Why do some Discogs members create orders but don't pay?

Really don't understand this practice. I constantly see feedback entries for users which state an order was never paid. Why do people do this? They get dinged on their feedback, yet I routinely see multiple entries for the same behavior for the same people.

When I create the order, I pay immediately. Got 2 orders on Sunday and shipped them within a couple of hours.

Why wait? Or why just never pay? Discogs' minimum number of days for payment is 4. In my opinion, it should be 2, tops.

Currently am waiting for a payment from a buyer-created order from 2 days ago. It'll be interesting to see whether he eventually will but I find it pretty silly to act this way. Ironically, his (100% positive) feedback feature multiple entries praising his quick payments.

 

It happens on this forum too. I'll send payment information and even though they're still on-line posting away for hours they don't bother to pay. Sometimes I have to send follow up e-mails. Some people are just that way.

 

Discogs make their terminology a little confusing. I once made an enquiry about an item, without realising that by doing so I was "creating an order". When I returned a week later, having been doing other things in my life, I discovered to my surprise that I had got a negative buyer feedback for not following through with the order.

I have no problem with the concept of reducing the minimum number of days for payment, but if they do that they need to make it quite clear what is happening. A message something like "You have placed an order for album XXXXX. Please advise the seller if you wish to cancel. Payment must be made by <date/time>, otherwise the order will automatically lapse unless an extension of the time for payment has been agreed to by the seller." No doubt people who have been using Discogs for years understand how it's supposed to work, but everyone was a newbie once.

 

Yeah I can't really understand it, especially the repeat offenders. I've seen some buyers with horrible feedback scores because of this and I'm surprised anyone will still sell to them.

 

A lot of people are A-holes. I've never sent a message and created an order by mistake. I also pay immediately when presented with an invoice.
It's amazing some people can even find their way out of bed every morning, judging by the incompetence, and ignorance they present to the world on a daily basis.

 

This guy has 33 sales to his feedback. It's an expensive album so I'm guessing either something else came up or he's having a tough time either coming up with the funds.

I set my minimum rating I'll sell to to the very max allowed by Discogs, which is 90%. This current buyer has 100% feedback but is dragging his feet. Maybe something else distracted him from finalizing the purchase.

 

I think it's simply because the ramifications are minimal. You see buyers with 33% positive feedback that are still buying because in all honesty, Discogs could use the revenue.

Hey at least you don't get charged when someone doesn't pay, and there's no silly process to request a refund on the sale that didn't go through.

 

Agreed. Sellers would also check their accounts more frequently with this policy - I always pay immediately after placing an order, only for some sellers to write me after a couple of days they don't have their money yet. Upon sending proof of my payment, I *always* receive messages like Sorry, I totally forgot to check that account - it's no problem for me, but as I'm always concerned about these things, it often causes me stress when there's no reason for stress

 

I noticed a pattern of sellers taking forever to acknowledge payment so I know include the transaction number. If anything, it shows them (without them even checking) that I'm not making things up and are more likely to quite quickly, at least in comparison, confirm they've received payment.

 

Yeah, just my practice as well

 

The problem I have with buyer/seller ratings is that, even though Discogs sends you a reminder, I would bet that if the transaction went well with no hitches that many buyers and sellers would simply forget about giving a rating. On the other hand, they would be unlikely to forget to give a negative rating if it was warranted. If someone has a 33% satisfaction rating, that simply means that 1/3 of all the people who bothered to return a rating gave a negative rating.

 

In my experience, to get a rating of less than 95%, unless it only has a few transactions, it'd be hard to do. Yet, I constantly see the same thing over and over. For buyers, it's not paying after creating orders. For sellers, it's blatant overgrading with abandon.

My rating for both buying and selling is spotless because I take great care in being aware of this. In fact, Discogs didn't alert me on my first order and I apologized for *their* mistake and upgraded shipping as a way to compensate him for the unfortunate delay. He was thankfully understanding and gave me a terrific rating.

Most people do provide feedback. For somebody to have a rating of 33%, they'd have to work quite hard at it. To weed out non-serious buyers as much as the system will allow me to, users below 90% can't buy from me. It helps but nothing's perfect.

 

Well, that so-called buyer never paid. He ruined his perfect feedback rating and is now down to 97.1%. Even sent reminders but my guess is he never had the funds to pay.

Thankfully, it's easy to relist and I easily sold 2 other LPs to a fellow member today... who paid and quickly too. Imagine that!

 

Do you use the auto-cancellation policy? I think the minimum of 4 days is too generous, but I do like that the system will both cancel the transaction and leave negative feedback for me. The non-paying buyer also cannot leave any feedback whatsoever.

 

Yes, I do exactly that. I also blacklist the user so no additional orders can be created.

 

I frequently keep about half a dozen items in my cart as a kind of super wantlist for things I intend to purchase next.

I wonder if some people don’t quite understand, and they think they can place an order that doesn’t count until they pay for it. So they use it the way I use the shopping cart? It seems like the sort of thing you would learn quickly, but maybe it takes people a couple of times to realize what they’re doing?

 

I'm sure there are a lot of reasons but I think the big one is simply that Discogs is a really confusing site in terms of buying and selling when compared to most other sites. Most sites that use a cart metaphor require you to pay when you checkout. With discogs you can order, but the payment process is an entirely separate step.

I just had a new buyer order a record. We shared a few messages. But after 3 days I had to remind him to pay. He did, and sent a message apologizing as the first time he used discogs he got an invoice. So that doesn't help either...some sellers create and send invoices, others (like me) who use automatic shipping calculations do not.

As nice as Discogs is, it really is its own unique thing unlike most any other site. And I think a lot of people new to it simply get confused.

 

There are two types of buyers who fail to pay, those that don't understand the process and those that are morons.

The post above is an example of the first. He was expecting an invoice and left it in the sellers hands. Mind you if it were me I'd be messaging the seller asking him where my invoice was a lot sooner than after 3 days, but that's another discussion.

But plenty of sellers on Discogs complain about contacting and reminding buyers multiple times and getting nothing but silence. Those people are examples of the second type; morons.

If you read the forums there you'd be surprised, or maybe you would not, at some of the stupidity on display. One my all time favourites was an idiot buyer who questioned the shipping costs and said if Amazon can do it for $4 why can't other sellers. People like that, well there's no helping that level of dumb.

 

this. it's a weekly chore to try an explain to people that yes, i am charging them the actual rates for shipping.

 

There's also the possibility they've either configured their alerts to not contact them via email whenever they're invoiced or there's any progress on an order... or the emails get stuck in their SPAM folder.

Regardless, we all have to be accountable for this.

As a seller, I once ran into an alerts issue whereby, for no reason at all, Gmail decided Discogs emails were SPAM. I eventually found out that I had an order, apologized for the delay, rectified the alerts situation, and upgraded shipping to the buyer for free so he'd get it around the same time he otherwise would have. Sucks, but I took ownership of the problem.

 

There's an undue amount of clicking to pay through Paypal in discogs. When I was selling there I sold about 600 orders, maybe 3 were delayed, and of those, most if not all thought they'd paid. Many people don't spend time on it either, so they wouldn't see any correspondence, thinking it was in the mail. If you leave it alone they will come back eventually.