discogs marketplace?

is this usually OK to use? looks to have a much better selection than ebay, or does anyone know of any good alternatives?

(sorry if this has been asked before, couldn't find anything when I searched?)

discogs imho is in the same league as Gemm and Musicstack--generally a slightly more esoteric selection, but the pitfalls and price-gouging remain the same. (i.e. it's a number of individual sellers and so it's dicey no matter what. I guess that's why there's a feedback system? I've never used discogs.)

i assume you're looking for vinyl? discogs is usually fine, but i wouldn't buy anything labeled below nm-, unless you've scanned the seller's profile and s/he seems like a saint

yeah just vinyl and CDs that you can no longer get elsewhere really, thanks for the warning!

i started using it a few months ago and have found it to be pretty great in general though i would agree about not buying below mint. out of about 30 purchases i've only had to deal with one person who ripped me off. i now look on discogs before ebay if looking for a record.

I was able to score a highly OOP release from overseas, and as long as you have PayPal, you're quick, and you're picky about feedback ratings, you should be fine. (same goes with Gemm and the like.)

via discogs that is. Granted, I've only bought one thing from Discogs marketplace, but it was a simple and quick transaction, especially for overseas.

+1 to discogs: they don't have Gemm's crappy UI (Gemm usually contains these impossibly long forms with checkboxes and radio selection buttons all obfuscated while you're trying to buy or sell through them.)

i buy and sell on discogs. have only had 1 bad experience with a guy who tried to charge me 10 dollars to ship a cd single from Canada.

i've shopped quite a bit on Discogs, 30+ purchases or so, and I have been satisfied in all but one. And in that instance I filed a claim through PayPal and got my money back. As long as you use PayPal you should be fine and protected, prices are high though and I don't buy anything under NM-, like everyone else here has said.

I've used it once so far without problem. There are some rare and/or hard to get things on there, but the prices seem a little over the odds a lot of the time.

lol last post on thread: http://www.discogs.com/sell/list?seller=musicberlin

Um, someone want to try and explain this to me? Also WRT his feedback rating/comments?

hahaha. so weird. just 5 seconds ago i sent my friend a link to a record that is also $1540.00. 2 days ago it was $15. something's wacky.

holy shit, so weird. it's actually the same seller. wtf

discogs allows you to bulk upload items to your marketplace account for sale via a .csv file. I guess with an inventory of 25000 items this is what that seller does and that their prices got out of whack somehow in the process.

what i cant stand about discogs is the inflexiblity of postage rates. if im ordering one white label 12, theres no way the postage will be £2.75 or £3. very fucking annoying.

should that weigh less than a non white label?

xp OK that probably explains that

titchy are you saying that's over the odds? It's not if you consider postage plus if you have to buy a mailer!

i suppose. but white labels are still cheaper than normal lps.

i do like discogs though, the offers system is good too. some of the prices people put on their records though is ridiculous (and i do wonder if they do end up getting the prices they ask for).

what i cant stand about discogs is the inflexiblity of postage rates. if im ordering one white label 12, theres no way the postage will be £2.75 or £3. very fucking annoying.

― titchy (titchyschneiderMk2), Thursday, 17 September 2009 20:36 (18 minutes ago)

Postage rates have nothing to do with discogs though, they're entirely up to the individual seller, so I'm not sure what you mean by them being inflexible. You should contact the seller if you think they're charging over the odds.

I happily both send and receive offers on prices via discogs, often the listed price is just a ball park, or best hope, or even a stab in the dark if you're the only person selling an item.

Again, if you think something's over priced then just speak to the seller. No big deal. If they don't like your offer they'll ignore it or let you know. Easy as pie.

well i mean the indvidual seller obv, yeah.

I need to get rid of lots of dance vinyl - some desirable, some considerably less so - and ebay seems like a busted flush for this kind of thing: a few tumbleweed auctions surrounded by acres of Buy It Now postings from professional retailers. Has anyone here used it for selling recently? Is it better than ebay now? Does stuff shift fairly quickly or sit around for months?

I use discogs for buying and selling fairly often. For dance vinyl, I'd say it's def better than ebay. It's really quick and simple to list items, and there are no fees unless your items actually sell, whereas Ebay charges a listing fee. I have some things on discogs that have been sitting for quite a while now, but it all depends on what you have vs. how many others are selling the same item.

Best to put them on Discogs a couple bucks below whatever is the cheapest copy if you want to move it immediately. if you're in no hurry, put it at a good price, offer a discount for multiple items in the Comments field and wait.

