I cannot understand for the life of me why people associate funko pops with records. I see them at record shows and record stores all the time. To each their own but what is the relation? Anyways, great video. I do think that people trying to capitalize on a niche community is what always ends up killing it, it’s the passion that makes it thrive, if you remove the heart, you remove the life.
I guess because Funkos are part of pop culture just as are bands, other than that there really is no comparison. They’re both made out of a type of plastic might be the only other similarity. lol
As a research tool, Discogs is better than ever. A year ago, it was still a mess. They finally have everything chronological, with most duplicates tossed out. Everybody thought they needed to add their title, not realizing they would have to have something EXTREMELY rare, for it to not already be listed.
I'm in the EU and only use Discogs for buying, 99% from sellers likewise in the EU. I don't know if it's a US-only thing, or if it's the specific music I'm interested in (mostly 70s/80s punk/post-punk) but I've never seen issues with fake sellers. Quite the opposite, the vast majority of sellers I've dealt with have been absolutely excellent.
My wantlist has some rare records and I haven't experienced what you are talking about at all. I haven't seen any worsening in my discogs experience. It is still mostly great for me.
I’ve used all of those sites, some more than others but I felt something off when scrolling through their sites this year. This video explains a lot. Thank you!!
This reminds me of when the internet started hurting record sales - primarily because the record companies were too obstinate to partner with online entities to work towards a feasible solution in the beginning. The film studios did it right - they dropped catalog DVDs down to $7 while keeping new releases avoided $20. The music company kept CDs at $19 and don’t adapt and lost a lot. Whenever an industry does well - in this case vinyl - huge companies come in, strictly for their profit, to suck the lifeblood out of it and steal away what made things good in the first place. It is horrible see - especially bandcamp which has done so much to champion artists. I fear that the industry may take a hit and we will continue to need to support our underground indie labels and bands and brick and mortar shops to sustain things. That Qrates thing s disturbing. too - it reminds me of the Pledge music fiasco from a few years back where bands like Swervedriver and Failure got hosed as did all the fans.
All of this is very unfortunate. The Discogs scammers have been a huge problem and by looking at record sales history on a lot of titles, people are losing a lot of money. I wish you and your music label the best. I would hate to see anyone lose money through no fault of their own. Take care.
Take record sales with a grain of salt. When you look up values of a record based on 5 or 6 entries within the last 3 years, that means little to nothing.
As an artist who worked closely with the bad*sses at Mondo and Death Waltz on multiple vinyl releases over the years, the Funko buyout was indeed tragic. The good news is most of the creatives that made it special have moved on to exciting new ventures so the future is looking bright.. 🔥
@jacobcaron2280 @dmgmail7021 Rob and Alan Hynes are now with Vinyl Me Please. In other news.., can't spill the beans yet but stay tuned for some fun announcements before year's end...
RIP mondo. My husband raged over the funko thing for days as he is a poster collector as well. Some of the big names at mondo ended up at VMP. Eagerly awaiting soundtrack drops from VMP in the new year.
Good take, Matt. Love the honesty. It's not all unicorns and rainbows in our hobby....and sometimes it's good to make a video like this to inform everyone of the sometimes ugly business side of everything. Thanks for doing this.
My biggest gripe with discogs is the wantlist. Do I really have to add every pressing just to see what's available? Let's take Introducing the beatles, 183 different pressings. A lot of counterfeits, unofficials, or bootlegs, whatever you want to call them. Perhaps I am ok with an unofficial release, does that mean I have to clog up my wantlist with 183 different versions of a single album just to see what is available? I find myself not even bothering with a wantlist and subsequently looking for other avenues to purchase my vinyl from. Just my two cents. Thanks for the heads up on what is happening in the community and I look forward to seeing more of your videos. Keep spinning!
Thanks for this video. Especially the comment section that offer other sites as alternative options. Maybe you can do a review on some of the sites that continue to do it the right way or are new and upcoming with solid potential. Seems there will always be a revolving door of these sites and such updated reviews could help keep the industry strong and accountable.
I don't know which two but two of the major figure heads of Mondo recently joined the vinyl me please team and is working with them on both a lot of their graphic design elements as well as posters and soundtracks and different little goodies
I’ll still use discogs as a tool for cataloguing my collection and wantlist, but i think im done buying and selling on there due to the absurd spam accounts
Its pretty easy to notice scam accounts. High priced LPs and bargain prices and a feedback entries. They do need to make it easier to report such accounts.
To me it’s super easy to spot those accounts and just avoid them. Should be easier to get them Removed but if your a remotely seasoned buyer on there, there’s no reason to get fooled
My biggest gripe about the Discogs Want List is that we can not filter results. My inbox is often filled with albums I want but are from distant countries that I don't want to pay shipping from. Why can't I filter these results to show me items from selected countries. And while we're at it I am not interested in any vinyl graded as VG or lower. It would be much more valuable to me when I open my inbox knowing that all the results presented to me are something I would actually buy.
