šŸ“£ News Carpenters Royal Philharmonic Purchasing, Ordering, Shipping Thread

Harry

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This thread will serve for all information relating to the purchasing, ordering, shipping, and delivery of the new CARPENTERS WITH THE ROYAL PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA album. This includes CDs, CDs with bonus tracks, LPs, and digital files.

Please use THIS thread for its intended purpose. Reviews and comments will be in another thread.
 
Great idea Harry. That first thread had almost 1500 replies and the album isn't even out yet !

I had a thought over night: is it possible that the "Please Mr. Postman" bonus track may be on all the releases of this anyway as a hidden bonus that will just play straight off the back of "We've Only Just Begun" like "And When He Smiles" on As Time Goes By?
 
I ordered a CD from the Target website after hearing that there is going to be a bonus track and the website says that that track will be a Target exclusive, which tells me that it won't be on any other release. I'm not sure if that includes anything in Japan, but regardless, items can be returned to Target unopened up to 90 days from the purchase date for either an exchange or a refund. If mine ends up being nothing different than what I've ordered elsewhere, I'll make it a stocking stuffer for another family member. I figure it's better to gift it than to return it, because I'm supporting Richard's efforts more and I'm possibly turning someone else onto this fabulous music. Just my 2 cents though.
 
Isnā€™t Friday an odd day for a release? I thought releases were on Tuesdays?

Also is Target guaranteeing you will have it delivered on Friday ? If so wouldnā€™t they actually have to have the Cd at least a week prior to Friday in order to prepare all those shipments? Some said they wouldnā€™t get the CD till a day before that wouldnā€™t make sense.

Or was it Amazon that said they promised it delivered day of release? So some stores may receive the CDs earlier than others?
 
Isnā€™t Friday an odd day for a release? I thought releases were on Tuesdays?

Also is Target guaranteeing you will have it delivered on Friday ? If so wouldnā€™t they actually have to have the Cd at least a week prior to Friday in order to prepare all those shipments? Some said they wouldnā€™t get the CD till a day before that wouldnā€™t make sense.

Or was it Amazon that said they promised it delivered day of release? So some stores may receive the CDs earlier than others?


It's Amazon that do the day-of-release delivery. In the UK anyway.
 
Yep, just Amazon is guaranteeing day of release delivery. Target is saying that it will be delivered within a week of release depending on where you live. They're estimating between the 10th and the 13th for delivery to Cincinnati.
 
I decided to wait and hopefully pick up the CD at Target on release day. Something about walking into a physical store and seeing it with my eyes and then reaching to pick it up..that physical connection. I donā€™t mind paying full price as their music is worth it. I know Iā€™m weird.
 
I already pre-ordered the CD from amazon.ca, but decided to check if Target would ship their bonus edition to Canada. To my surprise, the Target CD costs only $2 more than the standard CD on amazon. So, I put it in my cart, and that's when I got a shock... Target wants $21.87 to ship a CD to Canada by regular mail! For that price, the CEO should hand deliver it himself! :laugh:

Oh well, no bonus track for me!

BTW, amazon.ca has given me an estimated delivery date of December 13th to December 19th. So slow, but at least they ship for free...
 
My fears about Target stores are that they are not as diligent about putting out new stock on release day as they used to be. I went looking for The Beatles WHITE ALBUM 50th Anniversary set a couple of weeks ago and on release day it was nowhere to be found. I recall similar things about various STAR WARS and STAR TREK sets, where I had to pester someone to go into the stock room to locate the item. I hate doing that.

I've ordered the Target CD and have no idea when it will arrive. My Amazon order is supposed to be here on release day, but I always get my mail late in the day. Who knows when CDJapan will get their copy to me?
 
I'll be at Target maybe Sat then Thursday and of course Fri....I don't mind asking them to go in back...the tricky part is finding the associate that looks like they want to help...they'll probably see me so much that I might get it early if it's in the back...I'm a good begger. lol
 
Ordered the vinyl from "The Carpenters Official Store" when they first began taking orders. I received this reply Nov 15th;

An Update Regarding Your Order
mail

We are reaching out to you regarding your order from the Carpenters Official Store!

As you may know, vinyl production can be a lengthy process and sometimes delays are inevitable. We were just informed that our vinyl has encountered a brief production delay and is now slated to ship on February 8th.

Rest assured that as soon as the vinyl arrives to our warehouse, we will get them turned around and shipped out to you!

Thanks for your patience and support,
Carpenters Official Store
Copyright Ā© 2018 Carpenters Official Store, All rights reserved.

Our mailing address is:
Carpenters Official Store
6055 N Flint Road, Unit #4
Milwaukee, WI 53209
Add us to your address book

A few things about this bothers me;

1) "As you may know, vinyl production can be a lengthy process and sometimes delays are inevitable." - Yes, count me in as belonging to perhaps the rest of the 99.8% of humanity that did not know this...

2) "We were just informed that our vinyl has encountered a brief production delay and is now slated to ship on February 8th." - Wasn't the vinyl targeted for this date all along? This sounds "fishy". Makes it seem like they are setting us up with more disappointment (like with last year's box set). Stay tuned...
 
