Today, we released 2 posters and a shirt on the website. The time was announced (which is something we don’t like to make a habit) and we sold out of both posters in around 35 minutes. After the dust had settled on today’s release I checked Twitter and my email and found over 75 messages with people essentially saying, “Fuck you guys” or “You just lost a customer.” It’s not unheard of that people are upset when they don’t get something they really want and in our business it’s even worse because all of our pieces are limited edition, but these emails made me want to write an open letter and kind of let people look behind the curtain to see what we are doing with our release days. Several people think we are unprepared and go about these things not realizing the demand our posters have, but that is not the case. Could anyone have imagined that THE EVIL DEAD release would have more people (well over 1,000 on the site this morning) going after posters than the IRON MAN 2 release did? I love being open with our fanbase and this blog post will hopefully shed some light on the inner workings of Mondo and illustrate how we are working very hard to make release days as easy as possible for you…the fans.
QUANTITY AND THE AFTERMARKET
We have gained lots of new fans in the last several months and one thing we always get asked is if we will reprint. The answer is no. We are big supporters of limited editions staying limited. We will do variants and things like that, but the edition size will always be stated up front. We are also aware that some people out there don’t buy our posters to hang on their wall. Some of our posters are very popular on the aftermarket. It’s no secret, I assure you. I can understand the frustration it may cause fans that tried to get one as a gift or to hang in their office only to miss out on one and then they turn around and see someone else that got one immediately selling it. The truth is, we cannot control that. We do limit our sales and try to make sure everyone gets one, but that’s all we can do. Rest assured that we ARE NOT the ones putting the posters up for sale on eBay, so getting angry at us about it will do nothing. We sell the posters in our store in Austin, online and at the shows the posters were made for. Once the posters sell out, they are gone forever.
OUR SITE
Probably the most common email I get is the one where people tell us to up our bandwidth or get more cookies or whatever. Admittedly, the performance of the website has been and still is the most frustrating part of the job to us at Mondo. I am on the phone at least 3 days a week talking to technicians trying to tweak this and that all in an attempt to make sure the website doesn’t crash. The fact is, it’s almost impossible to get everything right. When there are hundreds and sometimes thousands of people all trying to buy one poster at the same time, there will be problems. Even sites like OBEY crash and they are 10 times the size of us. We have a dedicated server and are constantly tweaking the shopping cart and individual item pages to make the performance of the site better.
I’m not trying to make excuses here. Not one bit. I’m simply trying to say that we are trying. We don’t have the money to throw at having multiple servers like Amazon or other mega sites. I’ve been trying to work with Digital River that runs the Matty Collector sales and even Sideshow Toys because of their nice sale day sites. So, bottom line, if the site goes down, it sucks, but the reason it’s going down isn’t because of poor planning or lack of prep….it’s because of too much enthusiasm and excitement from fans. It is impossible to gauge excitement for a certain release. It’s all part of the thrill we get from our jobs.
SHOPPING CART
This has been an ever increasing question from fans and since we’re trying to clarify things today, I thought I’d share an actual email we got about this subject:
I don’t know how this normally works, but I was in the middle of completing my order – the last screen was loading up. My roommate asked me for assistance with something, so I went to help him and when I came back to press check-out, it said there was nothing in my cart and when I tried again, the poster was sold out. I thought having something in the cart automatically reserved the item for me, at least for a few minutes?
So, the questions is, if you put a poster in your cart, does that mean it’s yours? No. Having something in your cart doesn’t mean it’s reserved for you. The only way that item comes out of inventory and into your home is if you pay for it. This is the same way on tons of other sites and is the absolute, best way to handle inventory.
YOU’VE LOST A CUSTOMER…FOREVER
This is probably the worst thing we hear from fans upset about not getting the poster they were shooting for. If we take this morning’s release as an example, you’ll see our predicament. We had 1,000 people on the site trying to get a little over 300 posters. Because Olly Moss’ run says 250, that doesn’t mean we have 250 for sale. The studio has their comps, we sold some at the show last week, Olly gets copies, etc. So, we had around 150 or so of Olly’s to sell and 1000 people on the site. Theoretically, we could have 850 people furious at us because they didn’t get a poster. Just know that this is what happens with limited edition releases. If you don’t get one, we are VERY SORRY. We want everyone to get what they want, but it is impossible. Stick with us, though. If you missed THE EVIL DEAD posters, we have something awesome coming up next week, and the week after that and the one after that. We have a ton of really amazing projects coming up that will last the rest of the year, so please…hang in there.
