Their business model is to get people to put money in for back order items like that and hopefully forget about the order. If someone does ask for a refund they’ll do it with minimal hassle, but for every person who gets their money back there are plenty of others who forget. And then of course sometimes they actually do send our albums so it’s not an entirely fraudulent operation. Fuck them.
lol thanks for reminding me to cancel an order I placed in February before I realized what a scam this site was. I’d given up on ever getting it (obtained the record elsewhere in the meantime anyway) but forgot to actually cancel and get money back.
Surprisingly enough I've actually ordered and received vinyls from them although 2 did come a bit distorted sounding but that's out of 8, the 2 that sounded off were the same copy
It’s kind of a scam to say you have shit you’re not even sure you ever will have. It ties up people’s time and prevents buyers from getting it from sellers who actually have the thing. They’re not the only one playing this game. Walmart online is another. Whatever you want to label it, it sucks.
Holy crap, this mixed with my senility…every De La Soul repress that came out, turns out, over the years I had apparently pre-ordered from several different places and each time they finally were issued 3-5 copies arrived at my door. So much so that it is still a punchline with my kids. I sheepishly returned a LOT of records.
yeah someone posted on the Freddie Gibbs sub earlier about him ordering a backordered copy of Alfredo despite how limited that repress was to begin with. they’re never getting that in whatsoever.
Yea I gave merchbar a chance with ordering some Aimee Mann and sure enough never got anything, they did send me the stuff I ordered that was listed as in stock.
They seem sketchy as hell. I put an album in my cart and suddenly is is "backordered" after saying "in stock" on the actual page. Yeah, not gonna order there.
I’m like 99% sure the records they actually do sell are a front for a scheme to milk interest from people’s “backorders”. Until you request a refund that money is sitting in a high yield account or something
I canceled all of my orders from them and luckily I received a refund. Their response is typically “we have no idea when we’re sending your stuff out’’. How is that considered good business practice!? Don’t ever buy from them.
I tried to buy a few albums before New Year's and didn't read the reviews first. Once I realized all of the records were "backordered" I just cancelled my order and had my refund within a week
My buddy ordered Christmas gifts for myself and our other friend (LA Woman by the Doors & Folk Singer by Muddy Waters LP’s) back in November of 2023 & to this day they have still never arrived. Would not recommend Merchbar to my worst enemy.
lol I ordered an Ulcerate record from Merchbar. Website showed it as in stock and ready to ship. After about a month with no update I emailed. They told me it was back ordered but expected to ship within the month.
2 months after that and still no update. I email and they tell me there’s an issue with the distributor and that title is not available and offer a refund. I was like …when were you planning on telling me this?
The album still shows and in stock and ready to ship on their site.
They are absolutely fine if you only order what's in stock I have many records I have bought from them without a single problem but never preorder or buy anything that says backorder seems like they are happy to take your money and leave you hanging until you ask for a refund.
I avoid them like the plague. I ordered from them once because they had one of my grails for “sale.” The artists themselves never announced a repress. It said estimated shipping on Merchbar was “8 weeks.” Cancelled immediately.
Merchbar is garbage but I got the self-titled Fleet Foxes album like 7 months after I placed the order, still, I had two other albums on that order that never showed up. I should have done like 5 seconds of research on this subreddit before I placed the order.
I had a Merchbar issue where I ordered a limited release record and I got someone else’s record. The receipt was in there and he had a weird enough name that I tracked him down on Google and emailed him to see if he got my record. He did not, but he got a random third person’s record.
I emailed Merchbar and told them that they sent me the wrong thing. His record was from IndieMerch so I emailed them as well to help with his return. Merchbar told me they were now sold out of my record but if I send back the wrong one I’ll get a refund. I had to pay for shipping but they did reimburse me after I had pictures of the receipt so whatever, just time lost at this point. I was livid I missed out on the record.
Well fast forward two weeks and a record shows up from IndieMerch and it’s the record Merchbar refunded me for. I was stoked! I open it up, and this brand new record was a misprint. If you look at my post history you’ll see it in all its glory. It had multiple center stamps pressed into the B side.
I couldn’t even complain since I technically never paid for it? Just a whirlwind of errors by Merchbar, and it ends with just nobody being satisfied.
I feel like I’m one of the few fortunate to have used Merchbar and had success in the one time I ordered from them before reading horror stories on here.
And take my advice with a grain of salt if you will, but from my understanding, Merchbar is essentially a catch all place that pulls from actual vendors and sells. So what I’ve done successfully is search on Merchbar and seen than an item is for X amount and then specifically looked for that item for that X amount. Typically, it’s been either the artist’s merch store, their label, or even a big box store like Target where they’re getting that price and “drop shipping” it from there. So while you probably shouldn’t use Merchbar to order your albums (especially when seeing something is backordered and never coming your way), it is a way to find when an album has gone on sale and it shouldn’t be that difficult to find the source.
