Pre order

Lounge
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Vinyl releases on pre order

What is the difference between ordering vinyl, or indeed anything, and it being delivered when it is available and pre ordering?
One does not pre order a new car, one places an order and it arrives at the dealership in X weeks.
Surely one orders something or one does not.

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Wiki is your friend:

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Hi @HappyListener
Take away the word pre and placing an order will still achieve everything WiKi says a pre order will do.
Pre ordering sounds like a sharp practice invented by the marketing dept.

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I guess it’s to distinguish from an order for an item (in this case an LP record) that’s currently in stock and available from the distributor. Many resellers don’t hold stock themselves for all the LPs they sell, instead relying on the distributor to supply them when they get an order in.

Pre orders though are a little different as the item is not yet available, but allows the reseller to gauge demand better and then place an order with the distributor in the hope that the distributor will be able to fulfil the demand. It also helps the distributor to plan for the release by knowing what the initial demand might be so they can press enough LPs to try to satisfy that demand.

Furthermore, while release dates are given quite early, the goal posts can move right up until an item is confirmed to definitely ship on a particular date. Right now, plenty of vinyl is announced as a “pre order” with a date given for release that then gets put back, and then back again, and again, mainly due to there not being enough capacity within the industry to press the LPs being demanded.

In the current climate it pays to pre-order your vinyl, otherwise you risk being disappointed, as some popular releases are sold out before they even appear.

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If I place an order for a book that is already available in stock, shipping is more or less immediate. If I order a book that is yet to be published but is set to be so on a planned date, however…

I don’t see the confusion.

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