discogs marketplace?

bought a copy of 154 that showed up with terrible hazing. It plays ok and I can’t be fucked sending it back but I kinda want to tell the seller off - he seemed like an ok dude and his reputation was 100% - maybe he didn’t know what hazing looked like?

anyway i think the moral of the story (for me) is that it is much better to look at records before you buy them

i've been selling since 2014, so almost ten years, but my breakup with the 'cogs has more to do with my own life journey and dwindling interest in collecting records or really any physical media. i already have all the records i'll ever need, and the joy of new acquisition just sort of disappeared in the last year.

curious how y'all would handle this situation:

bought a record on Aug 13 (a month and a half ago) from a private seller based in the USA, meaning that once shipped the record would usually take about 2-3 days to arrive

didn't hear anything for 2 weeks, sent him a message to ask the status, he responded by sending me a tracking number. I click the tracking number and it says "label created, not yet shipped"

that status remains for another 2 weeks or so, meaning he hasn't brought it to be shipped yet. I ask him if there's any update, he doesn't respond.

a week later it's still in "label created" status, so I send him a message saying hey let me know if you ever plan to ship this, otherwise I'm gonna go ahead and initiate a chargeback.

wait a couple days, still no response, do the chargeback, use the money to order another copy

today the record actually arrived, along with the "replacement" copy I'd ordered funny enough. I think 7 weeks from when I actually ordered it.

so now I feel a bit guilty having done the chargeback since I actually *do* have the record. normally I'd contact him and say hey, I can send your money back, but since I ordered a second copy then I get screwed.

do I owe this guy a response now? at least an offer to send it back, which is also kind of a hassle for me? (we don't have a UPS store, but I suppose I could just send it through the post office across town...I haven't opened the package yet)

album was $25 after shipping. so not exactly a significant amount of money.

I’d say fuck it and keep it. Wait a while to see if they
contact you.

yeah no, just keep it.

keep it

Keep it. Given all the details, it's on him.

i would also keep it but i would hold onto until the window closes for him to give you buyer feedback, just to be safe

*hold onto the record

Sometimes USPS tracking just goes into the void. I've had things that never progressed past "Label created" show up for delivery before too. This person seems pretty detached from the sale and the process of selling, though, so I wouldn't worry about it too much.

fucking bullshit

https://i.imgur.com/BujV63C.png

god it really is just a matter of time before this site gets sold to some predatory hedge fund

i haven't bought anything on discogs in 8 months and likely won't be back for at least that long if not longer, by which time the site will probably have burned down

in soviet russia shoe throws you etc etc

I wish there were filters for easier wantlist shopping so I can combine on shipping--like, show only buyers selling both album X and album Y from my list.

Can be done.

Put album X (the more popular one) onto your wants list, then click on album Y's for sale list.

You should get "seller has 1 additional album you want" sort of message on the list of sellers

but that isn’t easy at all— what it should be is something akin to Abe or Alibris where if one buys from the same seller in the same browsing session, the seller page automatically corrects shipping options by bundling.

xp doesn't work if you have 29,000 records in your want list. don't ask me how I know.

Ah well, there's just the "sort by seller" option in "Items I want" (note: not the "wantlist", the one under "buying")

I know this pain well. "Hmmm, wonder if I can find a seller who has The Best of Sam Cooke and the Cross My Broken Heart 12" by the Jets?"

one thing you can do is go to “items I want” in the marketplace and then filter by seller. the seller list on the sidebar is automatically sorted by the number of items they have for sale in your wantlist (descending).

I like to use the seller list when I'm hoping to find a seller with multiple items by an artist or label. recently got a bundle of Thomas Brinkmann 12"s from a guy in Poland. reasonable shipping and the records were in great condition (sleeves not so much).

I really wish Reckless would resume online orders again so I wouldn't have to use Discogs as much - I bought directly from them during the pandemic, but they suspended online ordering like two years ago and still don't have it back up and running. Amoeba could be great, but they put a small fraction of their secondhand inventory online. Everyone I like locally like Academy, etc., I have to go through Discogs.

