Vidshop Rich is Back
Posted: Mon Apr 16, 2001 10:07 am
Rich is back.
After an enforced absence. , Yes Alec
Well figured out, Its about 12 months!
Regarding the posts here
I nor anyone else at Vidshop is in the habit of taking customers hard earned cash and leaving town, and if I have a problem I was told sort it out because it won't go away if you do nothing. (Actually with the benefit of hindsight that may not be such good advice after all)
No excuses but even a guilty mans lawyer gets a chance to plead that there are some mitigating circumstances, which after the pounding we have had in here, I am feel I have a right to put my point.
How to Answer 7-8 months Forum strings in 1 post. ? Impossible, so if you bear with me I will give it my best shot.
There are a few points I want to have a reply on (Joey I would love to send you an e-mail, but bit like us you are not easy to reach) So Joey your remarks about the FBI etc etc, are not going to impress me, They know me enough already, I fear new Attorney General John Ashcroft and what he will do to this business a damn site more.
Let him know vidshop didn't send any porn to its customers and he would no doubt make us retailer of the year and send me a medal.
I am back now involved for 1 week. And here is what is happening.
First the email reply problem, this is in the process of being overcome. As you can see from the strings here, your e-mails were not getting to us in many cases and also replies were not getting out, then when the mail did come in, it was not humanly possible to handle it, main reason volume of mail, not good enough server, not enough people. Solution new admin URL on new servers here in the Netherlands with direct connection to the UUNet, MCI WorldCom, Concert, AT&T, BT and IBM-NET backbone and 3 new full time admin staff. Forward your emails to our new address support@vidshopadmin.com - you will get a reply within 48hrs, if I fail, leave a message here - I will kick ass!
Do not send repeated messages they will not be answered as it is taken as spam by the incoming mail server, send 1 and it will be dealt with.
I have 1 more person starts in the UK next week; I will then post a new phone number to reach him. Sorry not this week, he will be busy enough with the e-mail.
Distribution
Sorry to all those who rightly feel they have had less than satisfactory service from vidshop.
However, The insinuations that we have acted in any way dishonest I take as a personal insult. Every order that has been placed and paid for has either been delivered - maybe late - or is in the process of being delivered. If there is anyone out there who can hold his or her hands up and say an ordered product was paid for and never arrived - contact us on this e-mail support@vidshopadmin.com and we will sort it ASAP. Again, please just send 1 message and use bgafd in the subject header.
My background is purely audio text and Internet, I am not from the UK mail order clan, I was used to people dialling in or keying in a credit card to access a website, but I never shipped anything other than an e-mail confirmation. It has been a steep learning curve.
The logistics of getting product from the USA, Holland, Germany and the rest of the world to your doorstep is not something that the faint hearted undertake. Orders from the USA that should arrive within 2 weeks were taking 12 weeks because they were sent by boat, customs in the Netherlands may hold shipments for clearance on paperwork, or for proof of payments to the Manufacturers, and so stock levels become depleted quickly. As an example The new Jenna Jameson DVD my Plaything, only arrived in the Netherlands Thursday (it took from the 2nd of March), and we have 2117 orders for it, that need to get to the UK and out of the door by recorded delivery, shall we call your Royal Mail for help? Like this forum says there is still a risk for people who handle this for us in the UK.
Vidshop grew so fast it just could not handle the growth, the new website design in April last year tripled the business inside 2 weeks. Nobody but nobody expected it to go like that,
Our shippers in the UK could not handle it, and our purchasing system couldn?t handle it, which backed up the orders. We needed more people, but this is the UK, its not as simple as putting an add in the paper for more warehouse personnel like we can in The Netherlands.
Canamax and Your Choice have both had their share of legal problems, why do you think that is? Because they were the big enchiladas period .I know the Canamax people and we try to learn from their experiences. Just a quick note on that point, as I did notice it in one of the threads, Yes I work with Canamax (Jay and Remington you know who with), Yes I know the Canamax boys, and now that there uk court cases seem to be at an end (see melon farmers) we will be sitting down about doing some things for the internet together, no big secret.
