Wow, my Amazon!!

12 Responses to “Wow, my Amazon!!”

1. Matthew says:
   July 30th, 2003 at 11:00 pm

   And ordering from Drag City is cheaper too! Ye!

   M

2. hell's donut house says:
   July 31st, 2003 at 2:25 am

   Wait a sec — how do you open one of them stores?

   Hee hee

3. edith says:
   July 31st, 2003 at 5:11 am

   I got it many years ago through Amazon Associates, at http://associates.amazon.com/

4. nc says:
   July 31st, 2003 at 6:39 am

   drag city needs to get an electronic store as opposed to the ole print out mail in, wait weeks and weeks for stuff… I never buy stuff from drag city cuz it takes too long.

5. edith says:
   July 31st, 2003 at 8:10 am

   I’m sorry you feel that way.  I wouldn’t know because I haven’t ever used their mail order. But I know they’re a very lean’n'mean operation, they’re only a handful of people.  Given what you say, I guess if your priority is getting something 48 hours after you ordered it, then obviously you need to just go to the store, or use a huge warehouse operation that can afford to hire scores of people to deal with that stuff right away. Amazon doesn’t create great music, they only sell it and ship it.  Whereas every person at Drag City is doing all those jobs and many more.  If you can appreciate that then maybe you can forgive them for not doing any one thing as quickly as a corporation would be able to.

   They do take PayPal now, so at least you no longer have to send a check.  Frankly I don’t how they manage to do as much as they do, given that the work is so grueling and the rewards are so meager. But they still crank out great music.  If they stopped doing that, then nothing else would matter because nobody would want to buy anything.

   If you’re that unhappy with them, would you be happier buying from major labels, and supporting everything that entails, like the RIAA etc.?  Drag City gives me HALF the money they make selling my records.  I’m not their slave, we’re actually working together as equal partners. No major label artist would be able to say that.  So… no matter how much of an inconvenience it might be for my audience, I’d much rather "stay small" than have to give that up.

   (I know… you were only commenting on their mail order, not the whole idealogy.  Sorry if I got a little too defensive there.)

6. brendan says:
   July 31st, 2003 at 12:20 pm

   Hey, here’s an idea… if you’re still looking for work, why don’t you get Drag City to pay you to build a real online order system. You have to admit that their catalog system with their strange fallback arrangement is a bit odd. I’m sure as a bonafide web developer you could build something real for them to allow the average person to buy Drag City records with a credit card. If you’re too busy to do it, send them my resume (kublai.com/~brendan/ and I’ll do it for cheap, because I love your music and your label. Alright, maybe it’s a little tastless to mention myself in the comment, strip it if you want. But I’ve wanted to order your records via DC myself a few times, and I’ve held back because of the fallback system they advertise, which makes it unclear whether I’ll get your back catalog or some random crap I didn’t want.

   By the way I run a little internet radio station (globalpopconspiracy.com, offline at the moment), and I’d like your permission to put some of your music up. I bought your last CD and I love it, and I want to put the tracks out to my listeners. I usually don’t ask for permission, but only because most musicians don’t have an awesome technically literate blog… :) Actually I put a couple of tracks up because I love them, but if you want me to pull them I’ll do it in a hearbeat. I hope you don’t hold it against me, I only did it because I’m a big fan…

7. edith says:
   July 31st, 2003 at 1:01 pm

   I don’t know nuffin ’bout birthin’ no babies miz Scarlett!!  I mean, I don’t know anything about online commerce or I’d be doing it already right here.  I just learned about the robots fer cryin’ out loud!  And, I have my website and they have theirs. They want to work with me on the *music*, and they know if they ever want help with the website that I’d be more than happy to do whatever I can, but that’s up to them to decide.

   I also can’t really control what anybody does with my music once I release it to the world. I can’t give you permission any more than I could stop you… it’s not really all mine to give you see.  Should I go ask the other musicians if it’s okay with them too?  If it’s one of my MP3s from this site, I’d say no; I put a notice about "no rebroadcast, blah blah blah" on the MP3s category page, I have my own reasons for that.  If it’s a Drag City release (which most everything is that’s not a demo) then they’re the ones who deal with licensing, radio, sales and everything else. I just write the songs and sing them, and hopefully show up where I’m supposed to.  If you’re worried about legal issues maybe you should figure out if your station is working legally, and if isn’t, at least you’ll be aware and/or maybe figure out another way that would work.  I have no idea what’s legal anymore in terms of streaming audio since I quit doing my Live365 stations. If I’d continued, that would’ve been legal, but I would’ve had to pay, so the musicians could be paid as well.  But that was before the big scare over online radio — I jumped out when the fire got too hot, and never found out what the outcome of all that was.