HOW WE ANNOUNCE SALES
We announce the on sale of our posters and shirts by many ways. We send out a bulk email, announce it on this blog, announce it on Facebook, Twitter and we also get covered by many major news sites. Many people ask us to announce times for our releases which we really don’t like doing. It’s a situation that can be described by the old cliche, “Damned if you do. Damned if you don’t.” By releasing our posters at random times, it greatly eases traffic on the site. When we announce times, like we did today, the site bogs down and everything slows. The site didn’t officially crash today, but it got way too slow for my liking.
I’ll leave it at that. To sum up, we try to produce the best products for the best movies and want you to be able to have them in your home. We have grown by leaps and bounds the last year or so and are still trying to get everything perfect, so stick with us. If you have any questions, please ask them in the comments. I’m looking forward to answering them.
-Justin
Thanks for the letter. It confirms the reasons behind some of my recent frustrations in getting posters.
For me the announcements do little good. I have all social stuff blocked at work which is where I am when some things are released. It doesn’t help that I am not a social network guy. So e-mail is my only means of notification.
I’ve got six posters from Mondo and I do buy them because I love the design and subject matter. I usually spend 10x the poster price to get it framed. As a result I am getting my 5th frame job tomorrow. I do have to agree that seeing people grab these things and sell them on eBay before they have received them is really frustrating. I won’t spend $200 on a Stout or Olly print at this time, but would spend $50 if I could be assured I could get it within a week of its release.
Frankly, I don’t find any “thrill of the chase” argument convincing. For me it is nothing but frustration to push some buttons and hope you get what you want.
Thanks again for the open letter and reading my response.
Andrew-
We totally understand that some sites may be blocked at people’s jobs so we try to offer several ways of notification that a print went up for sale. We also post stuff up on the blog and also send out a mass email to people on our mailing list. Is there a preferred way you would like to be notified? We’re always looking for ways to make it easier on the customer.
Thanks.
-J
Here’s my $0.02
why don’t you guys do what Fright-Rags just did for their recent Freddy Krueger shirts:
don’t pre-determine a certain outrageously limited number…just take orders between 7am & 7pm on a certain day, then close down the page, make enough posters to fill ALL your orders…and never make any again.
Okay so it’ll take 3 weeks or so, but that’s about what it took for me to get my Wolf Man poster anyway.
It’s still a limited run, but not so limited to cause so much anger & anxiety. Everyone who wants one gets a poster made just for them. Can’t get much more collectible than that, no?
If you keep doing business in the fucked up way you’re doing it you’re going to get hate mail. I was one of the people who got screwed in your idiotic Wolf Man poster debacle and now I see things haven’t changed since then.
People don’t give a fuck about your apologies. Be a responsible business owner and get things working right or don’t do them at all.
Sludge-
Thanks for the comment. Sorry you missed out on the poster. Yeah, the WOLFMAN release was a bit of a fiasco. I’ll never deny that. First big release with the new site, things fucked up. Granted. But to say things aren’t working now is a bit of a stretch. They’re not perfect, but they’re getting better. If you have any recommendations on how we can be more responsible and run things more efficiently, please let me know. I’m not trying to be sarcastic or a dick at all. I’m genuinely interested in getting feedback from fans on how we can run things better.
-Justin
I don’t know if anyone has mentioned any of these, but here are some suggestions:
- Some sort of auction system. Could be for a limited number of prints or the whole run. Would eliminate flippers by making it less profitable and allow collectors to pay fair market all the time.
- Annual subscription — allow a certain number of people to purchase an annual subscription where they get to pick 10-20 prints per year (or a whole lot). Price could be high (many would say prohibitive) but it would give die-hards another opportunity to snag a print.
- Poster contests. Like Stouts. “Show us your framed XXX/YYY/ZZZ for a chance to win this print.” (You have a LOT of work out there so far; not sure how you’d be able to pick one print or the other but Stout does this as well and it has worked out alright).
Just some ideas. Thanks for all the cool prints.
I currently work as a contractor in Iraq. So being over here I only have access to pretty dismal internet so trying to access the site when a new poster is released is pretty much impossible. I have made it to checkout a few times but as soon as I enter my billing information(which takes forever to process) I get to the screen where it informs me I have nothing in my cart. Then I curse the Gods.
Have you thought about implementing anything where we can store our card info in our accounts so we don’t have to go through that option each time? Unless there is already something for that and I am just totally blind.
Thanks
Am I more likely to get a response here if I curse and complain rather than offer suggestions? Cause I already tried the suggestion route.
