Can't really understand why everything went so wrong for this era
I've always been a huge Beyoncé fan so of course everytime new merch is released on her website I buy something. Never had any problem with the US store (which was the only store available before March 2024) and even though I used to pay quite a lot for shipping (I'm from Italy), I always received my stuff in no longer than a week, 10 days maximum. The merch was always in perfect conditions and I never had any complaints.
As you can imagine, when I found out they were opening an European store for the release of Cowboy Carter I was very excited and decided to pre-order both the vinyl and the box set with the CD and the t-shirt.
The stuff was supposed to come from Germany so I thought it was gonna take just a few days for the merch to arrive. Needless to say I was wrong.
First of all, there was no way you could track your order (or better said, you could, but you had to pay an additional price for that, and from the experiences I've heard the tracking was also pretty terrible). Second of all, the items actually took some time to get shipped. I received my vinyl after almost two weeks (which still not that bad, just embarassing that it took so long for a package from Germany, when the packages from the USA took way less time), and the vinyl was completely flawed. On the outside there were no flaws, however when I played it on my record player it SKIPPED whole songs and half of the record was impossible to listen to.
Of course I send a complaint with proofs and they respond after some days saying they was gonna send another one (this was in the beginning of April). I was satisfied with the response so I waited for my new vinyl to get sent. In the meantime I received also the box set which was no longer a box set but a merch bundle (they changed the name of the item AFTER lots of people had already bought it). It was pretty disappointing not receiving it in a box (like I was expecting) because people that ordered from the USA actually did receive a box but for us Europeans apparently they couldn't.
However, the merch was in good conditions, both the CD and the t-shirt so no complaints there.
More than one month passes and finally I receive the new vinyl on the 30th of May.
I immediately went to try it on my record player and this one was also flawed. I could hear to most of the songs but it still skipped some parts on some songs (for example, it completely skips the chorus of 16 Carriages).
It's not a problem of my record player cause I played other records as well and I haven't had this problem with the others, I guess I was just extremely unlucky?
Fortunately, they gave me a full refund (although I had to pressure them and send lots of emails) so finally I can buy the REAL cowboy carter vinyl from Amazon or any other vinyl store.
I don't want to talk about the terrible communication the shop has given to Beyoncé's fans during the Cowboy Carter era, promising one thing and then giving something completely different (No bonus track on the CD like initially promised on the website, tracks missing, no booklet or anything in the vinyl, not even the tracklist, just a QR code to Beyoncé's website??????Just bad really)
I don't think I'm ever gonna buy from her shop again unless something changes and I start hearing good reviews cause my experience has been very awful in this era and from what I've heard it has been the same for other fans as well.
Just don't buy here, wait for the merch to drop on Amazon or any other website.
June 12, 2024
Unprompted review