My first order from popmarket.com

Yesterday I ordered the four-month-old Jimi Hendrix box set "West Coast Seattle Boy" from popmarket.com yesterday. The deal was just too good: $35 for the 4CD/1DVD set, shipped. Even iTunes wants $40 for their version, so it's a good deal. I just hope it's a good set. More to come...

When it comes to PopMarket, I'm curious to see how good their fulfillment is, especially since I couldn't find any reviews of their service after a couple Google searches. The site is run by the MyPlay Direct arm of Sony Music, but they don't seem to want to make a big deal of it (there's only one link to the larger Sony site that I can see - all others stay within the PopMarket trade dress.

I felt lucky to get my order through. The website was evidently slammed when the Hendrix deal went live; I spent 30-45 minutes just clicking the "checkout" button and reaching a error message. Indeed, the deal was listed as a sellout within just a couple hours.

When I finally did get my order placed, the site returned a message thanking me for my purchase and giving me an order ID. The page also displayed a list of the items I'd ordered (in this case, just the one box set) under a heading "Items We Ship." Perhaps there are things they farm the shipping out on? Anyway, the status for the item was listed as "Received for Processing. In Stock, ships within 1-2 business days."

I'm glad I took a screen capture of this page, because it appears that is the only notice PopMarket gives you concerning your purchase until the order ships - I didn't receive an email or any other sort of confirmation from the site. MyPlay states that they send an email when the item has shipped, listing method of delivery and tracking information, but that information is nowhere to be found on the PopMarket site, at least after you've placed your order. I wish there was something other than radio silence after an order, just to reassure me that my money is in good hands.

I'll update later with information on both how the order processes and, more importantly, how the CDs sound.