Another issue with pop market is that they will put up discogs marketplace listings on color variants of records, when they are actually selling the black vinyl variant. They price it at the standard black vinyl price, and write in the description that the color cannot be verified. it drives me absolutely nuts. it makes people selling the actual color variant look like they are super overpriced and messes with sales history when people inevitably fall for it.
@@TooManyRecords The wildest thing about Popmarket is when they undercut themselves. I've been in several situations where the consumer price from Popmarket is cheaper than buying *wholesale* from Alliance, even though it's literally the same item on the same shelf in the same warehouse.
I feel the same way about the Qrates situation. They stopped taking orders for new projects recently on their website. I have a lot of supporters waiting for their records to ship. It's not looking good, I wish there was something we could do.
Tried Discogs two yrs ago, I'm more than familiar with online spending and receiving but did not like, first and last, poor quality, record not as advertised, limited response or help. The set up has no real security like eBay, Bezo'$ place etc where sellers are monitored and kicked off if found to be scammers or idiots. I mostly buy in real time and only use Amazon for certain items I want and want new. Great vid, thx for more info and I did watch your initial video regarding this. Oh and big fist pump for having a shop in Portland, gotta be a soldier warrior to work and run a biz in Portland. I'm Vancouver Canada so I know.
The greed for easy money expands it’s area of operations when opportunities unfolds themselves. The best you can do is learning from videos like this , listen to people who have experience and be very suspicious of too-good-to-be-true deals.
Stopped selling on eBay years ago for same reason= taking % of total price including shipping, instead of item sale price like it used to be. Became too complicated to make sure I over charged shipping just enough to cover %. Mess up you don't make any $ and you lose $$ on shipping. Done! Good Video
I also might have mentioned that cool email that Discogs sent out explaining how easy it is to increase all of your prices to make up for their price increase. Because the cost of records isn't already absurd... Can you imagine a world where they would have decreased their fees, and they would have seen more profit because of higher volume & goodwill? Quite hard to imagine indeed.
The bottom line for corporations is profit, they could care less if you make a dollar or not. Most of the time when you sell through a 3rd party the seller makes the least amount divided between the platform, your original investment and shipping.
To your point about Vulfpeck and Qrates, not sure if you're aware but Vulfpeck has actually since pressed their most recent re-release through Diggers Factory, not Qrates. Which I found very interesting, and only adds to your points.
ebay also takes their fee on the sale price, shipping, and even sales tax, they claim something like a 13.85% fee but in practice it usually ends up more like 17% because of this
Funny enough I just started record collecting like a month ago, and wanted to get a vinyl and found that discogs has a few. Horrible experience, I bought a record but received a different version of the record but the image they use is the one that everyone uses on the site for that record so it make you believe that’s the record their selling right? Nope got a different version but it’s still the same album. Why they don’t force people to use their own images, take their own pictures to verify any outliers!?!?
I'm just a guy who likes music and likes records. Of the sites you mention, I'd only heard of two -- Discogs and Bandcamp -- both of which I've used a handful of times. I have about 25 records currently for sale on Discogs (mostly duplicates -- titles I've bought twice because I'm disorganized and apparently my short-term memory isn't very good). I've sold about 5 in the last three months. I think I'll just pull them all down now and take whatever I can get for them by trading them in at a local record store. (But there are some really good ones! I have a NM original copy of the Replacements' "Let It Be" that somebody honestly ought to be listening to right now!)
Life long collector here just wanted to report that I have stopped buying off Discogs altogether for over a year now. I just can't deal with the hassle and scammers any longer.
And that decision is a tragic death sentence for the honest seller like me. I strive to run my business with integrity, but it doesn't matter because Discogs allowed dishonest sellers to force you to take that action. The honest guy loses sales, and his business, and the dishonest guy just finds someone else to rip off.
Me being a Bandcamp member, I don't understand why the last change of ownership should be the end of it. It's a service for musicians at first and the goal is very 'capitalistic' - it's to get the money to the artists at a moderate fee to keep the service profitable and alive. The vinyl part is only an additional gimmick and even if it where stopped completely (i don't expect that, because apparently it's profitable as long as the current vinyl hype lasts), wouldn't be the end of Bandcamp. eg.: in the 80s we worked with one of the commercial agencies here in germany who charged a lot more for their services (25-30%) and record labels that only paid You real small revenues below 30%. Besides that I don't really understand, why one would take a high-quality digital recording (if You're not into 'compression wars') and imho cripple it by remastering to a much lower level of tonal range (40-15000Hz), narrower stereo range and much less dynamics, the Vinyl campaigning platform is unchanged as I see for now.
