Caiman on Amazon

[Brownian Motion]

The much bigger question here that everyone else has missed so far is: who the hell is Claire ???

If she is a real individual, rather than a staff of customer service reps hiding behind one name to create the illusion of a cozy mom 'n' pop operation, then I hope she has good benefits.

[bakeostrin]

I recently ordered "East Meets West" by Abdul Malik on Caiman; it had been listed for a while at $30 and was the only copy available from Amazon; I figured it was out of print and that it would be a waste of time ordering it (also I did not value the CD at $30). But I checked one day last week and saw that the CD was listed as being in Caiman's close out bin (or words to that effect) at about $12.99, so I figured I would take a chance.

I got tracking confirmation within a day and the CD arrived within five days. I was surprised, quite pleasantly, especially given some of the experiences detailed in this thread. I suppose they actually had the CD in stock.

Regards,

Baker

[BillF]

Caiman's prices used to be normally the lowest on amazon.uk, but now they are often undercut by other US suppliers to the UK, so I don't use them any more. I found Caiman often very slow to deliver and, as they sent CDs in thin card packs, the postman put them through my letter box, often causing some of the plastic prongs holding the CD in place to break when the unpadded package hit the floor.

[Ken Dryden]

I'm always concerned when sellers at Amazon or Half.com use generic descriptions (Always Brand New, Fast Shipping) on everything they list. It's my experience that these sellers are more likely to be out of stock of items listed compared to individual sellers.

[Big Beat Steve]

A question to European (especiall Continental European) forum members who use Caiman through Amazon:

Amazon Seller rules say a fixed shipping charge of 3 euros is charged per each CD. Now this could not nearly cover shipping costs from the USA to Europe (even if you combine several CD's). How are your experiences with order fulfillment under these circumstances when you try to buy from U.S. Amazon sellers (Camian, Moviemars or whoever...)? Given the often fairly low prices of Caiman etc., how likely is it that they will actually fulfill the orders to Continental European customers anyway?

[king ubu]

A question to European (especiall Continental European) forum members who use Caiman through Amazon:

Amazon Seller rules say a fixed shipping charge of 3 euros is charged per each CD. Now this could not nearly cover shipping costs from the USA to Europe (even if you combine several CD's). How are your experiences with order fulfillment under these circumstances when you try to buy from U.S. Amazon sellers (Camian, Moviemars or whoever...)? Given the often fairly low prices of Caiman etc., how likely is it that they will actually fulfill the orders to Continental European customers anyway?

If the CD is in print, they'll follow through. And for everyone else outside of Germany, the fee is 6 euro, which isn't that cheap (even less so if you order a disc from a German seller... and if you order two from the same seller, it's 12 euro, etc).

[Big Beat Steve]

If the CD is in print, they'll follow through. And for everyone else outside of Germany, the fee is 6 euro, which isn't that cheap (even less so if you order a disc from a German seller... and if you order two from the same seller, it's 12 euro, etc).

Thanks for your impressions. Hope this also applies to fairly obscure collector labels (where the CD is listed on that label's website). As for Amazon.de buyers outside Germany they might of course be better off with buying from their own Amazon branch (if one exists for their countries, e.g. Amazon.fr).

[felser]

The much bigger question here that everyone else has missed so far is: who the hell is Claire ???

If she is a real individual, rather than a staff of customer service reps hiding behind one name to create the illusion of a cozy mom 'n' pop operation, then I hope she has good benefits.

They're moving 400,000 pieces a year just through Amazon, so if she's one person handling all of that, I want to hire her! Caiman remains one of my top choices on Amazon Marketplace, along with ImportCDs. I find both utterly dependable for anything in print, and have not had any delivery failures from either in a long time (over a year). And I order a LOT of CD's from them.

Edited June 25, 2008 by felser

[king ubu]

If the CD is in print, they'll follow through. And for everyone else outside of Germany, the fee is 6 euro, which isn't that cheap (even less so if you order a disc from a German seller... and if you order two from the same seller, it's 12 euro, etc).

