I just wanted to hit everyone with an update and say that we’re sorry for any user experience issues with the site during the Olly Moss sale earlier this week. It was the most in demand 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 more detail, especially in regards to what we’re doing to improve your experience.
1. I handle putting things on sale online and have a system that I use every time. I send a newsletter first, then put the item up for sale, followed by a blog post and then tweet/ facebook. With the Olly Moss release, as I clicked on sale, it instantly sold out and by the time I could tweet, it was too late. So, for everyone upset about there not being a tweet, I apologize. It was my mistake. I just want to assure everyone that this was an isolated instance and I’ll do my best to make sure that it doesn’t happen again. Once again, I apologize. We’re going to keep the current system on how we alert you to the print being on sale, but with one exception. An newsletter will be sent out the day prior to a release instead of the day of. We’ve found that the emails are hitting spam folders or getting to some customers after the print goes on sale and it’s not a good way to announce something. We will still be doing a blog post and Twitter/ Facebook announcements.
2. When a huge release really tests our site, we are able to look at that data and make improvements. Earlier this year, we had a full blown meltdown on the WOLFMAN release and took steps to improve the site. Since then, the site has performed well. The Olly Moss release brought in never before seen traffic for us and now that the dust has settled, we can make improvements. I have been talking to our web developers since the release and we have already begun making changes to the site. We’ve even bought another server to accompany our already dedicated one, so everything should run smoother in the future. Problems can always arise, but we do our best to keep them to a minimum.
3. We are making a change to how we show you upcoming releases. Earlier this year, we started to debut the posters on a popular website and then we would create an item page for it on our site. This was to let you have a place to prepare for and refresh for the drop. We will no longer be putting the item pages up in advance, but will now be putting the images up on the main page of the site and when the item finally goes on sale, we will activate the links to the items in the store page. We tried this out on the TRUE GRIT release earlier today and feel that this will give everyone more of a fair chance to score a print.
Mondo is a company that truly cares about 1. the products we make and 2. the people who are buying the products. Your tweets, emails and posts on forums are greatly appreciated and we constantly strive to make the site function the best it possibly can to ensure fans will get a chance to buy their favorite prints. We take each one into consideration and are constantly trying to improve and make the experience more enjoyable. Feel free to leave us comments below or to email us directly.
-Justin
Justin@MondoTees.com
Justin, thanks for being so transparent and empathetic, two goals that you nor Mondo actually have to strive for considering your popularity and the demand. It’s amazing that you still offer such personal attention and great customer service even though it would be really easy to turn your computer off and ignore everyone. I really appreciate your ethics and how hard you try to improve after every drop, so thank you.
Merry Christmas, Happy New Year and enjoy a break of some kind. 2010′s growth for Mondo has been kind of like Stripe jumping into the pool at the YMCA, toast your success!
It´s going to be fun to watch ebay comments when people who purchased the set are not going get theirs. If I read correct on some forum, people have been receiving emails from Mondotees stating that their money will be refunded due to over sale. 350 sets in total (50 sets sold by Olly Moss himself) and well over 80 sets resold on ebay as of writing this, there has got to be few amongst that never will receive prints.
Also I have to say that I did not like the attitude on tweets right after the sell. But then again you did sell every print so why give a damn about angry maybe-future-customers.
Hope Olly Moss can have high resolution pictures shared online. I wanted to buy the prints for their stunning visuals. Not because I could make money selling them online.
Now the only way normal people will get them is to get some cheap reproductions that will inevitably appears in some shops in Chinatown or at some flea market.
@iron jaiden Congrats on matching the levels of asshattery found on the other “Fuck You Mondo I Hope You Die” side of this discussion. It’s always good to define where the extreme fringe lies on both sides of an issue
I agree with what Noel said, both on this post and the previous post, the cart really needs to be reworked. I’m not angry at Justin but I must say to have something removed from my cart during the time that Mondo sent me to Paypal and back to complete that transaction is absolutely infuriating. It’s like someone snatching something out of your hand at the cashier while you take out your wallet.
@Tim V: haha dude the comment about being a flipper was a joke, you ain’t gotta worry about offending me. Only thing I flip is pancakes for my kids in the morning fool!
