Help with Discogs selling

Cool coincidence then.

I have a buyer from Sweden, if on here…hello.

Didn’t know I could accept purchases from abroad as I didn’t think I was set up for that. Also I need additional postage and custom forms. Used to do all that but I can’t see a clear way of resending invoice.

Help welcome

You’d need a shipping policy for that country/region these days or they won’t have been able to place an order.
Discogs will collect the appropriate tax (thanks Brexit!) and you just fill out a CN22 sticker and put that on the back.

I don’t have any of that in my settings. UK and Austraila only. I am puzzled how they bought it.

DM me or send a link as I’m doing a fair bit of it whilst being jobless!

DM sent. Thanks

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Thanks neatbeats AKA Zak.

If it’s any help to sellers this is a minefield to navigate and could probably warrant a follow up tommorow and after succesful (hopefully) delivery.

I’m planning on selling about 400-500 records, fully going to be a part time thing, if anyone could give some tips on what I need to know as a seller it would really be appreciated, things I am thinking about:

Do I need to get my whole collection up before I start to sell
Which countries do I limit my sales to
Probably only going to post once a week - how so I manage that expectation
Do I need to buy some sort of cleaner - if so any tips
What else should I be thinking about?

Thanks in advance!

I started a very mini cull just over 2 years ago. My records are pretty much immaculate so that helps.

Grade accurately. I usually add a line or two in the notes, i.e. if it’s graded as VG+, something like ‘Both sleeve and vinyl are excellent’ or ‘vinyl is close to NM, just one superficial scuff on the b-side’. That sort of thing.

State in your notes the day of the week that you will post. As long as you’re up front, I can’t see a problem there.

I bought the disco-anti-stat cleaner system from Juno. I think it’s around £70-ish. It’s a great cheap option, although you have to be very careful when using the drying rack - not to mark your vinyl. It definitely improves the quality/presentation of what you’re selling, and helps with the accuracy of grading, but it’s a faff and adds considerable time to the whole process.

Royal Mail do Tracked 48 for about £3.50 for 2 kg. I set my postage as £4.50 and allow customers to buy 6 or 7 records for that flat fee (I forget which) - that encourages them to make multiple purchases - and that definitely works - especially for selling cheapies. I have a minimum spend set so that I’m not going all the way to the PO or the depot just to sell a £1 record. I’ve kept all my record mailers for the past 15 years so I haven’t had to buy any packaging besides tape. Obviously, if you have to buy mailers, you’ll have to factor the cost into your postage price. I remove everything from inners and sleeves and place in a plastic cover, use cardboard strengtheners and proper mailers. Customers appreciate good packaging.

I’ve added to my list of countries gradually - France, Belgium, Germany, the US etc. I found it tricky to get the pricing right and was sometimes a few quid down on how much I’d charged. I’ve erred on the side of caution now and put my shipping prices up for all overseas orders. I use Royal Mail International Tracked. It’s expensive though. I wouldn’t send anything overseas without tracked shipping.

Any errors - I’ve taken on the chin - and put them down as learning experiences. Offer full refund or exchange with a bonus - chuck in a freebie or whatever.

Only about 40% of customers leave you feedback. I’ve never asked for feedback, but I’ve considered doing it.

I offer free postage on orders over £60. And decide on high-priced items if you’ll accept offers. Everyone likes a bit of discount. If people are buying multiple items and ask for discount - then you could offer free shipping or 10-15% discount.

Deciding on price is fun. Look at sales history and see what people are actually paying for the record. Are you setting a ‘pie-in-the-sky’ figure or do you actually want to sell it? I also just filter for UK copies to see what my competitors are selling it for. People will pay a small premium for better condition.

I know loads of what I’ve said is obvious, but hopefully there’s good advice in there somewhere.

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See the comments further up the thread about paying for postage on the Royal Mail app. Don’t purchase over the counter at the Post Office. The price difference is considerable.

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As Boogie down above. Use Royal Mail tracked (24hr delivery is my only option and choice with me) scan the barcode at the post office and they will print the label, or print your own if you have a printer.

The rest is a learning curve, Discogs isn’t that easy to drive despite being a online seller for about 20 years, mistakes still happen.

Oh, once the hot ticket records get snapped up its a very slow process to clear stuff. Hence why you wouldn’t get a huge offer for your batch of records from a big dealer as the turnover can take several years.

I would input that batch of records into discogs as a collection first. The inventory management of discogs is the huge thing that helps you to manage a collection and assists you to actually keep the records you rate and bin the ones you don’t care for now.

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This is all super helpful - sincere thanks for taking the time to post all of this :slightly_smiling_face:

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some quick advice -

i’d only list about 100 at a time lest you end up doing toooo much work on the front end. make it manageable. if you list 500 all at once, you’ll be packing records as a full time job for a couple of weeks. spread it out a bit.

trust others when they say they don’t ship to certain countries - i have a couple that i just don’t trust the local delivery services, and they’re off the list. sorry italy. sorry isreal. you’ve been more trouble than you were worth.

lastly - make it as fun as you can. i believe in getting wild and goofy (but still honest) in your descriptions, they help you stand out from everyone else. i inherited about a thousand shitty trance records from a pal of mine and had a field day listing them with a sort of comical disdain. most of the buyers understood and were attracted to the humor, sort of like a roast. being clinical and concise is probably the conservative approach, but when a buyer is choosing between a couple of dozen potential sellers, the ones that have fun and flowery descriptions get the attention.

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Thanks to Zak neatbeats for getting me started on what took hours.

It turns out you can just change your location as a buyer and then try and twist the sellers (me) arm into posting and doing a stack of extra work…anyway It reached it’s destination according to tracking.

I used Royal Mail. I filled in all the customs information to insure the correct taxation info was ‘burnt’ into the postage label.

The post office also printed the customs label from the info I had filled in online.

Secured the Discogs Invoice on the front in a clear document wallet.

Final step is a black IOSS sticker at your local post office…

This is me just thining out records, don’t underestimate the level of work needed to ship abroad.

Acronym IOSS is ‘Import One Stop Shop’ you could go down a rabbit hole researching all this

https://www.royalmail.com/business/international/guide/delivered-duties-paid-ioss/ioss

Is there a Discogs tips page for using the on Test Pressing?

I’m probably thick but there seems some hidden features. I only sit on 5k ish of records, there is a ton of potential tips and work arounds. If you were sitting on 50k or more as a shop stock then every extra feature could be a massive time saver.

I only browse on Macbook, not on the app.

I bought some records off Andy Mac the other day, apparently he has them all in a warehouse in Kent, they do all the packaging & posting & he just pays them a %

It does give reasons why a dealer won’t pay much for collections. I can only think that discogs DIY sellers will increase. Discogs still is growing slowly from a end user point of view

New Discogs feature for tweaking your needs / wants

https://www.discogs.com/about/features/wantlister

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