discogs marketplace?

^ Guy paid *for* a record

You should have his email /phone from Discogs. I’ve had to do that a couple of times.

I always wait for a response in this case, if you really get twitchy send to the Paypal address as that gives you more protection.

I’ve had dozens of address mismatches. Sooner or later, the buyer has always replied to clarify. The split between “use the Discogs address” and “use the PayPal address” is fairly even, so it’s best not to guess. Strictly speaking, it’s better to use the PayPal address as that offers better protection, but on balance I’d rather go with the buyer’s wishes.

I asked a guy to add the address he wanted to use to his Paypal account and we re-did the transaction. He was good about it. I was surprised the other day when I came across a seller whose terms said he is going to ship to your Discogs address no matter what address is on your Paypal. Saves him from ever hanging around asking which to use, I guess.

I think my only negative feedback is from a time I bought a record and after the guy shipped it he messaged me saying that the record was in much worse shape than he realized and sent me a full refund. Record arrived and was indeed an unplayable G. This was when I discovered you could leave 'neutral' feedback, which I did and he got super pissed at me, flaming me that I didnt leave him good feedback even though I got a "free record". Which yeah, he sent me a piece of junk for free. Why ship the record in the first place?

I'm surprised you were able to leave feedback on a refunded transaction.

Only negative I've left, for a buyer, was a new account ordering a pretty pricey record who I then never heard from again. The seller can close something like that only after 10 or 14 days (I forget), and it automatically gives the buyer a negative (not that it mattered on a brand new account). I wondered if it was a setup from someone looking to move the same record for more money, but I never tried looking into that. Once I got the record back on the market it sold pretty much immediately.

Only left non-positive feedback once on eBay years ago.

Record was sent in a large (and used) pizza box, and it was unsecured in any sense within the box. Think of your standard box for a large pizza with a crude drawing of an Italian pizza maker doing the chef's kiss, and add chilled pizza grease. Thankfully a relatively cheap record.

I would enjoy getting a record in a pizza box. One that had never had a pizza in it, I mean. Usually when you open a pizza box and there's no pizza in it you're sad but if there's a record in there!

guy i knew once explained to me that he would go to a local pizza chain every so often and get an armload of medium-sized pizza boxes for mailing LP boxsets.

i asked him, "really ? you send boxsets in pizza boxes ?" and he gets this look on his face, kind of mischievous, and says, "yeah man. i just love when i get to send 'em to italy."

😙

maybe a lot of these overgraders aren’t using artificial light or something

Re: Discogs address vs Paypal address. I'd always ship to the Paypal address as Paypal are unrelenting about refunds.

Huh. I never ship to the paypal addresses, always the Discogs addresses. I've never had a problem but for one time a buyer put the wrong zip code in. I guess I should be asking for confirmation, but often buyers do not respond to Discogs messaging, I've found.

if a buyer asks to return something for a refund, do you guys refund them the shipping costs of sending back? discogs and paypal don't give you that option so I'd have to do it manually. I think the guy was being a putz re: grading so my petty side doesn't want to, but I'm usually not an asshole seller.

Nah man, if he's not happy with your grading, that's his issue. If you'd sent him the wrong record or something, then it would be on you.

It depends how much you would mind if you want to get a negative review.

there goes my perfect feedback. forgot to de-list my CDs! lolz. If the buyer who wanted that Rolling Blackouts disc is on here, sorry!

What's the longest after payment you would wait for the seller to ship before requesting a refund?

I'm understanding that things can be slow at the moment and not that easy, but it's now 10 days since I paid and the seller still hasn't shipped my order. I'm going to give it a couple more days but this seems like a bit of a stretch to expect me to give glowing feedback when/if I finally do get the order.

I’d ask now if there’s a problem, maybe seller has been ill or some other issue, but ten days is more than enough time.

He said last Wednesday that he was waiting for packaging but I've heard nothing since.

i'd definitely follow up on in some capacity at this point. that's too long.

Thinking of making my first purchase, from a seller in Japan... they joined in 2013 and their feedback is 379 (pos) / 16 (neutral) / 26 (neg). Several of the recent ratings in particular are negative, saying order never arrived, no communication, etc. If item never ships, I’ll be protected via PayPal, yeah? Should be reasonable risk(?)

International shipping seems to be risky right now. I buy stuff internationally as part of my day job, and since March our order completion rate is near zero. Stuff just doesn't arrive. The orders never ship, they get stuck in customs or in courier shipping centers, or get marked as delivered but are nowhere to be found.

Thanks, good to know. I'll hold off awhile.

I'm not buying anything international rn either.

I went to a Japanese website I've ordered from in the past and they have big message on their site saying that Japan Post is currently not shipping to the US, so I'm holding off.

My deliveries from the UK to the US currently appear to be reaching my buyers after around 4 weeks, on average. Two packages which I shipped to India just before they suspended incoming international mail arrived after two months, once services had been re-instated. I've had to issue just one non-delivery refund since lockdown began, to a US buyer; thankfully it just was a dirt-cheap CD.

Somebody's supposed to be sending me a book from Germany; I have no idea how long it will take to get here, and have calibrated my expectations accordingly.

I'm in Australia, I got something from Boomkat that took a little longer than expected but still arrived safely

waiting on a delivery for the states and am feeling very shrug emoji about it

I bought a CD from a Discogs seller a state away who provided the tracking number, but the CD didn't show for a few weeks. They provided a refund, and eventually (five weeks later?) the CD showed up, so I returned the refund.

