discogs marketplace?

A few times I have paid well over the odds for a limited title (small run or RSD scarcity).

In all times I needed it for the collection.

In all times the fault has been within me, not the seller.

within me, and within late stage capitalism obvs.

where are the star ratings? I've never seen this - just positive/neutral/negative

Oh right, I guess it was just a positive rating. I was looking at my overall rating, which shows a hard-workin 5 stars.

If you’re selling a record you just bought for $100 over the price you paid for it, you are flipper scum. You could have just bought 1 copy for yourself but you knowingly bought more (depriving others of their chance to buy), knowing you would flip the other 2. However, you are also just playing the horrific game of capitalism we are all condemned to endure. Accept you’re flipper scum and bask in your profits. On the grand scale of things you’re not too bad.

new records are luxury items anyway

xp I thought it was $60 over the price he paid(?)

This convo keeps making me want to look up the price of Flipper records on discogs

The good news - got compensation cheque for lost item.

Less good - a week later the item turned up "unclaimed".

Now, per the agreement, I am supposed to send the money back. No problem, although I suspect they don't actually expect this to happen in most cases because there is no information I can find about how to do that. I've written to ask.

You are too honest, but good on you :)

I’d put it down to them wasting my time by not delivering it - think of all the admin time you have no used chasing it.

Unfortunately I can't pin that in them as it was international.

Also maybe a bit paranoid but in case they record returned mail and ever do a data sweep I don't want any negative indicators against my name and address.

*on them

okay i have too many records so i am jumping into this. i have NO IDEA what to do about my "seller terms", or what boxes to tick for US state sales tax etc.

i just want this to be as easy as possible. i'm already spending a weekend scanning bar codes and typing things in ffs

Seller terms are mostly not that relevant any more, but there are some things that from your point of view are a good idea to include. Off the top of my head, specify a returns policy unless you want the default policy where the seller pays for return shipping in all cases to apply. A contact for a Data Protection Officer is also required for GDPR compliance, but of course hardly any private sellers know that or give a shit.

Sales Tax is for the most part handled by the platform, you don't do anything at all. There are a handful (four) states where it's still not covered by the marketplace, and what they can't do is *legally* give definitive advice about whether you are "required as a Remote or Resident Seller to collect US state sales taxes" in those states. It will depend perhaps on where you are and how much you shift into those states. I'm in the UK and fairly certain I don't have to collect sales tax for Louisiana and Puerto Rico, but "talk to a qualifies tax advisor" :)

https://support.discogs.com/hc/en-us/articles/360024123194-U-S-Sales-Tax-In-The-Discogs-Marketplace

ok thank you that’s helpful. i’m in the UK too and i genuinely don’t even know where to start in terms of listing out what i’m going to charge to ship to different parts of the world etc. I would gladly just copy and paste someone else’s!

Argh, yeah that's a job.

Are you only selling records? That will make things easier.

I'd suggest just starting with the UK to begin with. It's not too complicated as for small parcel it's the same price up to 2kg. That will be enough for up to around six 12"s / LPs. Test it out with the mailers you'll be using to get an idea of the weight.

If you want you can have "methods" that only apply for lower value items (up to £20 or so) and also for higher value items where tracked shipping / insurance are applied. That's essential for international but maybe the cost can be absorbed for just domestic sales.

It will also insist on an "all my items" method - this has to cover literally any order. If you're only selling records then it can just be identical to the setup for "large vinyl". The ordering of the methods determines how they are applied, so the cheaper ones should be higher up, and "all items" always last.

I've gone quite deep with the shipping setup but my system involves using some different weight setting so it might not be the place to start.

So for instance it would look something like -

Standard UK Shipping
Order subtotal must be under £21
Specific items only - Vinyl (Large)
Set shipping price by Quantity
1 to 6 items £5.00* Flat rate
7 to 30 items £8.00** Flat rate
31 and up £8 Per each 30 Items***

* 2kg Small Parcel
** 10kg Medium Parcel
*** or whatever to cover any eventuality

ok that’s massively helpful. yes it’s just vinyl.

Another important thing to know is if you start shipping to the EU to avoid buyers being charged VAT twice the marketplace IOSS VAT number needs to linked to the shipping label and this is not possble from Post Offices (for Discogs.) it has to be done online if you're sending with Royal Mail.

okay now i’m considering just giving them to a charity shop lol

lol. When I see charity shop managers getting ideas about selling online I wonder how long it will be before they find out how much effort is involved relative to the remuneration and go back to letting us have the filthy blighters for £1 each.

It's not really too bad once you get a little system running though. Printing postage at home actually makes it easier for me. They'll even pick up tracked mail for free now.

that is what has finally inspired me! if i can do this without going to the post office it may actually work.

what on earth have they done to the Master Release pages? why ruin something that's worked so beautifully and so simply for so long?

