MusicDirect has bummed me out

This forum turns me on to a ton of music. If I see something I really like and Amazon has a good price on it, I'll just buy it there. I have Prime, so free 2 day shipping rocks.

That said, I prefer to support the audiophile-centric online players as much as possible. I've settled on MusicDirect as my preferred site. They almost always have the best price and I've gotten great service in the past.

Since I'm moving soon and already have a stack of unopened LP's, I've been trying to hold off buying titles. I spent about 15 hours over the last few weeks building up a massive order from recommendations here and just going through every title they sell. Seriously, the order was massive...

... But apparently, all for nothing. For some reason, MusicDirect will automatically remove items in your cart after "x" number of days. I say "x" because MusicDirect can't seem to be able to tell me how many days that is and I don't get any kind of warning that items are about to be removed. Having worked for eCommerce companies in the past, I can't imagine any benefit of removing items from a customer's cart. And yet they do.

I asked their support team if their IT team could recover the items and give me a list. They claim they cannot, though I have a very hard time believing that. It really sucks because I will never remember all of the titles that were in there since many were new bands to me that I discovered here.

Really bummed about this. Anyone else have a similar experience?

Note: I know I could just add these items to my "wish list". Or, at least, I know this now though it's too late to help me here. Lame.

 

If you're on the phone with Music Direct again, ask them if the 45 RPM MoFi Grateful Dead American Beauty I pre-ordered 18 months ago is ready yet. .

You're right that removing things from carts is odd - I could understand if it was a browser session/cookie issue, but isn't the default behavior to send you an email encouraging you to pull the trigger?

Personally, I use the Amazon Chrome extension to add anything I see anywhere to my Amazon record-specific wish list, not that it helps you post-facto.

 

I have noticed recently that they send out one email the day after you put something in your cart. Not sure what triggers this.

The really dumb part is that MusicDirect doesn't do free shipping until you get your order over $100. So I suspect this issue affects them way more than they realize as I'm sure others wait until they have a $100 order to pull the trigger. Just dumb stuff really.

 

Music Direct is great, and yes you should have added the items to your wish list instead of your cart. I'm not condoning what Music Direct does by removing things from your cart if left too long, but they have, in my experience great service, etc.

I understand where you are coming from, but I would give them the benefit of the doubt. And you learned something in the process.... put the items in you wish list, not your cart.

 

My experience is that most online companies clear your car after 24 hours.

There are exceptions. Amazon doesn't. Neither does Soundstage Direct.

Still, my rule of thumb is to expect stuff to be long gone from my cart if I don't buy it right away.

I write things down on a pad of paper - gasp! - if I want to save it. I know, I know, it's quaint.

 

Why wouldn't you just use the Wish List ???

 

If the website has one, I have and will use a wish list. From this thread, I understand Music Direct does.

My recommendation is just a rule of thumb. I take written notes, not just on Internet purchases but in general. I'm a list maker.

 

So the most successful online retailer in the world leaves stuff in your cart. Hmmmm... I wonder if that has anything to do with their success? In online commerce, every dollar counts given the margins.

 

Ha ha, I'll sometimes take a picture of my cart with my cell phone. I used to use the pad and paper.

 

Point taken, Brian. A wise observation on your part.

It's just most don't. They clear their carts. I like the e-commerce folks who send you an email saying, why did you leave stuff in your cart? You really should buy it. We'll keep it there for a day or two but beyond that, it's bye-bye. Your cart will be cleared. That may be the best way to handle this situation.

I learned that most don't the hard way with the late, great Earthwave Records. I purchased at least 200 records from them over the years. I'd get their email of new, used records on Saturday morning and spend the better part of a pot of coffee going through their listings. In the early days of Earthwave's online sales, not only did they not have a wish list, they cleared your cart hourly. So after fine tuning a large order of maybe a dozen records, I'd obey one of my standing rules which is if the bill is over $50, I have to get up from the computer to think about it. One click is just too easy. After a morning shower and some chores, I'd come back to my computer, only to find my Earthwave cart empty! Suffering succotash!

I learned to write prospective orders from them down on paper. I've kept it up with others since then. Either that, or I'll grab a screen cap of the prospective order. That also works. EDIT: I see black sheriff beat me to the last point.

 

The other problem... I can't move anything from my cart to a wish list. So if I think I wanna buy it now, but change my mind, I have to go back to the item detail page and then add it to my wish list. Their site is so ridiculously slow as is, that I'm just not gonna make the effort. Bummer. I had nearly 200 titles in there (note: that was way more than I was going to buy actually.

The reason I lost everything was that I contacted their support to see if there was an easier way to move everything at once or if they could export my list (something they'd done with my wish list once before) so I could have a record of the stuff I wanted later). They never warned that I'd lose what was in there. That happened over the week it took to get an answer about exporting.

