year that blows up in price, as stated above the allocations were 1 per store (I ordered 8 and when I saw 1 was coming, tried to order more and was told allocations would not allow additional copies). Our only copy sold to the 6th guy in line. Grabbed The Mike Watt 7" (got the color variant) and The Chet Baker, Ya'll need to be hunting the Chet, it's like he is in the room and it's only $25 AAA mono mix cut by Kevin Gray

 

edit: oops meant to quote the poster you were responding to, sorry it's early 

Apparently you were lucky to get one as I wasn’t able to get any for my store at all. I’m very disheartened by the “allocation” processes over the last few years. Especially with releases like the Phish LP this year. I ordered multiple copies for my store and was only able to get one. I was turning people away all day, yet Plaid Room has almost 300 copies to sell online the next day. I mean, why get up and get in line at my store next year when I probably won’t have what you want and you can just get up the next day and order it in your pajamas. Defeats the entire point. Granted I have a very small store and probably could have only sold 20 copies or so but that is 20 copies that would have been sold at an actual record store.  

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27 minutes ago, Orange Grapes said:

 

Apparently you were lucky to get one as I wasn’t able to get any for my store at all. I’m very disheartened by the “allocation” processes over the last few years. Especially with releases like the Phish LP this year. I ordered multiple copies for my store and was only able to get one. I was turning people away all day, yet Plaid Room has almost 300 copies to sell online the next day. I mean, why get up and get in line at my store next year when I probably won’t have what you want and you can just get up the next day and order it in your pajamas. Defeats the entire point. Granted I have a very small store and probably could have only sold 20 copies or so but that is 20 copies that would have been sold at an actual record store.  

I'm very curious to hear why Plaid room had all those copies. That should not be happening.

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44 minutes ago, thischarmingham said:

I'm very curious to hear why Plaid room had all those copies. That should not be happening.

I heard the owner of my local store saying he could order the same records through multiple distributors.  He had a decent haul.  My guess is the same happens for a place like Plaid Room.  And if they keep moving units, the distributors will keep rewarding them.  

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13 minutes ago, merlecakes said:

I heard the owner of my local store saying he could order the same records through multiple distributors.  He had a decent haul.  My guess is the same happens for a place like Plaid Room.  And if they keep moving units, the distributors will keep rewarding them.  

Well that certainly might be the case and I guess that is something I could also do but quite frankly even if they ordered from all of the participating distributors they shouldn’t be able to get that many. I mean if they have 300 left over how many did they have to start with? 500? 1k? It’s an 8k pressing so you are talking about one store getting almost 10% of them. There are around 1,500 stores in the US. Granted not all of them participate in RSD but still. I use “Alliance” as my distributor for transparency sake.  Who told me at one point they service around 80% of all participating stores... something doesn’t add up somewhere. 

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36 minutes ago, Orange Grapes said:

Well that certainly might be the case and I guess that is something I could also do but quite frankly even if they ordered from all of the participating distributors they shouldn’t be able to get that many. I mean if they have 300 left over how many did they have to start with? 500? 1k? It’s an 8k pressing so you are talking about one store getting almost 10% of them. There are around 1,500 stores in the US. Granted not all of them participate in RSD but still. I use “Alliance” as my distributor for transparency sake.  Who told me at one point they service around 80% of all participating stores... something doesn’t add up somewhere. 

For sure.  As someone on the consumer side, it’s just as frustrating.  Yes, I ended up with everything I wanted, but to see Plaid room with 19 leftover Claypools the next day and I couldn’t get one locally when I was 10th in line doesn’t really add up either.  I also didn’t realize different distributors would carry the same titles.  I would’ve thought there would be some sort of exclusivity that the distributors would leverage to try to make ordering through them more appealing.  

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1 hour ago, merlecakes said:

I heard the owner of my local store saying he could order the same records through multiple distributors.  He had a decent haul.  My guess is the same happens for a place like Plaid Room.  And if they keep moving units, the distributors will keep rewarding them.  

That's true of everyone and still would not account for a haul that large. Not only are they supposed to communicate but even across the handful of distributors combined they should not have been able to amass that many if allocation was happening correctly.

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39 minutes ago, Orange Grapes said:

Well that certainly might be the case and I guess that is something I could also do but quite frankly even if they ordered from all of the participating distributors they shouldn’t be able to get that many. I mean if they have 300 left over how many did they have to start with? 500? 1k? It’s an 8k pressing so you are talking about one store getting almost 10% of them. There are around 1,500 stores in the US. Granted not all of them participate in RSD but still. I use “Alliance” as my distributor for transparency sake.  Who told me at one point they service around 80% of all participating stores... something doesn’t add up somewhere. 

