NewsSaturday Deluxe / 9 July 2016
Week two of running the shop
Phew! I’m in the second week of running the brand new SDE online store ShopSuperDeluxe.com and it turns out this retail malarkey is quite hard work…
It’s also highly satisfying. We’re loving taking orders, packaging items up with care and attention and shipping stuff out. Although so far we’ve been concentrating on selling CDs, T-shirts and bundles related to the SDE-curated It’s Immaterial reissue, there is going to be more stock coming next week. I’m looking forward to surprising you with interesting items. I should also point out that if you’ve ordered anything up to and including yesterday, your stuff is on the way. Everything has been despatched.
Because ShopSuperDeluxe.com is concentrating on curated bundles, and physical music box sets and reissues, often quantities will be limited. That is why I’d strongly encourage you to sign up to the mailing list because when new items are added to the store, the people who have subscribed to get hear about them early. They get ‘first dibs’, basically. You can subscribe below.
We will happily ship internationally, although it’s only when you do these things yourself that your realise just how expensive it is to ship a £150 box set that weighs 3kg to the USA or Australia. For these kind of expensive items that need insuring, we will sometimes ask you to get in touch for a bespoke shipping quote.
Shipping issues are, not to put to fine a point on it, a bloody headache and one of the biggest challenges with this kind of enterprise, to be honest. I want shipping costs to be fair and unlike many eBay sellers we won’t be using shipping as a tool to make money. What you will pay is more or less what it costs us to package items up and send them off. For the It’s Immaterial T-shirt and CD bundles for example, we’ve managed to package them so they can be sent as Royal Mail ‘Large Letter’ – that means for shipping within the UK the cost for the bundle is £2.50. If you just buy the CD, that’s only £1.50. Hope you’ll agree that that isn’t too bad.
The trouble is, we’ve been spoilt by the likes of Amazon, whose scale and overall customer strategy means they can suppress the true cost of sending items in the post.
Anyway, hope you will stay in touch and follow me on this ‘journey’ – if any record labels (or similar) out there have a store room full of old box set stock of ‘overstocks’, do get in touch, because I might be interested in selling on the new SDE shop!
Visit ShopSuperDeluxe.com here. You can also follow on Facebook.
SDE helps fans around the world discover physical music and discuss releases. To keep the site free, SDE participates in various affiliate programs, including Amazon and earns from qualifying purchases.
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Great job Paul. Thanks for actually doing this. And also thanks for the special packaging treatment for paper sleeved CD’s. It will be one of your major selling points.
Hi Paul S., good luck with the shop! I just hope you’ll have so many customers one day! So everything we say on this site counts (record companies/labels will consider our inputs more than welcome/easily)!
Thanks!
Well, I can give a massive thumbs up to the packaging and shipping service. Have no problems with the charge considering quality of both.
Frankie arrived today, package with care and attention such as I’ve never seen from amazon. Ordered Friday evening around 5:30pm and delivered to my neighbor by midday on Monday.
Awesome service Paul. Thank you!
Thanks so much Andrew, glad it arrived promptly and safely. I’ve just implemented a ‘customer review’ section on the shop, actually, so it would be fab, when you have a spare moment if you could share this feedback on there. You just need to scroll down to the bottom of this page http://www.shopsuperdeluxe.com/products/frankie-goes-to-hollywood-inside-the-pleasure-dome Cheers, P
Me: “Where’s Lionel Richie?”
Paul: “At home asleep in L.A.,probably.”
;-)
Got the signed bundle today. It’s fantastic. How could i misssed that in the 80’s. It sounds so fresh. Good work. And good luck with your Shop. The offer of the FGTH Box-Set makes me curious what treasures will come too in the future. I got mine via pleadge. Thank you Paul.
Thanks Robert.
Just a small suggestion for you Paul. As someone who lives in Canada and has ordered many items from the UK, France, Germany, Italy, etc. over the years I can tell you that CDs shipped just in a bubble envelope usually arrived pretty beat-up and jewel cases normally need to be replaced. Those that come in just small boxes also tend to be on the less than pristine side. My advice for those things you send overseas is to ship in a box that is not much bigger than the item but wrap the item in a layer of bubble wrap before putting it in the box. This makes all the difference.
Those envelopes you saw were for the T-shirts. CDs are packed differently.
Congrats on the new venture! Best of luck with it…
Thanks Aubrey!
That Frankie set looks gorgeous! It shows record companies/artists what wonderful things can be achieved with just a little bit of time and effort.
So excited for my Frankie set that’s due to arrive tomorrow. Sadly I won’t be here as I was expecting it Tuesday. Can’t deny what a speedy shipping that was though, and can’t wait to hold it in my hands on Tuesday.
