Flippers / Scalpers ruining the vinyl resurgence?

What do you think? Hobby is becoming too expensive certainly. More exclusivity for the better off.

 

'Meet the demand? What are you, crazy? That would take too much effort.'
/s

 

I don't think it is the flippers so much as the fact that there are tons of $50, $75, and $100 releases being put out - and are or can be harmful. Big thick box sets with all the trimmings, 180g, 45rpms, and audiophile hand-stamped, limited pressed, specialties that are priced very high so that sales numbers need not be high to turn a profit.

I understand that the sales numbers will never be like the 70s and 80s peaks. But I think priced have just gone to fancy-free and through the roof.

This is one reason I like the Newbury and Barns & Nobel "exclusives" on colored and splatter vinyl. There are affordable, and also have potential to become very much in demand once they go out or print. At least you can find something there in the $22 - $30 range to check out.

 

It starts with the labels making everything limited edition or super duper exclusive.

I imagine with the unpredictability of the demand for physical media, they find this is an effective marketing technique and the flippers actually help. I can't tell you how many things I've bought this past year saying to myself, "Well, if I have any interest in this at all, I'd better get it now because it will be too expensive once it's out of print."

Then once you've portrayed it as super exclusive, you risk backlash from the original purchasers if you break up the release into cheaper parts or sometimes even just re-press it.

Throw in the flippers, who don't let these releases get cheaper on the secondhand market.... I just paid box set money for a copy of Tom Petty's first Kiss My Amps.

 

Sometimes those flippers have found that old promo cd/12 inch single at some obscure antique shop and brought it to market for me to enjoy
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I think if they didn’t make all these pressings super limited then we wouldn’t have this problem. Pretty simple

 

I predict that when the bubble starts to deflate, colored vinyl will be the first victim. But maybe that's because I'm not at all interested and don't buy it and don't understand why anyone else pays premium prices for it.

 

I think that, due to bricks-and-mortar shops being shut here for months on end, online prices for lps have got a bit silly. I'm hoping that, once the shops open again in a few weeks and there are more retailers to choose from, we will see saner pricing. I don't see how anyone could run a business flipping vinyl, unless they are doing it on an industrial scale?

 

This is definitely one of the inherent problems: Exclusivity. Instead of focusing on the quality of the vinyl, they insist on making it all gussied up.

Supply /Demand.

 

Some of the stuff they're flipping isn't even out of print, it's just standing in line for a repress. But as long as there are suckers willing to pay...

 

I see them in my shops, phones out for compact discs, my local sells them for about 4 bucks, a ton of old Iron Maiden/Megadeath came in last week, he could probably make some dough on the bay with them.

 

Because it is not premium priced that is why. I just explained that these are limited runs in the 300 to 1000 range and priced at $22 to $29.99 a LP.

Colored vinyl pressings have always been the desirable copy of a given album. It goes back to the 50s and early 60s. Red vinyl Japanese Beatles and Pink Floyd, Julie London on Liberty, or whatever. The colored one is always the more desirable. Always will be. The limited editions are cheap to purchase, and most likely to go up in value. When the bubble starts to deflate, the fancy splatter limited to 500 copies will still be the one folks want.

I actually buy two copies of the ones I like, one for me to keep, and one to sell later. But I simply like to break even on my purchases, I'm not looking to charge or 4 x original prices.

 

If demand >>> supply = scalper problem

Look at the recent Run DMC "Raising Hell" MFSL 2 lp x 45rpm ltd. edition of 3,000 sold out in a heartbeat, there are currently 37 for sale on Discogs and probably more than a few copies sitting sealed on the sidelines for a few years waiting for it to become a $200-500 record maybe more.

 

When a new 'remastered' vinyl release of an older record costs £20+ and its cheaper to buy a M/M copy of the original release (Hello there 'Quiet Life') I'll always be going back to the source.

 

Wow, I havent see that yet but I can well imagine it, given that thats how many people shop nowadays (or used to, before you-know-what) - walking around comparing prices in the shop to Amazon, especially if something is supposedly 'on sale'. And i saw it A LOT at car boot sales here, again until last year. Personally I think it takes all the fun out of the whole thing, but if the tech (phones and internet) is there then people will use it.

 

For most of my lifetime you'd buy a new record for x and if you found it used or most used records come to that they'd be selling for around half x, the only exceptions were the handful of genuinely rare and collectable records that might cost two, three or four times x, nowadays a new record is x and even before it's deleted used copies are selling for x+ or twice x, this new normal of used copies being higher value than new is where things have fundamentally gone wrong, the old normal made a lot more sense, but then we didn't have Discogs, eBay, Amazon and other sites to facilitate asking silly money for used records and sellers just wanted to get some of their money back to buy something new, they didn't have a sense of entitlement to an instant profit on everything.

 

Many of them ARE priced higher than the black vinyl version. I've seen colored new releases and reissues that are priced $10 or more higher than the black vinyl version. It's a common occurrence, so I don't know how you've missed it. And there are examples (Taylor Swift) that go for hundreds in the after market. We are talking about flipping in this thread. If you're paying hundreds for a Record Store Day colored vinyl, you're probably going to get hurt in the long run. That's my opinion.

 

Plus it usually has more audible flaws than black.

 

That Yousef Craft issue has EBay flippers lined up to sell at $399...$399 for a non essential LP. I never heard of him until Craft announced the issue. Is anyone really going to pay $399 for that?

I'm not interested but you can buy an older pressing for around $25-$35. Silliness.

 

I think youre onto something there. I sold around 200 CDs about a decade ago, all in one go to an online company for peanuts, but their USP was ease of use - they sent a box for me to pack them in then collected the box with no fuss. I wouldn't DREAM of doing that now. I sell unwanted CDs on @bay and Im holding onto the ones that arent valuable AT THE MOMENT because Im convinced that their value will only increase with time, and Im conscious that each one has a value. Most CDs sell for around what I paid but there's been the odd one thats gone for a lot more, and it only hardens my resolve to hang on to the rest!!

 

It's been happening for cd's in my parts for awhile, since some of the older one's can command high prices. Used LP's in my shops are about 8 bucks up, unless it's something rare I don't see anyone checking their phones. The profit margins seem higher on the cd's. I'm talking about rare cd singles/and mainly 80's manufactured discs.

 

No amount of tech is going to make you a good grader, or give you the knowledge to be able to identify obscure rarities that aren't properly tagged on the internet. Discogs is a good resource but it misses things.

 

So because you have never heard of him, the LP is non essential? That's a ridiculous statement. I 100% would mark that album as essential and have long before it was announced by Craft.

 

I guess that CDs are easier to shift 2nd hand because their physical condition is easier to prove, and there's less chance of the buyer complaining. I sell vinyl and always grade very carefully and take lots of photos. When I sell CDs I take a cover pic and thats it. And you're right about profit margins, too. Over here charity shops will stock CDs at 50p-£1 but the vinyl is always priced after consulting Discogs and picking the most expensive copy for sale.

 

However, at some point the repress interval becomes so attenuated that the item may as well be out of print.
Hence, the high prices.