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Okay, so - Pete and the Clan store. I spent a total of about $130 there in November. I liked the items I bought a lot.
However, I've noticed (as I know at least one person on my flist has), that they're doing a lot of Come Hang Out With Pete promo at the moment, to get people into the shop. Now, there is this (pay special attention to the parts in bold):
Jolly Old Saint Pete
Jolly Old Saint Pete (Yes, Pete Wentz) will be working at the Clandestine Store on Friday, December 28th! THIS WEEKEND ONLY (12/21 – 12/23), purchase a $50 gift certificate at the Clandestine Industries retail store and have exclusive access to this very special shopping experience with Pete. ONLY 150 gift certificates will be sold!
We WILL be accepting phone orders for those super-duper fans who want to travel to Chicago!
[snip]
When: Friday, December 28th
Time: 2p – 4p
***You MUST bring your gift certificate for entrance to the store
***Gift certificates will NOT be redeemable between the hours of 2p – 4p CST on 12/28/07
***Regular store hours apply after this exclusive Clandestine Industries experience
www.clandestineindustries.com
---
So, basically - you have to spend $50 in the store to get in so you can see Pete for a few seconds. When you get there, you can't spend the giftcard. But they will take phone orders for the giftcard so that people who want to travel into Chicago especially for it can have one. But you'll have to come back to spend the giftcard because you can't spend it when they've conned you into actually going to the store.
So yeah. Pete cares more about those good quality shirts that weren't made in sweatshops taking advantage of little kids than he does about the kids who'll buy them just because his name is attached to them, and who'll go out of their way to spend their Christmas money on expensive clothes, and possibly travel significant distances just to meet him for a few moments.
I really want to like Pete, I do. But shit like that pisses me off.
Edit:
I had to ask this on the Q&A:
Okay, generally, I hate to see people call you out on shit on here, but this time I'm really kind of appalled.
The Clan Store on 28 December. You're asking kids to spend $50 for a giftcard to get in, but they can't spend that $50 while they're there. And you're encouraging people to travel to be there by offering to reserve the cards - but they'd have to come back or wait around until after you've left to make a purchase on that gift card.
In order to approach the register while you're working, they have to spend more money, and as the shirts average at about $30, that's $80 you've got them for. But as those shirts are $30 or so, and you have to, I presume, use the whole giftcard at once, they'll almost certainly need to add an extra $10 to make up the difference. That's close to $100 per kid.
For someone who comes from what is purported to be such a socialist, good-moralled background, and someone who claims to care so much about the fans, I have to say that this looks like a fantastically ruthless way of ripping them off.
It may be good business sense, but last time I checked *you* were a person. They're not there for your t-shirts and you know it.
---
I wonder if I'll get a reply.
However, I've noticed (as I know at least one person on my flist has), that they're doing a lot of Come Hang Out With Pete promo at the moment, to get people into the shop. Now, there is this (pay special attention to the parts in bold):
Jolly Old Saint Pete
Jolly Old Saint Pete (Yes, Pete Wentz) will be working at the Clandestine Store on Friday, December 28th! THIS WEEKEND ONLY (12/21 – 12/23), purchase a $50 gift certificate at the Clandestine Industries retail store and have exclusive access to this very special shopping experience with Pete. ONLY 150 gift certificates will be sold!
We WILL be accepting phone orders for those super-duper fans who want to travel to Chicago!
[snip]
When: Friday, December 28th
Time: 2p – 4p
***You MUST bring your gift certificate for entrance to the store
***Gift certificates will NOT be redeemable between the hours of 2p – 4p CST on 12/28/07
***Regular store hours apply after this exclusive Clandestine Industries experience
www.clandestineindustries.com
---
So, basically - you have to spend $50 in the store to get in so you can see Pete for a few seconds. When you get there, you can't spend the giftcard. But they will take phone orders for the giftcard so that people who want to travel into Chicago especially for it can have one. But you'll have to come back to spend the giftcard because you can't spend it when they've conned you into actually going to the store.
So yeah. Pete cares more about those good quality shirts that weren't made in sweatshops taking advantage of little kids than he does about the kids who'll buy them just because his name is attached to them, and who'll go out of their way to spend their Christmas money on expensive clothes, and possibly travel significant distances just to meet him for a few moments.
I really want to like Pete, I do. But shit like that pisses me off.
Edit:
I had to ask this on the Q&A:
Okay, generally, I hate to see people call you out on shit on here, but this time I'm really kind of appalled.
The Clan Store on 28 December. You're asking kids to spend $50 for a giftcard to get in, but they can't spend that $50 while they're there. And you're encouraging people to travel to be there by offering to reserve the cards - but they'd have to come back or wait around until after you've left to make a purchase on that gift card.
In order to approach the register while you're working, they have to spend more money, and as the shirts average at about $30, that's $80 you've got them for. But as those shirts are $30 or so, and you have to, I presume, use the whole giftcard at once, they'll almost certainly need to add an extra $10 to make up the difference. That's close to $100 per kid.
For someone who comes from what is purported to be such a socialist, good-moralled background, and someone who claims to care so much about the fans, I have to say that this looks like a fantastically ruthless way of ripping them off.
It may be good business sense, but last time I checked *you* were a person. They're not there for your t-shirts and you know it.
---
I wonder if I'll get a reply.
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Or maybe they think it is going to be a madhouse and don't want to deal with actually selling merch for those 2 hours?
Who knows. It is pretty fucked up no matter what the reason.
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I understand business sense, but he's ripping off the kids knowing that they'll do it because they're devoted to him.
