Plenty of eBay's good sellers fall over too and in part as they are so time poor to accurately inspect and grade the several hundred records they plan to list in 3 days time etc. Also note that most sellers do not inspect for warps.
I was absolutely addicted to buying tons of vinyl on eBay from 2004 through 2016 but no more. In 2017 I bought over 100 records and at least 40% had notable issues. Aside from poor gradings a lot of records get damaged from lazy or incompetent packing. A more recent issue is friend to eBay The Global Shipping Program who are highly priced and lose items you spent ages finding then bidding on. Sure the eBay refunds you and then asks you once again to share your experience with them. In the early days of eBay there were a higher percentage of dealers with grading experience on there, now there's tons of kids and adults alike that heard there is money in vinyl and can't grade accurately. It just never ends.
Some phrase like so...... EX for it's age or NM for it's age or use a different guage to grade a clean 80s LP from a marked 60s one so they are ajudged the same.
I haven't bought anything from eBay in a long time, but I used to have mostly good experiences. I often got near-Mint LP's at good prices from little mom 'n pop shops that didn't officially grade the vinyl... "We don't have a record player, but it looks like it's in very good condition." I never paid a lot for anything, but eBay was the source of many albums in my George Jones collection, which is fairly extensive.
Any record can potentially sound good but look poor so when your sellers only lists by saying EX++ Playgrade and then you open the box and see it is visually VG how do you feel? Plus you can't get your original investment back when should you wish to re sell the item. I like it if a seller play grades but first and foremost he must visually grade. In this industry most major sellers don't have time to Playgrade even a small fraction of their records but may offer the service on a high grade item. Like it or not that's how it works.
eBay is can be fruitful for used vinyl, given you approach it with caution, patience and a basic understanding of the variations of sellers. Many sellers overprice because they jumped into the revival, not understanding the true amount of quantity on the market. Other sellers seem to understand and price accordingly to move, with condition accuracy a focus and important to finding repeat customers. Once you find these sellers, it can be a great experience. Lastly, you have sellers listing items in lots, misidentified or undervalued, which can be found with said patience and variations in search phrasing. This is where I find a lot of gems. Many items are overpriced significantly, no matter what condition, especially if they are: iconic artists: Rolling Stones, the Beatles, David Bowie, Led Zeppelin, Tom Petty, Punk, 1970s/1980s Metal. 1990s vinyl drought-era: Grunge, Hip Hop, Alternative I personally have waited 6-12 months for certain titles, as that is the only way to ensure you get what you want for the price you are willing to pay. Given my location, eBay is the only way to find certain artists and most lower price points. I have only returned one item, a Christmas gift copy of Licensed to Ill, bought for me from DeepDiscount or one of their six shell IDs, which arrived BENT, through an eBay listing. I paid $14 for an advertised VG copy of Let It Bleed, that is actually a G, but plays through with a ton of noise and looks like it was skipped down a gravel road on both sides. Interestingly, it was mislabled on the B side, with one of the Hot Rocks labels. I will replace it someday with a cleaner copy, but will keep the mislabel for my own amusement. For me, the hunt is as big a part of the collecting and listening experiences.
I'm not a seller either but nothing should be mint and only new or opened LPs should be NM. I think there should then be 4 categories of worthwhile used records for playing and 2 categories for collectible records which are more for completists and stamp collectors ie. Poor - record scratched and no sleeve etc. As for the 4 cats. of used there could be play graded and visual graded giving an excellent plus rating which means unmarked and sounds quiet, sleeve almost like new through to Good which is a record with a few light scratches and a bit of crackle. With 2 cats. inbetween that could cover a lot of the bases. I don't buy records to look at so if they don't sound good they are almost of no value to me so no amount of shiny mirror finish or "looks beautiful condition" will impress me if it sounds like c**p.
I've bought maybe a couple thousand LPs over the years and have been for the most part satisfied with my purchases from ebay. But I know it can be difficult (if not impossible) to please some audiophile record collectors.