Sell things at a reasonable rate compared to the going market value, be accurate with grading and your description, and the reputation will come with time.
Most record sellers overprice USED records. They're used. They're mass produced. Most sellers got them for free. 99% of used full albums shouldn't cost more than $10. If I see another used copy of Thriller or Rumours for $30 by these pompous so-called collectors, I'll scream. None of you are collecting minerals or Picassos.
There sure are a lot of bitter people out there. I had a Thriller album in shrink that I sold for $40 within a week in my antique mall booth and I paid $8 for it. The market decides value so who am I to tell someone how to price their records for sale? .
@@MickSupper , not true. The market doesn't decide the value because if you inflate your prices along with other sellers in order to get the highest profit, it's not demand on used Thriller albums when someone can buy it new. Sellers take advantage of new buyers who don't know any better. Shrinkwrap doesn't make it worth more money unless you're pricing it that way.
@@whumanbard Whatever. What a blanket statement to say that just because something sells for more than what you think it's worth then it's "sellers taking advantage of new buyers". Are you God or something?
I wasn't even aware of Mondo until I heard about the That Thing You Do! soundtrack release. It is awesome. Sad to hear it might be the last of a dying breed.
If I may, I would suggest adding time stamps of where you mentioned discogs, mondo, etc... it will really help engagement and help people stick around if they're only interested in half the video or one company in particular.
I’m an eBay reseller so I’m used to the fees coming from the shipping cost too. I just assume the reason is so you can’t charge more for shipping and skirt the fees. If you have an item you want to sell for $50 but instead price it at $40 and roll $10 into the shipping cost you’re evading the fees if shipping costs aren’t charged the percentage too. Kinda sucks, but it is what it is. Discog’s fees are still lower than eBay.
Not totally true...eBay have the fortnightly 70% discount on seller fees promotion (basically 3% basic fees instead of 10%). Plus eBay do provide the convenience of payments going direct to your bank account instead of into PayPal like Discogs
I’ve been waiting for cassettes from a campaign I ran on Qrates many months ago. The cassettes were manufactured back in June, but it’s November now and they still haven’t shipped. They said they had an issue with their logistics department/warehouse, but they said everything is accounted for. They told me they had to stop shipping things for a while, but they resumed months ago. I’ve reached out to them about once a month since then, and they just keep telling me they’ll ship soon. Still no idea when. Crazy that you had the same experience and didn’t even get any more info with contacts for the higher ups.
The reason they dip into shipping is the same reason ebay did it. People would sell a $100 record for a penny and charge $99 for shipping to get around paying fees.
@@MickSupper it used to happen about a decade or more ago. eBay put an end to it and started taking a percentage on postage to keep it at bay. Discogs is just following suit.
Discogs has definitely been on the decline over the past year especially for me as a seller. Buyers are a bit more weary with the uptick in scammers so sales have slowed a bit. Im glad you touched on the fee they take from your shipping too because that's suuuper corny. Unfortunately ebay is worse and theres no other solid alternative.
The listening feature seems to have gone on DC. What these big companies don't realize other than volume, is we want a quality product that feels limited and not a copycat of something else.
The whole discogs thing is perplexing to me (maybe because I'm based in the UK) I have been trying to set up a sellers account on there and I have been waiting 5 months and two days ago I got the message saying my wait is over but I now have to send off ID to them in order to be allowed to sell - I have never heard of anything so weird before our record shop is now looking at ditching them but we can't find suitable online outlet as the only other option in this country really is ebay and that is it's own mess of problems. As for the other sites (I know nothing about crates) it sounds like corporate dealings have just killed off those companies and its just a coincidence that it has happened close together but sadly that's life hopefully a new company will come to fill the hole they left
I'm a UK seller. Discogs has been great for years, I noticed that is had become a nightmare just prior to noticing that they are now based in the US rather than Holland. I'm winding down my relationship with them and hoping to find a new outlet. Anything that is a success always gets bought out and ruined. Hold out for a new outlet.
I'm glad to hear it, but I'd advise watching my previous video and reading some of the comments to see there are some glaring issues. Also the scamming is absolutely rampant and is far from a great experience.
@@TooManyRecords I saw this other video, still for me everything is great with Discogs, on both sides, as a seller and a buyer. I just wanted to comment so people can see that there are happy Discogs users out there, that's all.
The Writing's on the Wall... Unfortunately this is déja vu with crooks such as The Mylene Sheath and PledgeMusic, grabbing money from artists and customers while going out of business and obviously not responding to customer emails/calls.
@@TooManyRecords eBay started charging on shipping because people were circumventing sale fees by selling a $400 product for $1 with $399 shipping. Charging the fee on shipping isn't the best but they were in a lose-lose situation.