Something is definitely fishy. Is the owner of Plaid room affiliated with RSD directly at all? 

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1 hour ago, thischarmingham said:

Something is definitely fishy. Is the owner of Plaid room affiliated with RSD directly at all? 

This is an interesting thread, and I don't have all the answers by any means.  We're a store and know the RSD people pretty well, and I can tell you with some certainty that Plaid Room is not "affiliated" with RSD in any meaningful way, any more than any other store is.  They are also a label, but I don't think that has anything to do with anything.  

 

From where we're sitting, the #1 reason that some stores receive mega multiples and others receive few to none has almost everything to do with the store's volume and order history with the distros.  Small stores that aren't well capitalized (and that's no dig at them, everyone has to start small) generally aren't going to have an ordering history with the distributors that justifies a lot of quantity. Every call is a judgment call, and it's impossible to be fair to everyone.  I know that some stores, in the rush to amass RSD inventory, will order from distributors that they scarcely order from all year long, and the distros are going to reward the stores that order from them every week or two, not the ones they never hear from.  We've been on both sides of that.  

 

Now, as to why a single store would have 300 or more copies of any one title (unless the band in question was local to them), if in fact that's the case, I have no idea.   

 

 

 

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14 minutes ago, Monster Music & Movies said:

This is an interesting thread, and I don't have all the answers by any means.  We're a store and know the RSD people pretty well, and I can tell you with some certainty that Plaid Room is not "affiliated" with RSD in any meaningful way, any more than any other store is.  They are also a label, but I don't think that has anything to do with anything.  

 

From where we're sitting, the #1 reason that some stores receive mega multiples and others receive few to none has almost everything to do with the store's volume and order history with the distros.  Small stores that aren't well capitalized (and that's no dig at them, everyone has to start small) generally aren't going to have an ordering history with the distributors that justifies a lot of quantity. Every call is a judgment call, and it's impossible to be fair to everyone.  I know that some stores, in the rush to amass RSD inventory, will order from distributors that they scarcely order from all year long, and the distros are going to reward the stores that order from them every week or two, not the ones they never hear from.  We've been on both sides of that.  

 

Now, as to why a single store would have 300 or more copies of any one title (unless the band in question was local to them), if in fact that's the case, I have no idea.   

 

 

 

From a record store owner myself this sums it up perfectly. Well said

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12 minutes ago, Monster Music & Movies said:

This is an interesting thread, and I don't have all the answers by any means.  We're a store and know the RSD people pretty well, and I can tell you with some certainty that Plaid Room is not "affiliated" with RSD in any meaningful way, any more than any other store is.  They are also a label, but I don't think that has anything to do with anything.  

 

From where we're sitting, the #1 reason that some stores receive mega multiples and others receive few to none has almost everything to do with the store's volume and order history with the distros.  Small stores that aren't well capitalized (and that's no dig at them, everyone has to start small) generally aren't going to have an ordering history with the distributors that justifies a lot of quantity. Every call is a judgment call, and it's impossible to be fair to everyone.  I know that some stores, in the rush to amass RSD inventory, will order from distributors that they scarcely order from all year long, and the distros are going to reward the stores that order from them every week or two, not the ones they never hear from.  We've been on both sides of that.  

 

Now, as to why a single store would have 300 or more copies of any one title (unless the band in question was local to them), if in fact that's the case, I have no idea.   

 

 

 

Of course larger stores with massive customer bases and order histories should get more stock but it is really hard to take seeing all these stores throwing mass amounts of “leftovers” up online the next day. I have never had a “leftover”. Ever. I don’t get enough stock to even cover my requests, let alone have “extras”. I have no idea how to make it more fair and balanced but it certainly isn’t currently. I mean, my customers have no other option. I am the only store in the area. If I don’t get what they want they either have to drive for a couple of hours to the next closest store or they just don’t get it. My customers love music and collecting vinyl just as much as everyone else but feel like they get shorted because of where they live. 

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1 hour ago, Orange Grapes said:

Of course larger stores with massive customer bases and order histories should get more stock but it is really hard to take seeing all these stores throwing mass amounts of “leftovers” up online the next day. I have never had a “leftover”. Ever. I don’t get enough stock to even cover my requests, let alone have “extras”. I have no idea how to make it more fair and balanced but it certainly isn’t currently. I mean, my customers have no other option. I am the only store in the area. If I don’t get what they want they either have to drive for a couple of hours to the next closest store or they just don’t get it. My customers love music and collecting vinyl just as much as everyone else but feel like they get shorted because of where they live. 

