Selling on Discogs and Amazon vs eBay

**Don Arnold** · 09-11-2014

Originally Posted by Levgan

It has to be eBay, because in a year of selling records on Discogs I didn't have anything like this with PayPal (starting with the very first sale the money was always on my account immediately).

Do you know if eBay imposes this fund-holding rule on all new sellers and whether it is possible to avoid it? I was considering trying to sell a bunch of records on eBay (only used this platform as a buyer before), but I'm not sure now that I really want to get into this.

.

Sorry, Levgan, I don't know the answer. I would guess it is possible that, because you have an existing Paypal account with a history, you may not have to endure the funds-hold. Seems to me I called one or both entities after 6 months or so of selling and didn't get anywhere, other than I had to wait until I met the criteria, which I believe is based on transactions in a given period of time.

**Modry Effekt** · 09-16-2014

For buyers.Some sellers (Italian) give free shipping for over 100 euros purchage.Radiation666 (recommended) is one.

**Calabasas_Trafalgar** · 10-08-2014

Got a really hilarious question today on Discogs from a buyer in Canada. Wanted to know what combined shipping would be from one of my items and another item FROM A DIFFERENT SELLER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I guess he thought he was on Amazon?

**Don Arnold** · 10-08-2014

Originally Posted by Calabasas_Trafalgar

Got a really hilarious question today on Discogs from a buyer in Canada. Wanted to know what combined shipping would be from one of my items and another item FROM A DIFFERENT SELLER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I guess he thought he was on Amazon?

Must be those Canadians! Odd bunch of folk.

**Calabasas_Trafalgar** · 10-14-2014

Anyone have any experience shipping to Turkey? Just got an order from Istanbul, wondering how safe it is?

**Levgan** · 10-15-2014

I sold a couple of records to Turkey. Oddly enough, both times it was Turkish records. Everything went fine.

**Brad to the Bone** · 10-15-2014

Originally Posted by Calabasas_Trafalgar

Got a really hilarious question today on Discogs from a buyer in Canada. Wanted to know what combined shipping would be from one of my items and another item FROM A DIFFERENT SELLER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And you weren't willing to buy the item from the other seller and then re-sell it to him at cost? Gee, you really don't care about cutomer service!

**interbellum** · 10-15-2014

Originally Posted by LASERCD

(...) The other problem with Discogs is that you can't have a meaningful exchange with the people that run the site. You just deal with a series of automated emails.(...)

Well, I just had my first negative experience with Discogs and was helped by a staff-member. So no automated email in my case, but someone who answered personally and also removed a negative feedback from the seller, who b.t.w. gave me a bad feedback for being a non-paying buyer. Normally I always pay for what I order, but this seller changed the shipping-costs mentioned in his shipping-information from 7 Euro into 15.90 Euro. And he didn't want to communicate about this. When I wanted to cancel my order, he refused to answer my mails too. So Discogs could help me with this very well. The seller's account was suspended.

**moecurlythanu** · 10-15-2014

I get that bait & switch on ebay too. I just ordered a Robert Erwing LP, and the post is £4+ higher than advertised.

**Calabasas_Trafalgar** · 10-15-2014

Originally Posted by interbellum

Well, I just had my first negative experience with Discogs and was helped by a staff-member. So no automated email in my case, but someone who answered personally and also removed a negative feedback from the seller, who b.t.w. gave me a bad feedback for being a non-paying buyer. Normally I always pay for what I order, but this seller changed the shipping-costs mentioned in his shipping-information from 7 Euro into 15.90 Euro. And he didn't want to communicate about this. When I wanted to cancel my order, he refused to answer my mails too. So Discogs could help me with this very well. The seller's account was suspended.

How did you manage to get through?

**interbellum** · 10-16-2014

Originally Posted by Calabasas_Trafalgar

How did you manage to get through?

On the right side of the order-page you'll find the following text:

"Need Help?
Our Help section has answers waiting for most of your questions, and our Forum is full of experienced community members!

Still can't find what you're looking for? Contact a staff member."

The last part is a link which activates the same kind of message you usually send to the seller/buyer, but this time it will go to a staff member. The first reaction is indeed an automated email, but within a day they'll come back to you personally (well, with an email of course). The advantage is that they can see the communication you had with the seller/buyer you're complaining about. The first thing the staff member does is contact the one you're complaining about. He/she has to make contact within four days with the staff member or with you. In the latter case you can make a deal. If there's no contact being made, he/she will be suspended (for the time being).

Of course I'm not sure this happens always. This was my first experience of this kind.

**interbellum** · 10-17-2014

As an addition to the above: On the feedback-page is also a link "Request Feedback Review", which will also be answered by a staff member.

**Calabasas_Trafalgar** · 12-02-2014

After 3 months of steady sales,my business on Discogs has dropped to a trickle. Any suggestions? I have plenty of inventory.

