I meant to ask this before Christmas but got side-tracked…….
Can someone please tell me why, amongst all the other charts (albums, compilations, dance, rock, albums not by David Bowie, etc ) the pre-order chart exists? Also why would you want to use it and pre-order a download anyway?
I can see that if you are absolutely dying to get your hands on the newest physical platter by your favourite artist then there could be some justification but otherwise….WHY?
I’m guessing it’s a game of “Ooh – haven’t you heard the latest Kanye album yet?? But it was released X hours ago!” that some people enjoy playing with their “friends”.
They used to do it with records back in the day too.
If you pre-order with Amazon you get a price guarantee, so if it drops any time between ordering and release you get the lower price.
That.
And I have a bad memory and would forget.
And if a publication date gets moved to earlier, you’ll get it on publication date. I find it helpful
iTunes will download pre-orders as soon as they go on general sale, assuming you leave it running overnight, which is handy for a movie or TV series, not so much for an album.
Also on iTunes when you pre-order some albums, you are able to download some tracks straight away as a teaser. For example if you pre-order the upcoming album from The 1975 today, you’re able to download 4 of the album’s 17 tracks now.
Also, hype. So record companies are able to say things like “the upcoming Shitting Mushrooms album is the hottest pre-order of the week”.
WOOHOO! SHITTING MUSHROOMS ROOOOOOL!
Dunno about sh*tting mushrooms, but my snake Jarvis (‘cos his hiss is hardcore) has a lot of toads in his stools…
It’s the ‘pre’ I have a problem with (oo-er).
If you order it, that’s just ordering it, isn’t it? What’s ‘pre’ about it?
Ordering it in advance of release. Not a massive difference, I’d agree, but a difference.
It refers to ordering the item prior to its official release date, no?
Do you go into a restaurant and ‘pre-order’ food that hasn’t been prepared yet, then?
God, I hope so.
“Hello, sir, can I take your pre-order?”
It’s bollocks. There’s nothing ‘pre’ about the order.
Yeah. But that’s because restaurant food is a horrible, horrible comparator to albums/movies.
The latter aren’t specifically prepared and served to individual customers who walk in off the street and order them. They have prescribed street release dates, hence the use of “pre-order”.
Wait, wait, I might get it. So you’re not parting with money. By ‘pre-ordering’, you’re serving notice of your *intention* to order when it”s available to buy and that’s what the ‘pre’ prefix denotes. Is that it?
It depends on the transaction, but generally you’re paying for something ahead of time on the understanding that you will receive it on the day of release.
You’re buying it “pre” the release date,
Pre-book a room, you two.
So it’s “pre-purchasing” then. Perhaps we can pre-order it before pre-pùrchasing, if we leave. say, a 10% deposit? Is that it?
Poppy’s right, yer knaw. “Order” means arrange to collect, yes, but not paying for it up front. That, in old money, is called “advance booking”, like for a holiday on the Continong, or to bag a front-row ticket to see Blodwyn Pig at the De Montfort Hall, Leicester a couple of months later.
Last sentence killed in action: “We’ve pre-ordered a fortnight in Magaluf for the beginning of August. Loverly.”
See above. We’re talking about pre ordering records.
Holidays and restaurants don’t work as an analogue: you need something with an ownership model and a territorial embargo date against sale.
And even if you find one, the music industry will still refer to “pre-orders”, and the “pre” will still refer to the release date.
Yes but nevertheless notwithstanding, however, be that as it may, if there’s a gap between the decision to purchase and delivery, it’s called “booking” (if you pay in advance) or “ordering” (if you don’t or leave only a part of the price as a deposit). If there isn’t a gap, it’s called “buying”.
If the “pre-” prefix means “in advance of receipt”, it’s redundant, because all “ordering” is in advance of receipt, innit though.
I dunno, you’ve lost me at this point.
Pre order can mean different things in different markets. In my experience (games and movies), it’s generally full payment up front.