Happened to me several times. I couldn't understand it. I'd order a record and it would never ship. I'd wait and send a message and eventually they'd respond with a refund offer. I didn't want a refund, I wanted the Lp. Why didn't they just send it? Then it's get a refund on my PayPal. Weird. I don't get how this makes anyone money. They have my 20 dollars for a week?... I stopped buying from discogs because it happened so often.
I don't buy records from Discogs. But I use it for keeping track of what I own, might want to buy next, and roughly how much everything is worth, so I know Im not getting ripped off.
I've been wanting them to repress the Adventure Time Soundtrack at Mondo for half a decade. Still no progress. It's going for over 500 bucks on discogs.
I'd say the real problem is algorithm-driven websites artificially inflating the price of nearly every record out there. And the sellers who buy just to hoard and flip shortly thereafter for profit. Not everything needs to be limited edition, and not everything needs to be priced like a rare bottle of wine.
The HQ address of Discogs used to be in the Netherlands. In my opinion it all went to shit when they moved the head office to the USA, the capital of all scams. I don't know it they were bought out or just decided to lower standards but personally i don't use it half as much as I did.
I hope Qrates can figure things out soon. Lots of unhappy campers over here, too! Thank you for supporting us and preordering our album, @lauher21 we appreciate you.
The Mondo soundtracks and scores sound freaking atrocious. I have been burned so many times to the point where I'm not buying anything else from them music related. I was just gifted Oppenheimer on vinyl and this has to be the worst sounding new album I own.
I use discogs as I have no choice as I live in Australia and what I collect I can not find much if any in Australia I'm getting sick of sellers on discogs that can't respond to u with photos or any reply about a sale I'm not saying there all like this as I've had some wonderful experiences also I guess it's a case of good and bad But sellers with 70 or more bad reviews should not be selling records Some them are shocking to read U gotta be careful out there
1:22 “Maybe my opinion piece actually had a bit of weight to it” 😂 That article doesn’t site you. Perhaps you have an opinion shared by many others, including journalists at the verge.
Discogs is a curse on record collecting. Discogs has created a greedy market with many novice non collector punters buying and selling just for profits. I say "get a real job and leave the few remaining bargains for the true music lover"
I cannot understand for the life of me why people associate funko pops with records. I see them at record shows and record stores all the time. To each their own but what is the relation?
Anyways, great video. I do think that people trying to capitalize on a niche community is what always ends up killing it, it’s the passion that makes it thrive, if you remove the heart, you remove the life.
I guess because Funkos are part of pop culture just as are bands, other than that there really is no comparison. They’re both made out of a type of plastic might be the only other similarity. lol
They're made of vinyl!
As a research tool, Discogs is better than ever. A year ago, it was still a mess. They finally have everything chronological, with most duplicates tossed out. Everybody thought they needed to add their title, not realizing they would have to have something EXTREMELY rare, for it to not already be listed.
I'm in the EU and only use Discogs for buying, 99% from sellers likewise in the EU. I don't know if it's a US-only thing, or if it's the specific music I'm interested in (mostly 70s/80s punk/post-punk) but I've never seen issues with fake sellers. Quite the opposite, the vast majority of sellers I've dealt with have been absolutely excellent.
its mostly like more popular and rare records
My wantlist has some rare records and I haven't experienced what you are talking about at all. I haven't seen any worsening in my discogs experience. It is still mostly great for me.
That's great -- almost everyone I talk to has the same issue so I figured it's pretty prevalent but I understand that it will vary person to person.
I’ve used all of those sites, some more than others but I felt something off when scrolling through their sites this year. This video explains a lot. Thank you!!
This reminds me of when the internet started hurting record sales - primarily because the record companies were too obstinate to partner with online entities to work towards a feasible solution in the beginning. The film studios did it right - they dropped catalog DVDs down to $7 while keeping new releases avoided $20. The music company kept CDs at $19 and don’t adapt and lost a lot. Whenever an industry does well - in this case vinyl - huge companies come in, strictly for their profit, to suck the lifeblood out of it and steal away what made things good in the first place. It is horrible see - especially bandcamp which has done so much to champion artists. I fear that the industry may take a hit and we will continue to need to support our underground indie labels and bands and brick and mortar shops to sustain things. That Qrates thing s disturbing. too - it reminds me of the Pledge music fiasco from a few years back where bands like Swervedriver and Failure got hosed as did all the fans.
I forgot all about the Pledgemusic debacle. Very very similar vibes...
It is the way of modern corporate America to destroy a good thing in the pursuit of every last cent. Enjoy! Would you like to Supersize that?
All of this is very unfortunate. The Discogs scammers have been a huge problem and by looking at record sales history on a lot of titles, people are losing a lot of money.