Kharma Initiative,
This is Kevin Tong, I am going to jump into this for Justin as I am staying at his place. I do understand how you feel and I think you make valid points. I am outside of Mondo, but I know some of what goes on behind the scenes.
The downside is that we don’t live in a perfect world, no matter what you try to do, if what you do involves many people, you will always have people feeling screwed over. That is the nature of the world. There certainly are many solutions that would help some people, but leave others out to dry.
I don’t know what people’s perspective is, but Mondo is not a big company. Most of their resources go into keeping things legit and paying artists. That will always be their priority. I know that Justin spends his nights reading all these comments and bringing them up at meetings. Most suggestions have been made before. For whatever reason, for the time being, some just aren’t feasible.
All in all, the current system Mondo uses, though imperfect, has been time tested and it works for most people. There’s also only so much Justin can do while keeping up with the output. You have to take the good with the bad. I for one, want Justin to spend his time pursuing big properties and getting great artists to put out amazing work.
Thanks for your suggestions and Mondo is always open to hearing them. Going back to Justin now.
To the people with social sites blocked at work (Andrew in particular), have you thought about setting the MondoNews twitter feed to come straight through to your cell phone as an SMS?
You could create a separate twitter account JUST to do this if you don’t want to get into minutae with an existing one.
I’m going to look into the possibility of creating an iPhone App for on sales to help with people that may not be around a computer at the time of sales. No promises that it will happen although I would love to make it so.
-j
They should put the Olly poster artwork on a t shirt.
I’m just gonna pop in and say you’re doing a great job Justin. I know how it feels to deal with the venom of angry nerds and I think you’re doing exactly what you should be doing.
I’ve got one hell of a collection from Mondo and I’ll tell you I’ve missed as many as I’ve scored. I hear people piss and moan about how this isn’t fair and that ain’t right but honestly you guys it’s just posters. Awesome posters you sometimes get to have and sometimes don’t.
You know how I scored an Olly Evil Dead? I texted my girl from my work (no way to order posters from the computer there) and begged her to get on her iPod touch and try for this drop. She bounces between the neighbor’s god awful wi-fi and our wi-fi on that thing depending on where she’s standing. She happened to be out back in the garden when I hit her up.
So there she is, shovel in one hand, iPod in the other on a one-bar wi-fi connection trying to refresh mondo for the drop. Talk about a wing and a prayer!
She scored one and I’m stoked. If she missed it I’d be stoked for the rest of you monkeys who got one. I’m not that cool of a dude so why the fuck is it so hard for so many of you to like relax and just try for the next awesome drop that happens?
That question was rhetorical by the way, no need to respond. It’d just be more whining anyways.
Justin: High five dude, keep up the good work.
Whiners: Wanna buy my Olly? Haha, I kid I kid… *kisses*
My outside email is also blocked. I don’t have a cell phone but I recentlypicked up a device that will let me access my personal email from work. I’m going to have to go that route and keep monitoring my email account. Another justification for the purchase.
Thanks again for reading. If you could get your backend system improved that would help a lot. Other suggestions here sound good to me as a customer. At least some options are clear.
I have been purchasing from Mondo for a few years now and love the poster selection and have to agree with iron Jaiden and all the others who say that part of the thrill is that getting a Mondo poster is completely hit and miss. As far as the suggestions…talk to Tyler Stout or go back and look through his captains log. It seems that poor guy has tried everything…and yet, at the end of every sale – that I have been involved with anyway – he ends up apologizing for a site crash or for the fact that people got pissed off at him. That must suck. Mondo could choose to only offer the posters for sale at the event and 99% of us would be screwed. I say thanks to Justin and everyone at Mondo for making these amazingly cool posters available to us at all! Great job guys…even if I didn’t get an Olly Moss Evil Dead…I did however score a Florian Evil Dead!! You win some, you loose some.
I think you are stuck between two audiences here-
Audience 1- Movie fans who want the poster because they love the movie. (i.e., Ain’t It Cool News Folks)
Audience 2- Art collectors who like to acquire rare screen prints that will hopefully appreciate in value. (i.e., Expresso Beans Folks)
Trying to make one group happy will ultimately upset the other. Increase the print run- make Audience 1 happy, piss off Audience 2. Random drops, extremely limited runs- make Audience 2 happy, piss off Audience 1.
