Hi *******,

Hooray!  I am pleased to announce that your order has been processed and is now complete.

The following 1 DVD shipped today:
1 copy of Welcome to Macintosh

Please rest assured that we've taken great care in the shipping of your DVD.

We hold true to an ancient DVD shipping tradition passed down for over 5000 years. This very intensive practice is only achieved after years of training, meditation, purity of mind, and deep breathing exercises.

After a rigorous 17 step process of verifying the authenticity of your DVD, we donned silk gloves and placed it into a sacred box made of magic and lined with Unicorn fur, tied the box with a strand of Gypsy hair, and wrapped the whole thing in a snazzy looking faux gold leaf paper, with elm leaf inlay from Costco. Unfortunately, by the time it gets to you, all of that fancy stuff will likely have been picked clean by the greedy postal service employees. Please don't be surprised to see just a plain cardboard box.

We hope you enjoy your film and that you'll visit Film Baby again soon to browse all the great independently created entertainment!

Jamie Chvotkin, President
Film Baby

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And when the DVD didn't show up in a reasonable length of time, I sent this:
_____

Jamie;

Hello. While I can appreciate all the care and thought that went in to the creation, wrapping, and shipping of the DVD I ordered, I do have to ask one question: Where is it? It's almost three weeks since your message below, and I still have not received my copy of "Welcome To Macintosh". I can understand the greedy Postal Service employees snagging all that unicorn fur and magic and stuff, but can we see if one of them appropriated the movie as well? Is there some way we can track my copy, see where it went astray?

______

After a few tries at tracking it down, Mr. Chvotkin packaged another copy by hand and had it sent to me. Exemplary service.

@loudguitars: My boyfriend's solo project is equally obscure (and he sounds equally hard-working; so many dedicated artists languishing in obscurity, but that's neither here nor there). He uses CDBaby to distribute his EP and his upcoming LP too. He's always had positive things to say about the company.

But, if their actual customers like it, then good for them. Clearly they know more about their clientele than I do.

As awesome as this is someone will probably sue them just because it's not true. I hate our legal system...

@loudguitars:

I agree wholeheartly with loudguitars, as an independent artist CDBaby is da bomb. They have helped me to market and sell not only CD's but digital downloads thru over 40 different companies like Itunes, Amazon and even WalMart.
My last CD ain't that great but a check comes in the mail most every month from CD for digital and hard sales....and hey...turn down that loud guitar! :-)

I actually sell my music through CD baby. It was an inexpensive and painless process. Within a few days, my CD was available for purchase through their site, my song samples were online on my artist's page, and my music was distributed to just about every download site. All I do is wait for the checks for my CD sales and digital downloads. I've also been happy purchasing from them. Just a great company all around.

@el-brazo-onofre: Haha, that's crazy. I used to buy Jansport backpacks back when I needed them (school and such). I guess I know where to go if I ever need one again.

They've developed a great system that gets you digital distribution all over the place for a totally reasonable cut of the profits. Even though I haven't toured in 10 years and haven't played a gig in 6, I still get the odd check from people randomly checking out my music online. I can only imagine how great a tool they are for people who are still out there putting effort into promoting their music.

@Coles_Law: It's a bit too lengthy for the comments, but here's a snippet:

"I'd like to personally welcome you to our growing body of
Dissatisfied Customers(tm), but to do so might evidence
some actual concern for service and protocol. This might
then lead to customer satisfaction, which would defeat
the purpose altogether. That is why you have received
this generic, form-generated email, written by some
nameless lackey in our marketing department."

i first got that email confirmation from CDbaby back in 2002 or so.

Because of this post, I just placed an order for 5 or 6 CD's. Let's see how good they are (the company and the CD's; they're all bands of whom I've never heard before).

@Clobberella: Could you post it please?

To boot, their web site does a good job of "finding" music based upon what you say you're interested in. I recommend them highly.

Has anyone else ever ordered anything from despair.com ? THAT's a confirmation message I'm keeping forever. Even the shipping boxes are awesome.

They used to have a cute little baby face inside a CD on their site, but they stopped using it. :(

www.ryanhollowayphotography.com

Truly a great company and it makes me feel kind of guilty every time I use my Timbuk2 bag.

Out of all the vendors I've purchased things online from, Waterfield Designs probably offered the most personalized online buying experience.