Target Vinyl Shipping Practices

I know that there has been discussion about Amazon's poor shipping practices when it comes to vinyl, but I haven't yet seen anything regarding Target.

I've ordered a few records from Target over the years and have never had an issue until this week. I took advantage of their Black Friday B2G1 sale and reserved some for in-store pickup. About half of the records I reserved were no longer available, so I opted to have them shipped instead.

Sunday I received one of the records in an oversized cardboard box with no protective packaging. Frustrating, but there wasn't any major damage. Monday rolled around and I got a second album shipped the same way.

Today two more of the albums I ordered showed up, each shipped in a big plastic bag - like the kind you'd get clothes shipped in - not padded or anything. Naturally, they're in horrible shape with bent corners and rounded edges. I went to start the return process on their website but they only offered to reship the item once I send the damaged ones back - no in-store option - so instead of doing that I canceled the return and will be going to the store.

I believe Target ships some items from their actual stores so I get that not all of these employees may be pros, but one would think it'd be common sense not to ship fragile records this way. I have a few other albums on the way and I'm really hoping they are packaged better. I also ordered glass ornaments with one of the vinyl orders and I don't have high hopes for those either

Just wanted to make you aware if you are considering ordering vinyl from Target!

 

I’ve received 3 orders of 5 records total. The 3 records that came together were packaged conventionally in an LP mailer. The other 2 that shipped separately both came in a big box, one with big bubble pads and the other with nothing inside. All arrived okay with no external damage.

I’m expecting 2 more in the near future, both of which will be shipped separately. So I’m expecting both will arrive in big boxes.

 

Were these Target exclusive variants? I think I saw someone post that the Target exclusives are actually shipped from Target, so they usually have bad packaging. The non-exclusives seem to be drop shipped straight from the distributor which explains the better mailers. No idea if that's actually correct but it made sense to me.

 

Yes, all of the albums I ordered were Target exclusive variants. Makes sense that those would come from Target and the others straight from the distributor, although I have pre-ordered some Target exclusive variants in the past that came packaged properly in LP mailers. Then again maybe those came from the distributors since they were pre-ordered.

Walmart packages their records really well so I guess that's why I'm surprised that Target's shipping is so horrendous.

 

Yup, my two that arrived in big boxes were Target exclusives too, so that theory holds so far. Out of the two arriving within the next week, one is also an exclusive and one isn’t. So we’ll see if the non-exclusive arrives more conventionally packed.

 

Keep us posted! Hopefully yours arrive unscathed.

 

I got one in a box with padding that was fine. The other two came together in a bag with no padding. One (Gimme Some Truth) is fine but the plastic wrap was actually open. I played it and it sounds fine but I paid for a new item and it came open, so I'm debating starting the refund/replace process.

The other (Evermore) isn't terrible, but one corner is creased. Again, debating if I should do it for both? Last time they just sent me 2 new copies and didn't have me return the others.

 

this is accurate.

 

As for Evermore, if your copy was sitting on a shelf in the store with a creased corner would you have bought it? For the opened one, was the shrinkwrap missing or just sliced open on the side? Regardless, you paid for a new item and received an open one. I'd say it's more than justifiable to ask for a replacement for both.

You got lucky that they didn't make you return the damaged copies from your prior order. They asked me to ship my damaged records back and then they would ship me new ones.

My remaining three records arrived yesterday in - surprise! - a large box via UPS and only one of them was badly beat up. The box was halfway open too, but luckily nothing was missing, and the ornaments that were part of the order arrived intact. I definitely won't be ordering records from Target ever again. Seemed convenient at the time to have the out of stock exclusives shipped instead of driving to the next closest location, but after this I think I'd much rather drive an extra 30 minutes than have to deal with this headache again.

 

The non-Target exclusive arrived in a record mailer and I do expect my last imminent order (Target exclusive) to come in a big box. It seems like the mystery has already been solved per a couple of posts above, but I thought I'd post anyway.

On the not so nice side of things, whoever (or whatever, if it was a machine) applied the label on Side 2 of today's LP was having a bad visual alignment day on the job:

 

For completeness sake - my last Target exclusive LP arrived today, and surprise, it was in a record mailer, not a big box.

So Target exclusives being packed in the store in big boxes is likely the norm, but there are exceptions.

 

it really just depends on where the system decides to ship them from. they obviously warehouse their exclusives too, but often it just makes more sense to ship from a store that's near-ish to you.