Estocks - Any Fans of This Seller?

Update: they just refunded my $10 and told me to keep the discs. Nice of them! I'll be ordering from them again in the future.

 

If you don't mind the possibility of scuffs and scratches then you should be happy with them and I recommend them.

 

In all honesty, I've had much better luck in this department with estocks than with private sellers, most of whom have a very loose definition of "good condition" when it comes to CDs.

 

They often do that.

 

Same here. Maybe I've just been lucky but musicMagpie have been much more consistent in this respect than various Discogs sellers I've bought from (or MM's German equivalent, Momox - had a couple of discs from them that were absolutely filthy, though played fine once I cleaned them up).

To be fair, MM only promise items will be in VG condition and that discs will play perfectly (though they're often in much better nick). If you're a collector who demands items in mint condition, they're not the seller for you. If (as I do) you want playing copies or to cheaply plug holes in your collection, you should definitely check them out.

 

Same here. I don't buy a lot of used cd's, but estocks quality is definitely above the competition in my experience. Also, I believe I did have one problem and the result was a quick and friendly response and a free disc.

 

I love estocks and have bought hundreds of CDs from them. Every time the correct CD was sent. All have been retail CDs (no record club editions) and in great shape. Only one was a cutout. They also sell on Amazon as "Round3 from Decluttr". In my experience, 95% of the time, a CD will be cheaper on their eBay account than their Amazon account (plus their eBay account has the "Buy 1, Get 1 At % Off" deal which was recently increased to 15%). And, as others have mentioned, you can get some great bargains. For example, I recently bought a rare 1990s R&B compilation that typically goes for $100+ for $9.99 from estocks and it surprisingly came sealed!

 

Yes, this can be confusing if the CD has a generic title. Every eBay listing with the default picture (a woman with headphones laying in the grass) will have a UPC number listed in the description under "Item Specifics". Google the UPC number and it should hopefully return a match from one of the UPC databases. If it doesn't, it's best just to skip it and not take any chance of getting a CD that you don't want.

 

What is the rare R&B compilation that you snagged? I hope I already have one!

 

me too
occasionally there's a problem, I mention it and I get some sort of refund.
it changes all the time and I don't see the logic.
sometimes it's no hassle refund, other times it's "send it back"

but most of the times it's 1 penny CDs in good or better conditions.
Classical CDs especially.

Ebay's private sellers? A recipe for disaster, and no refund guaranteed.

One note. I buy from Amazon, same seller (changed name through times), cause overall it's even cheaper.

 

Yes, they list CDs by barcode.
A quick Discogs search would give you that, at this point a picture is not needed.

Generally I do the opposite: first identify the code, then search it in Ebay/Amazon and choose the seller.

 

I just discovered a much better method. Copy the UPC number listed in the eBay description under "Item Specifics" and go to Amazon and paste it in the search bar. It should return Amazon's product page for the CD. As The_Windmill mentioned, there's also a UPC search at Discogs but I find it's missing too many obscure CDs to be useful to me.

 

I've ordered quite a bit of stuff from them, and I've only had problems with a few orders - usually it's when I order a 2-disc set and only receive one disc. Apparently they don't bother to find both discs, they just find one with a matching bar code and send it.

Other than that, I've had great luck with them - prices are more than fair, and discs are usually in good to VG condition.

On a related note, I MISS GOHASTINGS.COM!!! I probably built half my collection from those guys - hundreds of discs, with many of them at $1.29, $1.79, etc (and often times with a B1G1 or free shipping deal). It's no wonder that they went out of business. One time I checked my wish list, and all of a sudden all the box sets I had on there were priced ridiculously low. I got the ABBA box for under $5, The Jimmy Buffett box, the Bee Gees box, and a bunch more - all for under $10. I have not found anything since they went belly up that even comes close to the deals I got on there.

 

What? Ebay will refund your money if the seller jerks you around. I've probably bought thousands of oop cd's from Ebay private sellers and problems are rare. Amazon is worse than Ebay.

 

Yes, your method is much better if you know or can find the UPC number. But what if it's an obscure CD that you don't know the UPC number of and it has a generic title? For example, say your looking for an obscure compilation CD called "Easy Listening" with a rare single edit. estocks has the following listings:

Various Artists : Easy Listening CD, UPC: 0090204107186
Unknown Artist : Easy Listening CD, UPC: 0772373000726

Using the eBay listing by itself, it's impossible to tell if either listing is what you are looking for. But if you search for the UPC numbers on Amazon, you'll get the product pages for both CDs and can determine if it is what you are looking for.

 

I have ordered many, many discs from eStocks and have had no problem with quality or customer service, BUT, like the poster in 62 above, I've had several problems when I order more than one disc in an order; only one shows up, but tracking shows both were delivered in the same package.

EStocks has this promotion: buy one disc and get second at 15 percent off. I know why they do this; it saves them a lot in postage and Paypal fees. But, after several problems, I only order one disc at a time. Saving 15 percent off a $5 disc is not worth the hassle of having to request a refund for the missing second disc. And eBay is part of that problem because when it shows the item was delivered, it wants you to return the missing item.

 

This is a good point. I recently did this and they shipped the two CDs separately, and one arrived rather late. However, eBay said that both items had been delivered on the same day! (And on top of that, they somehow managed to send me another copy of one of the CDs even though I only paid for one... )

 

I already have that one, thanks anyway

 

Also, you have to be careful when doing the Buy 1, get 1 at 15% off promotion - recently I had 2 items in my 'cart,.' While I was still shopping, these jokers raised the price of one of them by nearly $3.00!! (Must be that spyware/software that someone else mentioned.)

So I removed that one (I'll wait for it to come down), and got another CD (close to the same price) that I wanted, to be able to take advantage of the deal.

 

I don't know about spyware, but some of the big sellers do use software that pulls data from somewhere and changes prices automatically without human intervention. I see MovieMars stuff with the prices bouncing around on Ebay.

 

I have yet to buy anything from Movie Mars, but I'll keep and eye out - thanks for the tip. I think they're running a promotion too, but you have to buy a lot more (I think it's Buy $50 or more to get 15% off?? IIRC) to get the deal.

 

Same thing happened to me last week. I ordered a couple of Blue Note titles and only received one of them, though both showed as shipped in the same package. Getting a refund was not a problem, but I really wanted the missing title and it hasn't shown up again in their store. Plus, it was underpriced compared to other sellers. I wondered if estocks noticed the pricing and pulled it after my order was placed, but it seems that others here have been able to snag titles from them at low prices so, probably not.
From now on, I'll order one at a time.

 

Here's the kind of response you get if you ask good ole estocks a question.

Hello,
Thank you for your email.
Unfortunately, we cannot answer specific product related questions.
Please feel free to contact us if you have any further enquiries.
Regards,

 

Awesome! No offense, but if they had to deal with customer questions then no great deals. You are not part of their business model. Vote: estocks!

 

True - plus, you can get almost any information you need by simply plugging the barcode (which they always provide) into Discogs.