As a store owner myself I disagree that larger stores should be serviced at the expense of smaller stores. It basically sets a dynamic that keeps the bigger stores bigger and the smaller ones smaller. If that was in place my shop wouldn't be anywhere near as successful as we are because everything would just go to Amoeba and we'd be left with ones and twos. This Plaid Room thing is plain weird. That is way more copies than anyone should receive in any situation barring the band playing there or something crazy like that and I intend to ask what the story is with the RSD folks

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1 minute ago, Oblivions said:

My local shop has been around for 60 years and is a decent size serving a large city and they have shared with me that they get shorted on RSD orders often. I’ve always been curious how that stuff works.

There are lots of variable and moving parts, and it may depend in large part to who they're ordering from, and how many THEIR vendors got from the labels.  Also there are always shipping snafus - pallets get diverted and go missing.   And 100 other scenarios.  It's kind of a crazy business!

 

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18 hours ago, thischarmingham said:

No one but Third Man got more than 1 unfortunately. Third man got backlogged pressing the new coldplay so they only got 500 of the Patsy done instead of 3500 and they kept 400 for their stores.

Hey there, this isn't quite accurate.  There were never to be more than 1000 of this pressed, and Third Man kept only 100.

 

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8 hours ago, Orange Grapes said:

 

Apparently you were lucky to get one as I wasn’t able to get any for my store at all. I’m very disheartened by the “allocation” processes over the last few years. Especially with releases like the Phish LP this year. I ordered multiple copies for my store and was only able to get one. I was turning people away all day, yet Plaid Room has almost 300 copies to sell online the next day. I mean, why get up and get in line at my store next year when I probably won’t have what you want and you can just get up the next day and order it in your pajamas. Defeats the entire point. Granted I have a very small store and probably could have only sold 20 copies or so but that is 20 copies that would have been sold at an actual record store.  

Allocation is always a pain I've worked in stores with multiple locations in the past that got much larger fills and as mentioned later in the thread I agree it seems the more you order throughout the year the higher fill you get which isn't really fair and an ugly side of capitalism. I feel the burn on a regular basis from distros and BF sucked I ordered from distros that didn't even deliver product until that afternoon after the crowds died., not to mention the titles we got allocated 0, I really only got the 1 Patsy because we are in a record store coalition and have our own distro that had the third man titles 

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On 11/30/2019 at 12:58 AM, thischarmingham said:

No one but Third Man got more than 1 unfortunately. Third man got backlogged pressing the new coldplay so they only got 500 of the Patsy done instead of 3500 and they kept 400 for their stores.

Thanks for the info!

 

I do like Coldplay, and even bought the Holland “Greatest Xmas Songs” comp to get “Christmas Lights” on vinyl...

(Come on. There REALLY should be a 7-inch of this by now. Work on that RSD people!)

 

However, this new single...nope, not feeling it. 😄

Edited by Plarocks
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Definitely not a shop owner, but my local struggles to keep up with demand every year. They regularly say, every RSD, "we always order many times what we receive." There have been times where they have a fair amount of big ticket items, but I've seen as low as 1 (or none) of pretty widely available/ sought after releases.

When I go, I usually go VERY early/ night before and "camp." When I look back to the end of the line, by opening, I wonder what those folks are going to buy. Seems ridiculous that 300 of an item could be allocated to one store while others get zilch.

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On 11/30/2019 at 11:20 AM, pizza face said:

I called bullmoose this morning to order Pearl Jam but they didn't put it through. I got everything else I wanted to order though. 

NC in Salem NH had about 25 copies there on Friday around noon. Not sure if there are any left, but it's worth a call.

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On 11/30/2019 at 7:41 PM, Monster Music & Movies said:

Hey there, this isn't quite accurate.  There were never to be more than 1000 of this pressed, and Third Man kept only 100.

 

I find it hard to believe that third man only kept 100. Friday full line up there. I went in Saturday and got 2 copies (admittedly I flipped cause super ridiculous prices / demand). I went back yesterday and got another copy for myself. Still a bunch of copies there. No way they only kept 100 and didn’t sell out yet. I know a few other local ‘Detroiter’s’ flipping them on eBay. Yeah yeah, douchebag move on my part but it paid for other releases I couldn’t get at retail and paid flippers price. 
 

on the plus side, a black version will be out shortly. They were already pressing it this weekend there. 

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