I wish you and your music label the best. I would hate to see anyone lose money through no fault of their own. Take care.
Thanks Melinda! I hope this all gets better soon.
Take record sales with a grain of salt. When you look up values of a record based on 5 or 6 entries within the last 3 years, that means little to nothing.
As an artist who worked closely with the bad*sses at Mondo and Death Waltz on multiple vinyl releases over the years, the Funko buyout was indeed tragic. The good news is most of the creatives that made it special have moved on to exciting new ventures so the future is looking bright.. 🔥
What are some examples of places they went?
Like where?
@jacobcaron2280 @dmgmail7021 Rob and Alan Hynes are now with Vinyl Me Please. In other news.., can't spill the beans yet but stay tuned for some fun announcements before year's end...
I wasn't even aware of the Mondo news, very sad to see the place where I bought one of my first ever records fall apart like that.
RIP mondo. My husband raged over the funko thing for days as he is a poster collector as well. Some of the big names at mondo ended up at VMP. Eagerly awaiting soundtrack drops from VMP in the new year.
Good take, Matt. Love the honesty. It's not all unicorns and rainbows in our hobby....and sometimes it's good to make a video like this to inform everyone of the sometimes ugly business side of everything. Thanks for doing this.
Fads come and go. The vinyl resurrection is not immune. But, vinyl will remain with us always.
My biggest gripe with discogs is the wantlist. Do I really have to add every pressing just to see what's available? Let's take Introducing the beatles, 183 different pressings. A lot of counterfeits, unofficials, or bootlegs, whatever you want to call them. Perhaps I am ok with an unofficial release, does that mean I have to clog up my wantlist with 183 different versions of a single album just to see what is available? I find myself not even bothering with a wantlist and subsequently looking for other avenues to purchase my vinyl from. Just my two cents. Thanks for the heads up on what is happening in the community and I look forward to seeing more of your videos. Keep spinning!
Thanks for this video. Especially the comment section that offer other sites as alternative options. Maybe you can do a review on some of the sites that continue to do it the right way or are new and upcoming with solid potential. Seems there will always be a revolving door of these sites and such updated reviews could help keep the industry strong and accountable.
“Minefield” is the perfect word when describing the current state of the Discogs wantlist.
I don't know which two but two of the major figure heads of Mondo recently joined the vinyl me please team and is working with them on both a lot of their graphic design elements as well as posters and soundtracks and different little goodies
Rob Jones and Alan Hynes.
I’ll still use discogs as a tool for cataloguing my collection and wantlist, but i think im done buying and selling on there due to the absurd spam accounts
Its pretty easy to notice scam accounts. High priced LPs and bargain prices and a feedback entries. They do need to make it easier to report such accounts.
To me it’s super easy to spot those accounts and just avoid them. Should be easier to get them Removed but if your a remotely seasoned buyer on there, there’s no reason to get fooled
My biggest gripe about the Discogs Want List is that we can not filter results. My inbox is often filled with albums I want but are from distant countries that I don't want to pay shipping from. Why can't I filter these results to show me items from selected countries. And while we're at it I am not interested in any vinyl graded as VG or lower. It would be much more valuable to me when I open my inbox knowing that all the results presented to me are something I would actually buy.
I agree, wish we could filter out countries we don’t want to buy from.
Another issue with pop market is that they will put up discogs marketplace listings on color variants of records, when they are actually selling the black vinyl variant. They price it at the standard black vinyl price, and write in the description that the color cannot be verified. it drives me absolutely nuts. it makes people selling the actual color variant look like they are super overpriced and messes with sales history when people inevitably fall for it.
ABSOLUTELY. I didn't even mention that. I could do a whole video on why Popmarket is awful.
@@TooManyRecords The wildest thing about Popmarket is when they undercut themselves. I've been in several situations where the consumer price from Popmarket is cheaper than buying *wholesale* from Alliance, even though it's literally the same item on the same shelf in the same warehouse.
Great video, Matt. It's sad to see how bad discogs has gotten in the last year.
I feel the same way about the Qrates situation. They stopped taking orders for new projects recently on their website. I have a lot of supporters waiting for their records to ship. It's not looking good, I wish there was something we could do.
I had no idea about all these issues for sellers and buyers with Discogs. Many thanks for highlighting these.
Tried Discogs two yrs ago, I'm more than familiar with online spending and receiving but did not like, first and last, poor quality, record not as advertised, limited response or help. The set up has no real security like eBay, Bezo'$ place etc where sellers are monitored and kicked off if found to be scammers or idiots. I mostly buy in real time and only use Amazon for certain items I want and want new. Great vid, thx for more info and I did watch your initial video regarding this. Oh and big fist pump for having a shop in Portland, gotta be a soldier warrior to work and run a biz in Portland. I'm Vancouver Canada so I know.
