Discogs: "Last Sold: Never"

Apologies if this is rehashing old info, but I am brand new to Discogs as a seller of promo cassettes and the like, and I have no idea how to price items that - as the headline says - have never been sold before. Or at least not in 3 or 4 years. I haven't posted them yet, but one would be Izzy Stradlin, another Smashing Pumpkins, another Soundgarden, another Hanson. And I have tons more that I'm sure will have patchy historic sales data. Do I just make 'em $100 each but open to offers?

And separately, I know this is ghoulish, but how do Discogs prices react when an artist dies? I never quite understood the mentality of people snapping up Mr./Ms. Dead Rock Star's Greatest Hits while the corpse is still warm. But if the demand is there, who am I to stand in the way?

P.S. Do the Have/Want stats affect your pricing decision? One of the items is Have 5, Want 122. Or is that as meaningless as someone giving you a "like" on social media, or "watching" your item on eBay?

 

Ghoulish prices, then the downward move. LP's kinda hold for a few ghoulish months.

 

Sure, you always price them above what you're willing to except and use the Make Offer option. Sometimes it actually can work to your advantage and sometimes not.

No, those have/want statistics are mostly useless I've found.

 

When someone buys something I have after the artist dies, I just say it's not available anymore. Then I repost it for a lot more money.


Just kidding. I only sell stuff from already dead artists.

 

Yep, just sold an advance cassette for $30, but would have happily parted with it for $0.99 if the dude had offered that amount. Probably beginner's luck, though.

 

Congrats!

 

I had a reggae LP up for sale by U-Roy for $25 a promo copy of his best album. I was considering asking for a higher price. I just thought it was too low. Then he died last year, I did quickly go in and raise it to $35.

it sold in less than 2 hours later. So yeah, keep an eye on the obits and price accordingly.

 

Oh and Last Sold Never really depends on how many are offered. If there are a dozen offered, many NM or M, priced low, I don’t bother to list mine.

If none have sold and there are none listed, I would list mine and price maybe on the high side to start with.

 

Things have been pretty quiet in recent weeks. Not even any offers. My last sale was some tattooed rapper - Xan? - for about a buck. I thought Taylor Hawkins' death might help sell my promo cassette for the first FF album (even though it's all Dave), but alas ...

 

If you list at $100 for something that's probably worth $10-25 to someone, it will just sit there. Most people won't lowball offer like that.

My experience with promo cassettes is generally that unless the cassette offers material not otherwise available, you won't get $100 for it, even if it's a highly collectible artist. Now, there are exceptions. But generally, don't expect to get $100 for a Izzy or Hanson cassette, even from a collector. Even if none have ever sold. A lot of "never sold" listings are because few people have bothered to list it, and demand isn't that great. Now, if the have/want counts show a huge demand, that's different. But, still, $100 isn't realistic for most stuff.

List at max $30, and generally no more than twice the minimum you'd accept and you'll probably sell a lot more. A lot of promo cassettes--even second string stuff--will probably (eventually) sell if you list them for a modest amount, say, $10 (and no offers). That said, a lot of promo cassettes don't have an existing listing stub on Discogs, and creating one for each cassette is a pain in the butt.

It comes down to whether you're trying to maximize profit on one item, or whether you actually want to sell anything.

 

I forgot to add to the above:

The problem with the best offer on Discogs is that it doesn't allow for negotiation. Either you take the first (and only) offer, or you don't. That's unlike eBay, where an offer can start the negotiating process. It's why the best offer on Discogs is of limited usefulness.

 

Not so fast... you can always message the seller to negotiate behind the offer curtain. I've done this before I send in my offer to insure I'll get it. Like any negotiation process sometimes they'll accept and you win and sometimes you don't, but you'll never know unless you try.

 

That's one small advantage of eBay. But if someone makes me an offer on Discogs, I'm just inclined to take it, or maybe meet him some of the way. Hard to imagine this small negotiation process is that cumbersome.

 

It's just a disincentive for all but bottom fishers to make offers.

On Discogs, I tend to get mainly insultingly lowball offers. (Well, I don't get insulted--I just ignore them). On eBay, I get a lot more realistic offers.