RSD Thoughts

Don't get me wrong, Grumpy. The Donny Hathaway vinyl sounds great. Dead quiet. It is the master it was cut from that has the one issue. And it is only one issue. Everything else is killer.
 
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What they should do for RSD is have a limited #'d release on some special color or something to satisy the people that are willing to buy from flippers and have a regular release on black or a different color vinyl for people like me who don't collect but want to hear things i'm not willing to pay $100+ for on ebay for a single original copy. I'm hoping they release Blind Melon Soup soon since they released the other last year because i'm not going to pay $200 off of ebay for the original although I'd love to have it.
 
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I know that this will sound silly to all you vinyl hoarders, but I refuse to pay more than $10 for a vinyl record. This limits me to used pieces, encourages more searching, and since I have 45,000 files, I'm not lacking music, and my vinyl collection is the most essential (to me) older stuff. To me, music recorded on vinyl in its heyday sounds best. Music recorded in the modern digital era (not much 80's, but 90's-00's-10's) sounds perfectly acceptable on files. Flac to mp3 ratio? 26,000 flac, 19,000 mp3, mostly 320 kbps. Thanks to schiit bifrost for making collecting files an infinitely listenable experience.
 
Good to hear - my local store had it and were gouging for $250... I had it in my hands and put it down. Someone else picked it up and walked around with it for 20 minutes and then put it back...

Gouging at $250??? Really???

Check out eBay, most are going for over $300. $250 seems to be a real world discount of $50 or better.

This stuff is no different that what happens at Black Friday and other limited release items. If you really don't want this to happen, don't limit them and make enough so there's no way folks will bid them up. Or price them the first day at estimated eBay prices to keep the flippers away...

Anybody who thinks otherwise is either naive or in denial....
 
This stuff is no different that what happens at Black Friday and other limited release items. If you really don't want this to happen, don't limit them and make enough so there's no way folks will bid them up.

But the whole idea is to drive people to indie shops. "Regular" releases don't do that. With the Cake box, for example, I think they should do a second issue, but with black vinyl rather than colored. That way, the people who camped out to get their copy still have something special, and those of us who are in it for the music don't have to pay the gougers on eBay.
 
Terrible, elitist idea. Only those with deep pockets should get to enjoy the stuff?

How many of those copies do you think went home and didn't get flipped??? And how many of those keeping the LPs would have bought them anyways regardless of the RSD hoopla??? Sounds to me like lots of folks will get a chance to get this at normal prices once things cool down.

I understand why RSD is a good thing for the stores. Heck, I'll bet some of them sold more that day than they will for the rest of the entire month. I know the one place I hit had about 20 people in it which is probably about 10x what I usually see there.

But I also understand that in today's world there are folks who are willing to pay a huge premium for something to be sent to them w/o them leaving the comfort of home and plenty who are willing to do the work to supply them.
 
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Here you go. 3 of these sold for $247-$250 on eBay already... :lmao:

Some of you guys could have paid for your LPs by flipping one of these :D

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Guys, every year this happens, the prices on ebay are crazy the day of the event then go down for the next week when you can find just about anything for retail or a little below. The bubble burst very quickly. Keep looking at ebay and you'll see the prices drop.

The Cake box set will be repressed, do you really think the guys in the band aren't seeing this much demand and thinking they need to capitalize on it?
 
Gouging at $250??? Really???

Check out eBay, most are going for over $300. $250 seems to be a real world discount of $50 or better.

This stuff is no different that what happens at Black Friday and other limited release items. If you really don't want this to happen, don't limit them and make enough so there's no way folks will bid them up. Or price them the first day at estimated eBay prices to keep the flippers away...

Anybody who thinks otherwise is either naive or in denial....

Why should I give a rats ass what the eBay asking price is when I asked the store to order it, waited patiently for RSD, waited in line for an hour only to find out they stickered it at double the MSRP?!?!

The band wants to know what store this was and so do the organizers of RSD. They particulary don't want participating stores gouging.
In fact the band's facebook message yesterday referred to gouging stores as "mercenaries".
 
I had to work on Saturday, so my RSD was Friday. I went to my secret fishing hole thrift store and pulled out about 50 LPs for 3 for a buck. Well, it made me happy.

Since I don't buy new vinyl, I guess this hoo-hah about RSD doesn't get me going too much. Peace be upon you all.
 
Uh, those aren't ASKING prices, they're SOLD prices...

Nothing new here. Who do you want making the money, the record store or the evil flipper, because one of the two is gonna get it.

I gotta admit it's pretty ironic that folks here bemoan the death of brick and mortar hands on stores, but when somebody in one does something to assure they'll be around next year and put a few extra bucks in their pockets, they get reviled for it.