@iron jaiden stuck in the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September, get used to it. =]
Hi Justin-
Should we still expect to receive the email newsletter a minute or so before the posters go onsale?
Keep up the good work Justin and Mondo! Been in the poster collecting game for a bit and have never had any issues with how you run your business website. I think Mondo is the perfect goldmine for posters of movies that I love, and was psyched when I found it. I ran into trouble with the Sanctuary Moon drop cart button, but I understand that’s part of the hobby, and there’s always another poster around the corner. For the complainers, I had a Sperry in my cart while trying to check out with PayPal and it was gone before I could complete my transaction. Most of you probably don’t understand what that means, but it shows that these problems happen to everyone’s websites. Of course I was bummed, but as you’ll learn, it’s the nature of the business. And like Iron Jaiden said, things used to be so much smoother here without all the rumbling and new competition for posters.
I do have a question about the “random” time thing.
Is there a reason why you don’t just publish the release time ahead of time ?
Would give people a chance to do other productive stuff until the time of sale.
Thanks
Rod
@Noel: Indeed sir, indeed
Hey Rod-
We’ve tried listing a time in the past, but that kills our site. There are simply too many people coming at once and our servers can’t handle it. It’s a common practice for sites to do a random time drop on sales.
Do I trust the speed of Tweets, Facebook updates or the On Sale Email? Hell no. The messenger that brings “the word” from the Tron world to me in the really real world is a slow ass punk. Not Mondos fault. So if I really want a poster I have to be on a reliable terminal clicking refresh like a bastard for an hour to get it in my cart. Then its a race to complete checkout before all the other weasels crash the site. I don’t always succeed, so I have to go to the ebay if I miss something I really want. Also, not Mondos fault.
Reality is Mondo is red hot. They sell out all releases in less than 15 minutes allowing Justin and his rabble to afford buying the licenses for more posters. A year ago Mondo was a little known geek’s secret for cool art. Now word is out and its Black Friday time with every new release. They can’t do reprints or increase the the print runs without screwing up the model that is paying the bills, employing some great/good artists and propping up the economy in the state of Texas.
Mondo Economics: Not everyone is gonna get lucky at the big dance. Change the formula too much and sour success. There will always be whinny ass internet bitches crying they came late to the party or were refused at the door for not wearing pants. Sold Out = Win. That’s my opinion. Now, get back to work.
Mondo… I wanna dip my balls in it!
JC-
We started shipping the Olly Moss posters last night.
I wasn’t raging like most people were it would have been cool to get a set but I will I’m sure the next couple of star wars posters will be pretty epic! I like the rush of just trying to get one. Mondo posters rock!
Justin, will you still be utilizing other major sites like AICN, Yahoo, EW, G4, etc…for the drop announcements?
I have only recently come to mondo and just a short witnessing of the going ons is incredible. The amount of business that flows in for the limited editions are ridiculous to say the least. The system you have is sound as far as order its just the tech. People don’t understand the tech work it requires for such a flood. Keep doing what you can.
@Iron Jaiden: “Only thing I flip is pancakes for my kids in the morning fool!”
Don’t be ashamed, Iron J. Let your flip flag fly!
http://feedback.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewFeedback2&userid=hellmonkeybay&ftab=AllFeedback
From the descriptions alone, I see 12 mondo posters.
I still don’t see why a PAID lottery wouldn’t help reduce some of the frustration. Say, $5 to enter, limit one per physical address and credit card/PayPal account. Maybe limit the number of tickets sold to, say, 30 times the edition number. Sure, a flipper could try to recruit a bunch of people and pay their $5 fees, but that starts to eat into the profit margin. I’d much rather know ahead of time that I had a 1 in 30 chance to get a popular poster than have to race to the site as soon as a tweet comes in (assuming the tweet even goes out before everything’s sold out).
If people still want the thrill of the hunt, then reserve some of the prints for a normal sale.
Yeah I’ll echo some of the statements…
NO HIGHER PRINT RUNS. The reasons have been stated, I know it won’t happen and i am glad the print runs stay low! (they could even be lower in some cases – imo)
I do however feel the need for that additional email (newsletter) to go out for the sale time. The day before post doesn’t really do anything that sites like Wired weren’t already doing. It doesn’t help the “fans” out at all. Most us here can’t access certain sites due to work, and we all know the twitter/fb announcements aren’t a great channel to rely on (see the last 3 releases that were gone by the time the tweets hit). Keep the announcement model the same. If you want to give another day before heads up, thats fine, but the random time newsletter about the actual on sale is still the way to go.
