I've had a mini shopping spree at Play.com over the past few weeks with about 5 CDs being delivered including REM - Accelerate, British Sea Power - Open Season, Bluetones - Expecting to Fly, The National - Alligator and the latest Now album.
After buying all this music, one might expect me to start reviewing the odd CD. I'm afraid this post is much more mundane - I'm going to comment on packaging. That's not the booklets and jewel cases, but the envelopes that the discs are delivered in.
Traditionally, Play have delivered their CDs in thin but padded jiffy envelopes. This was good. The discs had a degree of protection from the rigours of the postal system. However, 4 out of 5 of the above CDs were not delivered using these, but instead using cardboard CD wallets.
These new wallets look nice and neat, but there's no padding. No protection from a disgruntled Royal Mail employee throwing the packet into the post sack or the mail van going over a pot hole causing all the other mail to slam on top of it.
Fortunately, only 2 jewel cases have received damage but they both were in the newer packaging. I'm betting this is not a coincidence and that the number of occurances of damaged jewel cases may well increase.
I'm not going to send the discs back over it. The damage was just to the circular clasp that holds the disc in place. It's easy to replace jewel cases, but if the problem continues I may have to drop a line to Play.com - the first time I will ever have complained to them!
After buying all this music, one might expect me to start reviewing the odd CD. I'm afraid this post is much more mundane - I'm going to comment on packaging. That's not the booklets and jewel cases, but the envelopes that the discs are delivered in.
Traditionally, Play have delivered their CDs in thin but padded jiffy envelopes. This was good. The discs had a degree of protection from the rigours of the postal system. However, 4 out of 5 of the above CDs were not delivered using these, but instead using cardboard CD wallets.
These new wallets look nice and neat, but there's no padding. No protection from a disgruntled Royal Mail employee throwing the packet into the post sack or the mail van going over a pot hole causing all the other mail to slam on top of it.
Fortunately, only 2 jewel cases have received damage but they both were in the newer packaging. I'm betting this is not a coincidence and that the number of occurances of damaged jewel cases may well increase.
I'm not going to send the discs back over it. The damage was just to the circular clasp that holds the disc in place. It's easy to replace jewel cases, but if the problem continues I may have to drop a line to Play.com - the first time I will ever have complained to them!