Best way to sell your music collection?

That's how I (and I suspect many others) check for defects on vinyl at yard sales. I'm not sure why this is shocking to you. I've yet to have a record melt in my hands by using the sun as a source of light. On especially bright days I'll usually apply some sunblock to the vinyl (I recommend Coppertone SPF50) for extra protection from the sun's harmful rays.

 

Here's my strategy:

• anything somewhat rare and desirable and worth probably $10+, sell on eBay
• Everything else, take to the local record store to trade. Agree with the post that said do it in lots, not all at once, like no more than one milk crate at a time, splitting any duplicate titles into separate runs, even if they're not the same pressing. If you have several options in your area, try small lots to get a sense of who pays the best, then establish a first choice/second choice.
• Anything they won't take, donate or toss.

Only exception is that if there is a neighborhood garage/tag sale or flea market with low barrier to entry (i.e., no or low seller fee, won't require you to haul your stuff a long way), it may be worth a try, but don't price everything individually. Do the "$2 each" or whatever approach and don't expect to sell more than 20% of what you have. (Obviously don't include the rare/valuable stuff here!). Keep in mind the effort in hauling the stuff and dealing with the public could be considerable, as folks above have mentioned.

No way is it worth the time and effort to try to sell the common stuff individually online, unless you seriously have an overwhelming amount of free time on your hands.

Also, you can't let it bother you if the record store is going to try to sell your stuff for 2, 3, 10 times what they paid you. That's just the way it works.

 

paying 5 or 6 and selling for about 20 sounds right

 

Here's my strategy after reading this thread:

0)Catalog as much as possible, at least titles and basic condition.
1)Sell the valuable ones on eBay or Discogs. (Or here in the very nice classified section here.)
2)Bring the rest to the local swap meet and sell for $4 a piece for vinyl and $3 a piece for CDs- but accept reasonableoffers, and offer quantity discounts. (Promote this on Craigslist.)
3)Depending on what happens next I could sell at local-ish record meets like https://www.facebook.com/VinylJunkiesRecordSwap and https://www.facebook.com/pages/Greater-Orange-County-Record-Show/725529390792958?rf=132780860123505
4)Possibly get an offer from a record store.
5)Put the rest on Craigslist with the titles and sell them until I get sick of selling them.
6)Keep, or donate to Goodwill.

 

$5 on a $20 record would be 300% (and the store would probably offer more for store credit). Of course, if you have a dollar record, then they will offer you next to nothing because it will probably sit on the shelf for ages. A $5 record - yes, they may give you only a $1 (maybe $2 in store credit) because there's a high probability that it will sit on the shelf. You gotta move product.

 

btw, if you itemized your tax bill, then you can get a tax deduction for donated items.

 

I remember decades ago taking a couple dozen rare items in very good condition to Bleeker Bob's to sell. All of the albums I had were selling there for between $20-50 each. They offered me 25 cents each. I just turned around and walked out. These days at the local record stores they typically offer 2 bucks for a record they are selling for $20. I don't bother anymore bring albums to stores. I sell on Discogs and I have gotten up to $400 for a single record there though more typically $20-50.

 

It was more like $3 or 4, way to low.

 

I have records on discogs but it's not moving, I think because I'm new and don't have any feedback, people are not buying from me. I explained in my profile that they can visit my ebay profile and see I have 100% positive feedback as a buying and seller since the year 2000 when I joined. I still think Flea Markets and record fairs are the way to go for me.
I can get more $$ for my goods.

 

I have sold at record fairs. My biggest customers right out the gate, were other dealers who glommed through my stuff as soon as my crates were on the table, bought stacks of my LPs, then took the stuff back to their own tables and promptly spent the morning re-pricing it. I was looking to unload so I wasn't upset about it.

I also had a box of junky CDs that one dealer there made me a lowball offer on, and now in hindsight I wish I had taken it. (Different medium of course, I know this thread is about records, but the point is, if it had been junk records, I would have felt the same way now.... Should have bitten and taken the lowball offer, rather than carry them home and still be looking at them today.)

If you do the record fair route, it also wouldn't hurt to count everything up the night before, do a little estimate, and show up at the fair with an idea or number in your head, for a bulk price on EVERYTHING YOU'VE GOT. (Which of course is a different number from just adding up the individual prices you intend to sell at.)

There was a guy at one of the record fairs I did, who was not a professional dealer, he had nothing on his table but a few boxes of 45s from his own collection. One of the other dealers made him an offer, on the spot, for the whole thing, and the guy basically just took the money and split, after maybe 15 or 20 minutes at the fair. Obviously the number matched whatever he had wanted to get for it, in his head. So he got to spend his beautiful Saturday afternoon doing something else, instead of hanging around with obnoxious record fair people jawing about records for six or eight hours. He may not have gotten absolute top dollar, but there's something to be said for that middle ground between being completely ripped off and having to deal with a lot of aggravation trying to sell everything at top value. (It was beautiful weather that day, and I was kind of wistfully envious of the guy with the 45s, as he cruised off and left.)

