Hey Everyone. Justin here to kind of do a recap of how things work when you’re actually ordering posters from us on high traffic sale days. We had a TON of people sign up for the site with this TRON release today and we got a lot of emails like this from angry fans:
Hi,
I had called and left a message earlier, however, you guys don’t open until 5pm, but I was messaging to make a complaint about my transaction earlier. Earlier today at 12:30-12:31 pm I hopped on MondoTees from my cell phone, added the original Tron poster to my cart, went through all the shipping and billing address stuff and after clicking next I was given an Out of Stock page, which baffled me. After refreshing the page and receiving another Twitter notification from MondoNews, sure enough, I was just jacked out of a purchase. Normally, I wouldn’t give a shit enough to bitch about it, however, I know how quick these sell and how much they resell for on eBay and this was supposed to be a gift for my girlfriend, as she loves the original Tron movie completely. I’m extremely pissed off, moreso at the fact that by adding a product to my cart, I feel it should be reserved, as I lingered on that page for about an hour, hoping to be one of the first to buy this poster. Apparently, the servers being blown up and my 3g network screwed me out of that. I would like to still purchase one of these posters and if you look at my previous purchases, there aren’t many, but I’ve always been a beyond satisfied customer and still hope to continue to shop here. I’m just hoping you can compensate me for this situation, as this issue was created on your end. Thank you for the time, and I apologize for the bitchiness, it’s just the holiday season, it’s stressful, and I was looking forward to this since it leaked a couple days ago.
This fan was mad, that’s clear and it’s TOTALLY understandable. Guys, I’m a collector, too. I collect toys, comics, shoes, all kinds of stuff and I fight just like you to get rare, collectible, LIMITED stuff online. I know how it feels when you don’t get what you want, especially when you’ve been refreshing and waiting for hours. The main thing I want to point out in the above message is this line:
“by adding a product to my cart, I feel it should be reserved”
This is false. There are TONS of reasons why you, the fan, don’t want this to happen. If you really want me to go into them, I’d be glad to drop a few in the comments, but the main point is that if you have something in your cart, it’s not yours until you make it through the checkout process and pay for it. I’m trying to keep this short and sweet as we have A LOT to do for the bunch of releases coming up before the end of the year, but since we do have a bunch of great stuff coming out, I thought I should make this crystal clear.
If you have any questions, hit me up in the comments or shoot me an email. Justin@MondoTees.com
-Justin
I also just wanted to say great job Justin and Mondo crew. I’ve had some good luck and bad luck on this site when it comes to buying these posters but I think it adds to the overall experience considering these are very limited edition runs. I can imagine how busy you all are this time of year. I’m just happy your site exists and you can sell these badass one of a kind posters. Thanks again and Merry Christmas from Canada!
Actually, JB it was me who snatched your poster, but I’m keeping it.
JB, if you are waiting hours in front of your computer for these to drop…you’re doing it wrong.
@Justin, did you even read the first part of my comment? Your headline implies you’ll be explaining how things work, but the content of your post just rips on someone who had an issue. The questions were just examples, but since you decided to duck the issue and skip right to the questions I posed:
1. As a matter of fact, I don’t follow your blog or your site. I just wanted the Tron poster.
2. You could have linked to your FAQ, but you didn’t. And several questions I posed, in fact aren’t addressed in the FAQ.
3. I made a legitimate attempt to make you aware that you’re not really communicating clearly, and all you could do was turn it on me. I did so earnestly and in good faith–not as troll, but as honest critique. What I learned from your response is that despite your artistic talents, you’re immature and unwilling to listen or provide good customer service.
Good luck.
Any chance of a weekend sale?
I love the art and I hope Justin keeps putting out great art.
That being said, Ramone, I agree. Either it was a “I want to shout you down” or “I want some ego stroking”, or both, I guess. I guess constructive criticism is not appreciated, but that’s his business and I can take mine elsewhere. It would be nice to have a more positive buying experience to go along with the excellent art, but folks have beat me over the head for criticizing the buying experience so WTF.