Great service!
Good luck Paul, received my CD in tip top condition
Thanks Sean!
Brilliant.
Regarding postage rates from US to UK the US Postal Service doubled the rates back in January 2013. I used to sell a lot of CDs (mostly singles) and some vinyl on Ebay and got stuck with around $300 in postage costs the month it went up. Most of my buyers were international so I’ve since scaled way back and liquidated my remaining inventory in lots of 35 or so (shipped domestically in flat rate boxes).
$14.75 to ship a single CD from the US to Canada. I’m sure not all of that is postage….
Interesting, I shipped a Cd from Canada to the Us for $5.70.
Yes, there was a big hike in US postal charges a few years ago. I’m in NZ and used to buy a lot from Amazon USA. I haven’t bought anything from them since the increase and don’t even go to their website now. Import CDs continues to have reasonable postal charges (on their own website, not Amazon.com marketplace) and low prices in many cases, so I still buy from them. And occasionally from Sundazed and Real Gone when they have a sale or special promotion (I’m on their mailing lists). Other than that, I no longer buy any CDs from the USA.
Would you be shipping to India, anytime soon?
Are you stocking Madonna – Bedtime Stories vinyl reissue? Amazon UK doesn’t have it, but the US site has it for preorder.
No, sorry.
Like the idea of the shop and I hope it’s a success! The bundle for its immaterial looks great and look forward to receiving it. Glad too to see FGTH boxes available- but even more glad I got mine with the pledge music campaign. Look forward to many more purchases in the future.
Thanks Bruce. Saw your order, it will be despatched tomorrow. Cheers, P
Nice idea with the FGTH release, one oer customer. If only more retaikers were as considerate…
Hi
Your blog says ” the box set and reissue music blog for collectors and fans who love holding the music in their hands”, not wear it!
I would happily have bought a signed It’s Immaterial CD, but I really dont want a signed t shirt. Just a suggestion as you move forward, please try to get the actual CD / Records signed if possible, as it seems a little more permenant than something that will begin to fade after a few washes.
Other than that, good luck with the venture, as a long term seller on Amazon, I know how difficult it can be sometimes.
Thanks! It’s not the actual T-shirts that are signed, they come with a garment tag which has a hand-stamped ‘It’s Immaterial’ logo on one side and John and Jarvis’ autographs on the other. So nothing is going to ‘fade’ in the wash! I know signed CDs are more the norm, but I thought it was interesting to do something a little different. You can always tuck the card tag in one of the CD pockets.
Going by your regular chart reports, you’ll have to make sure your sales count on the charts!
Good luck with this, as you said Amazon get away with the sheer volume. I have bought lots from Japan and the postage cost is £1.26 for a single CD to the UK! Ebay have been charging their commission on postage costs for a long time now, so if you don’t like the postal cost, don’t buy it. Especially from the US to the UK. Best Wishes to you.
Seems to be a problem with Android Marshmallow that the Dropbox doesn’t work. You select SDE store option and zero happens. So you can’t navigate to the FGTH page unless you click on the banner picture.
I am excited for you. Nice to see you making this happen. The first thing I thought when I saw this post was “Hmmm, I wonder if Paul will be able to somehow send people the Blank & Jones s080s Box Sets here in the US”…… I imagine that’s not possible, or wildly expensive if it were…. oh well, I can keep dreaming…..
I’d also love it if you could stock the Blank and Jones box set. I’d even be happy if you could offer the remastered volumes 1-4. I contacted another indie company in the UK about offering them through their site but they said it wouldn’t be possible. Best of luck with the shop!
Great site Paul and good luck with the shop.
Was dying to get the Frankie Pleasuredome box set ;-)
Mike
Good luck. Great idea. I’m thankful for now having an alternative from Amazon or BN.com. I would suggest also complementary products that may be of interest to your target customers. I.E. replacement jewel cases, poly bags, etc.
Awesome endeavour Paul and best of luck with it! I, for one, am bloody glad I signed up for the mailing list!
£1.50 is bang on for shipping a cd £3.50 for a 12″
This is good news but I see that you use bubblewrap envelopes.
Double digipaks will arrive looking like leftovers from the bargain bin.
I guess I will not change my shopping habits, sorry.
Is it possible for international customers to make a reservation for an item? I can imagine that certain limited items are sold out before you can make a quote about the shipping costs.
We will endeavour to hold some back if/when that arises…
Glad your business idea is taking off, long may it continue.
Well done with the cost of postage too, some other online retailers charge for postage and ‘handling’.
Thanks :)
Just wait until your national postal service goes on strike! Aiyeeee…
BTW, any of those heading to Canada probably aren’t going to get delivered in the next month.