Good advice. Thanks. Tbh I'm more interested in offloading most of it than making big £££.

ive put some stuff around the lowest price theyre listed at on discogs but still waiting to shift them. starting to think im possibly the only person buying old grime or dubstep 12s.

what does it mean when there's a color bar to the side of a release in discogs.

there's yellow, grey and orange here http://www.discogs.com/artist/Rolling+Stones%2C+The

If you hover over them it tells you.

ah! thank you. i've been searching for hours

So, if one were selling off a few hundred records of the psych / noise / jazz / indie variety, discogs over eBay, for sure? My issue with discogs (and, for CDs, Amazon) is the fact that things sell in spurts, with no deadline. It tends to make packing records and regular trips to the post office a full time job. Any advice?

i dunno, i always buy on discogs, sell on amazon. i don't want to wait for people to stumble over what i'm trying to unload, and on average, i get really good money from ebay sales.

i think the upside (sale price) on ebay is (or can be) higher, but the ease of doing stuff on discogs might be better, depending on how much hassle you're willing to go through

Yeah, I find Discogs has rarer stuff in the first place, and then for a more reasonable price than Amazon. If what you're selling is aimed at the collectors market or folks that may not look at Amazon first, Discogs is the way to go.

Thanks!

it feels good to sell rare-ish things on ebay for +£££s to people who don't know about discogs ;)

Coincidentally they just linked to this via their Facebook page:

http://www.discogs.com/blog/339369-top-30-most-expensive-items-sold-by-month

Advice on this:

Person contacts me on Discogs about an item that I am not listing for sale, offers me a large (but not obscene) amount for it, then paypals me with his "brother-in-law's" account and wants me to ship it to his sister (he's in Europe). Obviously I'm not going to ship it to anyone other than his brother-in-law (since anything else violates PayPal's Seller TOS) but should I even do that? Is this some sort of crazy elaborate scam to get a CD single? His Discogs rating is fine... but the whole thing seems pretty suspicious.

Obviously I will not accept the payment if I don't ship him anything btw.

I would just make sure to do delivery confirmation/insurance so he can't say it never arrived and file a claim with Paypal. That's the only scam I could think of if he already paid. Unless he somehow got hold of someone else's Paypal account but that seems far fetched.

Does seem a little suspicious to have done enough business on discogs to have a rating and yet you don't have your own Paypal acct?

Thanks for being such a big part of the Discogs community. If you’re anything like us, you collect more than just music.

With that in mind, we’re developing databases for other things we collect. We want to invite you to be one of the first people to see the work that only a few collectors and Discog’s staff members have built.

To get early access to the beta, just click what you’re into below and start submitting!

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hmmmm

hmm discogs is really a good database and have often thought it would be nice to be able to look up different editions of books/comics/movies instead of just doing ebay-searches but not sure if this seems like a greedy move or an enthusiast move, also not sure if such databases/market places already exist

also, any thoughts on whether the new tax policy will be very harmful to the 2nd hand market place? (apparently Discogs will add 25% tax or something for all orders going from US to EU)

Whoa- what? Really?

It's VAT that's now payable on *fees* paid by sellers at their local rate if they are in the EU. Fees are 8% of sales prices.

So it only applies to sellers in the EU and it's nothing to do with where orders are going. I think it works out to no more than around 1.8% on the price of a record in practice. Presumably VAT registered businesses would be able to claim it back as well so no need to pass it on to customers.

I'll give Discogs credit for hooking me up with a good guy from Norway who had a Neil Young tribute LP I'd been trying to get for eight years (Everybody Knows This Is Norway. It's worth more than I was prepared to pay, so he ripped the CD, put it up on Soulseek, and I got it from him that way.

The other thing I've listed on my want-list is a Velvet Underground tribute that came out in the late '80s. I get an e-mail every few weeks saying one's up for sale, but it's always around 20 pounds, which after conversion and shipping is just way out of my buying range.

It seems to be a good place to buy from. I've only had one negative experience I can think of where a cd arrived shattered because it was sent with neither jewel case or adequate padding.
May have been others but that is the only one came to mind. Think I got a refund but not the cd I wanted.
Discogs is also a reasonably ok resource though it does have gaps. I use it frequently when EACing cds I've bought when they're not in the EAC database. Tends to have tracklisting down for main release version at least.
Gap can be in what releases are listed though.
Would be useful to have reviews of lps and individual release versions too. I think there are some reviews on site but sporadic. There is rateyourmusic I guess. But would be useful.

I actually appreciate discogs more because of the lack of reviews. Everyone on Rateyourmusic considers themselves geniuses but they're really just a slightly better class of youtube commenter.