I always click the wrong wantlist first and I'm always like "whoa, why do I have 12,00 records in my wantlist"

Does anyone actually use the Items I Want feature as opposed to just the regular Wantlist? Maybe I'm dumb but I don't understand the point of the former

one thing you can do is go to “items I want” in the marketplace and then filter by seller. the seller list on the sidebar is automatically sorted by the number of items they have for sale in your wantlist (descending).

save on shipping

The Items I Want list is good if you like checking on a regular basis to see newly listed items.

Plus, you get an email when one of the things you want comes in. Then you click on the link and find someone else has nabbed it BUT STILL....

^ the people who re-up their entire inventory once a day ruined this, and i opted out of the emails a long time ago

exactly

that's why I use "Items I Want"

so wait, you can avoid the daily spamming of the same items on your wantlist (which makes me want to commit atrocities) by using the Items I Want feature as opposed to opening those dumb emails every day? Because that may be the thing that wins me over to that feature

yes, it's so much better. I mean, you might miss out on an instant buy, but opening that list once a day is plenty for me and works out great compared to the constant daily spam from the re-listers, who should be banned

"Items I Want" still doesn't fix that problem, like right now the first 3 pages are full of the same albums by FlashbackLondon, KUPIKU, and Lot.Of.Music in pretty much the same order they always appear. I'm amazed they haven't found a way to fix this yet, like everyone I know who uses the site complains about this

do you sort by "Listed Newest"? that way I see what is actually new

I use wantlister.com which filters the results by country and condition and also handles the relisting every day crap

I have it set to only email me items in the UK and VG+ or above

^ that sounds brilliant!

yeah, I definitely need that app

"Listed Newest" doesn't help when giant sellers are reuploading their entire stock every single day. it's always "new"

ah gotcha

Found a mint/sealed copy of an LP I wanted, at an OK price (two others that were cheaper turned out to be unavailable). It arrived pretty quickly, but the seller in their haste to package it but a staple through the top right corner of the outer and inner sleeves. I gave neutral feedback accordingly; the seller appealed for me to change it (which isn’t possible) and offered a discount, but qualified it with spiel about their margins. Dude, it was your mistake and that’s the cost of doing business. Nevertheless I felt pressured into removing my feedback. I’ll get a few euros back, probably, but that’s not really the point, is it?

I dunno, sounds like a conscientious seller who made an honest mistake then tried to make it right.
For people who work in the ratings economy (uber drivers, airbnb landlords, discogs sellers) those ratings are their brand, and you should probably only leave non-positive feedback if you're trying to warn others off of dealing with them (which doesn't sound like the case here?).

Unless there is wanton fuckery afoot, the expectation is that you talk to the seller to resolve problems before leaving feedback. Sometimes shit happens and I like to give people the benefit of the doubt. If they don't resolve it properly, then you leave negative feedback.

yup

Fair enough; this is the first time I’ve had a problem with anything I’ve bought there since I started in 2020 or so. I’ve removed my feedback and in hindsight I should have hashed it out with the seller first, that was hasty of me.

I never hesitate to five-star etc any Uber or Amazon delivery. Yet. I feel like a Discogs seller is a different category: you’re a shop proprietor, only online, and I expect service like I'd get in any shop. Also, I’ve purchased from sellers with >100% positive feedback, because I looked to see what the issues were.

the way i look at it, there are inevitably going to be problems that arise with mail order, whether that's something overlooked while grading or a mishap in transit. the seller's reaction to these problems is how i decide if it's a "positive" experience, because expecting there to be no issues at all is unrealistic

I think it's also a bit unrealistic to expect shop-level service from Discogs sellers, some may be business sellers but a lot are just people selling off bits of their collections

please look at feedback before buying. your chance of happiness goes WAY up when someone has good feedback. and also see how much they have sold. if they have 10,000 positive feedbacks? you are good to go. when i bought records on ebay i would only buy from people who ONLY sold records/discs.

yeah it's especially important now that the site is flooded with scammers. sucks because in the past people with discounted prices and low amounts of feedback were actually legit, just people trying to sell off things for quick cash