Vinyl Me, Please in bankruptcy

Any thoughts on this disappointing turn of events?

https://discogs.mejorespelis.org/forum/thread/1121382

They're still set up to take money on their website with no sign that anything is wrong. Spread the word

Thank you, dunforthemoment. That is truly despicable of them.

Good riddance.

Does he jump ship from Discogs before his CV gets any worse?

I'm not going to jump to conclusions, but I wouldn't say I have a lot of hope going forward. At least it sounds like people will get the stuff they paid for.

https://variety.com/2025/music/news/vinyl-me-please-acquired-owners-restore-record-subscription-1236416655/

One terrible club just bought another failing club.

I smell a sitcom!

When you mismanage funds, fire everyone involved - who also happened to know how everything worked, then can't figure out how to get anything to work ... this happens.

I guess at least it wasn't an investment firm using the company for parts to boost short term profit, and just plain old stupidity.

moonhazle
What happened to Discogs since?
What happened to the price of new vinyl?
What happened to the quality control of vinyl?

None of which are connected

cellularsmoke
When you mismanage funds, fire everyone involved - who also happened to know how everything worked, then can't figure out how to get anything to work ... this happens. ...

Sounds familiar.

cellularsmoke
When you mismanage funds, fire everyone involved - who also happened to know how everything worked, then can't figure out how to get anything to work ... this happens.

Mismanagement of funds wasn't what killed them off. It just made the situation worse.

They had to fire everyone because they couldn't afford to keep them on when it became very clear where they were headed.

eddiel
Mismanagement of funds wasn't what killed them off. It just made the situation worse.

They had to fire everyone because they couldn't afford to keep them on when it became very clear where they were headed.

According to the Denver Post article, they were fired specifically because they mismanaged funds in a deceptive way "to open their own pressing plant" ... and were subsequently fired for that specifically.

cellularsmoke
eddielMismanagement of funds wasn't what killed them off. It just made the situation worse.

They had to fire everyone because they couldn't afford to keep them on when it became very clear where they were headed.

According to the Denver Post article, they were fired specifically because they mismanaged funds in a deceptive way "to open their own pressing plant" ... and were subsequently fired for that specifically.

There's two different events involving letting people go.

The first, involved the people accused of mismanaging funds (the "they" in the Denver Post story).

The second...VMP tried to right the ship. Didn't work and fired everyone else, who happened to know how everything worked, when it was clear things were not going to be turned around.

If the (alleged) bozos that started that pressing plant, and were let go because of what they allegedly did, actually knew how everything worked, then what happened would likely not have happened.

The pressing plant debacle made things worse for them, but if everything else was running smoothly, then they would've been able to get past that. But everything else was not running smoothly.

They were adding more tracks than they could handle with their resources, making no provision to obtain more resources and they were making some bad choices with respect to title selection. (IMO of course).

Do not Vinyl Me Please, I feel pressed.

eddiel
(IMO of course).

I'm going to go by the facts reported in an article by an actual journalist. IMO.

They dumped large amounts of their inventory months ago. No one was buying it.

Has anyone ever conciously bought anything of them?

rugogs
Has anyone ever conciously bought anything of them?

Never.

Good morning, rugogs and SpareGrooves.
Yes, I have bought many of their releases "conciously" as you put it.

cellularsmoke
eddiel(IMO of course).

I'm going to go by the facts reported in an article by an actual journalist. IMO.

The firing of people is public knowledge. The first, the ones being sued, is public knowledge, the second, is public knowledge because the people who were fired posted on LinkedIn.

Your initial post also included opinion so no you are not just quoting an actual "journalists".

I listened to and read other interviews to come to my own opinion as to how they managed to get themselves into this situation. I didn't just read one article cover the lawsuit, which doesn't have any other information than what was alleged in the suit. There's not many facts in that article.

If you would like to believe that the CEO, CFO and CSO who were fired knew what they were doing and if they had not been let go VMP would've survived, that's fine. But this an opinion and not a fact.

Rockosurf
They dumped large amounts of their inventory months ago. No one was buying it.

They had big bonus sign up promotions giving anyone who signed up a certain number of bonus records.

They had promos giving any member who referred a new member to VMP bonus records, plus the new member also got to participate in the other bonus record promotion.

Then there were the endless sales...and they still had a huge amount of inventory. The same records available in each sale.

They should've been dumping that stock a long time ago.

With VMP I find that a lot of the releases have a window and once that window closes people lose interest and they are harder to sell.

I don't know, maybe vinyl in general just has hard times with its heavy prices, quality control,
shipping costs and VAT, the also heavy drop in releases in 2024 (before going up in 2010 to 2023)
can add up to less sales.
Maybe having too much faith in vinyl sales by VMP resulting in a bad turnover rate played a part.
I never bought from vinylmeplease.com or read articles about their fall, just a thought.

CD releases/year vs Vinyl releases/year in Discogs database keep fairly track with sales figures:
2025 > 12,999 vs 32,519 >so far on 6-6-2025<
2024 > 46,060 vs 99,855
2023 > 55,216 vs 115,223
2022 > 65,531 vs 108,694
2021 > 71,602 vs 102,855
2020 > 73,439 vs 102,643
2019 > 89,332 vs 102,855
2018 > 100,507 vs 99,885
2017 > 111,592 vs 94,014
2016 > 118,314 vs 88,905
2015 > 123,960 vs 81,914
2014 > 131,109 vs 80,791
2013 > 136,251 vs 75,956
2012 > 143,543 vs 68,286
2011 > 147,751 vs 60,874
2010 > 154,664 vs 57,164
2009 > 168,310 vs 57,036
2008 > 185,320 vs 57,344
2007 > 196,719 vs 60,595
2006 > 204,207 vs 63,117
2005 > 202,997 vs 67,103
2004 > 202,581 vs 70,353
2003 > 204,124 vs 71,537
2002 > 201,919 vs 72,813
2001 > 202,989 vs 74,731
2000 > 203,946 vs 71,435