Plain Archive - SteelBook Retailer Thread [Korea]

Please discuss shipping, customer service, availability etc about this retailer here.

FAQ:

Q) What is their website address?
A) http://plainarchive.com/

Q) Where in the world are they located?
A) South Korea

Q) I don't speak Korean, how can I place an order?
A) They provide an English language version of their website.

Q) Do they ship outside of Korea?
A) Yes, they ship internationally.

Q) Returns/Exchange policy?
A) http://plainarchive.com/pages/refund-policy

Q) What form of packing do they use?
A) A sturdy cardboard box with 2 layers of bubble wrap around the item.

Q) Do they declare a low custom value to prevent a customs fee in my country?
A) They do not officially offer this service, this is due to legal reasons. They do however state they will keep value down the best they can. See for more details: http://plainarchive.com/pages/on-import-duties-taxes

 

[AnubisNefer]

They really didn't have any issues though. This really is just how the checkout system works. The website came through fine, I didn't get any slow downs or anything.

Exactly.

Their website and servers are fine and can stand high amount of traffic like I said all along. Nothing wrong with their cms.

 

[nafosb]

Exactly.

Their website and servers are fine and can stand high amount of traffic like I said all along. Nothing wrong with their cms.

I understand all that but, bottom line, it was a nightmarish experience nevertheless.
And not just for a few but for a lot of their potential customers. A real fiasco.

 

[BaleHardy]

I did not get the quad pack which I wanted though I was there online at the second it went live, but no way can this experience be called nightmarish as many are saying....at least I came to know in a single click something was out of stock and I could go back and select something else....Nova Drive and some older Kimchis were nightmarish experiences. In my opinion, PA website and servers were excellent and held up very well.

 

[RekLess]

Going forward, you'll have to be a masochist to want to order directly from Plain Archive.
That's why so many of us appreciate our Group Buy hosts.

I disagree with your first point. I had an absolutely seamless transaction. In fact, all of my transactions with Plain (I have a full PA Exclusive collection) have been leaps and bounds smoother and easier than my interactions with other retailers (Nova and Kimchi, I'm pointing directly at you!).
Group buys are okay, but I think people take for granted exactly what these shopping platforms offer to the retailer. Leveraging the power of Shopify means that Plain can focus most of their attention to the actual product--not worry as much about the logistics of how they'll distribute the product.
If the group buys contine to be offered--great, but I'll stick direct ordering first and foremost. If I ever run into an issue, I'll appreciate that I have options like a GB to fall back on. But I'm not a masochist, I've never had an issue ordering direct from Plain (ordering direct from other retailers is a different story) and I'll continue my direct interactions with Plain until they intentionally deceive me or neglect to properly support the release and distribution of their products. These rumors that there is a "bug" in Plain's inventory system do not have me convinced. I side with this statement:

About what, I don't think they have anything to answer for. This is just how the checkout system works. If there are 500 copies of something and 500 people all add it to their cart, but take longer than a few minutes to check out, then it will still show in stock until all 500 of those people check out. If one of the 500 don't order, or get an error somewhere along the way, that copy gets thrown back out, and whoever was lucky enough to click "checkout" at that time, will get to the next step and not hit a "sold out" message. Once all 500 of the people have checked out, then it will finally show Sold Out on the main page. It's the same as Mondo's checkout system, you just have to be patient and keep going back and forth between the sold out screen and checkout screen until you get through or until it's actually sold out.

 

[UpsetSmiley]

I understand all that but, bottom line, it was a nightmarish experience nevertheless.
And not just for a few but for a lot of their potential customers. A real fiasco.

It seemed only a selected few people experienced the "Inventory issue". I tried checking out approx ten times with the 1/4 slip and always got the same error message. This was from around 1:00am-1:05am. Even took a screenshot. Can't understand it myself, but yes I emphasize with you.

I'm not bitter about it though, just feel a bit alienated from those who did get their order in.

 

[Sigill]

They really didn't have any issues though. This really is just how the checkout system works. The website came through fine, I didn't get any slow downs or anything.

The website may have held up ok but there was certainly problems somewhere. I couldn't add a 1/4 or PET slip to the basket and this was just a minute after going live. There's is no way it was sold out that quickly. I tried different browsers and had the same result, it is clear certain people had issues.