Ordered a couple of CDs from UK vendors on Ebay a month ago, I think they took about three weeks. Also tried purchases from German sellers on Discogs, one of whom just cancelled it, the other providing a more-than-doubled shipping cost from what was on the listing and saying I could cancel if I wanted (which I did). German sellers used to have pretty affordable international shipping much of the time.

This is not a thread about Jauce, but FYI if you dip into those risky waters for Japanese goods (they're shipping everything to the US via DHL now), be very sure you are actually buying the specific thing you want (I ended up paying double the typical cost for the US version of a box set when I thought I was buying the Japanese version, and I couldn't do a return).

i ordered a cd from the uk at the very beginning of the month and it took about ten business days.

was p happy about that.

probs not average tho.

I bought something from Germany in late May. DHL says it handed off to USPS on June 11, processed on June 12 in Frankfurt but it still says awaiting dispatch.

I just got a package from France mailed on April 17 (to Australia)

xp DHL to USPS in Germany is very delayed right now and I've noticed a lot of German sellers have just stopped offering US sales altogether during the pandemic.

My deliveries from the UK to the US currently appear to be reaching my buyers after around 4 weeks, on average.

This is how long it took me to get something from Norman, when usually stuff from the UK will arrive within 8-10 days.

uh oh, I bought something from a French seller and as a seller have never had any issues with anything other than International standard for inter EU shipping.

Now I think maybe I should have ponied up the extra £4 for tracked as I might never see this, or it might arrive after months wrecked.

It took 2.5 months for me to get a registered package from Japan recently. Ordered first week of April, just showed up last week.

In early April, a colleague in Beijing sent me a package of PPE masks as a goodwill gesture; they just arrived today. (I was surprised to see the package on our doorstep... I had assumed it was intercepted or something.)

So it sounds like 2.5 months for shipping from Asia is a good benchmark at present.

Detail on a copy of Spearhead's Stay Human, Media: NM, Sleeve: P

* * * * WATER HAS STUCK IT TO MAXI PRIEST SOME GUYS HAVE ALL THE LUCK * * * *

Do all the Discogs sellers on here know that from October 1st, automatic shipping policies will be mandatory for all orders? As it currently stands, the shipping policy editor is impossible to configure for a full range of UK orders (i.e. that can take account of large letters vs small parcels), but a new, improved and more flexible shipping policy editor has been promised; I wish they'd hurry up and release it. In the meantime, I'm having to weigh all my LPs, 12-inch singles and CDs, and record each weight in each individual sales listing. What a joy that is.

i wonder if it wouldn't be easier to set your prices close to the maximum of what you'd expect based on region + speed (slow UK / fast UK / slow europe / fast europe etc.) and then just make clear in your seller terms that you offer a partial refund on shipping expenses that come out to below what you've calculated

i ship in / from USA and have always used the automatic shipping policies so the policy change won't affect me. i'm curious what's so different about shipping records in / from the UK that makes it so hard to predict what your prices will be.

It sounds like you might be over complicating it? I have it set up for a around 4 weight bands for under £20 (standard) under £50 (signed-for) and over £50 (special delivery)

There are nine weight bands for UK small parcels under 2kg, many with significant price jumps, so establishing the precise weight of packages is important if you don't want to risk under-charging or over-charging. This makes setting up shipping policies by format/quantity impossible, as weights vary so much, especially with "Vinyl (large)", where a heavy single LP can be twice the weight of a light 12" single.

So, OK, maybe you could set up all your shipping policies purely by weight instead. This means you'll need to individually weigh every item you've got for sale, and enter it into each individual sales listing, as the default Discogs estimates (eg. 230g for large vinyl) are often way off. (The exception here is 7" singles, as the weights don't fluctuate much, and so the Discogs estimate of 60g is basically fine).

However, purely weight-based policies don't work with UK pricing either. This is because almost all your packages will fit into one of two categories - large letter and small parcel - based on dimensions. These can also significantly affect pricing, but you can't always deduce the size of a package purely on its weight - there are too many overlaps.

Discogs are promising a more flexible shipping policy editor, which allows you set up rules based on a combination of format AND weight. This may make things feasible, but we can't be certain until we can see exactly what it entails.

I always add some extra into my postage + packaging costs to cover my time, packing materials etc, sometimes you might get a bit less, sometimes you get a bit more. Prices are upfront to the buyer, so they can choose not to buy.

e.g. under £20 (I would send 2nd class Royal Mail):

1 > 99: £1.59
100 > 220: £2.39
221 > 1850: £4.39
1851 > 3700: £8.39 (would go into two separate parcels)
3701 > £9.99 (I doubt I would every get up to this threshold from under £20, but just in case)

under £50 (will send 2nd class, or perhaps courier if cheaper)

1 > 220: £3.49
221 > 1900: £5.49
1901 >: £10.99 (If someone does a large

For all other orders (Would either be special delivery or a courier):

1 > 400: £8.99
401 > 900: £10.49
901 > 1900: £12.99
1901 > : £27.99

Have people shared their accounts here by the way? Mine’s https://www.discogs.com/seller/Chewshabadoo/profile

i've just started using this to buy vinyl and I love it. have had a great experience with every seller.

will check your prof out!

OK, thanks, I can see how that works for UK to UK postage - for UK to the rest of the world, I'm still not so sure. I also add extra sums on for packaging, which are separately calculated by format, i.e. I have different packing materials for 7"/12"/CD. Your rates are a fair bit higher than mine, and now that most people are starting to move over to automatic shipping, I'm increasingly aware that I have to charge competitively for shipping, without losing money on the deal.

Here's my stuff (sorted in decreasing price order, so I can show off the cool stuff and hide the crap!) - https://www.discogs.com/seller/miketd/profile?sort=price%2Cdesc&limit=250&page=1