I like it. I think the filtering functionality is very useful.

How are chances of getting back 450€ from PayPal after seller is not responding for 19 days?

Pretty good...

what on earth have they done to the Master Release pages?

They're just making the web version more like the (Android) app version, which may look a little clunky on the web but is ultimately more versatile.

It's taking some getting used to (the new Master Release page) but the search box is good. The mobile web version is a usability disaster at the moment, though.

Update on sending money to the Post Office, I've had to order something called a "cheque book" lol.

Not the Post Office, Royal Mail.

Ah you could have bought a postal order, or some travellers cheques maybe..

Have sales slowed down with the increase in everything else lately? Just wondering if people are buying less records when the cost to fill up the tank is twice what it was a year ago.

been hella slow these past few months for me and everyone i know

i'm not even a high-volume seller by any means, my income certainly doesn't depend on it. but i went from having 14 orders in april to one in may, and two this month so far.

I’ve had a slight recovery since the start of the month, but sales still aren’t what they used to be.

I'm a Discogs buyer, not a seller. I've been buying more recently, but that's mostly because I have a full-time gig again after 14 months of unemployment. I have noticed, however, that I'm more conscious of shipping costs than I used to be. And I'm tending to buy CDs more than overpriced vinyl, unless it's something I just have to get on wax.

Shipping costs are ridiculous nowadays but as a seller, that's just how much it costs. I stick about 40-50p on top to offset Paypal taking money off the shipping and the cost of the Jiffy bag - at most I'm creaming off a massive 10p profit out of it

tbh though I haven't really noticed a huge dropoff in sales - I only started selling seriously in January and I had 4 orders this week. I'm only selling CDs at the moment though

I did some adding to my inventory, and things are moving now. I did sell a bunch of "God save the Queen" sex pistols things, so I guess you could call that 'seasonal'

is the site plagued with glitches the past few days or is it just me?

I find:

The drop-down when you search for items is very hit and miss. Sometimes it lets you click on an item on the list and off it goes, sometimes you can down-arrow and <CR>, and sometimes you can't do either and you have to hit the "Search".

And as for the new filter on the "All Versions", well...

I've had that happen for months now but I need to update my browser

I'm also a buyer not a seller, and I'm often put off buying by the ridiculously high prices some sellers charge for rare items. Would they rather stuff sits there at $200 waiting for the unlikely eventuality that a collector will come along and pay that price for it? Or would they rather drop the price to below $100 in which case I would bite their arm off? Apparently it's the former.

Yeah, I have a bunch of stuff that I'd rather not sell, but if someone wants to pay xxxxx for it, then fine. Most of the rest are priced at "reasonable", some are priced "cheap to sell".

It's quite frustrating that you can't make a counter offer to sellers and can only accept or reject. Had a few which were just a little too low.

To buyers, not sellers, I meant.

I didn't even know until just now that there were listings that enabled the buyer to make an offer. All the listings for stuff I've been interested in buying, but have been put off by ridiculously high prices, were fixed price sales.

It's quite frustrating that you can't make a counter offer to sellers and can only accept or reject. Had a few which were just a little too low.

I've had quite a few direct messages requesting certain items at a lower price. Sometimes yes, sometimes no.

As a buyer, I don't understand why you won't accept an offer that's significantly below the asking price. Do you really think some well-heeled collector is going to come along and pay the asking price? Because I can assure you they're not.

I will usually make offers at median sale price or near the last sold price for a similarly graded copy. I'm about 50/50 on sellers accepting my offers. When they don't accept my offer, I just mutter to myself that I hope they choke to death on their inventory. Works for me.

I'm sure you can put your super powers to better use than that...

USPS raised postal rates again, less than a year since their previous increase. This time the reason given is inflation.

New prices that have been in effect as of this past Sunday:

The first-class mail (1 oz.) letter rate for postage purchased at the post office: increased two cents to $0.60. Each additional ounce will cost $0.24.
The “metered mail” rate for first-class mail (1 oz.) letters: increased four cents to $0.57.
First-class mail flats/large envelopes (1 oz.): increased four cents to $1.20. Each additional ounce will cost $0.24.
First-class mail international (1 oz.): increased 10 cents to $1.40.
Postcards: increased four cents to $0.44.
First-class mail international (1 oz.): increased 10 cents to $1.40.
Certified mail: increased by 25 cents to $4.00.
Media mail: increased by 9% to $3.49.

On the other hand, standards for Retail Ground and Parcel Select Ground products will be accelerated starting August 1. The current standards will be shifted from two-to-eight days to two-to-five days, so at least we get that.

Is selling a good experience like 90% of the time? I’ve been sitting on two boxes of records that I’ve been “planning” to sell for two years now because for some reason I’m still intimidated by selling records online. I don’t know why because I’m sure it’s as easy as packing them up and shipping them off in most cases.