discogs marketplace?

I wonder when CDs will stop being produced for major artists

This buyer keeps messaging me over and over complaining about how much tax (probably import duties) he paid for a record he bought. I’m like “I literally don’t know what you want me to do here; take it up with your government.” In sending me the same message repeatedly I think he’s trying to leave feedback but can’t figure out how. Kinda glad of his incompetence, TBH.

Another left me negative feedback because his record hadn’t arrived after 30 days from Canada to UK. Tracked shipping would have been $60 and I told him before it shipped that intercontinental shipping can take up to 3 months (yes, it’s happened).

It’s been many years since I worked retail but I’m getting that old time feeling again of like “Not only is the customer not always right, they’re likely to be a dick.”

Had my first purchase go completely astray in the postal system, and while the seller is being really decent and helpful and chasing it all up, I'm still quietly bummed about the fact that a) he charged £10 P&P for a double album and a single album, but b) didn't send it tracked, only signed-for. £10 feels a lot for postage to not be sending it special delivery or whatever.

postage is expensive unfortunately. people message me for tracking numbers all the time and I'm like did you think you were getting tracked postage for that price, because lol. mind you I'm selling CDs, so I have no idea if £10 is reasonable for 3 LPs or not, does seem a little high.

but yeah, stuff is taking forever to arrive. I had 2 people not get their parcels sent on the same day 1st class 3 weeks ago, 1 of them just arrived on Saturday, the other one still hasn't turned up yet. people in the UK have been OK about it because they know about the strikes, people abroad mostly OK when I explain that but there's a not can be done about it.

Signed and not tracked? Now I've heard it all.

Not discogs but I had a record take three months to get from the US to EU recently.

This was UK address to UK address, and the average postage for 1-3 LPs is usually a fiver. But the guy had two obscure records I wanted for cheap-ish, so I leapt for it. It's been enough weeks now that the post office said they'd send it back to the depot if it was still there unclaimed. He's chasing it on his end and has already offered to reimburse, I just feel a bit like, dude, you were charging twice what you would charge for sending the double LP on its own... It is what it is, just the luck of the draw.

If you're buying on Discogs marketplace, you have to expect that shipping will be costly and take a while. I mostly opt for untracked due to the cost difference. Most things take four to six weeks from Europe, the UK or the US to reach me here in Aotearoa New Zealand. I love buying from German sellers - even the cheap shipping is tracked, and usually arrives within two weeks. I don't mind untracked because it's a nice surprise when it turns up. Mail days are exciting (or disappointing if there's nothing in the mailbox).

My biggest gripe is inadequate packaging to keep the costs down. I've had several CD cases arrived cracked because they've just been shoved between sheets of cardboard with a shitload of packing tape wound around. I mean, come on, just factor in the cost of a proper mailer please...

seems like all the functionality of this idiot website has been taken away from the orders portal. i guess they're spending all their time and resources on their monetized blog. a guy wanted to add another record to the handful he'd already bought and paid for, but he accidentally "offered" the wrong amount. all i can do was decline? awesome. so i told him to just "buy" the record and i'd change the price and shipping on my end. no, that's not possible either. just totally moronic. i had to request the money via paypal and cut discogs out of the transaction. morons.

It's frustrating to be unable to merge orders from the same buyer after they've paid for both orders. I think that used to be a thing... I don't remember for sure. Either way, Discogs should enable it going forward.

i started selling on discogs in 2014. i can no longer remember exactly what it used to be like. but i do know that i used to be able to manually change the status of my orders. the fact that i can't do that anymore really bugs me.

Why though?

Is it like the stage of 'ok, I see your order and will get on with it now' stage 2?

What I do remember back then, pre-paypal, was wondering if I set up as a seller that accepted credit card payments, would that put me ahead of sellers that don't?

Well, yeah it would have, probably. But not for long..

a Netflix show where contestants, the best of the Discogs community, have to determine if a record is M, NM, VG+, or Cake

— Tabs Out (checkmark viewable upon request) (@tabsout) December 2, 2022

lol.

sorry that i didn't reply, Mark G. just trying to keep my blood pressure down. my revive was classic rageposting

np

I ordered from a first-time seller who charged me $6 to ship two records — however, he sent them via UPS rather than Media Mail (with no notice of this ahead of time whatsoever) and is now asking for me to venmo him the $8 difference since he paid UPS $14 to ship two records domestically. How would you all handle this?

lol he's out of line. Learning experience for him.

