Pearl Jam 2015 NYC Poster -Transformers sale TODAY, SEPT 24 AT 4:00PM (PST)

MedozK

jjflash said:

buck502000 said:

Totally understand, and if after you read today's email update, you still want to cancel - no problem. See below:

Hello,

First off, thanks for supporting our art.

As you know, it was our goal to release only a very small quantity of Gold Posters. Technology wasn’t on our side, and that didn’t happen - we ended up selling more than planned. The reason you are receiving this communication is because you were one of the 42% of people that had a Gold Poster in their shopping cart and completed a successful transaction before we caught the mistake, and turned off the product. Approximately 17% of Gold Poster buyers had questions/concerns, mostly around how many units were actually sold.

Here’s what we can tell you:

Gold posters will be Signed by Artist, as advertised. We still feel, based on the overwhelming demand for the poster, that $250 is fair price for the Gold Poster, and will not be issuing discounts.
We estimate the print run to be less than three hundred, and maybe much less depending on cancellations.
Because of this unintended discrepancy, our standard cancellation/return policy on posters will not apply. Anyone that wants to cancel their Gold Poster order can, and will be issued a full refund. To receive a refund, you must reply to this email by Wednesday, 9/30/2015 with “CANCEL MY ORDER”.
Profits from all posters sold beyond what we had originally intended to produce will be donated to the Vitalogy Foundation, a charitable organization helping countless numbers of people.

Our apologies for any inconvenience that this may have caused you.

Disclaimer: I bought a gold. I tried to buy a regular A/P as soon as the sale dropped, it immediately listed as unavailable, I panicked, tried to get a chrome which also came up listed as unavailable, so I defaulted to the gold which I quickly justified by rationalizing the price as going towards a rare item for a show I was about to attend.

My beef: In the email Buck copied and pasted above Ames gives a percentage of people that had in their cart prior to them being able to turn "off the product." At what point during this process did they find the time to change the wording from "handful" to "limited edition" while people, as best I can tell, were still buying the product? Why was the wording ever changed during an active sale?

To their credit Ames admitted they screwed up, offered refunds, even stated they'd be issuing the profits from the oversell to PJ's charity. All good stuff. However, as the artists selling thru their own website they were the point of purchase and accidentally wound up overselling a "rare" poster for 2.5x the amount a similar poster was sold during the same sale and which will probably wind up having half the print run. I wish rather than giving to charity the profits that a credit or discount was offered to the purchasers regardless whether or not they experienced an overwhelming demand. It's as if they're saying "we messed up and wound up selling about ten handfuls, as a result you overpaid, and instead of accepting the extra profits or offering you a discount we're giving that money to charity." Giving to chariity is no doubt a noble action; however, I want to do that on my own terms not have Ames Bros choose to do that for me.

In the end I'm keeping the poster and am looking forward to receiving it. It was an honest mistake on Ames part where, unfortunately, the buyer caught the short end of the stick. After logging valuable time in the Volcom merch line I was one of many who missed out on the show version of the print, but am riding high from the whole Central Park experience and am happy to have a variant of it. This one may wind up hanging in the kids' room

Glad you got one, enjoy it.

CopperTom

I just received the following email:

Ames Bros Gold Poster Update:

Thanks for your patience and understanding as we work through things.

The reason all but a few of you were able to purchase the Gold Poster was because of an error that occurred on the backend of our website. All sales of this poster occurred within the first few minutes of it being for sale. The demand was unprecedented and we are still reeling from how it happened and how quickly it did before we could stop the sale of it.

First, if you purchased one, you’ll get a signed copy shipped in 3-4 weeks (hopefully sooner), as stated at purchase. No further action is required of you.

Second, if you do not want the poster and wish to cancel your order, DO NOT REPLY TO THIS EMAIL, simply send an email to help@amesbros.com with "CANCEL MY ORDER" in your subject line by the end-of-day, tomorrow, Thursday 9/31. Be sure to send from the email address you used when placing the order.

Considering we will be dealing with cancellations we can’t determine the final number of prints, but we estimate less than 300.

Please know that unlike the Autobots, we are mere mortals that can make mistakes. Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience this may have caused you.

Thank you,

- Ames Bros

CopperTom

LOL at 9/31

Suziemay

CopperTom said:

LOL at 9/31

PP193448

CopperTom said:

LOL at 9/31

So I guess there's no way to cancel as there is not a 9/31. Must be a glitch in their calander software too...

bootlegger10

I hope you all never make a mistake.

PP193448

bootlegger10 said:

I hope you all never make a mistake.

Nope... 2 mistakes in a row cancel each other out. So therefore I tell my wife I never make mistakes. Then I get this

musicsam3

on2legs said:

The whole 'handful' to limited edition wording change is my biggest criticism of Ames in this situation.

They posted the number of Chrome and AP versions available. Why not just explicitly state how many gold were available from the beginning instead of vaguely wording it?

You could argue it was a shady move even before they changed the wording.

If you're charging people a premium of $250 you should let them know how many are out there.

"Handful" is a deceiver.
Its intent is to be vague. Its just ratty.
They can turn the valve off on the sale. They keep citing the "demand" problem.
Everybody did the same thing. Chrome, Regular, Gold. They got so excited watching the frenzy and tried to let the gold build a bit more before they shut it off and then realized they sold way more than intended. Now what? Return $250 a pop X 300? 75K in the bank? Uhhhh.
Lets say we'll donate overage to charity but never tell them how many...
Ooops, they are mad.
Lets say we'll honor all of them but because "THEY" wanted it so bad, keep it at $250.
Well, still mad.
Lets say, well, whoever wants a refund now and gets jack shit for our error can. but we can say
we took about 300 "accidental" orders. Although we sure did fine taking 130 and 85.
we just wanted to be "flexible" with that little "handful" word.
End of the day, there is no way that 295ish of these get cancelled by the mythical 31st.
Ames wins HUGE on what to me looks like deceptive intent.

