discogs marketplace?

ugh some clown is going around arbitrarily changing the country of release on albums. Someone more bothered than I will report him and get his editing privileges taken away, but man are you THAT bored on Thursday night?

never underestimate pedantry

the perversity of this whole process pretty much confirms that I need to do it. CDs are still going out atm

Count me as a pedant. I meant this user is changing countries on pressings that have already have thoroughly documented information, for shits and giggles I guess.

sorry I misunderstood - thought they were correcting things correctly not just trolling

is the site broken? none of the releases load

(ok it's working again)

That happens every couple of days. Usually when I’m in a hurry to look something up.

Just got this feedback (with a 5-star rating):

Flippers suck, $100 profit on a record that came out a month ago is quite unethical. Still would be retail price in stores. I needed it for the collection though. That said, shipment was fast and packaged well.

I did feel a little gross about the transaction. It was a record that came and went really fast — by the time I received my order from the label, it was already sold out and prices were through the roof. I’d bought one for myself and two for the store. The one sale paid for all 3 records almost dead even. I share some of his sentiment about flippers, but … it’s also part of the vinyl game right now? (And always has been to some degree, although the current market has added additional speculative elements, tbf.)

What do y’all think?

It's not your fault flippers drove up the price. I mean, if it wasn't so valuable, you'd keep it right? But surprise, it is valuable, you're on a budget, you want to buy more records, so you sold it. The guy doesn't know that - why would he? - so it sucks he left that review. I wouldn't feel bad, he's taking it out on the wrong person.

I bought 3: one for myself and 2 to sell. I was gonna sell them at “retail” (which would have been about $60 anyhow cuz I paid $40 each) but Lo and behold the price was already up at $100 with a couple sold before I got there.

I do kind of agree, flippers suck. A few RSDs ago I sent a Robyn record to a guy on Reddit who was desperate for one (you could tell he was genuinely a fan and not a grubber) without any markup just cause I thought it was gross, all these people running down and buying RSD records to flip them, knowing demand was gonna be much larger than supply.

I think there’s a difference between deliberately competing with fans on limited records and just lucking into some profit. But the guy who left me the review doesn’t know what my intentions were.

...is it Raum?

If you secure 3 copies for the purpose of flipping, that's the problem, not simply selling it for what it goes for. As far as that buyer could tell, that's what you did.

Complaining about the price of a record you still bought is dumb as hell. If he “needed it for the collection” and that’s what he paid, then I guess that’s what the record is worth? Dorks like that are the reason flippers exist, he’s much more to blame for the price than you IMO.

Oh yeah, to be clear I agree with that.

As long as he gave you five stars, let him complain to his heart’s content

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'