New discogs policies (shipping/restrictions)

[collapsedhole]

^yeah, i hear you on the "insane customers".... i guess it must be "those crazy kids" who think if they pay $7 total for an item that costs $3 to ship and has $1 in fees for the seller attached to it, that the sellers world should be revolving around packing, shipping, and updating about said item on a daily basis. like just keep your $3 and don't bother me - i don't have a customer service rep to placate your anxious selfish ass.

[impulse manslaughter]

Selling might be a pain in the ass but buying is getting pretty annoying as well. About a quarter of the items i buy are not graded right or people have listed the wrong version of a record. Would be nice if sellers could upload pictures of the items they're selling.

[implementsofsacrifice]

If it ain't broke, don't fix it. It goes without saying that this will push a lot of casual marketplace users out, as well as force buyers and/or sellers to make some financial compromise. I anticipate Discogs taking a considerable loss in turn of this needless convolution and I think that serves them right. I have nothing but appreciation for the (user built) database, but I'm honestly beginning to prefer eBay as a selling platform.

[Theodore]

I am not sure i understand correctly since i dont have a seller account to see the changes. I guess with the new changes the invoice stage no longer exists and buyer can buy and pay instantly. Seller cant refund and cancel the order if postage turns out to be more expensive ? In this case Discogs still claims its fee ? It's a valid reason and only assholes would leave negative feedback in this case, and no serious potential buyer would worry from it anyway.

From buyer's perspective, mine, it's good to know shipping costs / policies beforehand. Either that be written in seller's terms or automaticaly. To avoid surprises.

Maybe Discogs doing this cause they want to cut communications between buyer / seller ? I, many times, when i ask for shipping costs, i offer to do it out of Discogs, so i, he, we save the fee.

[holy ghost]

From buyer's perspective, mine, it's good to know shipping costs / policies beforehand. Either that be written in seller's terms or automaticaly. To avoid surprises.

As a discogs buyer of almost 10 years I would never buy something without seeing the terms or messaging first. I've been burned!!

I'm seeing people just list "$1000" for shipping and then instruct the buyer to contact them about an actual rate. So there's always around it for small sellers.

[CannibalRitual]

I'm seeing people just list "$1000" for shipping and then instruct the buyer to contact them about an actual rate. So there's always around it for small sellers.

Scrolling down the list when searching for an item and there's $1000 noted for shipping I would just ignore it and look at the next one. Otherwise, might have been drinking and then one wrong click too much and it's taken off your PayPal.....

[re:evolution]

Jesus fucking christ....

So, I decided to set up polices yesterday and today with an attitude of: 'I'm not going to get pissed off about this - how hard can it be'?

Well that attitude soon evaporated.... Two hours in of what should have been an easy and straight forward set up, I am still getting 'incomplete policy' messages - and the fucking system only give vague and not specific indications if what the issue is.

I gave up yesterday, with a view to coming back at it today, and someone already took advantage of making a 'flat rate' order, where it was my mistake on how that policy had been set up. Considering whether to cancel that order or not...

Another hour this morning and it is still saying 'incomplete policy', but I have checked every line item etc.

If Discogs are intent on pushing this through - fuck me - at least they should make it seamless and a five minute exercise. I expect a huge exodus from sellers from the platform - not in complaint - but in frustration and folks simply giving up trying to set up these standardised postage rules.

[re:evolution]

Another hour this morning and it is still saying 'incomplete policy', but I have checked every line item etc.

.....so, the issue was with the 'all formats' postage rule. The Discogs system requires that the minimum order value MUST be set to '$0.00' for the policy to be deemed valid. If that is the case - why the fuck give an option to set a higher value which will consequently make the policy invalid?

This new standardised system clearly proves the saying: 'a camel is a horse designed by committee'.

[absurdexposition]

Another hour this morning and it is still saying 'incomplete policy', but I have checked every line item etc.

.....so, the issue was with the 'all formats' postage rule.

Yeah, setting up the per-format rates is extremely simple, but this All Format thing doesn't make any sense and they haven't done a very good job at providing a walk through or examples other than just saying "do this".

Edit: seems like it exists partly because they didn't code all formats into the shipping policy editor as yet... (VHS, shellac, etc)

[CannibalRitual]

so how are you able to merge orders? I guess this is no longer possible? Has been handy few times.

[absurdexposition]

The buyers are not required to pay immediately, so until they pay everything like merging/adjusting invoice can be done as normal.

[CannibalRitual]

ok thanks for clearing that up!

[implementsofsacrifice]

If the buyers aren't required to pay immediately and the sellers were already advertising their shipping rates, making the offerings transparent, then what exactly is this system supposed to achieve?

[absurdexposition]

One other thing: have they shortened the selling histories for some items to a year or another cutoff point (x amount of copies sold)? I checked a few listings recently and I'm sure their histories used to span for a few years, if not back until the marketplace got introduced. I could be wrong but if not, some entrepreneur/coding wizard could make a browser addon and website that tracks the complete price/selling data of Discogs (much like others have done for Amazon etc). Add in-price tracking with email notifications to say when something is listed under a customer defined price and you're winning.

This is cut to allegedly the 10 (but I just looked at an item with 18) most recent sales and has been like that for some time. Which makes sense, as more/older history becomes irrelevant when doing price research.

[Theodore]

I could be wrong but if not, some entrepreneur/coding wizard could make a browser addon and website that tracks the complete price/selling data of Discogs (much like others have done for Amazon etc). Add in-price tracking with email notifications to say when something is listed under a customer defined price and you're winning.

And that's the only hope, cause if you wait from Discogs staff it will never happen. They dont even have introduced a new much neccesary function to seperate wantlist from stuff you want to get notification emails for ! - They allow sellers to reannounce their stuff everyday, the same and the same sellers with the same stuff everytime i open the marketplace. I wish i could block them. Seriously, i dont think this helps them, gives buyer the impression it's always there. - As for notification emails, i had turn them off in a week once i tried them, cause of that.

Also, to help the database running and expanding, and give contributors something back, they could for every newly added release when it sells for first time -and only then- for 5EUR and above, to give the guy who added it 50cent credit points, and when he has enough to buy a release Discogs to pay for him using his credit. - What's the use of their fucking rank points ?! What they think contributors are ? Kids ? At least respect them and dont fool them with rankings and such shit.

I suspect people working for Discogs dont use Discogs, and they dont care to ask and listen.

That said, Discogs database is the best place in the internet. OK, one of the best at least. And their marketplace useful, no matter its cons.

Maybe their sales history is the reason prices go up all the time. I think yes.