Vidshop has more customers than any other uk supplier, it is not a boast, it's a simple fact, the amount of posts from people in here alone should tell you that, and it happened inside 3 years, We are a victim of our own success, we are not a traditional mail order company we don?t send out 5000 catalogues per week and be able to have nice steady work routine opening and processing the orders on 40 or so products, or that our internet orders are as a result of that mailer so we can gauge when it will be busy, many of you are on our e-mail newsletter ( including other uk suppliers of course), no one has had an e-mail newsletter for 7 months, for one simple reason, we would not have been able to cope with a huge increase of orders, why? Because as you can see, we were not coping with what was coming in every day. Again I have read other strings about other companies in the UK starting to retail dvds and the same problem arises, of course it does, because the problem will be the same for them as us, you have to get them in, someone is not sat in a garden shed or a garage running off DVDs, ever wonder why Your Choices DVD service is not quite as good as their Video service? Yes Jay we order from you too. Our competitors are not uk suppliers they are dvdempire and dvdexplorer, Your Choice are a great company but they have 67 dvds, I think we have twice that in private alone and over 1100 in total, shit I can deliver 67 titles, but you all want more than that, its proven in the comments in here ?great selection pity about the shit service?. So I had 2 choices dump most of the product to less than 100 titles or spend some big bucks and put the house in order. Well I was told never go back. So we have increased our staff levels here in the Netherlands and moved to a new warehouse, Phil K, Alec you are quite welcome to come over and check it out, your comments in here have always been professional and I respect that. Our customers including the people in here have shown us they want a quality range of products, on that end we are hitting the mark, its proven by the volume of orders and varied products discussed here but they also have shown us what we need to do in order to rectify these serious problems the majority of the posts can be summed up in one way. "Vidshop, don't hold your breath, and don't expect a response".
Well its time to change, now I am not here to ask people to come back, but I do want to ensure, that anybody here that is waiting for product etc, is sorted out. Every order is still logged; please send your order Number WE WILL SORT IT OUT.
Video Piracy.
Again I think I saw this quote was posted from Pasta
Ben Dover says, and I quote, "Your Choice [and some from STB] are the only companies selling genuine copies of my movies. Vidshop are a rip-off pirate company"
Baloney
Well I don?t know Mr Honey and He has not met me nor am I sure if he wrote the post, or the others I have had sent to me, I know other people did run his Ben Dover website for him before I went away but I am sure Jay will pass this snippet on, (so cut here buddy) - I will be dealing with your message board and the comments allegedly posted by you real soon, Your dealing with a global business here not a small UK catalogue pirate called ?Your Scene? go ahead try shutting us down. Your comments (or those of your employees or partners) are a little too general for my liking, but for the record.
You do not know me, if you want to know which Italian American has strong connections in this business in both the USA and Europe, why not ask Richard Desmond. You call us crooks, but did I read right you said you did nine months for mail order porn. Tell me did you own the rights surely you didn?t pirate them, after all that would be stealing wouldn?t it huh?
Vidshop do not pirate your Movies. if you think that then why didn?t you say something to Dave?s face in Vegas ? I guess he is who your problem is with, and I know he spoke with you, I am involved with the group that purchases your European rights, and you may want to have a word with Todd on that front because as far as he is concerned the contract is ?all Europe? to the Dutch. Of course we dealt direct with VCA for videos in the States. If you think we pirate your films I will take your Ben Dover titles off our USA sites and out of our East Coast U.S stores and notify Allen Gold and Russ Hampshire as to why.
Of course I won?t do this for Europe, that is not my call, and it would be rather stupid taking down something that we are involved with, I know for a fact you put pressure on one of our affiliates about working with us, your way out of line and where do you get off on telling a Swedish customer to buy from Your Choice who have rights only for the UK, what! One rule for one and one for another? You know what I am talking about; yeah I?m watching you too.