 

Sell them here.

 

I've been in the used car business so I know all about buying and selling second-hand . Obviously record stores have overhead and rent and taxes and all the other things that make being a small business owner a headache, but some record stores are way off the charts. Tried to sell a crate of CD's once that were all in excellent shape (as were the jewel boxes) and were an assortment of mostly classic rock and alternative (no Spin Doctors or any of the other things that clog the bins to this day) and the guy dismissively offered me 25 cents each. And this was when CD's could sell for 8 or 9 used in the store. I walked out.
A few years later, I tried to sell the David Bowie Ryko AU20 Golden Collection. The guy hardly looked at it and didn't seem to realize that it had collectible value and offered me $2 per disc in the set. ($ 16. total). Another time they offered me $8. for the MFSL Quadrophenia CD set.
And this has been in business for 30 years, so they must be doing something right. It's also the same place where in the late '90's I payed $100 for a Springsteen bootleg. If the guy had offered me $200 for the Bowie box, I probably would have taken it, and with their knowledge and connections, they probably would have made 5x what they paid when they sold it. But no, they are so wedded to paying the absolute minimum- pennies on the dollar-- that they would never pay $200 to a shlub off the street. Even if they stood to profit. I ended up selling the Bowie for $600 on eBay.

Only junk yards are worse to deal with.

 

But this guy didn't have any sunblock; just a jar of rancid Miracle Whip he claimed was SPF30. That's no bueno on a number of levels...

 

The cold, hard truth:
Your collection has little to no value as it stands. The onus is on YOU to make it have value by taking the time to catalog it, evaluate it, rate it, assess quality of it and then take that information and put it out there for other collectors to look at, most of whom are bargain hunters and will not pay anything remotely close to what you paid for it, nor what you THINK it's worth. It's totally up to you to market your own collection and make the sales. If you want to put minimum effort into selling it, then expect minimum return on that investment. Whether you take the time and effort to list on eBay, discogs, craigslist, or set up at a show or flea market, expect to reap much less than you think you will. Expect to adjust your prices down often. Expect to deal with rejection and idiots often. Expect to sell the very best of your stuff and be left with the crap you can't sell anywhere.

Selling on discogs? Expect to wait forever to sell anything.
Selling on eBay? Expect to see a chunk of your profit go to corporate America.
Selling on craigslist? Expect to meet a ton of nutjobs looking to pay pennies for dollar material.
Selling at shows? See craigslist, and expect other dealers to rape you of your best stuff before the show starts, and then sell it for more than they paid.
Selling at flea markets? See craigslist, and expect to see some of your stuff ripped off.

I'm a dealer and I get this question all the time and I always say the same thing- either put in the work to market your own product, or take the financial hit and sell at lower profit to a dealer/shop. The easy way out of this is to donate your collection- I wouldn't do Goodwill, they aren't nonprofit- your local library would gladly accept it and you get a tax write off in excess of what you might get from a dealer.

 

Doesn't surprise me in the slightest. Even if they know about other collectible items, there is always stuff that they know next to nothing about. I remember a shop that had rare items like gold CDs behind the counter, but stuff always seemed to slip through.

 

I'm putting in the time to create a Discogs collection of all my music, then I'll decide the best place to sell it. This is taking a long time, I should be done in a week or so.

Then I guess I should grade it all (and make sure all the cd cases and vinyl sleeves have the correct items in them.)

http://www.discogs.com/user/tomhayes/collection

Everyone should do this , so your loved ones won't have to when you pass

 

Excellent post

 

I agree

 

Sounds like a pretty good plan. A few suggestions:

2. You may not get $3 for CDs unless they are actually desirable. My experience at swap meets is that the vinyl sells but the CDs mostly just sit there unless they are priced at $1.
5. Craigslist may be just a hassle with people calling with irritating questions continuously. Maybe just consider the record store option again.
6. Donate to the library and make a tax writeoff. This is actually a very good option that many people ignore. The tax writeoff may net you substantially more than you would get from a record store, and with no hassle!

 

I just went through this trying to find a new home for 600 cds weeded out from a collection I bought. it was run of the mill, solid catalog stuff in excellent condition. everything in this cull was basically selling for below a dollar on amazon, and most were at one cent there.

I posted here and on craigslist with very few inquiries for the itemized sheet I had prepared with UPC, artist and title -- there were no follow ups from people who received the list. I had not listed a price.

I also contacted used stores in OH, IN, KY and TN -- i.e. locations I was willing to drive a few hours to if the deal seemed solid. Some did not have listed emails or web contact forms so I had to resort to Facebook messages to establish contact. One or two bothered to read the detailed info I provided, some indicated that they couldn't do anything with the titles or would only take a small subset. Many didn't bother to reply me at all. One made an offer which was shorthand for telling me to get fornicated.

Apparently there's a new generation of a-holes running these stores. As is typical for the region, business people are failing at internet.

