Discogs "Make Offer" woes...

Discussion in 'Marketplace Discussions' started by LostArkitekt, Mar 6, 2019.

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  1. LostArkitekt

    LostArkitekt Active Member Thread Starter

    Location:
    Chicago, IL
    So...my newest pet peeve on Discogs is that sellers list things as "Make Offer", and then, they have no intent on accepting an offer, unless maybe it is $0.50 to $1.00 off. I made an offer that was decent (on a $6 record), and then it was declined. I asked what the person was looking for as far as price and mentioned that I could pay full price (since you can only offer once on Discogs), and then the discount could be made up in shipping. The person's reply was, "pay full price". Wow...really? I've made other offers that were 20% or less off and they were declined. Seriously, if you are only going to accept 10% or less off the thing, why put "Make Offer" on it?
     
    johnny q likes this.
  2. glide

    glide Forum Resident

    Location:
    NH, USA
    If discogs is anything like eBay sometimes the listing system will default or change to “accept offer” after a certain period of time when the seller has no intention of doing so.
     
  3. 12" 45rpm

    12" 45rpm Forum Resident

    Location:
    New York City
    I can understand refusing the offer if the item is just listed. It takes time before someone will accept that it is overpriced..
     
  4. Strat-Mangler

    Strat-Mangler Personal Survival Daily Record-Breaker

    Location:
    Toronto
    I once asked a seller about this because I was curious. He answered that the offer option is only considered when ordering many LPs simultaneously.

    For instance, if I were to submit an offer on that single LP, it'd be rejected out of hand, but if I ordered a handful of LPs and threw that one in with an offer, the amount would be mulled over.

    It's not.
     
  5. Myke

    Myke Trying Not To Spook The Horse

    I've had as much as 20% off accepted, my experiences there are unusually better than most on this forum. Don't think I'm not thankful for that.
    51 of 52 transactions successful ( # 52 is in transit ).
     
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  6. R. Totale

    R. Totale The Voice of Reason

    There's no real incentive to sell $6 albums by mail, anyway. Given the time, material and trouble it takes to package and send a record, the fees involved and the extremely slow turnover of records at that price level I'm surprised anyone would bother with taking an offer on one. I'll bet the dealer didn't even know that option was turned on. It's the same amount of work and maybe starts to get to be worth the trouble to sell online at all at $10 or so.
     
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  7. Myke

    Myke Trying Not To Spook The Horse

    Exactly why I chose to sell to local shops years ago. All that you said, plus complaining customers wanting partial refunds, etc. not worth it when I can walk in, present my stack, give them time to inspect, then accept what is always a fair price in my opinion, and walk out, done.
     
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  8. cwitt1980

    cwitt1980 Senior Member

    Location:
    Carbondale, IL USA
    It's not far off from a record store clerk. Sometimes they're grumpy. I have reason to believe it is because it was a cheaper LP in the first place and probably would take an offer if there was more being ordered. The only times I use the 'Make Offer' is if the album is fairly high priced. As far as being the buyer making an offer, I've had sellers that just let you sit for days with no response. I lost a couple things I wanted because someone came in and didn't make the offer. They just bought it at full value. So I generally don't even ask anymore. Haggling is just an annoying trait to have by anyone anyways.
     
  9. LostArkitekt

    LostArkitekt Active Member Thread Starter

    Location:
    Chicago, IL
    I get all of you regarding multiple albums...but in one recent example, I made offers of $16 and $17 for records that were $20 and $21, respectively. They were declined, so I reached out to ask what the seller was looking for regarding price. If it was $18 and $19, respectively, that is fine, and so adjust shipping to reflect $4 (total) off asking price. But, a lot of times, they won't even reply to you. The $16 offer was for a M (still sealed) album from 2014. Since they didn't respond, I checked Amazon, and they had it for $14 and prime shipping. I'd rather support the little guy/girl, but if they want to be unreasonable and contrary, then I'll never buy another album from them.