Hope Spencer and Mo find good landing spots for their talents. I remember you all did a livestream a while back and loved how enthusiastic they were.
That was so fun
The greed for easy money expands it’s area of operations when opportunities unfolds themselves. The best you can do is learning from videos like this , listen to people who have experience and be very suspicious of too-good-to-be-true deals.
Stopped selling on eBay years ago for same reason= taking % of total price including shipping, instead of item sale price like it used to be. Became too complicated to make sure I over charged shipping just enough to cover %. Mess up you don't make any $ and you lose $$ on shipping. Done! Good Video
I also might have mentioned that cool email that Discogs sent out explaining how easy it is to increase all of your prices to make up for their price increase. Because the cost of records isn't already absurd... Can you imagine a world where they would have decreased their fees, and they would have seen more profit because of higher volume & goodwill? Quite hard to imagine indeed.
The bottom line for corporations is profit, they could care less if you make a dollar or not. Most of the time when you sell through a 3rd party the seller makes the least amount divided between the platform, your original investment and shipping.
To your point about Vulfpeck and Qrates, not sure if you're aware but Vulfpeck has actually since pressed their most recent re-release through Diggers Factory, not Qrates. Which I found very interesting, and only adds to your points.
The plot thickens.
ebay also takes their fee on the sale price, shipping, and even sales tax, they claim something like a 13.85% fee but in practice it usually ends up more like 17% because of this
I gave your comment a thumbs up but would give it a thumbs down because what Ebay does sucks.
Funny enough I just started record collecting like a month ago, and wanted to get a vinyl and found that discogs has a few. Horrible experience, I bought a record but received a different version of the record but the image they use is the one that everyone uses on the site for that record so it make you believe that’s the record their selling right? Nope got a different version but it’s still the same album. Why they don’t force people to use their own images, take their own pictures to verify any outliers!?!?
They used to be hot on having the correct release for each cover. Your problem is with the seller not caring what they sell not the website.
There are no seller photos on Discogs. They’re Discogs stock photos.
Interesting report on the situation. I want to believe that things can happen outside the market places, even today in 2023
Record conventions, stores, buying on FB marketplace in person, thrift stores, etc etc.
I'm just a guy who likes music and likes records. Of the sites you mention, I'd only heard of two -- Discogs and Bandcamp -- both of which I've used a handful of times. I have about 25 records currently for sale on Discogs (mostly duplicates -- titles I've bought twice because I'm disorganized and apparently my short-term memory isn't very good). I've sold about 5 in the last three months. I think I'll just pull them all down now and take whatever I can get for them by trading them in at a local record store. (But there are some really good ones! I have a NM original copy of the Replacements' "Let It Be" that somebody honestly ought to be listening to right now!)
Life long collector here just wanted to report that I have stopped buying off Discogs altogether for over a year now. I just can't deal with the hassle and scammers any longer.
And that decision is a tragic death sentence for the honest seller like me. I strive to run my business with integrity, but it doesn't matter because Discogs allowed dishonest sellers to force you to take that action.
The honest guy loses sales, and his business, and the dishonest guy just finds someone else to rip off.
Great video, thanks for all the information, your channel is stellar, I have a vinyl channel too, and I post a few concert clips, thanks again, Peace!
Me being a Bandcamp member, I don't understand why the last change of ownership should be the end of it.
It's a service for musicians at first and the goal is very 'capitalistic' - it's to get the money to the artists at a moderate fee to keep the service profitable and alive.
The vinyl part is only an additional gimmick and even if it where stopped completely (i don't expect that, because apparently it's profitable as long as the current vinyl hype lasts), wouldn't be the end of Bandcamp.
eg.: in the 80s we worked with one of the commercial agencies here in germany who charged a lot more for their services (25-30%) and record labels that only paid You real small revenues below 30%.
Besides that I don't really understand, why one would take a high-quality digital recording (if You're not into 'compression wars') and imho cripple it by remastering to a much lower level of tonal range (40-15000Hz), narrower stereo range and much less dynamics, the Vinyl campaigning platform is unchanged as I see for now.
Very informative
Let’s just stick with our local shops and keep crate digging shall we?
Great post, Matt. Any tips for a new seller on Discogs? How do you establish yourself as a real, reputable seller when you have no ratings?
Sell things at a reasonable rate compared to the going market value, be accurate with grading and your description, and the reputation will come with time.
Don't skimp on packaging. A mint record is worthless if it arrives broken and bent. Your record will always sell first if it is a dollar cheaper.
Most record sellers overprice USED records. They're used. They're mass produced. Most sellers got them for free. 99% of used full albums shouldn't cost more than $10. If I see another used copy of Thriller or Rumours for $30 by these pompous so-called collectors, I'll scream.