UK customers do not have to buy your Products from us or from anyone else, perhaps they would like to buy from Knights they carry your range? Didn?t European courts rule Levi Strauss don?t have to make us buy Levi Jeans from a Levi Store? It?s called freedom of choice. I agree Piracy is a problem, but you are picking a fight with the wrong guy. ? Ok Jay End of cut.
I notice quite a few UK producers list here, Vidshop will gladly carry the new hard R18 titles for our UK customers, and they should get in touch with our purchaser Jay at suppliers@vidshopadmin.com.
Your Choice have indeed paid good money for the rights for Ben Dover titles in the UK, do they come with a video box and sleeve? , Just because we don?t send with a box and sleeve doesn?t mean the titles are not licensed. Canamax certainly owns a number, (not that Lindsey Honey seems to acknowledge it) and same as Your Choice don?t have many with sleeves. But I am not restricted to buying from those 2 companies; Your Choice won?t wholesale to us anyway.
One final thought on that, if both Your Choice and Canamax
Own hardcore versions of Ben Dover titles, why doesn?t either of them submit them for this new R18 they have in the UK?
Regarding the quality of other Videos, these will be looked at, and I will note the ones people are saying are poor, and remove them, from sale, We will add over 200 VHS titles from Private for May as their quality is not an issue. My other point would be look to get a DVD player quality is much superior.
Once again sorry for the bad way things have been getting done, and we will start resolving these Problems starting Tuesday.
Again, it is probably a little unfair on my distributors in the U.K. to call them totally incompetent, if they had the opportunity to set up and work like they do in Holland, and the USA with the post office coming each day to pick up the mail and a nice big warehouse to hold all the stock, then it would not be the same as it has been, but they have to work effectively underground, trying to make sure they don?t suffer the same fate as many before them.
Lets get these things sorted, there is no point flaming me, I am burnt to a crisp already, just work with me and my staff to ensure you get your problems solved.
Alec and Phil, I would expect that my comments be posted as written and not edited; I have done nothing more than respond to comments that are clearly readable here.
Many Thanks
Rich.
After an enforced absence. , Yes Alec
Well figured out, Its about 12 months!
Regarding the posts here
I nor anyone else at Vidshop is in the habit of taking customers hard earned cash and leaving town, and if I have a problem I was told sort it out because it won't go away if you do nothing. (Actually with the benefit of hindsight that may not be such good advice after all)
No excuses but even a guilty mans lawyer gets a chance to plead that there are some mitigating circumstances, which after the pounding we have had in here, I am feel I have a right to put my point.
How to Answer 7-8 months Forum strings in 1 post. ? Impossible, so if you bear with me I will give it my best shot.
There are a few points I want to have a reply on (Joey I would love to send you an e-mail, but bit like us you are not easy to reach) So Joey your remarks about the FBI etc etc, are not going to impress me, They know me enough already, I fear new Attorney General John Ashcroft and what he will do to this business a damn site more.
Let him know vidshop didn't send any porn to its customers and he would no doubt make us retailer of the year and send me a medal.
I am back now involved for 1 week. And here is what is happening.
First the email reply problem, this is in the process of being overcome. As you can see from the strings here, your e-mails were not getting to us in many cases and also replies were not getting out, then when the mail did come in, it was not humanly possible to handle it, main reason volume of mail, not good enough server, not enough people. Solution new admin URL on new servers here in the Netherlands with direct connection to the UUNet, MCI WorldCom, Concert, AT&T, BT and IBM-NET backbone and 3 new full time admin staff. Forward your emails to our new address support@vidshopadmin.com - you will get a reply within 48hrs, if I fail, leave a message here - I will kick ass!
Do not send repeated messages they will not be answered as it is taken as spam by the incoming mail server, send 1 and it will be dealt with.
I have 1 more person starts in the UK next week; I will then post a new phone number to reach him. Sorry not this week, he will be busy enough with the e-mail.
Distribution
Sorry to all those who rightly feel they have had less than satisfactory service from vidshop.