    Regarding haggling...to me, haggling is trying to get a deal on something advertised at a set price. When someone says "Make Offer", then offering a price is negotiating. I made of offer on a record recently, and on Discogs, they have 5 days, but you can't withdraw the offer (which sucks), and after 3 days, I reached out and asked the seller to let me know if the offer was high enough, and if not, what did they want for it. No response...and I had to wait two more days so the dreaded "'offer accepted' at last minute after buying a different copy" didn't happen.
     
  10. formu_la

    formu_la I'm not a robot

    Location:
    Toronto, Canada
    Yeah, there are some clowns on Ebay as well. You make $9 offer on $10 CD, and the offer gets declined, not even a counter-offered. Funny. I would rather buy it for $10 from somebody else, who just lists it straight forward for 10.
     
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  11. R. Totale

    R. Totale The Voice of Reason

    But the guy you are talking about did list it at Buy it Now for $10. He may not have even known Make Offer was on the listing, eBay has turned it on on their own in the past. If it was worth $10 to you, why not just buy it?
     
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  12. BIGGER Dave

    BIGGER Dave Forum Resident

    I know this thread is mainly about Discogs, but I need to share. Yesterday I found a CD I wanted on eBay. It was $10 or Make Offer. I made an offer of $8, it returned “Enter an amount $9.99 or more”. So the seller is willing to give a whole penny off??? Gee, thanks!
     
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  13. formu_la

    formu_la I'm not a robot

    Location:
    Toronto, Canada
    Ebay doesn't turn on features in your listing, and even if it did somehow, the person has rejected the offer, so he knows.
    Regardless, if a guy can't execute a primitive task of controlling his own listing, I don't want to deal with him.
     
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  14. ripping corpse

    ripping corpse Forum Resident

    Location:
    IN
    I have had excellent luck with offers on Discogs , once getting 50 euro off the 200 asking price of an LP, it also arrived in better condition than listed, which is a rarity.
     
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  15. dangorange

    dangorange Forum Resident

    Location:
    Natick, MA
    Lately I've been having luck just contacting seller's of LP's I want, particularly ones that do not have a Make an Offer and checking to see what they would entertain selling for. Almost all come back with being open to negotiate and often will activate Make an Offer so we can close a deal. Being able to only make one offer on discogs is tough, so I always go directly to the seller before using that function.

    I wonder if for particularly desirable records, seller's avoid the make an offer so they're not inundated with emails and low balls etc. But a lot just sit and forget about what they're selling, so an initial query on any given record is the way I approach buying on discogs.
     
    Dave likes this.
  16. Mark From Eire

    Mark From Eire Forum Resident

    Location:
    Sweden
    I have something listed on Discogs a few years now with a fixed price on it, however 3 years ago a buyer wanted to know if I would lower my price and I went as far as I could and he never got back to me on it, so I left it at that. Then the same guy went for last week at the full price and I was about to send the invoice when I noticed that he put in the additional instructions from buyer that he thinks the price should be half the price I have it for with fixed price considering the condition of the 7”, but what he might not understand is that after the Discogs fee and PayPal I would be nearly losing on it!

    I replied to him to let him know that I was cancelling his order because I was not willing to accept his order and even if I was going to do it it was too late because I would still have to pay Discogs the full fee if I went the way he wanted me to!

    I had to get onto Discogs and let them know the situation and this was their reply to me

    Hi,

    Thank you for contacting us!

    I’m sorry to hear that you are experiencing problems here.

    It appears that this Buyer is a little confused on how the Offers function works. This was not an Offer otherwise it would have shown here for you: Discogs Login

    And besides, if it was an Offer you're already saying you wouldn't have accepted it.

    So this Buyer placed the Order with you, and when a Buyer does that they basically agree to the price + the Seller Terms + the shipping costs laid out in those Seller Terms. It is not allowed to dictate a new price when you place an Order.

    Since you have already cancelled this Order, I would leave it as is for now. Next time something like this happens, please note that you are in your right as a Seller to set the Invoice with the shipping costs and to disregard the Buyer's question to lower the price. If the Buyer doesn't pay for the Order within 4 days you can then cancel the Order per Non-Paying Buyer. How To Cancel An Order As A Seller

    If you want to relist it, go to the Order page and click the check box before the Item: Discogs Login

    Then click on the grey button 'Relist Items for sale'.