 

Horror stories of items in a cart, hitting a person's credit card, then being shipped, due to a computer glitch, kept me from ever putting anything in a cart, and leaving it there.
May have been BS, but it got me in a habit, where this never happened to me.

 

This convenience thing is obviously getting out of hand. So, because you have too many new LP's unopened, and will soon be moving, you spend a few weeks accumulating more stuff in a virtual cart - loose it all, spend a week trying to get it back and am now bummed. Maybe when commerce is made too easy it has the potential to get us off course. Just sayin'...

 

I'm reminded of a time on another forum I posted that when I place an order from a company first thing in the morning, I expect it to ship by the afternoon. Somebody who themselves dabbled in shipping told me I was being laughably unrealistic, a victim of the instant gratification culture, industry standard was 3-4 DAYS, etc.

The problem is today we have choices, and as such most businesses do indeed ship their products in a timely manner, and I wouldn't expect a company that sat on an order for a few days to stay in business long unless they just had no competitors. The same is the case with the OP's problem - he's describing an outlier situation that negatively impacted him. The majority doesn't operate this way, and he's going to be tempted to switch from Music Direct to say, Acoustic Sounds. A problem can be trivial, but given the choice most of us would prefer to avoid even trivial problems.

 

Exactly. The real issue is that I wasn't given any notice. Also, I suspect this situation (to a lesser degree) happens a lot more at a company like Music Direct given their shipping charge policies and target market. How many of us are going to pay $10 for shipping on a $22 album? Not many. I suspect we'd all typically wait until we can hit the $100 free shipping price point.

So the use case I've described should have been solved long ago by any competent online commerce company. Again, I work in tech and have worked in online commerce in the past. This isn't a difficult technical challenge.

 

Will it be a great loss at the end of the day if you simply choose to shop elsewhere?

 

Maybe Music Direct doesn't see it as a problem to be solved. They give you the opportunity to set up a wish list and delete stuff from your cart after X days.

I suspect it's an inventory control thing. If they have one copy left of something, and it's in a cart, somebody else can't buy it. If you hold it in your cart for days and days and then delete it, they've lost that sale.

I feel bad that you spent all that time putting together a list but I don't have any issue with the Music Direct practices in this case.

 

Maybe its because like Brian I work in tech and view these things differently (IE, things customers don't like are problems the business needs to solve vs. explain away), but I'd again point out that keeping the state of carts intact is the norm and not the exception, so lots of companies have apparently figured this out without hurting their sales. Amazon alerts me that prices have changed of items in my cart, and at some point would let me know its no longer available; putting it in my cart definitely doesn't put it on layaway forever.

It's not a huge problem and we all agree he'd have been better served by the wish list feature, but I think it's a legit gripe.

 

Rolltide,

Was what I stated here a past reality, or urban legend ? Thanks in advance.

 

I don't want to say urban legend, but I've certainly never heard of this happening. If it did ever happen, I'd say it would have been in the 90's during the dawn of e-commerce. I can definitely say without reservation that it's not something you should modify your behavior over fear it might occur. But the moral of this story is that where wish lists exist, they should probably be used as wish lists vs. using carts as wish lists

 

Amazon used to make you add Panasonic plasma TVs to your cart in order to see the real price. Something about advertising less than MSRP price was not allowed. It was quite annoying especially if you forgot to take it out of your cart, buy something cheap then at the final checkout screen see the $10 book plus a $2000 TV that was added weeks ago (or several TVs if prices were being compared) and just stayed in the cart. But I would take back everything I just said if Panasonic started manufacturing plasmas again

 

Difficulty is probably irrelevant. There are lots of reasons for why a company might not opt to store that sort of information via cookies, etc., and they revolve around resources, not competency. Just use a Wish List man.

 

I just placed my first order with Musicdirect earlier this week, I discovered they are local to me and I like supporting local business but then I come to find out their free shipping is via FedEx supersaver which is the worst, Chicago to Wisconsin to Indiana back up to Chicago ect. I'm 20 miles from them. I had a second order I placed before I knew about this so I called them up today to ask about the shipping and kind of complain. I asked about picking it up...nope...at the end of the conversation they cancelled my order and more or less told me to shop elsewhere since I don't like their shipping policy. I guess they have enough business they can pick and choose their customers, I'll keep order from out of state to save on tax and ironically get my music faster....

 

I leave TONS of stuff in my Amazon cart, much of it in the "saved for later" area. Some of it has been in there for years. I check the cart several times a day and, due to their dynamic pricing, I have gotten some great deals by doing this. I wonder if the same thing would work with their wish list feature. It probably would.

 

Of course it does.