Discogs has gone grey

It would be nice if discogs allowed sellers to do that in a way that wasn’t akin to torture.

 

Free shipping from US to Australia? I’ll take two.

 

Once hobby sellers have been pushed aside Discogs will become worthless.

 

Thanks for all of the feedback, but can anyone actually comment on the original question (above)? These numbers are the important issue as Discogs may or may not be trying to bluff this through -- if, say, 50,000 sellers are greyed-out and 20,000,000 listings are Unavailable then Discogs is toast; if the numbers are fewer, then they may get away with it. I've tried searching on "Unavailable in" but to no avail...

 

I never understood why good platforms always desperately try to shoot themselves in the foot, therefore creating the need for another platform to be created by others who are fed up, after which the cycle repeats itself repeatedly.

Seems like change for the sake of changing which is how a lot of the tech world goes.

 

Nobody could possibly ever verify this unless they have direct access to Discogs' servers to perform the necessary queries. It's a waste of time to even care about such trivial matters as it doesn't even matter whether it's 10 000 or 100 000 000. The end result is the same; buyers and sellers (especially the latter) are upset and it doesn't look like this crap will stop in the near future.

 

I’m really confused by this - I don’t think they made it clear that if you didn’t set a shipping policy for every possible outcome; that ALL your inventory would be greyed out. I thought it would just make those items unavailable...

 

Right, well, I have now ticked a box against each of my shipping policies that says it applies to “all media”, and everything is buyable again.

Guess I have to figure out what to do about that if I ever decide to sell vinyl or cassettes...

 

it's a discussion forum, so if you'd prefer your discussion were private you really should consider conversing via direct message only. name-calling, even if just implied, is what's unacceptable here.

 

I don't do Discogs. I'd put $24 anywhere for 1 LP outside of North America. $14 for a 45rpm. $3.50 media to ship an LP to the U.S.. $4 first class a 45rpm.

 

Exactly what @GentleSenator wrote.

This isn't your blog. Posting publicly invites POV which may or may not match your own. If all you want is an echo chamber and differing POV are too scary and offensive to you, this might not be the place for you. This is a place for grown adults with the maturity and ability to stomach such a concept. Strengthening your mental fortitude prior to posting again so you wouldn't be easily triggered would be my suggestion. You clearly have some growing up to do.

 

I believe a part of the problem is you have to try to set a blanket policy that accounts for every scenario. That's easy for 1 or up to 5 or so lps, but you also have to anticipate what would be charged if someone bought 25+ records. If you cap your shipping at a set amount, then you could potentially get hit with a large shipping fee and lose money on an order. I've only had very large orders a couple of times, but I'm not sure how larger sellers account for this.

 

it was definitely a challenge to implement, and i had to do some estimating to factor in things like insurance and heavier items. as a relatively low volume seller it's not impossible for me to manually adjust each item, but for a high volume seller with a lot of different items looking to reach everyone around the globe it's a real hassle.

 

Two more words: free shipping.

 

It's great that Steve Hoffman offers a free "For Sale" section.

Couldn't find an easier customer for music, than this Forum.

 

Been seeing quite a few businesses doing this over the past 5 years. Hmm...

 

And this has been the outcome nearly every time. Hmm...

 

Nice place but extremely limited in terms of offerings and buyers. It's good for what it's good for though and I've bought a few things here myself. But it's not really the best place for what I am looking for and for what I would like to sell (at some point).

Definitely appreciate that it exists.

 

Yeah but so far there hasn't been much of a change to the marketplace offerings, in terms of total items for sale. Total items for sale has actually gone up since Nov 1st but it does fluctuate.

Still early days and I notice a lot of sellers are greyed out but when I check their seller terms they ship to Canada, so still some issues. I've been trying to message sellers in that situation just to let them know.

 

Boy, cry me a river. Are you done, yet? This isn't your safe space. My post didn't go against the rules. It's embarrassing that you're being so melodramatic about this. Move on with your life, jeez...

 

I just finished doing it on my end. It's a horrible counterintuitive system devoid of any common sense.

They absolutely require that all formats are chosen regardless of the fact that shipping a vinyl double-album costs much more than shipping a CD. In order to hang onto my sanity, I removed the few CDs and 45s I had for sale and put the policy as a blanket amount based solely on how I only have records for sale.

Even then, it wasn't the easiest thing in the world and no tutorial I've found has been the least helpful. In fact, no one at Discogs has ever been able to explain the need to set up blanket policies to begin with as the system refuses to save unless one does so.

 

Those are the same two words, not two more words.

If you have, say, a CD for sale on Discogs for $10, you will lose about $3-$4 of that if you offer free shipping within the U.S. So you can increase your asking price to $14 and then offer free shipping. But what if someone from Canada buys it instead? Shipping even a single CD to Canada, in a jewel case, costs $13-$14. So you will lose money after taking into account Discogs and PayPal fees.

So then you could jack up the price, to say, $25 with free shipping to account for Canadian buyers. But then every U.S. buyer would look at your price and think, "$25?!? After taking free shipping into account I'm still paying $21 or $22 for a CD that's only worth $10. No way."

Surely you must understand that, yes?

 

I understand it, but rarely pay for shipping. Shipping is on the seller & should be factored into the cost IMHO.

 

What world do you live in???

 

One word:

Nope.

One more word:

Nope.