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***Regular store hours apply after this exclusive Clandestine Industries experience
Will the store be open after Pete's visit? Maybe they can stay later that day and spend their GC money?
Yes, I am just trying to find a way that this isn't so terrible. I noticed it the day the info was posted, and it has been bothering me since then.
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The fact is, if those kids want to go up to the register, they have to spend an extra $30 on a t-shirt, plus those giftcards (and I bet you don't get change from a giftcard, so that you have to spend the whole thing, but because the shirts are around $30, you have to put in an extra $10 to get two and use it all up instead of losing $20).
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http://brianfax.buzznet.com/user/photos/clandestine-industries-store-hours/?id=20716711#usersubnav
So, it is only half as bad as I originally thought :/
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He does reply to questions like these every once in a while.
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This is not fucking cool.
(Also: shoes arrived today - thanks, hon. I'll give them to him when I'm back at work in January)
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(Glad they arrived. Hope they suit his needs. And that something is done about both of their situations and soon.)
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Pete, don't make me hate you again.
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Also, Jay Jancetic makes me smile. Thank him for me?
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Worth It
I actually went to this. It was more my baby sister's initiative than my own, but I was completely into it regardless, and afterwards I left feeling like I'd gotten an awesome deal, not at all as though I'd just been extorted. Why?
First of all, to address the issue of forcing fans to spend $50 to meet Pete - it's not so bad as you make it out to be. Despite Pete saying he would be "working the register" at the Clan store, he was actually more just standing there in a Santa suit hugging people and taking photos and chatting. No one was working the register during those two hours, so you weren't at all forced to buy a t-shirt or what not in order to talk to Pete.
And concerning the fact that you couldn't use the gift certificate at that time, a few things ... YES, the store opened at four, immediately after Pete's departure, at which time you could spend it. Besides, anyone who would be willing to come meet him at his store in the first place would probably be back in the Chicago area at a different time, for an FOB concert or some such thing, at which time they could spend the certificate.
And YES the clothes are overpriced. They're designed by a single famous rockstar person, what do you expect? His are $25, the same price as FOB concert t-shirts. Hot Topic sells their overpriced mass produced scene tees for five dollars less. Let's get it over it.
I apologize for my inability to be concise, but my point is that I felt the $50 gift certificate prerequisite was worth it. It's $50 in Clan clothes that I would probably be spending in the future anyway, and when I add up all the money I've spend indulging my FOB fetish: shirts, posters, CDs, tickets, gas to follow them around the Midwest, hotel nights, my OCK membership, etc etc etc ... what's another $50 in Clan clothes? We ALL spend money because we love FOB. Such is the reality of loving anything in our consumer-driven culture.
I enjoyed my visit to the Clan store more than I did my FOB meet and greet, and I just about died from happiness at that. Why? It was well-organized, for one thing. They gave everyone who purchased a gift certificate a time to go into the store, and let fifteen or so people in at a time. The Clan employees are about a hundred thousand times nicer than the assholes FOB employees as security. They were cheerful and polite, thanked our group warmly for coming as we left, and even APOLOGIZED at having to usher us out the door. Yes, it was half a minute with Pete, but it wasn't as rushed as the meet and greets are. You could talk a bit, and god forbid hug him. He hugged my baby sister, took a photo with her, and talked to her best friend on her cell phone, and we chatted about my Star Wars tattoos. Even his girlfriend chimed in, and she gave me a candy cane.
THAT is worth $50 in my FOB-obsessed book. Because honestly, we all spend hours following them on the Internet and yet more hours discussing what we find. If a price could be attached to our time, any member of FOB would've bankrupted us.
So ... sorry. Want to discuss how Joe is ripping off his fans via his sig. guitar? Way more sacreligious than ripping off fans with clothes.
Re: Worth It
It has nothing do do with the staff at the shop - they're lovely, I know, I've hung out with them.
You were conned. I'm sorry. Pete Wentz, whatever you want to think, used the fact that you are fans of his, and your devotion to him, to get you to spend extra in his shop.
It is totally fucking impossible to legitimately compare that with Joe designing a guitar - creating an instrument he loves, which is actually fucking reasonably priced for a good quality instrument and which the person who chooses to buy can keep for life. I'm completely astonished that you even think that's in the same league or the same subject. You might also want to look up the world 'sacrelidgious' in the dictionary.
I'm totally appalled. I question your intelligence and your memory because, um - HI, PETE'S CLAN BASS!
Re: Worth It
Re: Worth It
I just can't comprehend how a) the two things can be compared and b) why the fuck it's necessary to attack Joe.
Re: Worth It
Re: Worth It
SACRILEGIOUS.
There you go.
Goddamn typos.
Re: Worth It
Re: Worth It
Re: Worth It
You do know the reason why it's over priced because [more than likely] how it's manufactured?
It's highly possible that the manufacturing of the clan items is expensive and in order to make any money off of it, you have to charge an expensive price for your clothes.
Seeing that a lot of Clan items are high quality, that's probably the case. In order for it to be a money maker, Pete has to jack up the price because half of that goes into the cost of making it.
As for the guitar? That's a different story all together. A lot of people put out signature guitars and Joe's actually selling a good quality guitar (Washburns are very underrated) for a very good price, actually.
A lot of signature guitars are at the same price at the normal ones.
Mike Dirnt's P-bass cost as much as a Standard P-Bass. [P-Basses can run anywhere from 500 to 1000 dollars. Mike's costs around 500].
I honestly don't see the rip off of an instrument verses spending fifty bucks for a chance to meet Pete.