Let him know about media mail maybe

Gently reiterate the agreed upon shipping expectation while informing him of the common practice so he doesn't make that mistake going forward? Sympathetic tone overall without further acknowledging the venmo request and maybe he'll give up and accept it as a learning experience?

Yeah, when I've shipped stuff and my post/packing prices have proved to be somewhat out of date, it's a case of ok, let's review. I did tell one purchaser "I'd have made more profit if I'd left it out for the binmen" one time, but that was more humour than bitterness.

venmo your regrets

I got completely screwed on an order to Poland last week, the postage was £30 more than I charged. I'm not sure how I managed to cock that up so badly, unless the Royal Mail changed their services or something. They ordered 26 CDs which came to about £90 so I still got £60 (minus Discogs/Paypal fees of course). Maybe I misread the price list because I thought the price only went up stupidly over 3kg but it's actually 2kg, and this order was 2.4kg :(

Anyway as I told the buyer on that one, it's the seller's problem, if they undercharge for the postage that's too bad for them.

Too late for this time, but in this situation it can often cheaper to split the order into 2 separate deliveries.

Is it effete coastal snobbery to expect records to be cleaned before they are shipped? Been getting a lot of purchases lately that are covered in dust, fingerprints, etc. Like, how did you even grade this record with all the dust on it?

unless it was a cheap "G" grade, that is strange

The lowest grade I'll go for an online purchase is Very Good.

god what a snob

I'm a buyer in Europe and I recently ordered an item from the UK. The seller says he can't ship it at the moment because the Royal Mail is advising people not to send any packages overseas at the moment due to some kind of cyber attack. Is this reasonable? I don't mind waiting a bit but I hope this situation resolves itself soon.

it's a bit of a nightmare situation with no news as to when it might be resolved.

if it isn't resolved for a long time i guess your seller will have to investigate alternative shipping methods.

Yep it’s reasonable; that cyber attack issue has been all over the UK news and it’s affected all outgoing mail. I’d assume it does’t affect courier shipping where Royal Mail/Parcelforce isn’t a factor, though.

Amazing how many people — and particularly how many Discogs sellers — don’t have a clue that cleaning vinyl is the best and cheapest sonic upgrade you can make.

Spinclean ftw

i was collecting in some form for close to 20 years before I got a SpinClean, though I definitely did some moderate fooling around with a Dishwasher brush. just didn't really know about it, or thought all record cleaning meant elaborate and expensive vacuum systems or whatever. it's easy to just not know this stuff.... I feel like every good-sized record store should become a SpinClean dealer, have them up at the register, idk.

Yeah, I've got a knock-off Spinclean (Studebaker). Thinking about upgrading to an ultrasonic cleaner at some point for extra sparkly records. It's just a pain in the ass to have to bust it out and wash and dry a bunch of records before I can even see if they even play well before I give a seller feedback on the purchase.

xp: these were definitely from high-volume sellers, not dudes selling off their living room collection or whatever.

I've got an ultrasonic, you can get them relatively cheaply (like $150 or so) and it does work wonders....sometimes. I guess it all depends on what kind of junk is on the LP. It's always more of a hassle than I remember though

anyone ever have luck using the toothpick method with scratches? I have new one record with a scratch that's maybe an inch long. you can see a bump on the edge so something happened on manufacturing. it clicks for about 4 minutes. too late to return it now (though I always feel guilty about doing this), wondering if there's anything that can be done.

are ultrasonic cleaners quieter than the vacuum ones?

I’ve bought records that looked clean but had major issues and records that were dusty and obviously never cleaned but were immaculate once cleaned. I’d much rather clean the record myself than have someone do a superficial cleaning that doesn’t actually do anything then say the record is NM. I would much rather they play grade the record than actually clean it.

all of y'all's discussion of ultrasonic experiences in Cleaning Records has definitely made me want to own one someday. would need to be living somewhere with a dedicated "workroom" though. as it is we barely have enough cabinet space for plates and cups, so it's hard to justify big, bulky, industrial-looking gadgets. sigh!

mine takes up the whole basement bar when I do it, because I also put it through a cheap spin clean that I bought years ago, then dry it before leaving it on the rack. as far as noise I would guess it's quieter than a vacuum but it's probably a bit more obnoxious. it kinda sounds like a tattoo parlor. bzzzt bzzt bzzzzzzzttt

unfortunately I find myself having to use it on new records a lot. some of them are just weirdly noisy right out of the shrink, for example my copy of Can Live in Brighton was full of crackle which I am guessing was the result of extra PVC getting in the grooves; when I cleaned it it sounded a lot better. but others you just can't do much about, I have a few new records that have this intermittent scraping sound, it's almost like velcro. I am guessing that is non-fill? that I don't think you can do anything about and it sucks b/c often this means other copies of that pressing have the same issue.