Can’t speak for other industries but you clearly don’t “book” a game or DVD.
I fear we’re on a massive tangent here, and possibly speaking at cross purposes and certainly making the text increasingly difficult to read.
This article talks about apps used to pre-order food in restaurant, so maybe A.) it wasn’t such a horrible analogy, Mr Smartypants, B.) It’s not exclusive to the entertainingmment industry and C.) ‘Pre-order’ is simply a way of saying ‘ordering before you’re normally supposed to be able to order.’
http://streetfightmag.com/2015/06/23/6-mobile-pre-ordering-tools-for-restaurants/
Poppy – nope, it’s still a horrible product analogy for music.
I was literally in a meeting a couple of hours ago with people talking about “orders” and “pre-orders” of games and DVDs. It’s a widely used term of art.
I don’t really have a view on whether it accords with the dictionary definition of the word “order”, but I do think it’s preferable to talking about “advance booking” a DVD.
Sticking the pre- on the front of “order” sounds as though you can order later. You can’t you don’t “order” something that’s already on sale; you “buy” it. Why not use order for these pre-release sales? That’s Poppy’s point, I think (even I’ve forgotten now).
It’s always a good idea to pre-order the soufflé or you could be there all night.
I lost my job in a restaurant cos they ordered me to prepare the vegetables and I presented them to the chef with their skins still on…
Presumably that was before someone else simply ‘pared’ the veg?
Quite so.
They weren’t happy at my next job when they asked me to prepare the pears, so I binned the cored fruit and planted the seeds in little pots.
“Well if you needed them for tonight you should have asked me 4-6 years ago” I spluttered as they ushered me from the premises…
Arch, I’m going to reply down here, the formatting up there is giving me an aneurysm.
You order something that’s on sale when you buy it at a distance (eg Amazon). Distance sales are also generally where pre orders happen – bricks and mortar stores won’t commit to delivering something to you upon release.
Why not call it an order?
(a) marketing – pre order sounds like it confers an added bonus;
(b) in the games industry we usually offer incentives to pre order (extra content/character skins), so the product isn’t quite the same as a regular order;
(c) if you’re the retailer there are additional logistics to fulfilling a pre order (you need to remember to do it), so they like to distinguish the two sale types; and
(d) as a content producer we also like to distinguish – pre orders are seen as inherently valuable as a measure of likely sales, and it’s also nice to get your money earlier.
As I said above, can only speak for games and movies, but would guess music is much the same.
All good points, all of which boil down to ‘it’s just a useless bit of jargon’, which was my point in the first place.
You asked a question, I tried to answer it, what can I say?
I’m not making a passionate defence of the term. I’m simply pointing out that it’s widely used in certain industries, and giving some suggestions as to why that’s the case.
Okay, all right, I personally think you’ve been a bit slippery about it, if I’m honest but I’m going to leave it there because it’s really not worth falling out about, and I hope/know that we’ll be laughing about it soon.
xx
I expect you’re both pre-laughing already.
Yes, he weasled his way out of it very neatly, didn’t he (because, you know, lawyers). We are stuck with pre-order. I agree that a term was needed for a new type of transaction. I just think pre-order was the wrong one to choose.
So, now we’ve cleared that up, let’s see Bing defend the use of “ship” to mean “make available for collection by downloading”. All the transport/transfer (shipping) is done by the recipient, not the maker-availabler.
As an aside, I discovered in my Spanish language class the other day that the Spanish find the English words ‘ship’ and ‘sheep’ almost impossible to distinguish when heard in conversation.
Well, it was interesting to me.
They do. And other i/ee words, too, as a Spanish friend learned to her cost at the reception desk of a London hotel when she asked for a shit of paper.
Just Juan Sheet?
Dublin person upon seeing the dessert trolley after dinner:
“Oh that chocolate cake looks awfully rich. I couldn’t possibly eat it all – can I just have a third”.
Trainee grimaces, shrugs, thinks “the boss said the customer is always right…”
You insult my honour, sir.