Mondo will eventually have to take a side and, unfortunately (for me anyway), it seems like it will be for the latter audience.
people are silly, so the Evil Dead is sold out, there’s still a totally kick ass Bad Lieutenant poster in the shop. I’ve been ordering from Mondo since the Rolling Roadshow days, and I still miss the girl in the Who-Che shirt advertisement. I don’t think repeat customers deserve any more perks than the new guy that just decided to buy a movie poster. If you want preferential treatment move to Austin and buy the poster at the show. You guys are lucky that Justin is so awesome, if i were in charge of this i would pick five random complaint emails and mail the corresponding people a bowel movement from the filthiest people alive.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RltIUKEpukg
Well Justin,
I’ve emailed you once again. It’d be cool to actually here from you this time around…
Scratch that. Not a good idea to be on here when I’m half asleep, because I am prone to confusing here with hear. Anyway, please get in touch with me Justin. I’d like to go ahead and place my order on those shirts, but I won’t be able to ’til you get back to me.
Hey Nathan-
I sent you an email. I apologize that I didn’t get back to you quickly enough. It is the weekend.
Thanks.
-Justin
@JB
I am both in Audience 1 and 2. They’re not mutually exclusive.
1. I love movies and am in the business. I attend MANY Alamo events, and usually end up buying the posters in person at the event itself.
2. I also frequent expressobeans.com and have poster collecting as a hobby.
I’m not pissed off at all by what Mondo is doing – this is the inherent nature of the business. In regards to the aftermarket, if you’re patient after the initial rush, then the prices even out at sort of a “true” value – the maximum a bunch of people are willing to pay for the particular work of art (EB is helpful in this).
Also, with the bad comes the good – for every good flip on ebay, you’re looking at a bad flip – a failip. I for one was able to buy Millward’s Beetlejuice for less than cost, shipped ($29 total). Stuff like this happens all the time, even looking at 2/3 of Stout’s most recent releases, you can buy them for UNDER COST on the aftermarket (Warriors and Monster Squad). So yeah, you hate these flippers that have Moss’ up on the bay for 200 now, but during a future release they’ll end up screwing themselves over. To me, this sort of evens it out.
Anyhow – cheers Justin, good work. Can’t wait to see whats down the pipeline.
Just wanted to say you guys do some incredible work. Thanks for all you do. It’s a shame that you receive so much flak. I hear all this complaining about missing out on the poster and then if they do get the poster they complain about how long it takes to ship and then when it arrives they complain about the packaging. Ah, the American way: more, more, more, me, me, me, now, now, now.
I just discovered Mondo recently, but have already missed out on three releases (had Iron Man in my cart at the moment it sold out). It’s definitely frustrating, mainly because I’m a big fan of really nice poster art, and Mondo has some of the best I’ve ever seen.
So I read the blog post and most of the comments, but I’m still wondering, *why* the dedication to limited print runs? What’s the purpose? I still can’t understand who actually benefits. You don’t benefit, because you only sell 150 or 200 or whatever instead of the 1000s+ you might otherwise. And fans of your work don’t benefit because the overwhelming majority of them will never get their hands on it. It seems like the only people who really benefit are the Ebayers, people who want to seal it up and wait for it to be worth more money, and people with a fetish for owning things no one else does.
So I guess I don’t see the purpose of such forced scarcity. Being super invested in how rare a thing is or desiring something that will appreciate in value doesn’t really seem like it has anything to do with love or fandom to me. And neither does being invested in cultivating an image as a particular kind of business (boutique, or whatever).
Now, it’s your business, and you get to run it how you want. Realistically, you don’t owe anyone any kind of explanation. And i’m not saying you’re wrong. My point is just that I don’t really get where you’re coming from on the limited run angle. It seems like your profits and your dedication to fandom would be better served by making more of each poster.
Your posters are so gorgeous, why not share them with as many people as possible?
Just wanted to say I think lots of the prints you’ve had on the site are great. I’ve missed out on a few, but I really don’t understand how people can get mad at you. Really, I get pissed at the people selling them 5 minutes after purchasing on your site. For everyone that is just bitching at you, why don’t they just fly to Austin and purchase in-store? I mean c’mon it’s an on-line store, if you understand that at all, it’s just silly to get so enraged when not getting a print that thousands of people are after. I imagine about 100 of them actually want to get these framed and enjoy them for years to come, and the other 900 just want to make a quick buck flipping someone else’s hardwork; well why don’t you create your own art to sell? Great job, I hope to be a customer for a long time to come.
-Johnny
[...] last BEHIND THE CURTAIN blog post we did caused about 70 comments or so and people seemed to really enjoy my frankness and honesty. [...]
Okay, so how do you guys select artists? I’m obviously asking for myself, but I’m sure others are curious, too.