Question for Discogs sellers: Any way to sell to non-US buyers if you normally don't?

I don't offer to ship outside the US anymore, because of the Discogs policy that you have to provide a fixed rate and that doesn't work for me for non-US sales. (On top of other hassles).

But, occasionally, someone will contact me to ask if I will sell to another place. Depending on the item and location, sometimes I would be inclined to say yes, but I don't want to change my settings and turn on foreign sales generally.

Is there a way to just sell to one person internationally without changing my settings?

 

eBay: no way. I'm not paying for a tracking number to stop the reversals.....I'll take the bid or fixed sale from Willie in Fort Worth and not do overseas hoss.

 

Within the Discogs system? No. You could activate the policy, have the buyer place the order and pay and then shut it down but it would leave you open to other buyers placing orders

On Discogs the only way to do it would be to activate an ASP for that particular country. You can turn it off after they place their order and pay but it would all be down to timing to avoid other people placing orders.

Unless the ASP for that particular county is activated, the buyer cannot place the order at all.

Of course, the other option is to just invoice the buyer through PayPal directly bypassing Discos all together. Discogs loses their 8% but that's what you get for having an ASP that can't deal with this type of situation easily.

 

It is too risky for me to sell on Discogs to other countries. I mandated insurance last year after several incidents with the USPS, with stolen, damaged or delayed packages.

 

The problem is that constitutes fee avoidance. I agree it's one way of dealing with the issue, and I even agree that it would be Discogs' own fault if a buyer and seller chose to go that route under these circumstances, but you'd have to use their messaging system for swapping email addresses to conduct the sale. Unless one of the two parties already lists their contact info, that is. My concern would be that if Discogs finds out about it (and using their messaging system certainly makes that possible), the seller could have his account terminated. Maybe the buyer also.

I wouldn't think Discogs routinely checks through messages to uncover this kind of thing, but you never know. Personally, I wouldn't want to take the risk.

 

I recently sold a CD to a UK buyer. I ship from Canada so my shipping rates were for Canada and U.S. only. I don't sell a lot or very often.
The buyer who saw my listing sent me a message that he wanted to buy the CD I had listed but it was not available in his country. I ended up adding UK shipping policies and sold him the item.
I have a tangential question: for sellers who sell in multiple formats eg. vinyl, CD and cassette how do you set your shipping costs?
I have a bunch of cassettes in my inventory but the shipping costs are the same as LPs which doesn't make sense.
I find it really clunky dealing with the Discogs selling policies.

 

I just shut down all international sales destinations on all accounts. I kept shipping to most all countries through the worst of the covid pandemic because I was at home a lot and I had time to go back and forth with buyers and run to PO to get exact quotes, and then invoice the buyers for that additional amount. But now that I am working a lot more and just starting up my 3rd Discogs store, I don't have the time anymore. I just recently did my final international sales, one to Canada and another to the UK. They were both worth it for the amount spent, but a hassle to deal with.

I think that I am going to activate Japan and Aust. only for my stores. This is because both countries have bought from me very expensive items and both countries have proven to be safe with quality mail systems.

Anyway, when someone wants an item from me and they are not in the US I direct them to my Gmail address for further questions. If they don't go for that, then they are not buying my item which is fine with me.

Here is my problem with international sales, if I end up refunding a lost order - then fine it happens, but what is not fine is refunding the shipping costs of $24 to $55 an order. That is money out of my pocket, a risk that I am not willing to take.