 

[AgentMcQueen]

The website may have held up ok but there was certainly problems somewhere. I couldn't add a 1/4 or PET slip to the basket and this was just a minute after going live. There's is no way it was sold out that quickly. I tried different browsers and had the same result, it is clear certain people had issues.

Same issue I had.

 

[dannywizkid]

The website may have held up ok but there was certainly problems somewhere. I couldn't add a 1/4 or PET slip to the basket and this was just a minute after going live. There's is no way it was sold out that quickly. I tried different browsers and had the same result, it is clear certain people had issues.

Same here, I know they let people order two copies of each but at 1 minute past you'd think it was possible to get but alas it was a no go and I left with jus the paper full slip [emoji53]

 

[BuckNaked2k]

I experienced the same inventory issues mentioned here.

 

[paulboland]

Plain Archive just posted this on Facebook

To our international customers,

Plain Archive is a small independent company with just two full-time employees. We do almost everything ourselves —— film selection, package design, blu-ray authoring, online store management, shipment preparation, customer service, and more. After two years of operation, we’ve finally escaped working from home, and only recently moved to a small dedicated office.

We’re not saying that it’s acceptable to act like amateurs because of our scale. ...We’ve always wanted people to judge us based purely on the quality of our products. A lot of effort has gone into our products, shipments, and customer service in order to avoid certain assumptions that can be made about a startup like us.

Plain Archive deals with Blu-ray collectors all over the world, and not one customer is easy to please because of their extremely high standards. But we’ve always listened. And we’ve also received some absurd requests, but we tried our best to be polite and helpful.

Our team pours everything into creating products that are hopefully worth your money. A large majority of our existing customers purchase our products because they recognize our effort. Some even order multiple copies of the same edition.

We respect our customers, and we feel your respect coming at our direction. Unfortunately, there’s a small number of individuals who doesn’t respect us back. We’ve received angry emails with profanity, and in some cases — threats.

Our Zero Dark Thirty editions have caused a record traffic with unprecedented demand. It’s unfortunate, but some will succeed and some will miss out. We understand your frustration.

If there’s anything we need to improve upon, please give us your feedback. But we do not want to suffer from reading emails that cross the line.

We’d like to end by saying thank you for the support you’ve shown us with the pre-order of Zero Dark Thirty. We have some exciting new products coming this year. Please stay tuned.

Thank you

Plain Archive

 

[ash333]

PA, please use an English profanity and death threat word filter to block those nasty emails.

Keep up the great work Plain Archive!! Your fearless dedication to quality design and outstanding customer service will take you guys to great heights. And we will be here to support you all the way even if it means we will miss out on some releases!

THANK YOU!

 

[AnubisNefer]

PA, please use an English profanity and death threat word filter to block those nasty emails.

Keep up the great work Plain Archive!! Your fearless dedication to quality design and outstanding customer service will take you guys to even greater hights. And we will be here to support you all the way even if it means we will miss out on some releases!

THANK YOU!

Fixed....

 

[RobertJoseph17]

In regards to their checkout system (which is shopify by the way) I just tried to order a poster from bottleneck gallery, which using the same checkout system. I added the item to my cart, and got the same "inventory issues" message that many here were getting. After go back and forth about 100 times, I finally got it to get past that issue screen and was able to order my print. It seems like a lot of companies are now switching to Shopify, because it puts less strain on the website. So, for those thinking that it was Plain's website that was causing those error messages, it wasn't, and the checkout system was working exactly how it was supposed to.

Just for the record, this is what I was ordering:
http://www.bottleneckgallery.com/collections/weekly-release/products/new-flesh-conflic

 

[UpsetSmiley]

Plain Archive just posted this on Facebook

To our international customers,

Plain Archive is a small independent company with just two full-time employees. We do almost everything ourselves —— film selection, package design, blu-ray authoring, online store management, shipment preparation, customer service, and more. After two years of operation, we’ve finally escaped working from home, and only recently moved to a small dedicated office.

We’re not saying that it’s acceptable to act like amateurs because of our scale. ...We’ve always wanted people to judge us based purely on the quality of our products. A lot of effort has gone into our products, shipments, and customer service in order to avoid certain assumptions that can be made about a startup like us.

Plain Archive deals with Blu-ray collectors all over the world, and not one customer is easy to please because of their extremely high standards. But we’ve always listened. And we’ve also received some absurd requests, but we tried our best to be polite and helpful.