Looking forward to my Olly 3PO, and the Jay’s Bantha’s print is getting framed as we speak!
Keep up the good work.
Cdub
Justin – PLEASE consider keeping the “on sale now” email announcements in addition to the tweet and fb post. For those of us that work day jobs, limiting the announcement to only facebook and twitter posts severely handicaps our chances since many of us can’t access facebook or twitter on our work connections. Thanks for such great offerings!
Have you guys ever considered doing a lottery system for releases you know are going to be demanding on the site in terms of traffic and interest? You can have people sign up a day (or two) in advance via email and when the poster goes live you can have randomly sent out x amount of emails with purchase codes so that everyone can feel like they had a shot instead of feeling like they never had a shot at all with the current system. I love what you guys do and really have no complaints, I was just wondering if you all ever considered this option.
Keep up the great work Mondo & Justin, you guys are pros! To all the new cats – sit back and watch how things go for a bit before making suggestions on how to improve things. Many of you got the door shut on you going for Mondo’s biggest release to date. Higher print runs won’t happen, so why people keep suggesting this is beyond me. Here’s to a bang-up job in ’10, looking forward to see whats in store for 2011!
Thanks for the apology and the explanation of future improvements. I feel bad that so many people were coming down on you guys for something that was obviously unintentional.
I felt a little burned on the Olly Moss SW release morning, and I think that the feeling was heightened for a couple reasons:
-People are unused to Star Wars being limited. You’re changing the game a little, and it’s great, but I think a lot of fans are used to the merch-machine dropping as many units as they can sell.
-The system is opaque, and the twitter was a breach of trust. I’m glad you specifically apologized for it, because it seemed like the only connection to the store, and a flippant/excited announcement (when it had served to build tension) was a source of chagrin.
-you sell an amazing product. Especially these particular Moss SW posters. Aesthetically and emotionally they struck a chord with people in a way that a giant picture of Greedo or a black-light R2D2 just don’t.
I plan on keeping an eye on your releases, even if they seem impossible to obtain, and it feels like you guys are learning how to grow as you need to, which is all anyone could want.
While it isn’t something to be proud of, when your SW art hits in the right place, there’s going to be a lot of emotional characters out there.
Firewhale makes an excellent point. Many people working have blocks on FB and Twitter whereas email is less likely to be affected.
Yes, please do not scrap the email heads up just before they go live. That seems to be the most balanced way to alert of the sale.
If the emails are not getting to some folks in time, perhaps sending out the email a half hour up to an hour before hand would curb that issue.
If it helps, the site was having trouble loading within the hour of the availability. I kept refreshing the page and it was timing out or taking forever.
I was pissed at the time because it was in my cart (pretty quickly, besides the fact that it was a little dicey), but I somehow messed up the Captcha the first time out, and wasn’t able to log in. Yeah, I was like “F*** you” but that’s just frustration. I wasn’t one of the people who took it out on Twitter.
Olly Moss is in demand and those prints were epic.
I do prefer the email before the Twitter.
One more thing. I know I complained about the captcha thing, but I’m wondering… your captcha is pretty straight forward. Numbers and letters, and not all garbled like some other captchas.
I’m wondering if the flippers have some sort of robo/macro wherein they have a device which scans the captcha image and can “read” it, and instantly regurgitates it. I know some use captchas that require some human interaction like “What is 2 + 2?”
Just out of interest do you have datestamps on the orders? I’d be interested to see the difference from the first one to the last one.
Also is random truly random across the 24 hours, or is it random in business hours in Texas?
@Vom: haha those are what we refer to as “failips”..,. buncha no reserve auctions that rarely sold for face. That’s fun though. Hella people gettin the hook up on good posters. I’m not ashamed to admit I’m a horrible businessman but a pretty good collector
Correction: actually there are a few decent sales in there which makes me feel much better
Either way selling / trading posters out of the ol flat file ain’t what we refer to as flipping. That’s being a nerd with an addiction.
