$900 is indeed the listed price at Acoustic Sounds’ website: Bill Evans-Riverside Recordings-Vinyl Box Sets|Acoustic Sounds
AS/AP just had a $5 across the board increase for all single and double disc sets. So... this set should have increased by $50, maybe $100. But $200? Perhaps $100-150 increase related to the box??
It increased from 600 to 660 at this recent price increase. Apparently it has jumped up to 900 after increasing by $60.
Okay, so the price rose by $240. Why? (Rhetorically asked here. And don't say that they were merely matching Discogs.)
Non-cynical hypothesis: AP couldn't book a 1,500-2,000 box set run at a pressing plant due to the explosion of demand for vinyl and the limited capacity at plants. After all, this is a set that will require 22 individual plates. A calculation was made that adding $300 to the retail price was necessary to make a shorter run more profitable. A further calculation was made that even at $900 the set would sell out. The "matching the discogs price theory" probably isn't correct, because if they did that, customers would just buy their favorite titles individually on discogs rather than shell out the full box price for some titles that they might not otherwise buy. I might pay the discogs price for Explorations. I'm not paying discogs prices for some of the other titles. Of course, there is an alternative, more cynical hypothesis as well...
Possible. Keep in mind, regarding individual titles, that many of these titles were only produced as part of the set and not available individually.
But surely the box is pressed at QRP, right? Even if they are backed up I can’t imagine them having to compromise how many boxes are produced since there’s no real timeline for this to be repressed. Of course I know nothing of the logistics; I’m just theorising here. A price increase for the sake of a price increase seems to be the simplest and most logical explanation. They’ve already increased prices on all other AP records, albeit only by a small amount.
Licensing restrictions could keep them from pressing however many they’d like. I’m not privy to any details, but it’s a possibility.
That is a possibility, for sure. I wonder if they’ll honour the $600 price for any orders placed before the increase.
They will. That preorder is essentially a contract. Any orders prior to the recent increases I'm sure will be honored.
Right. That's why I wouldn't be questioning a $75-100 increase. But the actual increase seems to be excessive.
Oh no doubt it’s excessive. That’s why I can’t imagine any justification for it beyond it being that they know they’ll still sell them all at $900. It could be to account for the shortfall resulting from a smaller pressing run than they had previously anticipated, but I dunno, that just seems less likely to me. It’s possible I’m wrong, but AP is a business at the end of the day.
No matter what theory is, i am no longer considering a copy. $600 was a lot, and then $660 was annoying but it was still a consideration but $900?? No thanks
I'm in the same the same boat. $60 increase was fine but this is almost exploiting a loyal customer base. It just seems a bit sleazy. Of course, it's a free market but it just seems bad for overall customer moral. I still enjoy the AP product but this is going to linger with me for a bit. After the KOB debacle, this just seems in bad taste. I'm out on this one but it was a smart pre-order for others. I'm sure it will be a treasure for many to enjoy!
$660 would fit with the new $60 per 45rpm pricing structure. Hard to not come to the conclusion that they're looking at what these are reselling for now and pricing accordingly. Too bad. I am happy for them to make a profit, but difficult to justify $900 for this set. Unfortunately, I have no doubt it will sell.
They can cancel any order they want to cancel, but if they pull that crap here then they’ll be trashing their reputation. I have a $600 backorder on this and have passed on a couple opportunities to buy stand alone copies from this set. If they cancel my order because they want to charge more then they will lose a customer.
This is why I recommended people place an order when it was back ordered/awaiting repress. If Acoustic Sounds were one of those sites that charges and holds your $, then I can definitely see not wanting to let them have your $ for an unknown period of time. But all pre-ordering does on their site is establish demand level for them to justify a repress (good for them) and lock in your price (good for you). And even for those on the fence, there’s likely still a window where you know it’s coming out soon, but it hasn’t shipped yet, so cancelling would likely still be possible. In this case, with the price increase, I can’t see anyone cancelling their order even if they don’t want to keep it. A preorder is basically a 33% discount from current pricing.
I would love to have this, but not for $900. Kind of absurd. Oh well, they can't be that much better than the 80's OJCs which I am more than happy with.
$600 to $900 is a ridiculous increase. Has anyone tried calling and asking about it? I’ve had a preorder in at the $600 price for well over a year, and they’ve always upheld their preorder price, even if it goes up when repressed. I’m not too worried there. While I feel for the folks with no preorder on this, I do wonder why you wouldn’t preorder if you know you want it? They don’t charge until it ships. I know I’ve encouraged folks several times on the forum to place their preorders for the box to show the demand for a repress. I’ve been nearly certain this was coming for a while.