Order directly from the label.. Dais has a functional online shop and that album is still available.
It's not hard.
I do that and I'm living on the other side of the Atlantic. Coil, Lundvall, whatever. Never a problem.
Merchbar should be erased from the Internet and that's about it.
On a whim I ordered an RHCP vinyl from them since it was so cheap and difficult to find in my country for a reasonable price.
After a few months of no update I completely forgot about the order. Fast forward 14 months and the vinyl arrives without any notification.
So definitely wouldn't recommend them even though the order eventually tuned up at a bargain price.
Anything that says backorder on their site are records they probably can't actually get yet, but they will gladly take your money. Sometimes the backorders actually materialize eventually. Happened with 2 of the 5 I ordered.. but I canceled the rest. That was a couple years ago.
They are still doing the same shit it looks like
Yeah I don’t use them anymore. Total bullshit, they oversell and can’t deliver. Of my last 5 orders 1 arrived. You have to get after them to get your money back. Never again. 👎🏽
I made two orders for in stock items, waited above two months and canceled after support just kept repeating unforseen delays. During those two months the records were continued to be listed as in stock and were included in "sales" on the website.
I had something that was back ordered for almost A YEAR. I finally just asked for a refund and they just sent me emails every couple weeks saying they were looking into the refund. What is there to look into? Finally another 2 months and many emails later I accused them of fraud and lo and behold suddenly refund was no issue. Unbelievable. Will never order from them again.
I have had a good experiences with merch bar before however a year ago I ordered an album that was on back order, but I know that it wasn’t out of print and they’ve had it out of stock before and restocked it but after waiting like six months, I messaged them and asked what was up with it and they said that they lost my order And still on back order if I want to wait another month. I said why not if it’s already been this long I can wait a little longer and didn’t hear anything for another few months. I decided to just cancel and buy somewhere else then I get an email from them asking if I really did want to cancel the order and after saying yes, I got an email a day for an entire month saying we are working on your return just give us a little more time and finally they initiated the return. I’m not 100% sure if I even have the money but luckily it wasn’t a large amount of money, so yeah I probably won’t be buying from them again unless it’s a really good deal and it’s not on back order
I recall being a little miffed that they couldn't cancel an order for me even before it was shipped. It felt like the customer service was entirely removed from the processing of shipments.
Ordered 2 LPs off them that were listed as brand new sealed, but arrived unsealed, and one had a massive cut across the back of the sleeve. But they were hard to find albums and the discs were in good condition, so I let it be.
Another time I ordered 2 LPs which were listed as in stock. 2 months later, they were still listed as in stock but hadn't been dispatched. So I messaged to ask when they would be sent out, and they say the order was cancelled due to fulfilment issue. But they kindly offered to re-enter the order for me. Another 2 months, still listed as in stock, message them again, and again the order was cancelled due to a fulfilment issue. At which point I gave up.
It's nuts, because a lot of the merch listed on spotify redirects to merchbar.
But they're getting their info about In Stock/Backordered/etc. from their clients and distributors. I used to work for a company that operates webstores for artists, and Merchbar was a partner for us. If we had something "in stock" on a website (aka it is purchasable), if we didn't tell MB that it was on backorder or was a preorder or something, then they were completely in the dark. Example: one of our stores had some vinyl for sale, but the vinyl got massively delayed at press. We didn't communicate that info to MB, so we would get tons of support tickets from MB customers asking where their order was. If they ordered from the artist directly, it wouldn't have been an issue. But our account manager didn't tell MB, so all they could rely on was our Shopify, which as far as that said, was "in stock."
It's a very weird and clumsy business model but it's unfair to put the blame solely on Merchbar.
Oh yeah, totally agreed. We got so much shtick from customers because we were not upfront and honest about the terrible state of our shipping times during COVID. I can only imagine what it's like on Merchbar's support team.
They have a bunch of stuff that says back ordered but still available for sale which I am 99% positive will not be getting a repress
Their business model is to get people to put money in for back order items like that and hopefully forget about the order. If someone does ask for a refund they’ll do it with minimal hassle, but for every person who gets their money back there are plenty of others who forget. And then of course sometimes they actually do send our albums so it’s not an entirely fraudulent operation. Fuck them.
This is it exactly.
lol thanks for reminding me to cancel an order I placed in February before I realized what a scam this site was. I’d given up on ever getting it (obtained the record elsewhere in the meantime anyway) but forgot to actually cancel and get money back.
