Discogs Shipping Cost Play

Discussion in 'Marketplace Discussions' started by FloydVivino, Feb 5, 2020.

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  1. FloydVivino

    FloydVivino Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Portugal
    Is it my naive impression or some Discogs sellers state a lower price, which makes them look better at first sight by comparison to others and even come on top of price-sorted searches, only to compensate with absurd shipping costs?
     
    Last edited: Feb 5, 2020
  2. E.Baba

    E.Baba Forum Resident

    Completely possible.

    In which case you know which sellers to not even bother looking at next time.
     
  3. glide

    glide Forum Resident

    Location:
    NH, USA
    Of course they do. Can you sort by price+shipping? That should eliminate the problem.
     
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  4. murphywmm

    murphywmm Senior Member

    Unfortunately, Discogs only allows you to sort by price.
    This happens often on Amazon marketplace, too. You'll see an item for $1 but they'll want $30 to ship it.
     
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  5. FloydVivino

    FloydVivino Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Portugal
    No you can't, that's the issue.
     
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  6. FloydVivino

    FloydVivino Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Portugal
    Very true
     
  7. Combination

    Combination Forum Resident

    Location:
    New Orleans
    You might feel that having anything shipped to you from the USA is a cost you'd consider to be absurd, but most likely, it's accurate.
     
  8. Strat-Mangler

    Strat-Mangler Personal Survival Daily Record-Breaker

    Location:
    Toronto
    If the seller sets costs for items so they can be bought immediately as opposed to putting an order in and then waiting for an invoice, you can see the price with shipping. Otherwise, you won't.

    *ALWAYS* read the Seller’s Terms. I can't begin to tell you the amount of people who don't. Shipping costs are the majority of the time shown there. Otherwise, contact the seller with a shipping fee inquiry.
     
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  9. Myke

    Myke Trying Not To Spook The Horse

    Vinyl from the US gets very pricey. :agree:
     
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  10. GentleSenator

    GentleSenator what if

    Location:
    Aloha, OR
    this.

    i don't want to limit sales to the US only, but i also feel like a real jerk when i quote the cost of international shipping. it's rather insane.
     
  11. Strat-Mangler

    Strat-Mangler Personal Survival Daily Record-Breaker

    Location:
    Toronto
    I pay those costs because I have to if I want a specific pressing. Lots of albums I've bought over the years were located in Europe. It truly sucks to pay those fees but in the end, if it's still cheaper than buying it here, it's a win in my book.

    I offer international shipping but few take me up on it even though I round up the price to the next dollar. One would-be buyer last week replied he couldn't pay that much to have the item shipped to him and asked me to lower the price. I had to explain to him that I was making no profit on shipping it to him and am not prepared to eat part of the cost of the item itself just to get it to him.

    Sucks but I pay it. If an out-of-the-country buyer wants it bad enough, he'll pay. In most cases, I even sell my items at a loss and always ensure to have the lowest price online anyway.
     
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  12. FloydVivino

    FloydVivino Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Portugal
    No that. Beyond the normal costs. It's like, some US sellers with shipping costs of X and some others with shipping costs of 2, 3 or 4 times X
     
  13. FloydVivino

    FloydVivino Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Portugal
    That is not the point. If I state those massive increases of shipping costs that's because, not only those shippping costs are visible or I checked and see what they were, but also I compare with OTHER US shipping costs, for the same article, a third of those or even less.
     
  14. FloydVivino

    FloydVivino Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Portugal
    The point is not whether costs are high or low, if they are justifiable or not. The point is one seller shippin costs vs some others, from the same location
     
  15. Strat-Mangler

    Strat-Mangler Personal Survival Daily Record-Breaker

    Location:
    Toronto
    You might not realize this but costs change depending on location within the country. If I ship to Portugal from where I am versus B-C which is at the complete other end of the country, there *will* be a noticeable difference in cost and rightfully so as there is a much greater distance to cover.

    Since Discogs won't disclose where in the country the seller is located, it could be anywhere within that country.

    There are 2 types of sellers ; those who want to go through the trouble of calculating every shipping price individually and those who set a flat fee. In the latter cases, it normalizes. One transaction might cost less than the flat fee which the seller pockets to offset the times when shipping fees are higher than the flat fee.

    Shipping fees are set by the seller. I could offer free shipping, a low flat fee, a high flat fee, or review each order to provide shipping quotes. Since the choice is up to each individual seller, there will never be an average price for shipping, so... it is what it is.
     
  16. Dave

    Dave Esoteric Audio Research Specialist™

    Location:
    B.C.
    It's no bed of Roses from Canada any longer either. To protect both the buyer and seller with tracked shipping it's simply no longer worth it for me to sell even CD's never mind Vinyl.
     
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  17. GentleSenator

    GentleSenator what if

    Location:
    Aloha, OR
    a huge problem with USPS is that the only real way to ship internationally with insurance, tracking, and a reliable delivery time is with priority. that's generally $45 minimum now. for a single lp.
     
  18. Dave

    Dave Esoteric Audio Research Specialist™

    Location:
    B.C.
    That sounds pretty crazy. So much for internet selling of any less expensive Vinyl is my guess. And here I thought sending a CD, properly packaged of course, to the USA for $16 US was off the charts.
     
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