And Im a HUGE Ames fan by the way...
Really really disappointed.

ryanjp2323

I'll give them that the original intent to only sell a handful was true. Yes make a mistake and not set your Ecom software to limit sales to a maximum amount. That's a reasonable mistake.

Deceptive sets in with how the mistake was handled. Cleanest solution was to chop it off and count back those who were the first in up to the original intended run. Piss people off but live up to your original intent. Identify the "handful" of order numbers that made it in...the higher order numbers don't get to buy and get a refund. Walk away from the bonus revenue. That's the high road they should have taken.

honouring the undisclosed total that got one in error, at $250. No option to cancel, vague donation of profits was the starting point of where I got pissed off. Subsequent emails quoting percentages? Only 17% of the 43% have a problem and communicated it to them? that's wise to alienate some of your customers and basically call them whiners. 83% didn't complain so we must be ok to oversell... What?

Their handling of this would make a good case study in a retail management / customer relations course!

regardless I cancelled my order. Wanted the print but didnt feel good about taking delivery. Print on my wall would have been tainted. I'd think of this BS every time i looked at it. Flip or trade it at my cost and I'm endorsing their solution. Flip or trade it for a profit (i've never sold a poster i've purchased for my collection) and im a complete hypocrite. Cancelling was the only option i had.

At this point i'm also no longer going to buy from Ames. May change in the future if they produce another print I like and want to own... Will see as time passes.

MTR

I cancelled my Gold order as well. Just didn't feel good about it for some reason and $250 is a lot of money for a poster regardless of quantity.

elwayvedder

ryanjp2323 said:

I'll give them that the original intent to only sell a handful was true. Yes make a mistake and not set your Ecom software to limit sales to a maximum amount. That's a reasonable mistake.

Deceptive sets in with how the mistake was handled. Cleanest solution was to chop it off and count back those who were the first in up to the original intended run. Piss people off but live up to your original intent. Identify the "handful" of order numbers that made it in...the higher order numbers don't get to buy and get a refund. Walk away from the bonus revenue. That's the high road they should have taken.

honouring the undisclosed total that got one in error, at $250. No option to cancel, vague donation of profits was the starting point of where I got pissed off. Subsequent emails quoting percentages? Only 17% of the 43% have a problem and communicated it to them? that's wise to alienate some of your customers and basically call them whiners. 83% didn't complain so we must be ok to oversell... What?

Their handling of this would make a good case study in a retail management / customer relations course!

regardless I cancelled my order. Wanted the print but didnt feel good about taking delivery. Print on my wall would have been tainted. I'd think of this BS every time i looked at it. Flip or trade it at my cost and I'm endorsing their solution. Flip or trade it for a profit (i've never sold a poster i've purchased for my collection) and im a complete hypocrite. Cancelling was the only option i had.

At this point i'm also no longer going to buy from Ames. May change in the future if they produce another print I like and want to own... Will see as time passes.

This is nicely said without any negative emotion or shots at Ames. Perfectly said that is.,,nicely said and done and I can't agree more

PP193448

I got my email that I've been refunded for cancelling. Thanks Ames guys. Hope everyone's issues get resolved and we can forget this ever happened

pdalowsky

the gold poster is selling strongly on ebay, so the value plummeting concern may be misplaced.

pdalowsky

not that that should really matter.

SVRDhand13

pdalowsky said:

the gold poster is selling strongly on ebay, so the value plummeting concern may be misplaced.

Watch- only a handful of people will not cancel

buck502000

Don't care - bad mojo

Weston1283

I'm keeping my Chrome and Gold. Which ever one looks better in person is the one I'll keep, the other will be sold or traded (even though I strongly think the chrome will end up looking nicer)

Suziemay

Weston1283 said:

I'm keeping my Chrome and Gold. Which ever one looks better in person is the one I'll keep, the other will be sold or traded (even though I strongly think the chrome will end up looking nicer)

So even though the Chrome is numbered and the Gold isn't, you'll base it purely on aesthetics? I'm not questioning, just curious since the numbering is a pretty big deal to me.

Weston1283

Suziemay said:

Weston1283 said:

I'm keeping my Chrome and Gold. Which ever one looks better in person is the one I'll keep, the other will be sold or traded (even though I strongly think the chrome will end up looking nicer)

So even though the Chrome is numbered and the Gold isn't, you'll base it purely on aesthetics? I'm not questioning, just curious since the numbering is a pretty big deal to me.

Essentially yes. I'm more concerned with how its going to look on the wall. For example, I sold my foo fighters ames wrigley variant so I could buy the show edition because the show edition looks way better than the variant.

I think rare things are cool and all, but most important thing to me is how it looks

pjsteelerfan

Suziemay said:

Weston1283 said:

I'm keeping my Chrome and Gold. Which ever one looks better in person is the one I'll keep, the other will be sold or traded (even though I strongly think the chrome will end up looking nicer)

So even though the Chrome is numbered and the Gold isn't, you'll base it purely on aesthetics? I'm not questioning, just curious since the numbering is a pretty big deal to me.

I'd be surprised if the Gold don't have numbers when they arrive. Never will understand why numbers have more meaning than a signature of the artist. They don't really mean anything.