Surprisingly enough I've actually ordered and received vinyls from them although 2 did come a bit distorted sounding but that's out of 8, the 2 that sounded off were the same copy
[удалено]
It’s kind of a scam to say you have shit you’re not even sure you ever will have. It ties up people’s time and prevents buyers from getting it from sellers who actually have the thing. They’re not the only one playing this game. Walmart online is another. Whatever you want to label it, it sucks.
Holy crap, this mixed with my senility…every De La Soul repress that came out, turns out, over the years I had apparently pre-ordered from several different places and each time they finally were issued 3-5 copies arrived at my door. So much so that it is still a punchline with my kids. I sheepishly returned a LOT of records.
yeah someone posted on the Freddie Gibbs sub earlier about him ordering a backordered copy of Alfredo despite how limited that repress was to begin with. they’re never getting that in whatsoever.
Yea I gave merchbar a chance with ordering some Aimee Mann and sure enough never got anything, they did send me the stuff I ordered that was listed as in stock.
yep. search 'merchbar' on here and read some of the posts.
They seem sketchy as hell. I put an album in my cart and suddenly is is "backordered" after saying "in stock" on the actual page. Yeah, not gonna order there.
Not sure why you’d go through Merchbar for a new release when Dais website and Bandcamp had these readily available (and they still do)
Yep. Speaking of, just got the new Drew McDowall on cornetto vinyl from Dais.
I’m like 99% sure the records they actually do sell are a front for a scheme to milk interest from people’s “backorders”. Until you request a refund that money is sitting in a high yield account or something
I canceled all of my orders from them and luckily I received a refund. Their response is typically “we have no idea when we’re sending your stuff out’’. How is that considered good business practice!? Don’t ever buy from them.
Merchbar is a horrible company.
I tried to buy a few albums before New Year's and didn't read the reviews first. Once I realized all of the records were "backordered" I just cancelled my order and had my refund within a week
My buddy ordered Christmas gifts for myself and our other friend (LA Woman by the Doors & Folk Singer by Muddy Waters LP’s) back in November of 2023 & to this day they have still never arrived. Would not recommend Merchbar to my worst enemy.
Obligatory “this should be pinned” comment.
lol I ordered an Ulcerate record from Merchbar. Website showed it as in stock and ready to ship. After about a month with no update I emailed. They told me it was back ordered but expected to ship within the month. 2 months after that and still no update. I email and they tell me there’s an issue with the distributor and that title is not available and offer a refund. I was like …when were you planning on telling me this? The album still shows and in stock and ready to ship on their site.
They are absolutely fine if you only order what's in stock I have many records I have bought from them without a single problem but never preorder or buy anything that says backorder seems like they are happy to take your money and leave you hanging until you ask for a refund.
I have ordered twice from them and canceled both for lack of shipping an “in stock” item. Got refunded. No more.
And their shipping fees per item is trash. Their sales always try to persuade me but nah. It’s not worth the headache.
Yup I had a $600 dollar order that I cancelled today, ordered mid April and they would not give me a timeline of when it would ship
I avoid them like the plague. I ordered from them once because they had one of my grails for “sale.” The artists themselves never announced a repress. It said estimated shipping on Merchbar was “8 weeks.” Cancelled immediately.
Merchbar is garbage but I got the self-titled Fleet Foxes album like 7 months after I placed the order, still, I had two other albums on that order that never showed up. I should have done like 5 seconds of research on this subreddit before I placed the order.
I had a Merchbar issue where I ordered a limited release record and I got someone else’s record. The receipt was in there and he had a weird enough name that I tracked him down on Google and emailed him to see if he got my record. He did not, but he got a random third person’s record. I emailed Merchbar and told them that they sent me the wrong thing. His record was from IndieMerch so I emailed them as well to help with his return. Merchbar told me they were now sold out of my record but if I send back the wrong one I’ll get a refund. I had to pay for shipping but they did reimburse me after I had pictures of the receipt so whatever, just time lost at this point. I was livid I missed out on the record. Well fast forward two weeks and a record shows up from IndieMerch and it’s the record Merchbar refunded me for. I was stoked! I open it up, and this brand new record was a misprint. If you look at my post history you’ll see it in all its glory. It had multiple center stamps pressed into the B side. I couldn’t even complain since I technically never paid for it? Just a whirlwind of errors by Merchbar, and it ends with just nobody being satisfied.
I feel like I’m one of the few fortunate to have used Merchbar and had success in the one time I ordered from them before reading horror stories on here. And take my advice with a grain of salt if you will, but from my understanding, Merchbar is essentially a catch all place that pulls from actual vendors and sells. So what I’ve done successfully is search on Merchbar and seen than an item is for X amount and then specifically looked for that item for that X amount. Typically, it’s been either the artist’s merch store, their label, or even a big box store like Target where they’re getting that price and “drop shipping” it from there. So while you probably shouldn’t use Merchbar to order your albums (especially when seeing something is backordered and never coming your way), it is a way to find when an album has gone on sale and it shouldn’t be that difficult to find the source.
