Offering "FREE SHIPPING" as Discogs

Discussion in 'Marketplace Discussions' started by quicksrt, Jun 9, 2020.

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  1. quicksrt

    quicksrt Senior Member Thread Starter

    Location:
    Los Angeles
    Has anyone here decided to include shipping costs into the item for sale as Discogs? I had a few heard items for sale there about 5 years ago and after a couple of opf months nothing moved, so I went over to Amazon with my items and never looked back.

    One of the reasons I am considering going back to Amazon is that many of the obscure items I had on hand were not even in the Discogs database, and I didn't want to bother creating those album listings from scratch, too much work when you are talking hundreds of titles. Now 5 p 6 years later I am seeing these titles listed in the Discogs database. I feel that free shipping is very attractive to buyers, even if the item is priced a little bit higher. It feels like a deal. And the sellers I have seen offering free shipping mostly all require 3 records be bought. I'd like to offer up free shipping with only one item (LP) bought (US only).

    What are some of your thoughts on Discogs selling, and the idea of free shipping?

    You Can Now Offer Free Shipping in Your Shipping Policies | Discogs
     
  2. mackat

    mackat Turntable hoar-...um, collector

    Location:
    San Diego, CA
    I’m not a seller, but as a buyer, I would much prefer that sellers include the shipping in the item price. There’s something psychological that makes me not want to buy a $5 record + $5 shipping, whereas I likely wouldn’t think twice if it were just a $10 record with free shipping.
     
    gfong and quicksrt like this.
  3. Christian Hill

    Christian Hill It's all in the mind

    Location:
    Boston
    Psychological gimmicks will work on some
     
  4. Chee

    Chee Forum Resident

    Location:
    Denver
    Craig Moerer does $15 airmail for a record album. "Gee, he's $9 cheaper than cost" so says the buyer. They should look what they are paying for the record compared to others. That's why. Gimmick. Works.
     
  5. captouch

    captouch Forum Resident

    Location:
    Bay Area, CA
    I personally zero in more on the base price. As long as shipping is reasonable, it's just the standard cost of buying something online. That's not to say I won't buy something with a higher base price that has free shipping if it's cheaper than something with a lower base price that does have shipping, but my initial instinct (all things being equal) is to be attracted more to the offering with lower base price.
     
  6. 12" 45rpm

    12" 45rpm Forum Resident

    Location:
    New York City
    Not a good idea as it harms people who want to buy more than one item from you. Around 30% of my discogs orders are for multiple items.
     
    black sheriff likes this.
  7. MARTHY

    MARTHY Forum Resident

    Two points, one mentioned above: Combining shipping into the overall price of the item precludes the ability to get a shipping fee break when purchasing multiple items. I see *many* Discogs entries where the seller is promoting a set fee for as many items as you want. Second, state taxes are based on the sell price, excluding shipping. So if you combine shipping into the sell price then the tax that has to be paid will be higher as well. No one likes paying a higher tax. I see this "free shipping" a lot on eBay and it pisses me off. I have a sales tax of 9.25%, nearly 10-cents on the dollar. Adds up quickly.
     
    quicksrt likes this.
  8. 12" 45rpm

    12" 45rpm Forum Resident

    Location:
    New York City
    One thing that would be good is offer free shipping for orders over $25 or something. I am not sure if it is possible to do without having to manually edit the invoice?
     
  9. Chee

    Chee Forum Resident

    Location:
    Denver
    Okay, record auction is $26 win, postage to France $24. Your profit: nothing.
     
  10. Lost In The Flood

    Lost In The Flood Feeding an invisible goat

    Location:
    England
    Discogs doesn't have auctions.
     
  11. quicksrt

    quicksrt Senior Member Thread Starter

    Location:
    Los Angeles
    Thanks for the comments pro and con. I ended up charging for shipping that barely covers Media Rate plus the LP mailer.

    I got my first Discogs order for a $34.99 LP yesterday. I see that Discogs has no field for sellers to drop in tracking #s. Unless I missed it. I went to PayPal and entered it there figuring pp might send them an update after I inserted the #. (?)

    I'm trying to use this downtime to sell off some of the lower end stuff I have accumulated. Things that would not move 6 or 7 years ago might move now. Being that I have tons of still sealed, I can ask for higher prices than the usual for some of these things.
     
  12. R. Totale

    R. Totale The Voice of Reason

    When you change the order status to Shipped on the order page, a box comes up for you to enter the tracking number and optionally send a message to the buyer. You can't miss it.
     
    Strat-Mangler and Dave like this.
  13. kwadguy

    kwadguy Senior Member

    Location:
    Cambridge, MA
    I look at the total cost, including shipping. I don't care how you break it up.

    If shipping isn't pre-calculated in the listing, I will almost always pass (the exception being something very rare that I am dead set on owning).

    Same thing for any listings not in US dollars (i.e. foreign sellers for me). For these, shipping cost is almost never listed, and I'm not going to bother because the shipping will crush any listing price advantage.

    Bottom line: If you provide the shipping cost in the listing, I will pick the cheapest listing for price+shipping for the item/condition I want. I don't care if you offer "free" shipping or roll it into your listing price.
     
    black sheriff and Christian Hill like this.
  14. quicksrt

    quicksrt Senior Member Thread Starter

    Location:
    Los Angeles
    I listed a couple hundred LPs the last couple of days. Then I went and did a bunch of the CD collection as well. My CDs I tried to price competitively on most things. And only going high when it was something in exceptional condition, and a title I am in no hurry to sell.