I had someone buy from me in Argentina but wanted me to ship to his sister in Chile as you are 'not allowed' more than two foreign packages a year or some such.

So I did, and it all went fine.

JUst thinking that it would make it a full resource if people said what they thought of the lp since it could help one work out which lps by an artist were worth getting. also which pressings/releases of which lp.
BUt I guess that most people going to discogs are doing so to buy material they're already aware of. Particularly marketplace.
Just thought if it was done right it could help the experience. But not sure how 'doing it right' would be achieved anyway since I can see what johnny's saying about rateyourmusic being true at least to some extent. Ego/opinion outweighing info etc

Do wonder where you get information on the best sounding versions of things from since it doesn't seem to be fully utilised on RYM and Amazon just mixes all reviews for all releases under a title together.

Of course anyone can post reviews on there and the entire database is user populated. The process of submitting release data excludes editorialising though, which is as it should or it would never get done and.disagreements would be endless.

I like that the site still feels a bit down-home and ungentrified. Not unlike this place really. My impression is that the staff are still enthusiasts for the most part.

discogs are reviews are great, it's either:
a) old school clubbers reminiscing and being crazy hyperbolic about old school house/rave
b) a bunch of people posting "repress please?" or "you gougers should be ashamed or yourself" (hip euro "underground" deep house 12"s on small labels)
c) some person posting "the label on my copy is more periwinkle than violet and 'chuggin gasoline' is about 6 seconds longer than on the original uk chiswick issue"

the only question I ever ask is "does this include the insert?" when the listing is not clear

yeah honestly i’m just being a lazy turd about it, don’t want to take photos

if it's any consolation, I feel like 90% of the time you make the effort to take detailed photos and then never hear from those people again

I actually have a guy play-testing a double LP I'm hoping to buy (because I'm going to be using it as the source for a digital reissue; I don't even own a turntable myself).

Bought some box sets from a record store in Des Moines, IA and I get the impression everything was rescued from a flooded basement because everything smells like mildew. The worst one actually has mildew stains all over top edge of the lid, like it had been sitting there too long and mold spots started growing all over that edge. Someone recommended using Lysol wipes because they have an anti-fungal chemical that kills mildew. I only had generic wipes but they did have the most relevant ingredient listed on the packaging, so I tried using a bunch of them on the stuff where staining wasn't a concern. For the smaller set in a slipcase (which was already stained with moisture, leaving the interior looking mostly light brown), it worked - the mildew smell is gone, and it now smells like wood pulp. Another set seems better, still waiting to air it out more. But the set mentioned above is still problematic - smells less like mildew, but it'll probably take a lot of airing and multiple treatments to fix. At least these were all inexpensive, but pretty annoying, especially when one that was clearly stained from moisture was described as "clean packaging and media, almost like new."

that would be a hell no from me. moldy records do not cross my threshold. although i have definitely done some overly involved things in the past to "save" records. it can definitely be rewarding

put some dryer sheets in the box. they get rid of smells. or return them! certainly seems like you could.

I don't usually pay enough attention to quality, I'm pretty loose with my expectations, but I ordered a record from italy, finally got around to putting it on the other night and it has a visible smudge and a ton of noise through the first part of the record. I paid 21 euros for it. I just went back to the order and it's listed as VG+. That doesn't sound like VG+ to me? I'm going to try cleaning it and hope for the best, otherwise do I just write it off as a loss or try to get a refund?

The problem with trying to get a refund is that the guy will probably want you to send it back at your own expense, so you'd still be losing out. Maybe see if you can get a partial refund w/o returning it? Hopefully cleaning will help.

100% serious tip for future: don't buy records from italy

Sadly true 90% of the time ^ very “optimistic” grading

I’ve bought at least two from Italy (not counting the stuff I’ve bought from Improved Sequence on Bandcamp) and had no issues, other than one being graded as mint when NM would have been more accurate, given the felt-tip marker scribble on one of the labels.

That’s not uh what?

“NM would have been more appropriate, as it had been chewed on by a mountain lion.”

Problem is the only records I buy on Discogs are Italian. Or produced by Lee Hazlewood.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymhVuetYzzQ

felony-level bait

looks like I'm being dragged into the new collection view format, thanks I hate it

i was doing a training at work and had to resist the temptation to say, "this is just like editing discogs"

this is about merchbar but i figured this thread has the right audience. twice now i've gone looking for a fairly difficult to obtain record and found it for "backorder" on merchbar ("always official"). the first time i waited for months, nothing came, i complained and they refunded my money. now i've gone and done did it again, like a maroon!