   BTW John said to me today that he’d had some serious problems with stuff he’d ordered from Amazon. Something about placing orders for obscure things, then waiting weeks and weeks because the thing was on "backorder", then jumping through all these hoops only to find out that they never really had the item and never would.  He’s had problems with other indie labels and other mail order services.  I guess it’s rough all over unless you’re buying very popular current stuff. Me, I pretty much buy ONLY very obscure stuff off eBay and don’t even get me started on the problems I’ve had!  So when I see an old LP in the store, I know I’d better buy it or I might never see it again.

8. John W. says:
   July 31st, 2003 at 11:40 pm

   regarding the buying and wanting it to arrive faster issue: when i buy something via mail order, i really want it within 4 or 5 business days.  if i order something via pay pal or whatever, and i don’t get a response from the vendor, i usually e-mail them politely and ask for ship confirmation. usually they let me know what’s going on.  most of the time it’s one over-worked under-paid person in a shipping room, doing the best they can to keep up with it all.

   the thing that really burns me is when a vendor says on their site that they have something in stock, but they really don’t — then you get dicked around for a month or so, thinking you’re waiting for it — right, amazon does this a lot with imports & special orders — then you finally contact them only to find out that they really can’t order it.  amazon doesn’t make it all THAT easy to send them a message, either.  you’ve got to fumble through a few screens till you figure out how to send a message to an actual person.  then they send you an automated response saying they’ll get back to you.  then someone finally will e-mail you and let you know what’s up.  now i know there are backorders and somethings are just plain hard to get, but i just like getting a nice quick little e-mail telling me how things are coming along, that’s all (and not a computer generated one that just says it’s going to take another 4-6 weeks, like amazon does).

   that said, since drag city are my friends, i’d still say order from them.  they’re not slacking if they take their time, they truly are overloaded.  but, do they really give you something else if they don’t have what you want in stock? 

   anyway — in summary, i wish that vendors would:

   1) update their sites, so you get a real picture of what’s available (and not what was available a month ago) — don’t have it up there if you don’t really have it.

   2) tell you when your payment has been received

   3) give ship confirmation

   the vendors that do this will always get my business.  the ones who don’t, if they answer my e-mails and just keep me posted, that’s cool too.

   call me needy,

   john

9. Matthew says:
   August 1st, 2003 at 12:23 am

   If it is a matter between time and costs, I always side with costs. I order from drag city and other smaller labels because usually their stock is cheaper(and I am finding myself having to order more and more of the music I like).

   The thing I notice with the big labels/record stores is they can have two albums, produced and published the same year, almost the same length…. and yet the one I’d actually want to buy is 50%-100% MORE expensive…. while it seems that if you get something from a small label, most things are the same price(+/- 1/2 dollars).

   I also sort of like buying cd’s from the artists sites, especially musicians that are doing it themselves… like Uncletoe’s Portasound ( http://uncletoe.net/ ) and Racermason ( http://www.racermason.com ). I know that they are getting most of the money I am sending them, and they might be struggling now, but if people like me and others keep buying their stuff, they might be able to continue to make quality music.

   M

10. nc says:
    August 1st, 2003 at 8:10 am

    oh, hey- I’m not defending amazon… heck, I don’t even go to record stores either anymore.

    For the most part, I get stuff direct from labels. EXCEPT drag city! I haven’t checked in in awhile, maybe it’s gotten easier to order from them. Paypal definitely makes it easier…

    But is it too difficult to get one of those programs to buy stuff on line? I think they’d make a KILLING because it’d be so much easier, even if it still take 3 weeks to order… 4-6 seems so long. Would it even be that much more work? It’d probably be more organized than going through the mail and dealing with orders that way.

    Just an idea… "If you build it, they will come" or whatever that Field of Dreams quote is… I think more people would order from the source if it was easier, that’s all.

11. edith says:
    August 1st, 2003 at 8:31 am

    Well, for what it’s worth, I know some of the folks at DC have on occasion checked in on this blog, so who knows.  No big whoop, I’m sure they’re well aware of a lot of things that could help sales if only they had the time/resources to do it. I would imagine that anything that involves money would have to be done with extra special care and attention, which might be another reason they’d shy away from it.

12. alyce says:
    August 1st, 2003 at 1:22 pm

    For what it’s worth, whenever Doug and I order direct from DC, we always get stuff quickly–even exchanges and returns! No complaints here.

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