discogs marketplace?

If the scammers figure out a way to create fake feedback, Discogs is done. It's now the only line of defense against these scumbags

seller responding to an order with the message "don't have it, it was listed six years ago" and I just feel like replying 'so your incompetence isn't just a recent thing then?'

sorry that sounds a bit pompous, and to be fair, he did still have 3 of the 5 items i ordered in stock

LMAO. To be fair, I typically place orders with combined shipping - usually there's a used CD that with shipping would be the same price as a new copy elsewhere, but combined with at least one or two other items, it's real savings. I once bought a box set and another disc only to be told that the box set was no longer available but they're shipping the CD - I was able to message them before they did and basically said this is kind of a bait and switch.

I would demand a full refund if any seller sent out an order like that without asking first.

Update on my sorry tale - the seller couldn't find yet another one of the records (3 out of 5 missing!), so he just cancelled the order as it was down to a couple of one quid makeweights. Brilliant!

It's always fun when the person I buy from turns out to be a musician or critic

one time I bought from an ilxor! (nerve pylon)

Been buying stuff off here for years without issue, but now I’m seeing a lot of very suspiciously priced records - bought one without really thinking and it turned out to be a scammer. PayPal gave me a refund real quick but still, check the feedback y’all

Yeah, it's become a real problem in recent months.

This is not what I ordered, I could have gotten this pressing at like 5 stores near me :-(

Been buying stuff off here for years without issue, but now I’m seeing a lot of very suspiciously priced records - bought one without really thinking and it turned out to be a scammer. PayPal gave me a refund real quick but still, check the feedback y’all

― frogbs

Fell for my first scammer yesterday. It wasn't anything crazy or suspicious, just the new Sparks album on vinyl for a slightly better deal than I've seen anywhere else (seems like it's quite hard to get here in the U.S.). Got an email this morning saying their account had been suspended. I saw they had two good feedbacks and didn't think anything of it. Looking now at their feedback, it was two new sellers who had no feedback/history etc. Ugh, this really is going to ruin the site isn't it?

i cant believe there isnt a music journalist out there documenting the fall of discogs. its fascinating watching it happen in real time.

— ms (@MikeSimonetti) July 17, 2023

Ugh. That's frustrating. Makes me feel like a sucker for cataloging all of my stuff; it took so much time! And it's going to wind up being useless. Lesson learned: free shit on the internet will not last.

it's been dead for a long time imo

feel like the cataloguing side of the site might live on, I mean a bunch of people put a lot of work into that I don't think it's just gonna disappear. but yeah the marketplace has slowly gotten worse, the scammers are still somehow everywhere despite them all following a very recognizable pattern, they've never fixed any of the existing issues and so yeah here we are

depressing. wonder if any other sites could just pick up the cataloguing? I'd say allmusic but that's become a bloated mess itself. Would be nice if Wikipedia could do something similar.

thanks for the nudge, downloaded my collection so I don't lose all the work I put into it. not going to trust that it will be accessible in the future. unfortunately doesn't include sales history data, and only limited info on the release version

^^ same

*depressingly adds Discogs to the list of online sites I make a monthly data download from*

The internet gets better every day.

ms
@MikeSimonetti
·
4h
"Also, whether you like to admit it or not - Covid is over. People are leaving the house now and spending their money on other things- like $25 cocktails for example. There isnt as much disposable income out there for records like there were post covid"

uh, i beg to differ. but maybe this will change.

their walls are all full now

i haven't had any recent problems with selling on discogs but again time will tell. i don't sell on ebay anymore - the venture capital people running that site are arguably worse to sellers than discogs if not worse than the most hated amazon. i REALLY don't want to go back to ebay. like rilly rilly rilly. i mean i might just find another way to make a living than go back on ebay.

plus, its summer and people go away and on vacation and don't do as much online shopping in general. that happens every year. as far as "there isn't as much disposable income out there..."

i don't sell overseas. i can't charge someone $25 shipping for a record! or whatever it is now. it made my life so much easier. don't care if i am annoying northern soul fans by not shipping to brighton or wherever.

as rocky as discogs might seem, there is nothing on earth as bad as selling on amazon and they are the biggest company on earth outside of apple. so, i dunno, all online marketplaces suck? which is why so many people are doing FB marketplace, whatsapp auctions, etc.

all current online marketplaces do suck. you'd think that would make the market ripe for some disrupter, and maybe there is one brewing, but I also think that perhaps the margins for such a marketplace are likely so small that this is not really a compelling business for investors to set up and back, while ebay is still around.

I have DEFINITELY noticed a slowdown in sales, pretty much from February or so through to now. There was a period of a month or so when I sold nothing, nada, zip, zilch — I had to go check whether my store was actually visible.