On the subject of flipping posters though I’ll be honest I really don’t see the big deal. There’s a healthy market and dollars to be made. It’s not depriving anyone of a necessity or anything. I totally understand how someone would be happy to turn $150 into $1000 in the course of two minutes.
I don’t much care about money but I ain’t gonna begrudge folks that do.
That’s like a whole other can of worms and a debate for the ages… carry on.
Justin,
The thing that made me frown was that on Wired.com, and Slashfilm, they posts that they made about the upcoming Olly Moss release on your site said that the time of the sale would be send out over twitter. They made no mention of a mailing list, newsletter, or any kind of blog post. So someone like me, who had never even heard of mondotees before, was more than a little bit confused about how stuff worked, and even more so as no tweet went out at all. Consider me informed now though.
If there are no flippers, no limited quantities, and no demand there is no value. There’s no value for Mondo, Olly, or the owners of the artwork. If there is no value for any of these three parties there is no reason to do the project.
Now, I understand that these prints are absolutely brilliant and not being able to hang them on your wall and look at them and show them to your friends and post them on your facebook is devastating. But on the flipside of that coin you have to recognize that what these guys are doing is saving modern art. In this day in age of commercial mass production the value in original work is teetering on the edge of extinction. I think this particular release stirred up a cataclysm among several sects of pop culture enthusiast and left a staggering amount of people deeply disappointed. But it is in that disappointment that the value is created for the fortunate few and, most importantly, for the people who worked their asses off to create this thing.
To those who complain about the website and the process, there are roughly 350 people who would beg to differ. The overwhelming reaction is negative because according to Justin the battle was 350 vs 9500, don’t assume that your voice is the voice of reason just because it’s in the majority. Nobody got a set 45 minutes later when the “technical problems” subsided, if you were there at the moment they went on sale you got a fair shot.
To those who complain about the “flippers” or “scalpers,” if there is no auction market the work is worthless. Olly makes no money, and all anyone has is a pretty picture and nothing of value. Also, this is now your only opportunity to own this beautiful work. Get over the fact that you missed it’s original sale at $150, they are worth whatever you are willing to spend and whatever someone’s willing to sell it to you for. I promise you Van Gogh doesn’t give a shit if you had to pay 40 million for Starry Night when he sold it to the first guy for 30 bucks worth of opium. The pieces exist, if you must have them go pay what they’re worth.
Clearly Mondo is only interested in hearing what they want to hear. Moderate away.
Hey Justin what’s the record for blog comment entries?
“He’s gonna bust the record!” – Otis, The Last Starfighter
Dawdammit. Disregard. F’n connection. #eggonface
Mandingo-
We’re not moderating any of the comments. They’re all getting posted to the blog. There really isn’t a point to doing this if we’re filtering out the negative.
Those folks on this and the other thread who are willing to put their money where their mouth is and pay more in other words to guarantee purchase can head over here
http://ollymoss.com/manybothansdiedtobringustheseprints.html
to Olly’s site directly and pick them up for a cool $525. Makes Mondo seem like a hell of a deal.
@ Justin or someone how do I get my buddy icon in the comments?
Noel olly’s copies sold out in a hot second yesterday. That page won’t get you anything but false hope my man.
Justin,
Have all of the oversold customers been notified? I heard that you started shipping yesterday but my order still say’s “processing” for the Olly Moss poster set. *Fingers crossed*
Any thoughts about doing an open edition for an ordering window like they have been doing with the Horkey retrospectives? This may cut down on flipping and let those who want the print for their collections acquire the prints with less stress. Just an idea.
@Terrie: Justin noted a couple of times that the editions will remain limited and set ahead of time.
Personally, when I go into a store and place something in my cart, I don’t then have to race to try and get to the register before someone takes my things out of my cart to call their own. With these posters being in such high demand, I think a system like concert and movie tickets would be nice. Place them in your cart and then you have “1 minute” to complete the transaction before the item is placed back in stock for others to pay for it. My frustration was that the second the Olly posters went on sale, I had them in my shopping cart, was going through checkout and then your site froze, that delay cost me the purchase I’m sure. Oh well, things happen but hoping that there is a better way as I don’t think I’m up for the frustration again.