None of you are collecting minerals or Picassos.
As the owner of a record store I can say, with certainty, most sellers don’t get records for free lol
@@TooManyRecords okay. Pennies on a dollar. 25¢ for that $30 Rumours. I get it, it's a free market, but it's ridiculous.
There sure are a lot of bitter people out there. I had a Thriller album in shrink that I sold for $40 within a week in my antique mall booth and I paid $8 for it. The market decides value so who am I to tell someone how to price their records for sale? .
@@MickSupper , not true. The market doesn't decide the value because if you inflate your prices along with other sellers in order to get the highest profit, it's not demand on used Thriller albums when someone can buy it new. Sellers take advantage of new buyers who don't know any better. Shrinkwrap doesn't make it worth more money unless you're pricing it that way.
@@whumanbard Whatever. What a blanket statement to say that just because something sells for more than what you think it's worth then it's "sellers taking advantage of new buyers". Are you God or something?
I wasn't even aware of Mondo until I heard about the That Thing You Do! soundtrack release. It is awesome. Sad to hear it might be the last of a dying breed.
I'm here for the HOTTEST of takes. If you need an oven mitt, I know a guy....and agree with a lot of what you said here. Cheers! 🍻
Pop Market is Alliance, Alliance also fills Amazon orders.
Great information, thanks
If I may, I would suggest adding time stamps of where you mentioned discogs, mondo, etc... it will really help engagement and help people stick around if they're only interested in half the video or one company in particular.
I’m an eBay reseller so I’m used to the fees coming from the shipping cost too. I just assume the reason is so you can’t charge more for shipping and skirt the fees. If you have an item you want to sell for $50 but instead price it at $40 and roll $10 into the shipping cost you’re evading the fees if shipping costs aren’t charged the percentage too. Kinda sucks, but it is what it is. Discog’s fees are still lower than eBay.
Not totally true...eBay have the fortnightly 70% discount on seller fees promotion (basically 3% basic fees instead of 10%). Plus eBay do provide the convenience of payments going direct to your bank account instead of into PayPal like Discogs
It’s about ripping people off. Not sure why people have to make excuses for large corporations.
Had no idea about this......relatively new (18 months ish)... collector of vinyl (mainly soundtracks)
I’ve been waiting for cassettes from a campaign I ran on Qrates many months ago. The cassettes were manufactured back in June, but it’s November now and they still haven’t shipped. They said they had an issue with their logistics department/warehouse, but they said everything is accounted for. They told me they had to stop shipping things for a while, but they resumed months ago. I’ve reached out to them about once a month since then, and they just keep telling me they’ll ship soon. Still no idea when. Crazy that you had the same experience and didn’t even get any more info with contacts for the higher ups.
it's standard to charge fees on shipping. ebay does.
The reason they dip into shipping is the same reason ebay did it. People would sell a $100 record for a penny and charge $99 for shipping to get around paying fees.
I’ve never seen that, but ok.
@@MickSupper it used to happen about a decade or more ago. eBay put an end to it and started taking a percentage on postage to keep it at bay. Discogs is just following suit.
Amazon - years ago - dipped into shipping charge. Maybe that's changed, I haven't sold on Amazon in over 10 years.
who the hell still buys from amazon
Discogs has definitely been on the decline over the past year especially for me as a seller. Buyers are a bit more weary with the uptick in scammers so sales have slowed a bit. Im glad you touched on the fee they take from your shipping too because that's suuuper corny. Unfortunately ebay is worse and theres no other solid alternative.
ebay takes fees from shipping too but i dont know why. doesnt seem right or legal.
The listening feature seems to have gone on DC. What these big companies don't realize other than volume, is we want a quality product that feels limited and not a copycat of something else.
I see the same thing on eBay. Sellers overseas selling rare items at a crazy discount.
But with higher shipping. I don’t see them as scams.
Absolutely no problem with buying off my Discog's wants list as nobody fakes 60's 45's. There are some repro's but they are clearly highlighted.
The whole discogs thing is perplexing to me (maybe because I'm based in the UK) I have been trying to set up a sellers account on there and I have been waiting 5 months and two days ago I got the message saying my wait is over but I now have to send off ID to them in order to be allowed to sell - I have never heard of anything so weird before our record shop is now looking at ditching them but we can't find suitable online outlet as the only other option in this country really is ebay and that is it's own mess of problems. As for the other sites (I know nothing about crates) it sounds like corporate dealings have just killed off those companies and its just a coincidence that it has happened close together but sadly that's life hopefully a new company will come to fill the hole they left
I'm a UK seller. Discogs has been great for years, I noticed that is had become a nightmare just prior to noticing that they are now based in the US rather than Holland. I'm winding down my relationship with them and hoping to find a new outlet. Anything that is a success always gets bought out and ruined. Hold out for a new outlet.