Thanks for your impressions. Hope this also applies to fairly obscure collector labels (where the CD is listed on that label's website). As for Amazon.de buyers outside Germany they might of course be better off with buying from their own Amazon branch (if one exists for their countries, e.g. Amazon.fr).

Of course there's none in Switzerland... there's one fairly good website for *some* jazz (www.discplus.ch - great prizes/offers sometimes for hatOLOGY, for instance, quite a lot of Chronological Classics available), but as far as Amazon goes, German is the best site for their own offerings (free shipping for orders over 20 euro), but Marketplace is better on French Amazon (cheaper shipping). Priceminister.com beats both though, if what you're looking for is a wee bit less obvious/new. Some of the same sellers (DVDmars, DVDlegacy) are active there, too, but the real plus is the private sellers. Only good experiences so far, very fast delivery, discs usually in the shape they were described being.

[Niko]

A question to European (especiall Continental European) forum members who use Caiman through Amazon:

Amazon Seller rules say a fixed shipping charge of 3 euros is charged per each CD. Now this could not nearly cover shipping costs from the USA to Europe (even if you combine several CD's). How are your experiences with order fulfillment under these circumstances when you try to buy from U.S. Amazon sellers (Camian, Moviemars or whoever...)? Given the often fairly low prices of Caiman etc., how likely is it that they will actually fulfill the orders to Continental European customers anyway?

not sure whether i understand your question, i have ordered quite a bit (like 60 discs within the past two years) through american amazon sellers and there have only been problems like twice, both with rare ojcs... , don't think it has to do with 3 euro being not enough if it doesn't work (and besides - at least at the current exchange rate - shouldn't 3 euro be at least roughly sufficient...?); caiman has (except in these two cases) been perfectly ok, but dvdlegacy and importcds made a slightly more reliable/faster impression...

(for ojcs ebay has proved to be better, mainly because newbury comics is active there)

[Big Beat Steve]

not sure whether i understand your question, i have ordered quite a bit (like 60 discs within the past two years) ... caiman has (except in these two cases) been perfectly ok

Good to hear Caiman does try to honor its orders from Europe in a big way. My reason for asking was this: If (as it is) all too many seem to be complaining that Caiman will list items at an attractive giveaway price but will not go out of their way to actually sell them at that price if it means they have to track down an item that is not available literally everywhere, then could it be that they will also list lots of items but might not possibly make every effort to ship them overseas if the flat shipping rate as per Amazon rules might not cover shipping expenses fully? A bad rep goes a long way, you know ...

And of course 3 euros will get you more dollars these days but still it isn't that much, and overseas USPS shipping rates have gone up considerably in recent months again so the exchange advantage is offset somewhat.

However, if you are saying there is no need to worry about buying from Caiman overseas, then all the better ...

Edited June 25, 2008 by Big Beat Steve

[Niko]

not sure whether i understand your question, i have ordered quite a bit (like 60 discs within the past two years) ... caiman has (except in these two cases) been perfectly ok

Good to hear Caiman does try to honor its orders from Europe in a big way. My reason for asking was this: If (as it is) all too many seem to be complaining that Caiman will list items at an attractive giveaway price but will not go out of their way to actually sell them at that price if it means they have to track down an item that is not available literally everywhere, then could it be that they will also list lots of items but might not possibly make every effort to ship them overseas if the flat shipping rate as per Amazon rules might not cover shipping expenses fully? A bad rep goes a long way, you know ...

And of course 3 euros will get you more dollars these days but still it isn't that much, and overseas USPS shipping rates have gone up considerably in recent months again so the exchange advantage is offset somewhat.

However, if you are saying there is no need to worry about buying from Caiman overseas, then all the better ...

moreover, getting the money back has always been totally unproblematic (the only thing is you have to keep your order in mind - if it's like 10 days over time send them an email and they send the money back) really, maybe you will order rarer stuff than me, but typically you will get like 19 out of 20 cds at a very good price and for the 20th you'll possibly have to write a brief note... had better experiences with cheap than with medium priced stuff so far btw...