I managed to bring the cds to a local store who were friendly and responsive by email and they offered me in credit approx .35 cents on the disc -- which is slightly less than half of the actual cash value my tax write off would have been had I donated them to goodwill. They took everything.

For the situation I was in, this was an OK solution - mainly I needed them out of the house. I've already made my initial outlay back from some heavy collectibles that were in the collection and I probably have a good 300+ held aside for further review / my collection etc.

My suggestion would be to group these in small lots that you can list on ebay, that you can pack safely and that you can ship from home using postage you print at home. You'll need a postage scale. Use calculated shipping and use media mail. This is how you can group items which are lower priced on ebay / amazon and still reap some value from them because the buyer is not paying 5 times the base shipping cost if they were buying them individually. YMMV.

Boxing, hauling and setting up at swap meets and flea markets is time and money and generally a headache. I've done it, just not for LPs and CDs. You need to factor this into your ROI expectations.

In terms of cataloging a collection, as I posted elsewhere:

BTW, anyone looking for a good, inexpensive barcode reader... I can recommend the PSC QS-1000 which I bought used on ebay, you just need an adapter to run it to USB. These were expensive units in their day and are now selling for under $15. It's doing exactly what I need it to do. NOTE - get one with the stand!

Be aware that if you are reading codes to a spreadsheet that at least one software package auto-deletes the leading zero... which can be a serious PITA if you're going to upload in bulk to a sales site. So you need to factor a work-around for that before you get too deep into the process.

 

Have you considered a garage sale? You could advertise in Craigslist or another site that would give you local coverage. If you're on facebook you could check to see if there's a record collectors group for your city/area. There's one for my area which is pretty cool. It would help to get the word out.

The record collectors in your area will sniff out your sale out if you put the word out.

I'd also price things to go and also expect people to haggle no matter how cheap you price them at. Worth a shot. You might lose a weekend trying but at least there's less effort involved than going to a record show.

 

NO, Amazon is the place to get the higher prices and spend less time listing.

Do not pay any attention to folks saying not enough details are entered. You can enter as much detail as you like.

You can ask for as much as you want for the item, and you can get a feel for what others are asking when you set your price.

You can add lots of pictures if you like, but for CDs the stock picture is enough.

The fees are not any worse than ebay with paypal added fees.

You get paid fast, much faster than ebay. With Amazon, they sale does not go through until the money comes through! What a concept.

It sound to me (from the comments) like the folks here have never used Amazon for selling a large CD collection. It is the fastest way to list, and to get paid.

You just need to know how to grade a CD, Very Good, Like New, and New.

Amazon has the largest viewing audience as well. Millions of people got there to shop and trust the site more so than other shady places like Gemm, and ebay which has a scammer rep to many.

Go to Amazon, I still have sales coming in on old listings I left up from 4 and 5 years ago. I love the ease of listing, and the faster payments.

 

I made some good money selling books on Amazon, but CDs are a slow sell whatever the method, and you will be lucky to get a $1 even if it sells, which is usually not the case. The reality is that not many people are buying CDs, and the people who do buy are looking for bargains. As FastForward said, if you want to make some decent money, then you got to put in the effort to sell your items (if they are really worth selling - common pressings usually aren't). That means sorting out the desirable stuff from the rest. By all means, list on Amazon, but also ebay, discogs, and the classifieds. Take images. Amazon won't charge you for using up to six (I think) images. For common pressings, it's probably worth making up a bundle of items. You won't make much per CD, but at least you will get some money.

 

If all your CDs are common junk then yeah slow to no sales. If you bought all unique titles, limited runs, imports, audiophile, and the odd and rare box set then you will do fine.

Back 20 years or so ago when I was buying a lot of music I did not have that much money. I had to think about it carefully and choose things that might not be around a long time. Or I had to get the best price, etc. Everything I want on CD today is $29.99 and up. Of course I am after some unique things again. Ya know, I'm just not like everyone else and never have been. I'm in my own world, but it's a fun and healthy one. And I made at least $140,000 dealing in music over that last 20 years. And I still have the bulk of the good stuff. That is a very unique thing to do, to be able to pocket that kind of change on thrift store finds, used store purchases, and new items that became desirable. I just bought tons of stuff and kept it all until ebay came online and I was able to work it. I'm still working it but do not have the major inventory left that I once had. I am still making a $25 or $50 order a month from online sales, mostly Amazon, but not all. I did a $50 order last month on two soundtracks that I have had up for 4 years. I had an Italian B. Herrmann "Psycho" with color cover, and a sealed "Night of the Iguana" which was odd, it had commentary and dialog in with the music, and still sealed. Nice items that did not move previously on ebay.

I like this hobby and I think I will continue it for the rest of my life. I don't want my estate to have to deal with a ton of records after I die. They would not know where to start with selling. So I am doing it now but really slowly.

Yes, Amazon has saved me so much time and energy when compared to the long days and nights I used to spend on ebay.

 

I can't even fathom bothering to catalog and list hundreds of common/everyday CDs, unless you just enjoy doing it. I doubt your return is even minimum-wage for all the effort involved.