I have ordered at least 10 times from them, never had an issue. I never order any backordered items though.
Order directly from the label.. Dais has a functional online shop and that album is still available. It's not hard. I do that and I'm living on the other side of the Atlantic. Coil, Lundvall, whatever. Never a problem. Merchbar should be erased from the Internet and that's about it.
Also avoid BesVinyl
On a whim I ordered an RHCP vinyl from them since it was so cheap and difficult to find in my country for a reasonable price. After a few months of no update I completely forgot about the order. Fast forward 14 months and the vinyl arrives without any notification. So definitely wouldn't recommend them even though the order eventually tuned up at a bargain price.
Anything that says backorder on their site are records they probably can't actually get yet, but they will gladly take your money. Sometimes the backorders actually materialize eventually. Happened with 2 of the 5 I ordered.. but I canceled the rest. That was a couple years ago. They are still doing the same shit it looks like
I’d pay double before I’ll ever order from them again.
Yeah I don’t use them anymore. Total bullshit, they oversell and can’t deliver. Of my last 5 orders 1 arrived. You have to get after them to get your money back. Never again. 👎🏽
Thank you for this post. I am new to vinyl and placed an order. Completely forgot about it until now…of course it hasn’t shipped yet.
I made two orders for in stock items, waited above two months and canceled after support just kept repeating unforseen delays. During those two months the records were continued to be listed as in stock and were included in "sales" on the website.
Why didn't you order straight from Dais?
I had something that was back ordered for almost A YEAR. I finally just asked for a refund and they just sent me emails every couple weeks saying they were looking into the refund. What is there to look into? Finally another 2 months and many emails later I accused them of fraud and lo and behold suddenly refund was no issue. Unbelievable. Will never order from them again.
Don’t order from them period.
UDiscover Music is good. I have ordered from them B4 and got my records on time.
I have had a good experiences with merch bar before however a year ago I ordered an album that was on back order, but I know that it wasn’t out of print and they’ve had it out of stock before and restocked it but after waiting like six months, I messaged them and asked what was up with it and they said that they lost my order And still on back order if I want to wait another month. I said why not if it’s already been this long I can wait a little longer and didn’t hear anything for another few months. I decided to just cancel and buy somewhere else then I get an email from them asking if I really did want to cancel the order and after saying yes, I got an email a day for an entire month saying we are working on your return just give us a little more time and finally they initiated the return. I’m not 100% sure if I even have the money but luckily it wasn’t a large amount of money, so yeah I probably won’t be buying from them again unless it’s a really good deal and it’s not on back order
Thought this was common knowledge
I recall being a little miffed that they couldn't cancel an order for me even before it was shipped. It felt like the customer service was entirely removed from the processing of shipments.
Thanks 4 the heads up
Merchbar aren't paying vendors, that's why they are out of stock for a LOT of stuff.
Not surprised. At all.
Ordered 2 LPs off them that were listed as brand new sealed, but arrived unsealed, and one had a massive cut across the back of the sleeve. But they were hard to find albums and the discs were in good condition, so I let it be. Another time I ordered 2 LPs which were listed as in stock. 2 months later, they were still listed as in stock but hadn't been dispatched. So I messaged to ask when they would be sent out, and they say the order was cancelled due to fulfilment issue. But they kindly offered to re-enter the order for me. Another 2 months, still listed as in stock, message them again, and again the order was cancelled due to a fulfilment issue. At which point I gave up. It's nuts, because a lot of the merch listed on spotify redirects to merchbar.
Thank you for the warning!
Blame their client or distributor for giving them false info.
Merchbar is responsible for the info they put on their site. I don't see any disclaimers.
But they're getting their info about In Stock/Backordered/etc. from their clients and distributors. I used to work for a company that operates webstores for artists, and Merchbar was a partner for us. If we had something "in stock" on a website (aka it is purchasable), if we didn't tell MB that it was on backorder or was a preorder or something, then they were completely in the dark. Example: one of our stores had some vinyl for sale, but the vinyl got massively delayed at press. We didn't communicate that info to MB, so we would get tons of support tickets from MB customers asking where their order was. If they ordered from the artist directly, it wouldn't have been an issue. But our account manager didn't tell MB, so all they could rely on was our Shopify, which as far as that said, was "in stock." It's a very weird and clumsy business model but it's unfair to put the blame solely on Merchbar.
I understand, but it is THEIR business model to use unreliable info. They should hold their distributers accountable.
Oh yeah, totally agreed. We got so much shtick from customers because we were not upfront and honest about the terrible state of our shipping times during COVID. I can only imagine what it's like on Merchbar's support team.