Dude, you want him to auction the prints off? This would essentially make the posters impossible to get for many people who have limited funds to spend on this little hobby. TERRIBLE IDEA! The term “constructive criticism” is being used awfully loosely.
Ramone, I think Justin just wanted to let the whiners know that the print is not secured until you get a confirmation. Seemed pretty clear to me. I’m sure he’s busy and didn’t think he needed to explain why he offers limited edition prints or crap about twitter. His comment “if you really want me to go into them, I’d be glad to drop a few in the comments…” was clearly about the gentleman thinking it should be reserved once in the cart. Maybe your reading comprehension is the problem and not Justin’s communication skills.
Well un-surprisingly I missed out on the prints today, again.
I am absolutely not upset at Mondo because of the limited print runs and understand that is the way it is and always will be.
Things that I feel are legitimate gripes though, I had the items added to my cart within 30 seconds of them hitting the site. I then watched for 90 seconds as the check out page refused to load. I feel I am missing out on something due to your site technically not being able to handle the load. That’s a real shame. (This was across both a standard internet connection that is VERY VERY fast and also my 3G over phone) That’s a failure of technology and I think a legitimate complaint.
I’ll echo the comments about the cart situation and say you absolutely should be evaluating a system like Amazon uses it. They have the resources and technical knowledge to really exam this issue and come up w the best solution – why not benefit from their experience and model your site on theirs? Clicking add to cart should place the items in your cart for a 15 min reservation. Customers clicking add to cart where all items are in this reservation period should go into a reserve que
@ Justin you say your top complaints are
“Can you please print more or up your editions.”
I understand you can’t do anything about this.
The second is; “We’re mad at you because flippers are buying your posters and putting them on ebay.”
I really really understand you can’t do much about this. Once it’s sold how can you possibly be expected to control the item?
Lastly on the cart issue you say;
“So, let’s say that we set it up so that if you put it in your cart, it stays in your cart until you pay for it. Okay. So, it’s in your cart. You’ve essentially reserved one and it gives you time to think if you want it or whatever one wants to call it. Flippers are a clever breed and if you think there are a lot of posters getting flipped on ebay now, can you imagine the field day they’d have with this system? They wouldn’t have to fight it out with the rest of you, rather, it’d make their lives sweet. All they’d have to do is get a bunch of their pals to add one to the cart and then they could take their sweet time checking out. They could make up fake names, addresses or whatever they want and get as many as they could. Does that make sense? Even if you put a time limit on how long it was in your cart, that still gives flippers or whoever a head start to clean house.”
How are any of the issues you mention in the last point less of an issue where the site doesn’t have a modern cart = reserved temporarily system? The “flippers” as it were are still going to be doing all their game w the cart system as is or if the cart system were re-vamped.
Lets address the benefits of a modern cart system. Users who make it to the site and click add to cart in time are given the benefit of having a non-race purchasing experience. Above someone suggested that people get gift certificates merely to make their check out faster. Things like this should be unnecessary. Users of a modern cart system might fair better when the site is under heavy load usage and pages are simply not loading properly.
This brings up the final point the site shouldn’t falter so much on heavy load. As on online retailer where this situation seems to have occurred repeatedly it is your responsibility to work towards a solution where the site operates under heavy load. This work might require additional investment in the site financially and it sucks because most of the time the site is NOT under this type of load. None the less the site should be aiming for good performance during peak times as well in usage lulls.
@ Justin you say “The way we have it set up isn’t going to change and it’s the best way we’ve found for this thing to work.” “I didn’t write this blog to get into arguments. Just wanted to let people know how it works with us. If you know the rules and how things go, you at least have that going for you vs. being completely in the dark.”
I didn’t write this posting to flip things into an adversarial debate but I think it’s important to note that your customers are in most cases probably trying to play by the rules. In summary limited sales totally cool! I’m never going to be upset at you because of some asshole on eBay (that’s ridiculous I felt that way in the past emotionally but there is no point in taking that out on you.) All this said I feel the technical concerns outlined here merit some evaluation. Playing by the rules is hard to do when the site simply isn’t working properly and or uses an out-dated cart metaphor.