(not the same record, though, i should add. i'm a maroon but not quite a poltroon)

I’ve put out a few records and have run into a version this a couple times with independent distros & merch sites: they listed a record of mine as being “backordered”, but in reality they never had it in the first place and never communicated with me. Then when they got an order they pinged me about buying one copy at wholesale price, without knowing that the record is out of print and wont be repressed.

Both times I insisted they take it down off the site and refund the customer, but that’s about all I can do. Idk if that’s common or not but I sure hate it. All that trouble just for them to avoid the upfront risk of buying a few copies of a record. Not exactly a scam I guess, just a really annoying & dumb way to run a business.

This is a record that goes for hundreds of dollars on discogs and which like.. very well could be getting a repress but merchbar is the only place that is taking money for it and I feel a little foolish now tbh

Drop shippers can eat my ass

ffs why would someone make an order when their postal service is on strike (Canada) - do they think I'm going to stick it on a pigeon or something?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0ZXUoewGWQ

Xpost yeah, I've got one despatch to do, as soon as the cost to Canada is not £18 !

Royal Mail won't even let me try to post to Canada atm. it's ok though I think they said they're happy to wait. Of course because it's a problem the CD they bought is 80p so well worth my time...

I highly recommend setting a minimum order price to save your time and sanity.

Seeing a lot of chatter this morning about the new GPSR regulations which come into force tomorrow. As a buyer in the EU who buys a lot of records and CDs from sellers in the UK, what impact will this have?

Minimum order limits seconded! Also you should consider disabling your shipping policies for Canada until the strike ends.

after the second “NM” purchase in a row with hazing i am finally done with discogs - maybe a lot of snaller/personal sellers don’t know how to identify hazing? one record played ok but the other sounds like dogshit - generally i have found people are pretty free with their NM grading and honestly very few albums I have received have been worthy of what I would consider NM - I have heard plenty of annoying buyer stories, I don’t want to be a discogs jerk / condition nazi so I don’t leave negative reviews and I don’t ask for refunds - but generally these are higher-spend records where I am hoping to end up with a forever copy

anyway vent over! bye discogs! i didn’t need all those records anyway

Yeah this is kind of me in a low stakes oh huh i kind of thought this might be nicer way.

NM means if I bought it from a shop, brand new, I would be happy. M means sealed.

Yup but
Nope

We can but hope

There are no mint records

VG means there are lots of scratches, many audible; VG+ means there are fewer of these

what is hazing?

If you don't know airbro ... Youre out

Hazing is when, as a condition for being accepted into the record collector online forum, the other dudes first humiliate you for not knowing the Goldmine grading abbreviations.

Hazing usually happens when records are stored in PVC sleeves. These are the thicker, sort of rubbery sleeves that picture discs are often sold in. The PVC will off-gas and these gasses will cause a chemical reaction in the record, causing it to appear hazy and it affects the sound as well. There is no way to fix it.

Even if the vinyl is in a rice paper sleeve and inside its cover, if there is a PVC outer cover the gasses will seep in and ruin the record. If I buy a new record with one of these I immediately replace it. Buying an old record with one of these covers is risky.

The Stereolab reissues are all in these sleeves.

while we’re talking about sleeves has there been some kind of just loss of industry nous about how to manufacture a gatefold record cover that actually lies flat when you stand it up? i have a little picture frame shelf above my turntables that i put the sleeve of whatever i’m playing on and recently released double records gave sleeves that billow out and threaten to topple off the shelf when i put them up there! older records stay flat

actually i have noticed this with single 12” sleeves as well. recent releases bow out quite sloppily

re hazing- also sometimes happens with those thicker, soft-touch plastic inner sleeves - ie the less crinkly ones - I see a lot of 70s ECM records that were perfectly looked after (or not played lol) but sadly have a ton of hazing due to the paper inners being lined with that type of plastic

I think it is more prone to happen when records are stored in heat / humidity? So it might be more prevalent in Australia? But one of the LPs i was grumbling about was a US album shipped from the UK so I dunno

I knew about inner sleeves causing that but not outers, brb fixing my Stereolab reissues

Ugh, that reminds me of when I sold a sizeable collection of pristine looking 1970s ECM LPs that were worth decent money, almost all of which had surface noise.

was talking to an old school record shop guy about this the other day and he referred to it as 'bag rash'

I think those really thin inner sleeves that are only plastic that crinkle up and get irritating will also do it.

"bag rash" is amazing

in my case the old school record shop guy always called it "the disease"