I shipped a CD to a seller in the States and later that day the announcement about the cyber attack broke. No idea if he's going to get it any time soon. Switched overseas shipping off temporarily.

I had a quick look at alternatives but they were super expensive, £20 to ship a CD etc. Unless someone knows a cheap shipper.

Frogbs I know a dealer who swears by the toothpick method. Never been confident enough to try it myself (altho I should just take an old Percy Faith record and practice on it I guess)

https://www.instagram.com/tv/CYCxwtgJ_gW/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=

When you get a new record that’s defective, some folks have been known to buy a copy from Amzn and then return the defective one for credit. Obviously this only works with in-print stuff.

Ooo, I'm going to try that on a couple skips that have been bugging me.

just bought a supposedly NM- 70s jazz record from a dude with very good feedback. i've actually bought from this seller before. price was about what i would expect to pay for a VG+ with a G+ cover. the cover turned out to be G+ (i.e. good enough) and the record looks VG, but after trying the first track sounded VG+ with some loud pops. okay, i'll give it a good clean and we'll see what happens.

turns out there's a hard skip on both sides, only one of the two was a speck of dust that popped out with a fingernail. the other is a near-invisible scratch running in the direction of the grooves. ok, so i guess i'll message the guy

he writes back "well, i would say return it, but i'm about to leave the country for 10 weeks. and i'm very surprised - it sure LOOKED NM when i LOOKED at it!"

i'm not sure how you even respond to this or what this person is trying to say. i said i was surprised too based on NM- grading, and that i'd be happy to send it back and wait 10 weeks to get a refund (or leave negative feedback). unfortunately that gives him 70 days + the shipping and handling time that's already passed to get past the feedback deadline.

i hate playing hardball with people but i might just tell him to refund me up front once i send it or i'll leave negative feedback. i've bought like 400 things on discogs and never left anything but positive feedback.

i also ended up buying a (again reportedly) VG+ copy with a shrink-wrap cover, because i realize if there's one cover out there that i'd like to own in good shape, it would definitely be pat martino's "consciousness" (aka "thousand yard stare of death")

re: skips caused by jammed-in dirt: the head honcho at my favorite local store, Brooklyn Record Exchange, swears by manually turning the record backwards to draw the stylus across the spot, hoping to catch the wedged-in dirt at a vulnerable angle. i've witnessed him accomplish this in the store, but have yet to succeed with it myself. maybe i have the wrong kind of skips.

i used the toothpick method to fix a skipping scratch at the beginning of an (otherwise pretty good) copy of bert jansch’s avocet

it took multiple toothpickings and play tests (using a non-precious stylus) to make sure i had smoothed out all the jumping grooves, then i gave the whole thing a clean with revirginizer

It still pops when the needle passes over that area but honestly the fact that it plays through at all is so satisfying that i almost enjoy the reminder

what I'm talking about is more of a pop/click on each pass. it doesn't skip. does the toothpick trick help at all there? I've seen videos implying it does, but I'm not sure how

revirginizer has gotten some pretty high praise, unfortunately in the States it looks like it's hard to get unless you wanna buy in bulk. also I really hate the name. is the implication that you are fucking the records every time you play them?

i guess the same theory would kinda apply? that you are trying to smooth damaged plastic out of the groove.

with mine i was trying it on the basis that the record was fucked unless i did something drastic- would be a bit more reluctant to attempt it on a precious record with an annoying scratch (but that’s not to say i wouldn’t)

I think revirginizer (agree the name is woeful) is pretty incredible product - would definitely be other posts with me singing its praises - i use it on pretty much every record i buy now, including new ones

Sounds like they need to get their us distribution sorted! If you’re real keen i could explore the $US cost of buying a bottle and posting it over

sounds expensive, if I'm understanding the process correctly one of these bottles is only going to clean what, 30-40 records?

for me the question is if any of this stuff works better than the Vevor ultrasonic I have. I use Tergikleen as the agent. honestly it's pretty hard to tell what is and isn't going to show results. some records are improved dramatically, others are improved somewhat but still have notable clicks and pops during the quiet sections. I've used the wood glue method and gotten roughly the same results, but with 30x the hassle of course.