If the site worked perfectly and had rock solid up-time and stability AND had a modern cart system I very well could have STILL missed out on getting some posters today. And if that were the case I would in no way blame Mondo for that, it’s limited edition of a high a demand item – that’s going to happen. As it is today though I think myself and others (from reading the tweets your getting are having similar issues.) Those are technical issues that can and and should be improved.
P.S.
Weekend sales are a great idea people would be able to camp out more and that would improve the odds of everyone.
P.P.S.
Right after announcing weekend sales you’ll get hate mail from retail employees who work on Saturdays and can’t order.
weekend sales are a bad idea.
After having a similar discussion to this today, when the amazing Olly Moss Star Wars posters sold out in what seemed like record time, I wondered if Mondo will ever do pre-sale in Austin? And in defense of Mondo – if you’re a real collecter, you get used to the hit or miss of the limited edition, highly coveted poster game.
Just because one ebay seller has multiple copies, doesn’t mean one guy bought multiple copies. Some might have fellow scalpers/friends with similar systems.
If its so easy to sell posters the way you lot suggest. Why not set up your own companies, fork out thousands for trademark/copyright and artist fees, then try selling your posters fork a third Justin flogs them at.
Then bend over and wait for a shafting when your servers shatter into a million pieces at the first sale. Followed by bankruptcy soon after as you’re not covering costs.
But hey, your fans are happy right?
Btw how many prints does Banksy do? But what if 150 folks ‘put’ one of his items in their cart..? There must be 150 ‘one-offs’, right?
So, to sum up the argument….
Fans: “posters are great, limited availability is great,unable to purchase due to completely crappy, barely functional website, not so great.”
Mondo: “tough shit.”
That’s a fine attitude if you don’t care about growing beyond a microscopic, niche, business. If you hope to have larger success, good luck. You’ll need it.
And, by the way, mouthing off to your fans isn’t going to win you any long term love either….
@Rob: reality goes a little more like this:
Fans: Yay Mondo! We been doin this thing for years and it keeps getting better!
New Fish: This sucks how come I can’t buy stuff I want a million copies printed and a gigantic seahorse I can ride!!!
Mondo: Oh… uhhh.. that ain’t really how it goes.. Here’s how it goes for those just tuning in..
Rob: I missed the drop today and I’m mad is THIS where I vent?!?
Mondo: Yeah sure Rob, have at..
Jaiden: Rob you’re a goofball…
Actaully, that’s not how it goes at all.
A quick look back will reveal that i’ve been VERY vocal about loving the fact that these items are as limited as they are. I’ve bought several of Mondo’s previous releases, know how it works, and haven’t had any real complaints.
I have absolutely NO problem missing out due to small runs.
That said, during purchases of Trick R’ Treat, and now the trilogy set, I’ve missed out because the site glitched out and refused to load. If the folks at Mondo are going to promote themselves as heavily as they have been, without looking into whether their site can handle the load that promotion generates, that’s just a truly poor business practice.
It seems Mondo doesn’t really give a shit about folks like me, because they sell out every time regardless. If they want to run things that way, fine. I was just pointing out that a business either grows, or it dies, and if they continue to run theirs the way they have been, someone who can do it better will come along and take their place.
So thanks for playing Jaiden, but no, I’m not a new fish, and I don’t care about limited print runs. Nice try, though.
P.S. Nor am I interested in purchasing a seahorse.
@rob: now that’s just patently untrue and you know it. EVERYONE wants a seahorse they can ride.
I dunno….Seahorse feed is pretty damn expensive. That’s gonna add up.
I agree with Iron Jaiden on this.
I agree with Iron Jaiden on this.
Justin isn’t “mouthing off” only when someone says fuck you to him, does he even get snarky. But the amount of crap he took yesterday over the trilogy set is silly and stupid. Can things run better, sure, but don’t assume Mondo isnt interested in making things that way just because you get shut out.
[...] release we’ve ever had and it brought a lot of new people into the Mondo world. We posted a blog post last week explaining how the checkout process worked, but I feel that it’s helpful to provide [...]