However, The insinuations that we have acted in any way dishonest I take as a personal insult. Every order that has been placed and paid for has either been delivered - maybe late - or is in the process of being delivered. If there is anyone out there who can hold his or her hands up and say an ordered product was paid for and never arrived - contact us on this e-mail support@vidshopadmin.com and we will sort it ASAP. Again, please just send 1 message and use bgafd in the subject header.
My background is purely audio text and Internet, I am not from the UK mail order clan, I was used to people dialling in or keying in a credit card to access a website, but I never shipped anything other than an e-mail confirmation. It has been a steep learning curve.
The logistics of getting product from the USA, Holland, Germany and the rest of the world to your doorstep is not something that the faint hearted undertake. Orders from the USA that should arrive within 2 weeks were taking 12 weeks because they were sent by boat, customs in the Netherlands may hold shipments for clearance on paperwork, or for proof of payments to the Manufacturers, and so stock levels become depleted quickly. As an example The new Jenna Jameson DVD my Plaything, only arrived in the Netherlands Thursday (it took from the 2nd of March), and we have 2117 orders for it, that need to get to the UK and out of the door by recorded delivery, shall we call your Royal Mail for help? Like this forum says there is still a risk for people who handle this for us in the UK.
Vidshop grew so fast it just could not handle the growth, the new website design in April last year tripled the business inside 2 weeks. Nobody but nobody expected it to go like that,
Our shippers in the UK could not handle it, and our purchasing system couldn?t handle it, which backed up the orders. We needed more people, but this is the UK, its not as simple as putting an add in the paper for more warehouse personnel like we can in The Netherlands.
Canamax and Your Choice have both had their share of legal problems, why do you think that is? Because they were the big enchiladas period .I know the Canamax people and we try to learn from their experiences. Just a quick note on that point, as I did notice it in one of the threads, Yes I work with Canamax (Jay and Remington you know who with), Yes I know the Canamax boys, and now that there uk court cases seem to be at an end (see melon farmers) we will be sitting down about doing some things for the internet together, no big secret.
Vidshop has more customers than any other uk supplier, it is not a boast, it's a simple fact, the amount of posts from people in here alone should tell you that, and it happened inside 3 years, We are a victim of our own success, we are not a traditional mail order company we don?t send out 5000 catalogues per week and be able to have nice steady work routine opening and processing the orders on 40 or so products, or that our internet orders are as a result of that mailer so we can gauge when it will be busy, many of you are on our e-mail newsletter ( including other uk suppliers of course), no one has had an e-mail newsletter for 7 months, for one simple reason, we would not have been able to cope with a huge increase of orders, why? Because as you can see, we were not coping with what was coming in every day. Again I have read other strings about other companies in the UK starting to retail dvds and the same problem arises, of course it does, because the problem will be the same for them as us, you have to get them in, someone is not sat in a garden shed or a garage running off DVDs, ever wonder why Your Choices DVD service is not quite as good as their Video service? Yes Jay we order from you too. Our competitors are not uk suppliers they are dvdempire and dvdexplorer, Your Choice are a great company but they have 67 dvds, I think we have twice that in private alone and over 1100 in total, shit I can deliver 67 titles, but you all want more than that, its proven in the comments in here ?great selection pity about the shit service?. So I had 2 choices dump most of the product to less than 100 titles or spend some big bucks and put the house in order. Well I was told never go back. So we have increased our staff levels here in the Netherlands and moved to a new warehouse, Phil K, Alec you are quite welcome to come over and check it out, your comments in here have always been professional and I respect that. Our customers including the people in here have shown us they want a quality range of products, on that end we are hitting the mark, its proven by the volume of orders and varied products discussed here but they also have shown us what we need to do in order to rectify these serious problems the majority of the posts can be summed up in one way. "Vidshop, don't hold your breath, and don't expect a response".
Well its time to change, now I am not here to ask people to come back, but I do want to ensure, that anybody here that is waiting for product etc, is sorted out. Every order is still logged; please send your order Number WE WILL SORT IT OUT.
