12"s sold withouth sleeves???
finelikewine
"ONCE UPON A TIME, I HAD A VINYL." http://www.discogs.com/user/permabulker 1,416 Posts
Just received a order of 6 current 12" releases. 5 out of six came without a cardboard sleeve and just in the white paper sleeves. These records where by no means prized cheaper than the other one. In the item description of the recordshop wasn`t an indication that they are sleeveless.
Shit like this makes me angry and seriously questioning why I`m buying records for djing instead of using s.erato.
Whats the deal in releasing sleeveless records? Is the profit margin that low that you can`t afford sleeves anymore on
12" releases? Is it pure greed? Label headz, please school me.
Shit like this makes me angry and seriously questioning why I`m buying records for djing instead of using s.erato.
Whats the deal in releasing sleeveless records? Is the profit margin that low that you can`t afford sleeves anymore on
12" releases? Is it pure greed? Label headz, please school me.
Comments
It really is a tight ass move, but may depend on the records as to how worked up you should get.
I wouldn't be particularly happy, but so long as the record grading is good, i'd try and live with it......
if they have overcharged for postage, based on weight related issues, then I'd have a word for sure!
good luck
The recordshops is not to blame here, but record labels itself. They sell their half-done incomplete product to the distributors withouth sleeves to save some money. I`m wondering why distributors, record shop owners and customers put up with this.
Grading is not an issue here, as they are brand new records.
Alot of the hardcore/ drum and bass jungle records I bought back in 92/93/94 came in the same format!!!
I don't see it being a reasonable thing though unless the labels are really independent and small runs.
especially if you charge 15 euros for a single sided 12 to begin with..
theres no reason for records to be sold without sleeves now a days, especially given what they cost..
Do this kind of records actually sell? They must be the best thing since sliced bread if people shell out that much money.
Isn`t it kind a hard to sell these to distibutors?
Arn`t they putting of the last vinyl Djs with this buisiness move? The dropping vinyl sales are to a certain degree self-imposed, it seems.
No wonder those records don't have wider appeal.
Ever ship a box of records (50-100) International before? Not only is it REALLY expensive, but the size of the box could make a difference. Cutting out the cardboard saves not only some money on shipping, but on space. Same goes for in a record shop. As anyone who has ever shopped in many UK stores knows, there isn't a lot of space. When you have a huge number of releases coming in every week, it was important to get as many of that particular title in the one space on the wall, so you didn't have the excess copies taking up floor space elsewhere. Now, you might think that 25 cardboard sleeves makes much a difference. When you do this with potentially 100's of titles, it can make a world of difference. Even more so when you are dealing with the dance music floor of the shop being 200-500 sq ft including the office.
Plus, in the beginning there was a hotness factor around doing such things. When you came into the shop seeing a white label promo with no cardboard sleeve, it gave the appearance of it coming hot of the press. Now this doesn't mean anything today. But throughout the 90's, doing things like this did.
Trust me, it never effected sales back in the day. Not for dance music. In fact, I believe it had some labels change the way they manufactured releases. Which had them doing a proper single sleeve release.
If your local record store is stocking day-glo Mario Bros pic sleeve rave 12s and you need to find that real shit, then that real shit is probably a 3x10" no label beast that you can't work out if it needs to be played on 33 or 45.
And that's exactly what the ones I stated above were. White or light-green plain labels with sharpie or pen written info. Some, I know, were bootlegs but about 75% weren't.
yup... like SC said, it comes out of white label culture...
the idea of white labels with handwritten/stamped titles being THAT SHIT probably goes back to Jamaican 7"s (and 12"), which have certainly played a part in the shaping UK dance music...
also, the cheapest way to press a 12" is to have blank labels and no sleeves... it is what it is...
i dont think the weight of the sleeves is really the issue, as much as it's seen as an unneccesary cost for the producer (who is most likely a 19 year old kid who lives w/ his mom...), since the purchaser (presumably a working DJ) is not going to frame this record, he is going to play it out and have it in his record bag (maybe weight becomes an issue here!)...
@finelikewine: this has never been an issue for me, as records like these are tools... yes, serato has eroded their appeal (nowadays most people don't do the plain white labels, probably for that reason), but people are buying these for the sound, not the look...
It ain`t about the look of the record. As long as the music is good I`m fine with everything. BUT it is a pain in the ass if you can`t take them with you for djing immediatly because they have no sleeve and are unprotected.
If that shit is cheaper in the production give it back to the customer. Otherwise they might feel ripped off, especially if there is no indicication of this fact in the record store's item description.