Did they sell ALL the Cake box sets? If so, it seems they priced them right and that handful that bought them may feel they got a bargain IF they had to have it yesterday.

If not, I'm sure they can sell them tomorrow for whatever they want, certainly the $124.99 won't be hard.

BTW, the "S" in MSRP stands for "Suggested", not "mandatory". I don't know as I'm not a store owner, but are there contractual agreements on pricing these goods that the store, artists and distributors are bound to? If Cake doesn't want stores "gouging" they should try to require pricing agreements, otherwise it's just too bad...
 
BTW, the "S" in MSRP stands for "Suggested", not "mandatory". I don't know as I'm not a store owner, but are there contractual agreements on pricing these goods that the store, artists and distributors are bound to? If Cake doesn't want stores "gouging" they should try to require pricing agreements, otherwise it's just too bad...

You are correct. It is illegal for manufacturers to force retailers to stick to a set price. This was established by court cases alleging illegal restraint of trade. If you're the manufacturer and I'm the retailer, all you can do is say what you think the item should be sold for. I can sell it for whatever I damned well please.

Simple economics shows that if I price it too low, I don't make any money and I soon go out of business. If I price it too high, my competitors price it lower and I don't sell my product. Competition keeps prices at the level that will sustain both the business and sell to customers.

Everyone believes in fair trade and free enterprise until they want something they can't afford. Then they want someone to 'do something' to fix the gross inequity in the system.

They're records, for God's sake. Not food or housing or clothing. #firstworldproblems

:D
 
Did they sell ALL the Cake box sets? If so, it seems they priced them right and that handful that bought them may feel they got a bargain IF they had to have it yesterday.

They got one set, and it was still there at 10:30 when I left the store. Everyone who was interested in it was expecting the price to be around $130 and refused to buy it.

The "brick and mortar stores" do have agreements regarding RSD merchandise, BTW, it isn't the wild west anymore....

I'll gladly buy it from the band. I can wait for it some more, they are only records...
 
The main shop I go to sells for a little below retail, they have never gouged on any RSD release. They also limit purchases to 1 of each release no walking out with 5 Dave Matthews Band Live Trax or no 4 Cake Box Sets.
 
I'll gladly buy it from the band. I can wait for it some more, they are only records...

That seems to be the smart move if you want the set for yourself.

I stopped in my local shop to check out the Garcia LP as they had several Grateful Dead RSD 2013 releases during the last year. I don't know if they were leftovers or late arrivals, but they were there last summer for a while and so I thought they may have a line on the Garcias.

There were probably 20+ people there around 12:45PM and only 4 boxes of RSD stuff set aside on the counter. LOTS of Aerosmith stuff available, like 3-4 copies of 3-4 titles. One Yardbirds I passed on. I looked through the blues stuff, but seeing as I had been in there only a week or two earlier really didn't need to spend too much time. Plus I was on my way to our SMAC meet at DCs.

If I had to guess, I'd say everybody else was a noobie, as they all had that first timer look about them and some had copies of pretty common Fleetwood Mac and Jackson Browne LPs in their hands. Many seemed like they hadn't seen some of the LPs or gear they had displayed for quite a while too.

Overall, I thought it was a good thing that they were getting a nice surge in their business and that more folks were getting into vinyl. This place is just a Mom and Pop hole in the wall, so this might have been the biggest day of the year for them.

I NEVER have seen that many people in there at one time before.
 
But I also understand that in today's world there are folks who are willing to pay a huge premium for something to be sent to them w/o them leaving the comfort of home and plenty who are willing to do the work to supply them.

I'd answer that, but then the thread would become political and that is (of course) against AK rules. Suffice to say that at least Cake is one band who "gets it" and is taking fan friendly steps.
 
Uh, those aren't ASKING prices, they're SOLD prices...

Nothing new here. Who do you want making the money, the record store or the evil flipper, because one of the two is gonna get it.

I gotta admit it's pretty ironic that folks here bemoan the death of brick and mortar hands on stores, but when somebody in one does something to assure they'll be around next year and put a few extra bucks in their pockets, they get reviled for it.

Did they sell ALL the Cake box sets? If so, it seems they priced them right and that handful that bought them may feel they got a bargain IF they had to have it yesterday.

If not, I'm sure they can sell them tomorrow for whatever they want, certainly the $124.99 won't be hard.

BTW, the "S" in MSRP stands for "Suggested", not "mandatory". I don't know as I'm not a store owner, but are there contractual agreements on pricing these goods that the store, artists and distributors are bound to? If Cake doesn't want stores "gouging" they should try to require pricing agreements, otherwise it's just too bad...

I work in a brick and mortar type place in a very small town and I can assure you there are ways to ensure another years survival without gouging people. It's called customer service.
 
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