    I decided to price at the higher end when I am the only seller in the US with the item, when I am offering the best condition on a given item, and I like owning the item and am fine if it does not move very quickly I plan to drop prices across the board after 60 to 90 days. But starting a tad high at first seems right.

    I am amazed at how much of my CD collection has not bottomed out, but in fact commands $8.99 to $18.99 range per disc. I checked ebay's closed prices on many title to make sure I was not charging way more than what an item can be found over there for. Surprisingly many tiles did not flat-line over the last ten years. Koch, Collectibles, and Razor & Tie CD reissues are very much desired when the album is something still listened to, especially the 2-fer titles.

    Oh, back to shipping, is there a way to have LP shipping $4.95 (media), and CDs at $3.00 (first class) so it comes up automatically during checkout? Currently everything is showing $4.95 shipping per item. I'd really like to have CDs shipping displaying not quite a so high number as the LPs.
     
  15. quicksrt

    quicksrt Senior Member Thread Starter

    Location:
    Los Angeles
    So anyway, I think I'll get my entire CD collection up for sale at Discogs with low sales expectations, and just be glad when an item does move. I actually dumped much of the CD collection years ago when I sensed a CD crash coming, and got credit at the used trade-in counter. So I now only have a couple hundred CDs left at most, and it's the nicer things I saved.

    But I have at least 2,000 LPs that need to be dumped at whatever I can get for them. The thrift store finds shelves are bursting with mint and sealed copies of lower-end titles. I picked up tons of sealed soundtracks, and lesser desired titles like Rod McKuen, and pop vocal Johnny Mathis, Vikki Carr, Steve & Eddie, and weird "incredibly strange" Zodiac Horoscope and other spoken word records when the were found in very clean condition. I think I can flip these for $10 to $25 each being that (almost) no one is offering the condition I have on these titles. It'll just take a while. There is also rock stuff ELO, REO, and Chicago, common stuff but mine has stickered shrink wrap on some jackets.

    I have a really nice rock, jazz, R&B, country, clasical collection that is not sure sale at this time. Just trying to squeeze the last few dollars from the dead dogs I guess.
     
  16. Dave

    Dave Esoteric Audio Research Specialist™

    Location:
    B.C.
    You can use the media mail rates but you are leaving yourself an open target to scammers not using tracking. I'm not saying this will happen only that it might.
     
  17. quicksrt

    quicksrt Senior Member Thread Starter

    Location:
    Los Angeles
    Media Rate comes with free tracking. I wouldn't dream of not using tracking for anything over $9.99
     
    black sheriff likes this.
  18. Dave

    Dave Esoteric Audio Research Specialist™

    Location:
    B.C.
    Ok. I guess you're covered so why not use those low shipping costs. I sure wish it were that way up here. Tracked items are very cost prohibitive from here. :sigh:
     
    Strat-Mangler likes this.
  19. R. Totale

    R. Totale The Voice of Reason

    Discogs help page on setting up shipping seems pretty clear:

    What Are Automatic Shipping Policies And How To Use Them
     
  20. Strat-Mangler

    Strat-Mangler Personal Survival Daily Record-Breaker

    Location:
    Toronto
    Internationally, yes.
     
    Dave likes this.
  21. 4-2-7

    4-2-7 Forum Resident

    Location:
    SF Peninsula
    Well without reading all the post, if discogs is like eBay collecting a percentage of total transaction cost then it doesn't matter. However if you only pay discogs for the total item price excluding the shipping cost, it would be better covering your shipping in that spot and not added to the item.
     
  22. quicksrt

    quicksrt Senior Member Thread Starter

    Location:
    Los Angeles
    This is a good point. Discogs does not take a cut of the shipping costs. Discogs feel like ebay of 12 or 14 years ago. You get buyer's info complete, and you get to charge what you want for shipping, you can accept cash, checks and money orders besides pp. You can leave neg feedback on a buyer if you feel they deserve it. I think I'm going to have a good time there after being squeezed by eBay and Amazon.

    I've listed about 450 items at Discogs as of Weds. night. And sales are going well. Average of two items per day. And I flipped a 2CD set for $1,030.00. Yes a grand for one item. Paid for by a longer term Discogs buyer and payment came through! Sweet.

    As of yesterday I am opening up sales to international buyers in certain countries. I am simply getting too many requests from outside of the USA to ignore it. I used to do a ton of international packages when I was doing ebay but it's gotten so much more expensive, and sometimes more risk.

    I am starting with Germany, UK, France, Sweden, Denmark, Japan and Aust. China and Hong Kong next after I get some items weight and priced at the post office.

    I can already tell the bulk of my sales with be outside of the US.
     
  23. 4-2-7

    4-2-7 Forum Resident

    Location:
    SF Peninsula
    People took advantage on eBay when they didn't take a percentage out of shipping. They would post something worth $200, list it at $20 with a shipping cost of $200, switching the positions of the prices.


    What the hell CD is worth that? I have some first pressed Pink Floyd in long boxes that are high but they don't cost that.

    Yeah there is risk but they want stuff to, sometimes even more than here. You might want to stick with sealed new for out of country, or at least if used in perfect condition.
    If you start doing this you should open a USPS account, and get a scale. It's always a PITA at the PO having to fill out disclaimers for stuff leaving the country.
     
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