I demand satisfaction, and I intend to claim it by pointing out that you appear to have misspelled “weaseled”.
Good luck getting to sleep tonight. Moo-ha-ha.
I did notice that. Just as I noticed that you, sir, appear to have misspelled “weaselled” (unless you’re an American, which I gather you’re not).
Wahaha.
Because I know you’re a man of many dictionaries I actually went to the trouble of looking up the correct spelling before posting.
The OED accepts either “weaseled” or “weaselled”.
Counter wahaha, and furthermore fie on you.
Blimey – we really have been seeing different things in this conversation, Poppy!
I didn’t think we were having a real disagreement until right at the end there, I was honestly just trying to be helpful. Personally, I blame Archie for all of this – I don’t trust anyone who typos so infrequently.
No danger of falling out at all,
Mwah.
“Ship”, Bingo. “Ship”. Your silence, sadly, speaks volumes.
Much as I like the sound of digital shipping, I’ve never actually come across that term before, and I’m therefore inclined to believe that you’re making it up.
“Shipping dates” account for 93.76% of all content at the Steve Hoffman place. Forum members post when they’ve pre-ordered, discuss shipping dates, and then announce delivery when it happens. It’s all very engrossing.
They may go on to make “un-boxing” videos for YouTube. I hope so.
Now I get the point of the phrase. I have always found it annoying up until now.
Thanks for the explanation and the industries it is relevant to.
Comic book creators like us to pre-order as it’s seen as a guaranteed sale. The comic store will often add pre-orders to what they were going to order themselves, possibly they’ll increase their own order if the number of pre-orders suggests a high level of demand. The publishers like it and are more likely to commission more issues of the title.
I don’t see the point of pre-ordering mp3s or digital comics – presumably they are permanently ‘in stock’.
Don’t understand the Pre-Order Charts (Venture Capitalism? Falsification of Income on Balance Sheets?).
The main reason I pre-order stuff as I am a forgetful old Hector, and at least this way I know it’ll drop through my letterbox on release day (sometimes I actually forget I have ordered it, so it offers a nice surprise too).
Steve Mason and Primal Scream currently pending (plus a couple of Pledge Music items – not sure when they’ll turn up though)
I simply put whatever is being punted as ‘new’ in my amazon wish list and forget about it until it reaches a price-point compatible with my pocket. I could listen to albums I have acquired but not listened to for months, so ‘new new’ is unhelpful.
Did we once just “reserve” a Book or record? Or if we knew the seller, get them to ” put a copy on one side” & settle up when we went in.
“Reserve” is exactly what I was thinking too.
Older readers may recall when they ( or their parents) used to reserve a copy of a coveted annual, book or record. In those days there was a possibility that you might not get one at all, or have to wait for a long time if you missed out on the initial stock.
With the advent of on-line shopping (amongst other things) we aren’t likely to miss out nowadays, save for some limited editions). In any event, there seems ultimately to be no difference between reserving and pre-ordering.
Because my wages fluctuate month to month, I tend to pre-order simply because I may not be able to afford the damn thing’s when they eventually come out. It’s quite nice actually when something drops through the letterbox that you’d forgotten you’d ordered…happened recently with the last Steven Wilson mini album.
I know that a Prius order is when you order a car with a big wasteful battery in the boot that does less mpg on a motorway than most normal cars.
I first became aware of this in the 60s when people used to “pre-order” Beatles singles. It seemed like a reasonable thing to do because often the first batch would sell out instantly and you’d have to wait another week or so for the next delivery.
The Beatles would often to go to number one on pre-orders alone.
The more meaningless the chart is, the more sub-divisions the chart needs to have.
See…..Premier League/4th place.
I’m at the age when to pre-come is to come, so what would I know.
I don’t believe it!
Just spotted that the Official Chart Company have added a new chart!!
The new chart reflects Top Trending stuff! (Never heard of anything on it I would guess!)