    Please let us know if you have any further questions!

    Discogs Community Success Coordinator


    I use to list the few items that I would sell on Discogs with OFFERS on them but I stopped doing that because one guy even went as far as to ask me why I didn’t accept his offer and I had it set to automatic refusal below a certain price, so I didn’t even see his offer in the first place!
     
    Last edited: Mar 16, 2019
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  17. Baroque

    Baroque Forum Resident

    Sadly, this is wrong. eBay CAN turn on features. There have been several threads about this. They consistently turn ON "Accept Offer" (even if you set it up to refuse "Accept Offer.") This is what you get via email when they do this:

    [​IMG]

    And they don't notify they do this until hours go by. So in many cases Sellers have their listings switched without them knowing, and then an offer comes in and you have no idea how it happened. When this has happened, I have to reject the offer and go into each separate listing and switch it back OFF. What a pain. And it makes you look like a huge jerk. Executing a primitive task of controlling your own listing, is not as it easy as it would seem.
     
    JPagan likes this.
  18. Raynie

    Raynie Hyperactive!

    Location:
    Snortland, Oregano
    I sell tons of cheapos on discogs; make a flat fee for shipping and they buy them by the droves. I often sell 10-20 $1-5 records to the same buyer in a single purchase. Sometimes the profit margin is only .50 or even a loss but that's ok, I see it is a community service. Those are the best buyers to deal with also, real music lovers who aren't out to impress anyone.
     
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  19. formu_la

    formu_la I'm not a robot

    Location:
    Toronto, Canada
    I doubt they 'consistently' do it. Must be some condition that provokes their software.
    Never happened to me, but I don't see why is it so difficult to turn it off and to apologize to a buyer with explanation.
    You only look like a jerk if you blandly reject a reasonable offer, and keep 'make an offer' feature on. Off course if you have hundreds of listings- to turn it off is a PITA. Ebay would deserve a nasty message then.
    They are a$$holes regardless. ;) (so are some sellers and buyers ).
     
    Christian Hill likes this.
  20. R. Totale

    R. Totale The Voice of Reason

    Thank you for your service.
     
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  21. Synthfreek

    Synthfreek I’m a ray of sunshine & bastion of positivity

    A while back a seller on Discogs had a $6 EP listed with Make Offer available so I offered $5. His response was that he didn't realize he had it listed so low so he refused my offer then hiked the price up to $8. That's got to be against the rules.
     
  22. Strat-Mangler

    Strat-Mangler Personal Survival Daily Record-Breaker

    Location:
    Toronto
    Mistakes happen, Discogs takes quite a chunk on sales so I don't blame him for realizing he might be doing all this for very little money.
     
    eddiel likes this.
  23. johnny q

    johnny q Forum Resident

    Location:
    Bergen County, NJ
    I too have had bad experiences with Discog's "Make An Offer" option. Typically - I get zero responses and the offer period expires. One time, the seller declined my offer and I planned on buying the item anyway. When I went to buy it, I noticed he more than doubled the price. A bit of a bait and switch I would say. The worst however, was a recent experience from about a week ago. I made an offer on a $50 box set - I offered $45. I received a decline and then a nasty note from the seller! So it again begs the question: why do these sellers even offer the option!
     
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  24. Strat-Mangler

    Strat-Mangler Personal Survival Daily Record-Breaker

    Location:
    Toronto
    Read post #4.
     
  25. cwitt1980

    cwitt1980 Senior Member

    Location:
    Carbondale, IL USA
    I personally don't bother with making offers because of this. As a seller too, sometimes when someone inquires about an item, I go check it out and see what's up. The market for certain titles can go up and down. In some cases, I do go reevaluate what I have for sale. Sometimes I may want to bump it up. I assume most other sellers do that too. I don't really want to bother losing something by saving a few dollars. Granted, I don't generally have 'make offer' on any listings so me reevaluating what I have isn't being malicious to a person inquiring about it and asking me to lower it for them. At least I don't think so. Then again, if you ask me about an item too much, I just take it down and pretend it sold and put it back up later. I understand the quintessential jaded record store employee now.
     
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