Video Piracy.
Again I think I saw this quote was posted from Pasta
Ben Dover says, and I quote, "Your Choice [and some from STB] are the only companies selling genuine copies of my movies. Vidshop are a rip-off pirate company"
Baloney
Well I don?t know Mr Honey and He has not met me nor am I sure if he wrote the post, or the others I have had sent to me, I know other people did run his Ben Dover website for him before I went away but I am sure Jay will pass this snippet on, (so cut here buddy) - I will be dealing with your message board and the comments allegedly posted by you real soon, Your dealing with a global business here not a small UK catalogue pirate called ?Your Scene? go ahead try shutting us down. Your comments (or those of your employees or partners) are a little too general for my liking, but for the record.
You do not know me, if you want to know which Italian American has strong connections in this business in both the USA and Europe, why not ask Richard Desmond. You call us crooks, but did I read right you said you did nine months for mail order porn. Tell me did you own the rights surely you didn?t pirate them, after all that would be stealing wouldn?t it huh?
Vidshop do not pirate your Movies. if you think that then why didn?t you say something to Dave?s face in Vegas ? I guess he is who your problem is with, and I know he spoke with you, I am involved with the group that purchases your European rights, and you may want to have a word with Todd on that front because as far as he is concerned the contract is ?all Europe? to the Dutch. Of course we dealt direct with VCA for videos in the States. If you think we pirate your films I will take your Ben Dover titles off our USA sites and out of our East Coast U.S stores and notify Allen Gold and Russ Hampshire as to why.
Of course I won?t do this for Europe, that is not my call, and it would be rather stupid taking down something that we are involved with, I know for a fact you put pressure on one of our affiliates about working with us, your way out of line and where do you get off on telling a Swedish customer to buy from Your Choice who have rights only for the UK, what! One rule for one and one for another? You know what I am talking about; yeah I?m watching you too.
UK customers do not have to buy your Products from us or from anyone else, perhaps they would like to buy from Knights they carry your range? Didn?t European courts rule Levi Strauss don?t have to make us buy Levi Jeans from a Levi Store? It?s called freedom of choice. I agree Piracy is a problem, but you are picking a fight with the wrong guy. ? Ok Jay End of cut.
I notice quite a few UK producers list here, Vidshop will gladly carry the new hard R18 titles for our UK customers, and they should get in touch with our purchaser Jay at suppliers@vidshopadmin.com.
Your Choice have indeed paid good money for the rights for Ben Dover titles in the UK, do they come with a video box and sleeve? , Just because we don?t send with a box and sleeve doesn?t mean the titles are not licensed. Canamax certainly owns a number, (not that Lindsey Honey seems to acknowledge it) and same as Your Choice don?t have many with sleeves. But I am not restricted to buying from those 2 companies; Your Choice won?t wholesale to us anyway.
One final thought on that, if both Your Choice and Canamax
Own hardcore versions of Ben Dover titles, why doesn?t either of them submit them for this new R18 they have in the UK?
Regarding the quality of other Videos, these will be looked at, and I will note the ones people are saying are poor, and remove them, from sale, We will add over 200 VHS titles from Private for May as their quality is not an issue. My other point would be look to get a DVD player quality is much superior.
Once again sorry for the bad way things have been getting done, and we will start resolving these Problems starting Tuesday.
Again, it is probably a little unfair on my distributors in the U.K. to call them totally incompetent, if they had the opportunity to set up and work like they do in Holland, and the USA with the post office coming each day to pick up the mail and a nice big warehouse to hold all the stock, then it would not be the same as it has been, but they have to work effectively underground, trying to make sure they don?t suffer the same fate as many before them.
Lets get these things sorted, there is no point flaming me, I am burnt to a crisp already, just work with me and my staff to ensure you get your problems solved.
Alec and Phil, I would expect that my comments be posted as written and not edited; I have done nothing more than respond to comments that are clearly readable here.
Many Thanks
Rich.
