Selling Records (to Strangers)

[shigginpit]

[PofM]

@homealone

What would i want to do to make the buyers pleased that they ordered a record from me? Is there any specific way of packaging and sending a record, would it be worth buying new inner sleeves where the ones i have are a bit tatty/beerstained (aka ‘DJ worn’). Should i get plastic slip cases to put things in?

I buy a lot on discogs, and I don’t expect brand new inner sleeves. I hate it when a record slips around and bursts through the side of the outer sleeve though. When I sell anything, I leave the vinyl in the inner sleeve, but put that next to the outer card sleeve, not inside it. I always use high quality mailers, but that’s because I have an infinite supply of them from all the records I buy. If I had to buy the packaging new then I’d have to raise my prices

Discogs are about to raise their fee to 9% which will hit profits and make everybody raise prices.

And as already stated above, it takes work to list your discogs inventory, and then most of it will sit there unsold for aaaaaaaaaages, even if you price it competitively and have good feedback ratings

[homealone]

just going through the motions

[shigginpit]

I don’t have much experience cleaning records so I can’t really chime in on that, but I know if you bake a warped record at a very low temp between a couple panes of tempered glass for a few minutes there’s about a 60% chance of restoring it, which is better than throwing it away.

[PofM]

@homealone

Also, risking another tangent, what do you do about cleaning records??

I at least brush the dust off with a proper record brush, and if it’s actually mucky I’ll spray some cleaner on too and wipe clean (but I’ve usually done that when I buy them so it shouldn’t be needed when I sell them, ymmv). I use this stuff:

[obscurerobot]

@shigginpit

but I know if you bake a warped record at a very low temp between a couple panes of tempered glass for a few minutes there’s about a 60% chance of restoring it

That’s a f’d up way to make reverse Oreos at home

[homealone]

Great tips, thank you. Too late for a lot of the spines on my collection though!

Again, ‘DJ worn’ - going to have to make this a new standard description of condition.

Rueing the day i ever heard of turning the inner sleeves so you can chuck the record back in with drunken glee.

[homealone]

@shigginpit

I know if you bake a warped record at a very low temp between a couple panes of tempered glass for a few minutes there’s about a 60% chance of restoring it

I’m bound to fuck this up and end up with an oven covered in melted Lionel Richie albums…

[PofM]

Also I find it never hurts to send the buyer some messages saying “shipped it today, should be with you soon, enjoy the tunes” or something like that. Worst case they ignore you, best case they leave better feedback because you seem like a nice chap.

[homealone]

I always try to keep in touch with info about postage, delivery times etc. Definitely a confidence builder in any transaction.

@PofM

they leave better feedback because you seem like a nice chap.

And that’s where they’re wrong, mwahaha.

[shigginpit]

If your oven is modern it would be low risk, if your oven is your great grandmothers pre-war hand me down ymmv.

[obscurerobot]

@shigginpit

if your oven is your great grandmothers pre-war hand me down ymmv

Unclear if a Bauhaus oven is preferred or not.

[thermionic]

Every stranger is a friend you haven’t met yet!

(Or I’m bound to get stabbed…)

[homealone]

@obscurerobot

Unclear if a Bauhaus oven is preferred or not.

Only for recordings of Bertolt Brecht plays on shellac.

[Kegeratorz]

@shigginpit

60%

[shigginpit]

we’re here for the crackle.

[sndrsklr]

I haven’t read the whole thread yet but I was in the same position a while ago and I did a mix of Discogs and selling big chunks to a friend of mine who runs a record shop. I took the time to sort out the more valuable ones to sell myself on Discogs and the rest went to the record store. If the average selling price is rather low you’ll have way too much work for what you get out of it. You’ll also have to buy proper shipping boxes, pay Discogs (and possibly Paypal) fees and usually you’re selling low quantities on Discogs which will end up in a lot of walks to the post office. So that’s only really worth it for the valuable records in my opinion unless you run a proper shop.

Selling to a record shop is definitely the easiest way to go but you’ll probably get less than you hope for. But ideally it won’t be much less than you’d get from selling them individually via Discogs (minus fees and other expenses) then you have to decide if that’s worth it compared to spend the work to grade each record any wait until someone buys a record or two. Sometimes I sold several records a month sometimes a few months without selling anything. But then again I only had records for sale for 20€ and up.

You could also try selling blind packs, it used to be a thing on eBay but I don’t know if that is still the case. Piles of 25 or 50 records was usually a good amount.

[thermionic]

@sndrsklr

You could also try selling blind packs, it used to be a thing on eBay but I don’t know if that is still the case. Piles of 25 or 50 records was usually a good amount.

I do like the idea of “genre” blind packs, I’ve definitely made worse impulse purchases from local record shops.