I have said it before but how in the world does a huge retailer like Target behave so irresponsibly with one tiny portion of their product offerings?? I have purchased other things from Target on line and never had the bizarre experiences that we all are enduring while trying to purchase a few vinyl records. Who is in charge of this sales fiasco???
Not absolving Target by any means, but the music is all coming directly from Alliance Distribution. Target is basically drop shipping it all to us and it ships from Alliance (aka Deep Discount, ImportCDs, etc.) so that definitely helps to explain some of the problems... but Target is still selling it to us so they are the responsible party at the end of the day.
It does seem like Target could manage this better: 1. Not allow future releases to be ordered with the buy 2 get 3 sale. 2. Determine in advance how many copies of non-mainstream titles they can offer as part of the sale, and then have their website set up to make items unavailable after those limited number of copies have sold. 3. Not allow customers to order multiples of the same item. 4. Not allow customers to order 3 items and then cancel two of them, leaving the third with a remaining 33.3% discount.
I think you are right that Target doesn't care about any of this. They also don't care that a few people are upset about how the fulfillment of their sale items turns out; I'm sure most people order readily available items so, in the grand scheme of things, having some bargain hunting music lovers get upset is small potatoes. I don't think I'd consider these 3-for-2 sales as loss leaders, though. That term implies selling something at a loss in order to get people in a store to buy other things on which the store makes a profit. All of the griping on this thread is about online orders not being fulfilled and I doubt anyone here goes to a website to buy music and then decides before checking out that they will browse the site for other items while they are there.
As a redcard holder w/the 5% discount, I have sometimes added non-media items to my order that I needed that I may have typically picked up elsewhere, but again as pointed out in the grand scheme of things I'm probably one of the few (only?) here doing that.
Bunch of Tone Poets have been backordered to Dec. 25, same with the new Sturgill Simpson record that's out today.
Those are weird placeholder dates that Target is using. Check the revised Tone Poet schedule on Blue Note’s site for the real dates.
I would settle for the elimination of their policy of sending middle of the night warnings about a change in the delivery date and then canceling the order without giving the consumer adequate time to respond. I don't give them credit for using this as a ploy to drive away record business. It is just a misguided program that some stupid staffer put into place for who knows what reason. Most of us don't care if the deliver date changes. Just tell us and we will proactively cancel the order if the new date does not work for our schedule. But geez, do not arbitrarily cancel sale items we have ordered.
Byrd In Flight was finally cancelled yesterday, Bass On Top and The Rajah kicked down the road with "delay approval".
Weird. They cancelled my Waiting Game, Byrd on Top, and Tender Moments a while back with no notice at all, but The Rajah and Bass On Top are still active and they haven’t asked for a delay approval on them either.
Yeah, no rhyme or reason to this stuff. Almost the opposite of @Rentz I had Flight cancelled yesterday with no option to delay (2am special...) but Rajah I was given the option to delay and is still coming. I see Byrd In Flight is still available for pre-order though. Also crazy is that I got my pre-ordered Tender Moments last week when so many had that cancelled without warning. On the bright side, I'm happy that not one of my vinyl orders have arrived damaged.
Yeah, really annoying. Last week they canceled Byrd with no warning and I immediately got on chat with them to get a new order in with discount. Yesterday Waiting Game was canceled with no warning (although I had approval e-mails for 3 other titles), and I haven't had the desire to get on chat with them to get a new order in.
Target started wacky packaging on my orders again. Had my Pearl Jam LP ship in a plastic bag so it was bent to h---. And another LP was crammed diagonally in a small box with a bunch of other items and it has a few corner bends. Ordered another PJ with an expensive box set, so hoping for a clean copy in a decent mailer. My orders from the November 3 for 2 were mostly shipped in good mailers..
i think they sometimes will just ship directly from a store if that works best for their logistics. each time i've suspected that was the case as evidenced by the tracking history, they've come bizarrely packed. they clearly don't have any sort of LP mailers at a retail location.
In reviewing my orders for any midnight surprises, I did notice one thing I can say in their favor (besides the great prices) is that Target will at least ship lps as they come into stock, rather than wait until the entire order is in stock to ship, like uDiscover. Each discounter has their own annoying policy it seems. Still worth dealing with, IMO, although I personally find Target's cancellation policy the worse of the two.
They cancelled my Byrd in Flight with no warning weeks ago, BUT just so I didn’t feel left out, Target was nice enough to cancel Bass On Top for me with no warning today instead! HoHoHo, merrrrrrry Christmas from Target!
This morning I was prompted to approve delays for two Acoustic Sounds/Verve titles: Nina Simone - I put a spell on you Clifford Brown and Max Roach - Study in Brown I ordered the Nina Simone album along with Pastel Blues, which I received a month ago. Really hoping that one doesn’t get canceled as I’ve since passed on opportunities to pick it up at a discount.