**rottersclub** · 12-02-2014

^^^Have a Psycho Tuesday sale.

**Pr33t** · 12-04-2014

Originally Posted by Calabasas_Trafalgar

After 3 months of steady sales,my business on Discogs has dropped to a trickle. Any suggestions? I have plenty of inventory.

Nope, that's how it goes. Because of the fixed listings, you don't have the immediacy that makes people bid on ebay; you need to wait until the buyer finds you. Just have to ride the ebbs and flows.

**dropforge** · 12-05-2014

Originally Posted by Calabasas_Trafalgar

After 3 months of steady sales,my business on Discogs has dropped to a trickle. Any suggestions? I have plenty of inventory.

The holidays are affecting sales more this year, it seems. Within the last year, I've noticed fewer buyers of physical CDs on titles that are readily available stateside. If you deal in rarities or imports (especially Japanese issues), you're good to go.

**moecurlythanu** · 12-30-2014

When you receive an email from Discogs asking "Will you rate your recent order?," is that an automatically generated email sent by Discogs when feedback is not left, or is it a manually sent email generated by the seller?

**Pr33t** · 12-30-2014

Originally Posted by dropforge

The holidays are affecting sales more this year, it seems. Within the last year, I've noticed fewer buyers of physical CDs on titles that are readily available stateside. If you deal in rarities or imports (especially Japanese issues), you're good to go.

That seemed to be true for early December, but I've had a deluge of orders in the last week. Maybe people got cash as gifts and are spending it

Originally Posted by moecurlythanu

When you receive an email from Discogs asking "Will you rate your recent order?," is that an automatically generated email sent by Discogs when feedback is not left, or is it a manually sent email generated by the seller?

Automatic. I wish there was an easy way to solicit feedback manually, rather than just sending a message through the order page. I've made 475+ individual sales orders in my time on discogs, but only have 268 feedbacks. I have a little 4x5 slip of paper I put in every order requesting feedback (and a reminder to contact me if there were any issues with the order to sort them out). It helped, but there are still people who just don't bother.

Personally, I often don't leave feedback when I'm somewhat dissatisfied, but whatever happened isn't worth leaving negative feedback over. I've also had people attempt to leave retaliatory feedback and/or try and blackmail me with the threat f a negative, so I often err on just not leaving anything. Over the last few months, I've seen an increase of new buyers who don't bother to read shipping information and place an order, only to say the shipping is too high, or just never respond. Really annoying and a waste of my time. I'd like to at least leave neutral feedback in this situation, but I don't want to risk any poor feedback myself.

I also wish discogs did a better job of sorting out the wheat from the chaff, so to speak. I feel that buyers with more than say 5 negatives should have a block placed on their account and be barred from placing further orders. They're just wasting seller's time and effort when they never follow through, and aren't at all worried about the negative feedback they'll receive.

**moecurlythanu** · 12-30-2014

Originally Posted by Pr33t

Maybe people got cash as gifts and are spending it

Too bad Discogs didn't sell gift cards.

Originally Posted by Pr33t

Automatic.

Thanks for the info.

**Don Arnold** · 12-30-2014

Originally Posted by Pr33t

That seemed to be true for early December, but I've had a deluge of orders in the last week. Maybe people got cash as gifts and are spending it

Good to hear there are still buyers of physical product (and congrats on your sales Pr33t). I decided to plunge into the world of Discogs a couple months back and am still awaiting my first sale. Mind you, I only have a small handful of cds for sell, but I've generally priced them at or near the lowest of the same discs on offer from other sellers. Perhaps my zero rating (due to no sales = no feedback) is an albatross until I get a couple sales with feedback to my name.

**Pr33t** · 12-30-2014

Originally Posted by Don Arnold

Good to hear there are still buyers of physical product (and congrats on your sales Pr33t). I decided to plunge into the world of Discogs a couple months back and am still awaiting my first sale. Mind you, I only have a small handful of cds for sell, but I've generally priced them at or near the lowest of the same discs on offer from other sellers. Perhaps my zero rating (due to no sales = no feedback) is an albatross until I get a couple sales with feedback to my name.

Thanks! Feedback will definitely help you, as well as a larger number of listings. It also helps to have a good mix of common things and more obscure prog, as you're basically waiting until someone logs on and searches for what they want. Higher shipping prices out of Canada may affect your sales as well, as people will shop for things domestically first. Discgos really is a waiting game, but if your items are priced right and in demand, you'll sell some stuff eventually

**dropforge** · 12-30-2014

Originally Posted by Pr33t

That seemed to be true for early December, but I've had a deluge of orders in the last week. Maybe people got cash as gifts and are spending it

I've nowhere near as much inventory up as you do (not even a tenth), but I've managed to offload a couple dozen discs this month. Things are starting to move again, it seems. I basically sell to buy again.