Interesting to read everyone's comments. Thanks. I have made several purchases on Discogs as well as Reverb. Not many. But a few. I am pretty picky when it comes to quality. That being said, I am still learning when it comes to grading. Unless something is really rare, I generally don't bother with VG+ or even VG++. I look for the NM or M- (sometimes EXC). That being said, I just scored an Island "eye logo" copy of Free's "Tons of Sobs" for around $70 with shipping. It was listed as VG+. It's not perfect, but still a very decent listen. About six months ago, I purchased an early-press of King Crimson's "In the Court of the Crimson King" from a Discogs seller for $40. He had it listed as NM. It wasn't. I sent it back because it had more crackle than I really cared for. He refunded my purchase price and I found a better copy for the same money. Someone mentioned packaging. I had one eBay purchase of a "mint" copy of "Shinin' On" by Grand Funk. It was only $10. But the bonehead seller didn't use a dedicated LP package. He used two sheets of cardboard taped together. One of the sheets had a crease across it. The crease was right in the middle and he had no backing for stiffening. Well, the LP arrived with a gosh-awful warp. I was surprised that it didn't snap in two. He offered to take it back. But it would have cost me five bucks (postage and gas) to ship it back. The cover was mint and it had the original 3D glasses and inner 1974 tour schedule. So I just kept it.
Some of my very best LPs are from eBay sellers. I got a UK Vertigo (spaceship label) copy of Black Sabbath's Master Of Reality several years ago for $6 (sans poster). Japanese copy of Rainbow's Long Live Rock'n'Roll shipped from Japan for $15 total. Steve Hillage's Green, UK black vinyl vintage pressing, $6. The Move Toofa, somewhere around $21 I think. There's many others I cannot remember. Only once have I received something that I thought was substantially below the quality I expected.
eBay is hit or miss, but more positive than negative for me. You just have to read the tea leaves in how the record is described and the amount of seller feedback to understand how experienced a seller/what type of seller you are dealing with. My bad experiences have typically been calculated gambles. Goldmine grading, I operate and bid under the assumption that it's a grade lower than described. If I have an especially good experience, I make sure I save that seller so I can periodically check what they have available.
I agree 100 percent, Sane Man. I have a half dozen or so eBay sellers that have treated me very well. Several of them I have purchased from more than once. I have been buying on eBay for 20+ years. First it was photography equipment, then used motorcycle parts, then coins. As with anything else, it's caveat emptor. If something appears to be too good to be true, it usually (but not always) is. Thanks again to everyone for weighing in.
Whilst I've only made a few Vinyl purchases on FleaBay.. the one Seller i have picked up 4-5 Albums off, the Grading of said Albums has always been spot on, price has been Good and has arrived well packaged . If you are in the UK might be worth checking his Listings.
Again, this is a classic mistake in equating a platform with either positive or negative experiences. There are great and terrible sellers on every platform. I've had amazing and terrible experiences on all of them. Why? Because there are good and bad people everywhere. The platform has little to no impact on that ratio.
I bought lots of records on Ebay over the years and never had an issue... apart of my very first purchase there. The guy was allegedly selling the Stones' Let It Bleed, a UK Decca pressing. When it arrived I found out the LP itself was Get Yer Ya-Ya's Out! (german Decca pressing). Coincidentally I didn't own the live album before, so I kept it and never wrote the issue to the seller.^^
Assumedly you stayed quiet only as the price was low because there is quite a margin of value difference is if say they are original albums.
When I sell, I visually grade, take pics of the vinyl (usually), closeups of notable cover flaws, and... have no turntable. That last bit is not some kind of ruse. Maybe that means I miss out on offers from Big Spenders, but so be it. And as someone has already mentioned, even if I did have a TT, time. (I would like to find a reasonable non-contact static/vacuum solution, however. That's not really a time chewer, and is something I have time for per title. I'd feel much better about unsleeving and resleeving records for shipment.) If I were buying (and I'm not) a small part of me doesn't really WANT somebody to give a record I'm thinking of getting "one more spin" or cleaning it with some liquid gunk or piece of junk. I don't know if the person doing the duty is the world's most picky audiophile or someone who is still using record care products from Radio Shack's "going out of business" sale.
