- Thu Oct 31, 2013 5:40 am
#6421
Here's two little stories on this subject, if you'll bear with me.
Firstly, this same exact thing happened to me with the Waxwork "Reanimator" vinyl. My conclusion is that, even though they are now huge and ubiquitous and cheaper-than-anyone-else (not to mention tax-dodging ass hats), A**zon list a whole bunch of stuff without really having a reliable source for the items. I would conclude that when it comes to limited edition records from boutique labels, we should maybe not trust them?? And for me personally, I'm gonna try and not be tempted by the few pounds saving that their listing prices offer.
On that note: Second quick story. In my local record store the other day, the owner was on the phone to a distributor politely -but-passionately complaining about a new box set which has been released, which has a dealer price of £60 or so. Adding VAT etc, this makes the dealer price around £70. The label have it on their OWN website for £100 retail. Am**on have it up for.......£70. Who can possibly compete?
It's that same old story, just like in the days when I worked in a small indie record store, and you'd see that the big boys (HMV, Virgin) all had the major releases on Monday morning out at what seemed like cost price. Keep 'em coming back into the store, is the name of the game.
But letting The 'Zon undercut and tempt (and tax-dodge) like there's no tomorrow isn't really supporting these small record labels who WE"RE all excited about and trying to support. So I'll be resisting the temptation from now on.
Not to mention again, of course, that they LIE when it comes to pre-orders on limited stuff that THEY DON"T EVEN KNOW THEY CAN ACTUALLY STOCK. It's all just 'new product' to them, so they list it ALL anyway, and worry about sourcing it once they have our money. Which is why we end up getting "hmm, product is proving hard to locate, but we'll keep trying" notices.
