#oldies.com

i've decided to add a few reviews of places i've ordered records from to the blog.  these will be simple straight forward reviews aimed at helping others know what to expect when ordering from a company.  i'm a firm believer in proper service and doing what you say you do, correctly.

ratings will be in five categories.  i've eliminated selection as that is relative based on what you may want.  the categories will be:shipping time, shipping price, packing, communication, and overall experience (which includes the site layout and record prices).  each will be a score out of ten.  the total will be multiplied by 2 for a grade, which will be similar to the american university grading system as i remember it.  

the following review is based on 1 shopping experience with oldies.com

shipping time - 4/10

ok, it only took 4 days for the order to ship.  it's not great, but it's not the worst.  the problem is that my entire order didn't ship, and i didn't find out about this until 4 days after my order had shipped, and that's just rude.

shipping price - 10/10

they offer free shipping on orders over $35, and that's pretty sweet.  they certainly have enough of a selection to make spending over $35 easy enough.  

packing - 4/10

let's assume a small stack of records has six sides.  well, oldies.com surrounded 3 sides of my records in cardboard and slipped em into a thin bubble mailer.  as you may have guessed, there were a couple dings.  if your primary focus is selling records, which it appears theirs is, you should invest in some proper mailers.

communication - 2/10

i'll try to keep this reasonable.  i got an order confirmation and shipping confirmation in reasonable time, yes.  however, they did not have two of the records i ordered and did not email me to tell me this.  when i emailed them to ask about the sudden partial paypal refund i got 4 days after my items shipped, i received a poorly worded email that said "they shipped what they and since you paid for everything, your pay pal account was refunded for any items not sent...thanks."  first off, what?  second, sigh.  i replied with further concerns and they didn't have the decency to write back.  definitely a sign that return customers don't hold a high value to them.

overall experience - 4/10

the highlights of my experience were the free shipping and sifting through the seemingly endless selection of records available on the site.  but alas, i was dissatisfied in the end.  the search function on the site is basically worthless.  the information provided on releases is non-existent to an extent second only to gohastings.  they list a lot of spectacular deals on records they don't have in stock, crushing your dreams.  and the real kicker, one of the records i ordered was listed as yellow vinyl.  when i received it, it was brown vinyl.  now, this was not a huge deal as it was still a first pressing, but that's just bush league.  what if i was looking for that yellow one to complete a variant set?

grade - 48% - F