The price was around 30 bucks, if I remember right. But a bit later I got the actual Let It Bleed UK Decca LP in the same price range from somewhere else. Both records are original first pressings btw. (Well, I have two sleeves of Let It Bleed, so I'm still looking for the Ya-Ya's cover.^^)
Honestly, I think you are wrong. eBay is a better platform if compared with Discogs for example, at least for buyers. On eBay a buyer can see pics of the specific item, not a generic pic like in Discogs, that is a very important tool. Also, even a 100% rating is deceiving on Discogs because feedback is erased only 'cause the buyer has to contact the seller before leaving a negative feedback I have lost the count of how many times in Discogs the seller has sent me a cheap reissue instead of the OG that I ordered.
99% of pics are blurry or unhelpful (tiny, from far away, impossible to read the label, see the condition of the disc, sleeve, jacket, etc). So to me, that's a moot point. Why is that bad? It gives the seller the opportunity to maybe fix a problem. Wouldn't a buyer want a fix if possible? Since people are generally stupid, they'll tend to post negative feedback without communicating to the seller the problem they had with the transaction. Implementing that is a terrific decision. It's a shame you don't see the wisdom in potentially righting a wrong simply by opening the lines of communication because of that step. I have to assume you're not doing your due diligence. Some sellers have tens of thousands of items listed. Mistakes can happen. There can also be blatantly mislabeled items in their inventory. Before buying anything, I specifically ask for confirmation of the condition they were categorized as being as well as the matrix info for both sides. This past week alone, I had 2 sellers ignore my request, 2 who confirmed the LPs were in the wrong listing, and one who had his communication settings set to refuse any incoming messages which means the only way to have a dialogue with this seller would be to first buy an item and if there's an issue *then* a message could be sent. A huge "no thanks" to all 5 of those sellers. I only entertain sellers whose ratings are 99% or 100% and I take the time to acquaint myself with the negative and neutral feedback entries. If I see a pattern, I'm out. In one case, a seller was sending albums regularly in pizza boxes with oil on the jacket or the album getting damaged. In another instance, it was a stream of wrong pressings. I didn't even bother in that case either. Before you believe that implies eBay is an inherently better platform, I'd say at least 95% don't even list the matrix info so it's quite tough to even know which pressing is being offered, making it infinitely more difficult and time-consuming to narrow down the listings to the specific one I'm interested in. For those who just want any cheap pressing of albums, that's not a problem but the whole idea of Discogs was to provide info about each different pressing. Since I'm interested in pressing X, I can't narrow down the search on eBay for that so unless it's a visually easy one to identify in which case I spend a loooong amount of time scrolling through auction after auction, I'd have to message every seller. Out of those, due to the much more general way of selling albums on eBay, most sellers won't even bother replying. I use both platforms for different reasons with different intents.
@Strat-Mangler Agree on many of your points... Photos - I like them but they aren't always useful e.g. blurry or not hi res enough. Also, although they can help you match the cover grade, it's very easy to make a VG record look much much better. However, I do appreciate those guys that photograph their lps in certain light and angles that they show all the tire marks left my trucks which helps me define what they mean by "looks good" Wrong items on discogs - yeah it happens and you have to do your due diligence. All it takes is a quick message. Some sellers are just lazy, but some make mistakes and sometimes a seller will have the correct listing but that listing changes so the lp is listed incorrectly. I actually ask sellers on eBay for verification many times. Photos and descriptions don't always tell the story. It's like any purchase really. Would you just go into a store and just pick any old TV they have on sale to buy? Of course not, you'd due your homework, ask questions, etc. Online buying is the same. Sure some sights like Amazon might give you a lot of details, but even they frequently don't and you have to do more research.
Negative feedback on eBay is erased all the time. Just recently a well known forger of posters, tickets, 45s (punk era) was left three negative feedbacks about their product being fakes. All three were removed by eBay. IMO, that is worse than what Discogs does. All Discogs asks is that you contact the seller first. This is hardly an onerous task. I find it odd that so many buyers can't be bothered to follow a simple process then complain in the forums that Discogs doesn't care and are fraudsters themselves. Had they followed a simple rule they'd have been able to leave whatever feedback they wanted. I recon they just get so angry that they don't even consider the consequences of what they are doing. Of course that assumes people have read the rules to begin with and I doubt many do. eBay removed that feedback without doing any due diligence of their own and sided with the seller because of $$$. At least Discogs will let negative feedback stand if it's done fairly. In no way do I trust 100% feedback on either platform. I use it as a guide but I also ensure I take steps to protect myself.
