Twilight Time Discussion Thread

[belcherman]

Originally Posted by Doc Moonlight

Here's the response I got last week:

"Hi Robert!
​
​
I have no insight nor control over how orders are being filled at the warehouse.
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I know large orders can take 3-4x longer than smaller ones so perhaps the warehouse is trying to clear out the smaller orders first.
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That is purely an assumption.
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However, your continued patience would be appreciated as the workers are putting a lot of effort into getting out thousands of orders which they are greatly backlogged on.

Thank You
​
​Randy
Twilight Time Movies Support
Cinemagistics"

Interesting that after "Twilight Time Movies Support" there is a mention of a company called "Cinemagistics".

"Randy" certainly isn't well versed in customer communication. He said in another e-mail that they don't "micro-manage" the warehouse, but that is a gross understatement - they don't manage their warehouse at all, and no one seems to know what's going on. It's not a matter of "patience", but rather a matter of "confidence" in their desire and ability to fill my order as promised (i.e. in order received, as outlined in their e-mail of May 13).

Cinemagistics appears to be the company managing the Twilight Time e-commerce site. It is a division of a company called Hannah Logistics, at least as far as I can tell from a little googling. I don’t think they care very much about the customers. They’re being paid to help Twilight Time liquidate stock.

I’m not sure that there’s much we can do, other than wait and hope for the best.

[CRASHLANDING]

Originally Posted by brainofj72

Still waiting on my order from the 10th to ship as well. 2 of the 6 are no longer in stock, but I haven’t gotten any cancellation notice so far. Really hoping I’m still gonna get My Cousin Rachel - gonna be a bummer if it’s canceled.

Sadly My Cousin Rachel is the one title that has been officially canceled from my TT order. Hope you have better luck.

[AKORIS]

Originally Posted by prkchopexpress

just curious what you think emailing customer service is going to do.

well that should be obvious now to everyone..... nothing.

[hariseldon]

Originally Posted by bdgking

I saw it at one point go down to 41 then 15-20 minutes later it was gone

At least there was a brief window screaming -- NOW.

Pretty much when it hits 49, it's going to gone soon. Eye of the Needle and one other items lasted 16 hrs or so, but most of them esp that drop in the middle of teh day are done and gone within an hour.

My advice -- any of those titles that went OOS or were less than 50-100 copies at TTM before the Clearance started, I wouldn't wait at all if it's an item anyone really wants

6 of the 25 or so that fit that criteria have gone OOS at SAE since May 10 and 2 more that had a 100+ copies

[koberulz]

Imagine being the kind of person who boycotts a company because their liquidation sale was not run to your satisfaction.

[James Luckard]

I agree with the posts above. I wish I had ordered everything from SAE.

The titles I wanted that were sold out from TT during their fire sale, I ordered the next day from SAE. They shipped immediately and were delivered about three days later and I've watched them all.

I get that TT got many, many more orders than they expected. I get that they're closing up shop. I get that it's the middle of the pandemic. I get all that.

Still, this is an embarrassing way for a once-great company to end.

At this point, I don't expect to actually receive any of the titles I ordered from TT, and they're now all sold out at SAE.

TT not allowing cancellations was perfectly reasonable if the orders were going to ship immediately.

Not allowing cancellations on orders that don't ship for over TWO WEEKS, during which time the titles dried up elsewhere, is indefensible.

In addition, there should have been some software in place to control sales to those items still in stock and to allocate those items to customers in the order purchased. That seems like retail 101.

[James Luckard]

Originally Posted by belcherman

Cinemagistics appears to be the company managing the Twilight Time e-commerce site. It is a division of a company called Hannah Logistics, at least as far as I can tell from a little googling. I don’t think they care very much about the customers. They’re being paid to help Twilight Time liquidate stock.

I’m not sure that there’s much we can do, other than wait and hope for the best.

Unfortunately a lot of boutique labels have had to do this. Varese Sarabande, a boutique label that releases film score CDs, outsourced their order fulfillment a few years back and it has been a disaster every time I've tried it. I make a point of only ordering their titles through other retailers, like SAE, oddly enough, if possible.