I checked Amazon the day Richard announced the release date and on that day it said that the vinyl edition would be available on Feb. 8. Maybe they expected to release the vinyl on Dec. 7 and decided it was worth telling customers that they encountered problems. It's actually pretty good customer service to be transparent about things like that, rather than keeping customers in the dark while pushing to get it out on time, then the day or week of, having to send out a mea culpa email to everyone who preordered.

I do know they had quality issues with the vinyl on the Collector's Edition box set and were recalling defective pressings. They may have run into similar issues this time and caught them early on before they got out and disappointed people. This is a good thing, because this is a new Carpenters album we are dealing with, one that has generated significant buzz, and no one wants to see any part of the release of this album get screwed up. The more a new album sells and the more people are satisfied with it, the more back catalog sales benefit. The more dissatisfied people are with an album, in today's world, there's a possibility of that dissatisfaction going viral and we don't want that.
 
Downloaded the first three available songs and pre ordered the album from iTunes, should be available to download 7th December. The album is described as Mastered for iTunes. The available downloads sound very good.
 
(Universal online store): As you may know, vinyl production can be a lengthy process and sometimes delays are inevitable. We were just informed that our vinyl has encountered a brief production delay and is now slated to ship on February 8th.
Ridiculous message--it's already been established that Feb 8 was the official release day of the vinyl. UMe are run by nitwits apparently.
 
Ridiculous message--it's already been established that Feb 8 was the official release day of the vinyl. UMe are run by nitwits apparently.
Yeah that email is like ok we might have a problem with meeting the date but not really itā€™s Feb like it always was. Huh? Yeah Iā€™m confused lol

Iā€™m being optimistic though!!
 
Ridiculous message--it's already been established that Feb 8 was the official release day of the vinyl. UMe are run by nitwits apparently.
Nobody anticipated how much vinyl sales would boom in the past 3 years and just about every major label has struggled to keep up with demand. Manufacturing bottlenecks, understaffing and quality issues in pressing plants, including over-taxing of equipment that ends up breaking down frequently, has been responsible for a lot of boutique labels going out of business. I wouldn't chalk any of this up to stupidity or incompetence, but rather lack of foresight and preparation. Sony is opening a huge pressing plant in Japan soon, if they haven't already, and I'm sure UMe will try to piggyback off of that as much as possible like they have done in Canada for years with their label there.

I am by no means an apologist for the record industry, especially record executives, but this isn't a problem that's exclusive to UMe. The true shame of it all though, when it comes to our Carpenters, is that Richard painstakingly prepares those masters for vinyl only for us to be disappointed by availability and quality issues. The collection from last year still has me pissed off and I'm still debating over whether or not I want to spring for a set and then have to jump through hoops to exchange any bum pressings within the set. I will be preordering the RPO vinyl soon and I hope that I'm not disappointed by the quality of that release either, because it really will break my heart.
 
Yeah that email is like ok we might have a problem with meeting the date but not really itā€™s Feb like it always was. Huh? Yeah Iā€™m confused lol

Iā€™m being optimistic though!!
The only reason I can figure that such an email would be sent, besides incompetence, is that they possibly foresee quality and/or availability problems after the release date and they are disclaiming ASAP to try to diminish backlash. I pray that's not the case because the modern consumer is a fickle bastard and I'd hate to see people who are possibly turned onto the idea of this album write it, and our Carpenters, off because of a production snafu by UMe.
 
The only reason I can figure that such an email would be sent, besides incompetence, is that they possibly foresee quality and/or availability problems after the release date and they are disclaiming ASAP to try to diminish backlash. I pray that's not the case because the modern consumer is a fickle bastard and I'd hate to see people who are possibly turned onto the idea of this album write it, and our Carpenters, off because of a production snafu by UMe.
Well this will be the last I talk about this since we should keep this thread about the new release. But what I went through on 12 LP set of the Vinyl Collection and then to get an email like that about this new release saying, "we've just been informed that our vinyl has encountered a brief delay" "lengthy process and delays" well those are not encouraging words for me. The whole email doesn't make sense because it wasn't needed since Feb 8th was the official date all along.

I still remain optimistic.
 
Well this will be the last I talk about this since we should keep this thread about the new release. But what I went through on 12 LP set of the Vinyl Collection and then to get an email like that about this new release saying, "we've just been informed that our vinyl has encountered a brief delay" "lengthy process and delays" well those are not encouraging words for me. The whole email doesn't make sense because it wasn't needed since Feb 8th was the official date all along.

I still remain optimistic.
I was just trying to offer some hope and a positive outlook. I apologize if my comments offended you.
 
Ridiculous message--it's already been established that Feb 8 was the official release day of the vinyl. UMe are run by nitwits apparently.
When I ordered through the record company website, December 7 was the only date visible. So, I was glad to be notified of the delay for vinyl.
 
Maybe that was a "test" so they're ready to update it with a different (later) date if further delays happen. Perish the thought!
 
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