[king ubu]

no need to write them anything, just use the link in their mail, enter your ZIP code, and you're in your "account" (which is really just a list of your orders"), there you can see the status and you can cancel orders (not just by hitting cancel, but by chosing "cancel an item" on top, and then the same orders get listed again, which is when you can finally hit a cancel button for the respective order). It's true that this have never been a problem, even if I have voiced some negative opinions in the past about their non-delivery of rarer/just OOP items.

[Big Beat Steve]

Thanks for those details, I guess I'll give them a shot with my next round of online orders. They have very good prices on items from the Jazz Oracle label. With all items listed as being in print on the Jazz Oracle website itself, there should not be an "OOP problem".

[mikeweil]

I never had any problems with Caiman when ordering through amazon.de - two or three times it took them up to six weeks to deliver, in case of rare items. But otherwise the discs were here within 5 to 15 days.

I noticed they sometimes use a new category, something like sellout - the same discs at half the price at which they listed them before. But so far I always got my stuff. Agree about the lousy packing - I advise Bill to hang a large padded bag below the slot ...

Edited June 25, 2008 by mikeweil

[Niko]

the two discs that never reached me were woody shaw's song of songs and don patterson's dem new york dues, which they had kept in their program for quite some time at varying prices (between 10 and 20 $) even after they hadn't been able to fill my order - now they are not in their program anymore, so maybe they have improved their service....

just looked through the 300 most recent feedbacks, 5 orders didn't arrive (some of this may of course have other reasons than unavailability) (and 3 or 4 more negative feedbacks like a used cd sold as new...)

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

Caiman's prices used to be normally the lowest on amazon.uk, but now they are often undercut by other US suppliers to the UK, so I don't use them any more.

That's my experience, too. I have tended to go for other sellers even when they're more expensive than Caiman - well, a few pence (where's the Scrooge smiley?) - but I would buy stuff from Caiman if the offer looked OK.

I've never understood how the mail charges worked for US sellers into Amazon.UK - $2.50/2.60 isn't much for postage and packing from US -> Britain. And who gets that money anyway - Amazon or the seller?

MG

[thomastreichler]

I am ordering from caiman through amazon.com quite often and never had any problems. The one exception was an order for a 4-disc box set of Benny Goodman V-disc recordings, which they were not able to fulfill within the given time limit. I canceled the order and got an e-mail confirmation within a few hours saying that they have canceled the order and are processing a refund.

[Niko]

just remembered, not quite sure whether caiman is among them but many of these american packages come to me from new zealand - maybe that's their way of saving international air fares...?

[Bluerein]

Yep Caiman ships through New Zealand. Still my nr. 1 online seller. You just have to keep track of the discs which don't arrive and let them know about it. You'll either get a refund or a reship so no problems ever for me from them.

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

I think the point that was being made was not that Caiman didn't refund without fuss when they didn't deliver. It was that so much stuff seemed deliberately to have been placed on Amazon to attract temporary cash for orders that Caiman didn't expect to deliver and that this was a scam to assist Caiman's working capital position. All those ten/twenty dollar orders for which they don't have to refund the cash for three/four weeks can add up to a sizeable chunk of money.

MG

[BillF]

I think the point that was being made was not that Caiman didn't refund without fuss when they didn't deliver. It was that so much stuff seemed deliberately to have been placed on Amazon to attract temporary cash for orders that Caiman didn't expect to deliver and that this was a scam to assist Caiman's working capital position. All those ten/twenty dollar orders for which they don't have to refund the cash for three/four weeks can add up to a sizeable chunk of money.

MG

Yes, that makes sense.

[Bluerein]

If that's what keeps them in business I'd say OK (but I doubt that's it).

[JohnS]

I'm still generally pleased with Caiman for price and level of service. Only one item was said to be 'out of stock'.

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

If that's what keeps them in business I'd say OK (but I doubt that's it).

I doubt that it's the crucial factor, but every little helps.

MG