[James Luckard]

Originally Posted by koberulz

Imagine being the kind of person who boycotts a company because their liquidation sale was not run to your satisfaction.

Taking people's money and then forbidding them from cancelling an order, while also not fulfilling the order for weeks, during which time those items are still available on eBay at reasonable prices, which will no doubt vanish before the orders may or may not either be shipped or cancelled, with no warning, seems a perfectly reasonable thing to complain about.

[klauswhereareyou]

Originally Posted by koberulz

Imagine being the kind of person who boycotts a company because their liquidation sale was not run to your satisfaction.

Yeah, you can't boycott them and hope they go out of business.

[hariseldon]

Well, I hope all the folks with the held up order will end up posting their final tallies once received b/c I really interested to know the final tally of fulfilled orders vs cancellations.

So far I think I've counted 36-38 confirmed cancellations and refunds and somewhere around 500-700 shipped items . One order had 5 (?out of 40) cancellation and another 7 (not sure how many). Admittedly not everyone who had a cancellation has posted, but I suspect an awful lot of shipped packages didn't get mentioned either -- typically one post usually is a lot more likely to show up.

A 5-7% failure rate is entirely too high I'll admit and if that maintains or gets worse it's going to look be very bad.

OTOH my gut instinct (admittedly overly optimistic) is that most of the cancellations/refunds have already been accounted for and most items actually allocated to the unshipped orders, but just not packed and ready to go yet. This would mean that 5-7% should get much smaller as the batches of orders eventually go out. If it's ends up 1-2% it's not great, but not a disaster. Even better if it stays 5% and it turns out a handful of bulk dealers get screwed out of 20 copies of each of multiple short stocked items and gets bumped to a limit of 2 each

Items were pulled off the site as they sold out even if there was a delay which led to quite a few of the lower stock items to at least get some oversells, but I don't think they lingered long enough to get 3-5-10X the number of orders as they had stock. While I think there may well have been 5-10-20 extra units of some titles sold, but don't think there were 100's of those items. So far of the known cancellations, 3 refunded items is the max for any single title and 6 of that item are known to have shipped already.

[hilts]

Originally Posted by koberulz

Imagine being the kind of person who boycotts a company because their liquidation sale was not run to your satisfaction.

Yeah, if they think they have a long-term customer with me, they better think again. Especially that guy Randy. I think he is behind all of this.

[Reddington]

Originally Posted by James Luckard

[Show spoiler]I agree with the posts above. I wish I had ordered everything from SAE.

The titles I wanted that were sold out from TT during their fire sale, I ordered the next day from SAE. They shipped immediately and were delivered about three days later and I've watched them all.

I get that TT got many, many more orders than they expected. I get that they're closing up shop. I get that it's the middle of the pandemic. I get all that.

Still, this is an embarrassing way for a once-great company to end.

At this point, I don't expect to actually receive any of the titles I ordered from TT, and they're now all sold out at SAE.

TT not allowing cancellations was perfectly reasonable if the orders were going to ship immediately.

Not allowing cancellations on orders that don't ship for over TWO WEEKS, during which time the titles dried up elsewhere, is indefensible.

Reluctantly, I agree with this. I was very fortunate to get an order it just after the final reduction was announced, and have it ship within a couple of days. I feel for everyone waiting, with no real idea if they will receive all the titles they ordered. What I don't understand is how TT seemingly doesn't have a system in place that can accurately allocate stock on a first-come, first-served basis until sold out.

When I order posters from companies like Mondo and Bottleneck Gallery, they have literally thousands of people vying for print runs that can be fewer than a hundred copies. They often sell out in seconds, at which point no further orders are accepted. I've lost out on a number of occasions, but every time I got a message in real time that it had sold out and my transaction could not be completed.

[James Luckard]

Originally Posted by Reddington

What I don't understand is how TT seemingly doesn't have a system in place that can accurately allocate stock on a first-come, first-served basis until sold out.

That's my biggest and really only issue. I wouldn't mind waiting all these weeks. I wouldn't love it, but I could live with it.

However, no matter what the extenuating circumstances, it was unprofessional not to have a system in place that ensured that everyone who successfully ordered an item actually received it, ideally in the order that orders were placed.