Our team pours everything into creating products that are hopefully worth your money. A large majority of our existing customers purchase our products because they recognize our effort. Some even order multiple copies of the same edition.

We respect our customers, and we feel your respect coming at our direction. Unfortunately, there’s a small number of individuals who doesn’t respect us back. We’ve received angry emails with profanity, and in some cases — threats.

Our Zero Dark Thirty editions have caused a record traffic with unprecedented demand. It’s unfortunate, but some will succeed and some will miss out. We understand your frustration.

If there’s anything we need to improve upon, please give us your feedback. But we do not want to suffer from reading emails that cross the line.

We’d like to end by saying thank you for the support you’ve shown us with the pre-order of Zero Dark Thirty. We have some exciting new products coming this year. Please stay tuned.

Thank you

Plain Archive

That's disgraceful. I was there at 1am on the dot and it wouldn't let me order, so what? PA don't deserve to be scorned, they're a small independent company, errors are bound to happen. I'm not exactly sure as to what the abuse perpetrators were attempting to achieve? If it's not being welcome to shop at PA again, then they've more than succeeded in that field.

 

[digitalbabe]

@UpsetSmiley unfortunately there are always those just don't have class and lose all perspective (is everyone waiting for organ transplants?). Very easy and cowardly to hide behind a screen and spout out agressive, obnoxious comments. Plain has, and I have no doubt, will continue to go above and beyond. This edition received A LOT of publicity as is naturalwhen all of the editions they've released before, have, as well. Popularity has increased astronomically, and given the quality of their releases, it should. Customer frustration is understandable but to personally attack a company that works this hard to stand way above the rest and has had such high quality standards,is sad.

 

[Ascended Saiyan]

I don't agree with the profanity or threats part but lets be real PA deserves every single bit of negative criticism thrown there way and by making lame excuses they're only making it worse for themselves. No nobody cares if you only have 2 full employees (hire more people) or you have server issues (upgrade servers/software and make sure your stuff works when its suppose to) And if you can't handle the fire than get out of the kitchen.

I was right there along with hundards of other people trying to buy right as it went live but guess what ? the inventory system was broken and i tried from 5 devices and 4 browsers but hope nothing. So there facebook messages seems like a big **** You to people who couldn't purchase anything.

i don't know about anyone else but i am sick and tired of b*llshit excuses from companies releasing steels.

 

[RobertJoseph17]

I don't agree with the profanity or threats part but lets be real PA deserves every single bit of negative criticism thrown there way and by making lame excuses they're only making it worse for themselves. No nobody cares if you only have 2 full employees (hire more people) or you have server issues (upgrade servers/software and make sure your stuff works when its suppose to) And if you can't handle the fire than get out of the kitchen.

I was right there along with hundards of other people trying to buy right as it went live but guess what ? the inventory system was broken and i tried from 5 devices and 4 browsers but hope nothing. So there facebook messages seems like a big **** You to people who couldn't purchase anything.

The thing is they had no issues. Everything worked as it was supposed to work. Just cause people didn't get what they want, they complain. It's the same with other websites that use the same checkout system. Right at the specified time, there are thousands of people trying to add to their cart. Just because someone thinks they were there right away, doesn't mean another few hundred people weren't there before them.

 

[Ascended Saiyan]

The thing is they had no issues. Everything worked as it was supposed to work.

ummmm have you read this thread or threads about this release on other forums ? inventory system was clearly broken

 

[sunnyx]

I don't agree with the profanity or threats part but lets be real PA deserves every single bit of negative criticism thrown there way and by making lame excuses they're only making it worse for themselves. No nobody cares if you only have 2 full employees (hire more people) or you have server issues (upgrade servers/software and make sure your stuff works when its suppose to) And if you can't handle the fire than get out of the kitchen.

I was right there along with hundards of other people trying to buy right as it went live but guess what ? the inventory system was broken and i tried from 5 devices and 4 browsers but hope nothing. So there facebook messages seems like a big **** You to people who couldn't purchase anything.

i don't know about anyone else but i am sick and tired of b*llshit excuses from companies releasing steels.

Bit too honest in your feelings! but that is how I feel.

 

[RobertJoseph17]

ummmm have you read this thread or threads about this release on other forums ? inventory system was clearly broken

I know exactly how their inventory system works. That's how it works for other companies that implement the same exact system (shopify). I can name multiple companies that use the same system (which I have) and have the same "problems". But they're not problems, it's just how the checkout system works.