Have also noticed a drop in sales at the bricks & mortar place, maybe 15-20% over last year (altho curiously March was an exceptional month this year).

i would give up on online selling entirely but it would mean too many things would sit around in my store and in order to sell them i would have to mark them way way down for in-store sale. or start doing record shows again.
for instance, i put a Gotye record up for $100 the other day and it sold in an hour on discogs. it might never sell in my store for $50. just because of where i am. unless some dealer came in who knew the going online rate for gotye records. that quick $100 helps me keep going/staying open/buying/etc.

"you'd think that would make the market ripe for some disrupter"

there was some place people were flocking to for a minute and now i can't remember what it was. a place to sell instruments but also records...

honestly, all i need is bare bones discogs! i never need their help with anything. i just need the site to exist. that's a pretty low bar.

i do sell more expensive records in the store than i ever did before. one of the benefits of all new records being wildly overpriced. people don't blink at ANY price anymore.

The other place was Reverb, but they stopped allowing record sales around the start of the pandemic.

(in fact i would say the cheaper stuff sticks around forever and people really do want more pricey "collectable" type things in general. which means there are probably lots of great cheap records out there in stores everywhere! i am always amazed at stuff that sits all day at record shows when i go to them. just huge amounts of goodness that are not cure/smiths/zep/dead/beatles/blah/blah/ugh/barf...)

ah right Reverb! well, no wonder i stopped hearing about people going there to sell.

maybe people will move to Musicstack. i think they are still there. i know Gemm is gone.

we are actually changing the name of our store so maybe its time for a total rebrand. *THE ONLY USED RECORD STORE IN MASSACHUSETTS THAT DOES NOT SELL ONLINE!*

i would LOVE it if it weren't for that pesky $100 Gotye conundrum...

there’s a store near me that also doesn’t do discogs, the owner is like “the second I have to open a discogs account to survive is the day it will stop being fun for me”. it’s small and they move a lot of discs, lots of enthusiastic young folk clientele, frequent special sales to make room for incoming collections they bought, good vibes <3

nice!

i mean its nice if you can make it work. i sell every day on discogs. not having that money would be very noticeable. years ago i didn't sell as frequently. i also put stuff up for sale every day now which i didn't do in the old days. i have made a conscious decision to make my life less fun and try to make more money.

(i used to have amazing records sit for months on my walls back then...i felt like an idiot but i wanted people to walk in the door and be blown away by all the cool records and now...yeah, i just want to sell them. by any means necessary.)

(in fact i would say the cheaper stuff sticks around forever and people really do want more pricey "collectable" type things in general. which means there are probably lots of great cheap records out there in stores everywhere! i am always amazed at stuff that sits all day at record shows when i go to them. just huge amounts of goodness that are not cure/smiths/zep/dead/beatles/blah/blah/ugh/barf...)

In UK we’re also fucked by Brexit. I was never a volume seller but would get £50-100 a month from EU buyers. Enough to get new stuff, but that’s fell away to almost zero.

Recent hike in Royal Mail prices and now fees on shipping have made it super expensive to ship to EU and that’s before we factor in customs charges.

xp went into a new record store yesterday that had probably ~20% of its stock priced for $5 or less. some good stuff, too. I was floored. most of the stores around me have nothing <$10.

i have raised prices since the pandemic. not a ton. but i definitely have streamlined my prices. people - other than a few crusty old men - do not want dollar records. where i am anyway. or 2 or 3 dollar records. so, i mostly start at $5 now. 5/10/15/20. those are my common prices. post-pandemic $8 records became $10 records. i'm cool with it. i was probably way past due for an increase anyway.

and since the pandemic i also started selling new stuff. because i got covid money. and i still do when i feel like it. they sell well. i just hate paying for them. it goes against my flinty new england cheapskate record dealer ethos. used to feel like i was ripping people off selling those expensive things! now i don't. give me all your money. i need it.

people are STILL just getting into the vinyulz. it seems crazy but its true. i always forget that sometimes it takes people years to get in on a trend or fad. you would think it would be played out as a normal people fad. but it isn't. two people just left here who got their first crappy plastic turntable a few days ago. and they all want what every other new vinylz person wants. which is why they can get discouraged easily when they don't find every grateful dead album in my store for a dollar apiece. they just don't know what has been happening. which is why it was nice when one of the people asked if we had any roy buchanan records because his records are as common as dirt around these parts.

Wait what exactly is happening that is being referred to as "the fall of discogs" as if the reasons are common knowledge? The scams? Let me know what I'm missing because I'm not hip to this.

that guy's twitter thread has lots of his reasons. biden needs to pass the info superhighway infrastructure bill. too many tired old sites covered in rust.

Also I feel like new vinyl buyers are the ones willing to dish out $40+ for led zep reissues and Childish Gambino albums etc. (vs. expecting to find cheap OG copies of things)