In the absence of that, it's equally unprofessional not to allow cancellations of orders that have been unfulfilled for weeks. The "it has already entered the shipping process" excuse clearly doesn't apply.

At this point, I'm seriously considering buying off eBay a couple of the titles I bought from TT that are now listed as sold out there and are among the titles in my still-unshipped order. At worst I'll end up with a second copy that way.

[koberulz]

Originally Posted by James Luckard

Taking people's money and then forbidding them from cancelling an order, while also not fulfilling the order for weeks, during which time those items are still available on eBay at reasonable prices, which will no doubt vanish before the orders may or may not either be shipped or cancelled, with no warning, seems a perfectly reasonable thing to complain about.

I'm not talking about the people complaining, I'm talking about the people threatening to never do business with Twilight Time again, which is why I said "boycott". There are only a couple of them, compared to the dozens of significantly more justified posts upset about how this has been handled, but the fact that it's a number higher than zero is hilarious, in a very depressing way.

[James Luckard]

Originally Posted by koberulz

I'm not talking about the people complaining, I'm talking about the people threatening to never do business with Twilight Time again, which is why I said "boycott". There are only a couple of them, compared to the dozens of significantly more justified posts upset about how this has been handled, but the fact that it's a number higher than zero is hilarious, in a very depressing way.

In fairness, I'd like to know if this fulfillment company handles any other boutique labels. I'd gladly avoid them in future. I've only bought one other TT title direct through them, I've always ordered through SAE and their well-oiled machine before.

[jetthead]

I placed my order on May 10th. Still waiting for it to ship.

[imsounoriginal]

Placed an order on 5/10 as well, still not shipped. I reached out and they've assured me that all I'll get all the titles I ordered, so that's all I really care about. I'll get em when I get em.

[omenboy]

I placed an order on Twilight Time's site for 8 titles on May 10th - the order has yet to be updated or shipped.

I returned and placed a separate order for one title on May 12th and received a shipping notification on May 18th.

It's apparently true that Twilight Time is shipping out the smaller orders first (although the logic of this escapes me - wouldn't they rather move more stock out at a time and get rid of the bigger orders first)???

[78deluxe]

Originally Posted by Brandon K

Maybe if more people email them on this issue, they'll wake up and tell their warehouse what to do. I don't see how anyone managing a warehouse can decide that anything other than first-ordered, first-to-ship is what they should be doing during a clearance sale with thousands of orders. TT's strictly numerical order numbers are the simplest order #s you could ask for, so it's not rocket science. On the other hand, TT is going out of business, so they don't seem to be concerning themselves with customer relations anymore.

This.

If enough people complain they know what they have been told in writing (ship in order recieved) is a lie based on facts presented. I'm positive it gets to the point of annoyance someone has to talk to the Warehouse about it. At least to the point where there are conversations around assurances that initial orders will be fulfilled and pieces related to inventory controls.

Do I expect them to go above and beyond? Of course not. But that doesn't mean nothing will be done. They do have a paid customer service person.

TT is paying the warehouse, not the other way around. Anyone that has been involved in such relationships knows who is in control. The person paying is.

[ASAPadam]

Originally Posted by omenboy

It's apparently true that Twilight Time is shipping out the smaller orders first (although the logic of this escapes me - wouldn't they rather move more stock out at a time and get rid of the bigger orders first)???

Someone here theorized that they may have run out of packing boxes for large orders, and it might be harder to acquire supplies in a pandemic. I'm sure they got tons of orders for 8 or more Blu-rays on May 10, something that was atypical for them before the liquidation. And they already have our money — they charge immediately — so they've already "moved the stock."

I had a large May 10 order ship on May 12 (Order #70xxx), but I placed it around 1 pm ET, before they lowered the prices, so it seems they were going in order for that one. But I placed a second order later that day, around 8 pm, after the price drops (Order #72xxx), and that order hasn't shipped. There were nearly 1800 orders during those seven hours alone (going by the order numbers), and I imagine most of them were really big. It's a pretty safe bet the warehouse didn't have 2000 large Priority Mail boxes ready for use. But this is all speculation...