Because companies love to be intrusive and mine your data.
It's simple. If they don't send you photos of the record. Don't buy from them.
Nobody ever seems to remember Dead Format. RIP.
My guess is that what is left of the majors is trying to put them all out of business in favor of something they want to cook up themselves.
Discogs is great for me, nothing to complain, selling is good and buying is also no problem, only one negative experience in 5 years.
I'm glad to hear it, but I'd advise watching my previous video and reading some of the comments to see there are some glaring issues. Also the scamming is absolutely rampant and is far from a great experience.
@@TooManyRecords I saw this other video, still for me everything is great with Discogs, on both sides, as a seller and a buyer. I just wanted to comment so people can see that there are happy Discogs users out there, that's all.
Free market capitalism at work. 🙄
Companies chasing ever increasing profits is a scourge on most collector communities.
Freemarket and capitalism are 2 different things. I guess you prefer communism and socialism.
@@MickSupper that is correct.
I prefer freemarket anarchism, all others are slavery.
Discogs for me is an awesome tool. If things look too good to be true then it usually is. Common sense gos a long way 😂
The Writing's on the Wall... Unfortunately this is déja vu with crooks such as The Mylene Sheath and PledgeMusic, grabbing money from artists and customers while going out of business and obviously not responding to customer emails/calls.
The companies taking a cut of the shipping is becoming more and more present. I know Whatnot is doing it. I’m not sure about eBay.
They all do. Just like Goodwill asking you to round up, and now even McDonalds has done it. It’s called stinginess.
eBay has taken fees from shipping for awhile
Is that true? I never knew that. Either way, very scummy across the board.
@@TooManyRecords I agree! I sell on ebay. The fact that they take theirs, off top, sucks.
@@TooManyRecords eBay started charging on shipping because people were circumventing sale fees by selling a $400 product for $1 with $399 shipping. Charging the fee on shipping isn't the best but they were in a lose-lose situation.
I never ever have seen that before. Why choose an extreme case to justify them charging on shipping?
@@MickSupper Once people caught on to the loophole, it was happening a lot.
Happened to me several times. I couldn't understand it. I'd order a record and it would never ship. I'd wait and send a message and eventually they'd respond with a refund offer. I didn't want a refund, I wanted the Lp. Why didn't they just send it? Then it's get a refund on my PayPal. Weird. I don't get how this makes anyone money. They have my 20 dollars for a week?... I stopped buying from discogs because it happened so often.
End of an era for sure. What happened to Mondo is tragic..
Truly.
I don't buy records from Discogs. But I use it for keeping track of what I own, might want to buy next, and roughly how much everything is worth, so I know Im not getting ripped off.
I've been wanting them to repress the Adventure Time Soundtrack at Mondo for half a decade. Still no progress. It's going for over 500 bucks on discogs.
I'd say the real problem is algorithm-driven websites artificially inflating the price of nearly every record out there. And the sellers who buy just to hoard and flip shortly thereafter for profit. Not everything needs to be limited edition, and not everything needs to be priced like a rare bottle of wine.
Buy to hoard to flip? Too many of you whiners out there.
The HQ address of Discogs used to be in the Netherlands. In my opinion it all went to shit when they moved the head office to the USA, the capital of all scams. I don't know it they were bought out or just decided to lower standards but personally i don't use it half as much as I did.
They better get my Fort Vine record lol, I am not going to be a happy camper
I’m not either….
I hope Qrates can figure things out soon. Lots of unhappy campers over here, too! Thank you for supporting us and preordering our album, @lauher21 we appreciate you.
To me Discogs is too complicated needs simplifying that’s why I use eBay got many a bargain and rare records on there.
Discogs is fucking awful. I hate it, but am saddened and angered at the same time.
Major streaming does not like physical media. They are likely influencing to get rid of the “indie” companies.
The Mondo soundtracks and scores sound freaking atrocious. I have been burned so many times to the point where I'm not buying anything else from them music related. I was just gifted Oppenheimer on vinyl and this has to be the worst sounding new album I own.
You didn't hit Discogs hard enough. In their defense, they were one of the few platforms that wasn't taking a cut of the shipping.
Shocking that you own a record store, and still don't know how to find sales history.
I love that this is your takeaway from this video???
@@TooManyRecordsBe grateful I pointed that out. You can have a way more successful business if you just added one cheap service.
Nes Kess racking up 10k views per video and Luelinks is dead and rotting in the ground.
Nes Kess won.
I'm still mourning the death of wax cylinders 😂
The side effects of vinyl going mainstream I'm afraid.
Ebay dips fees from shipping. Second VC channel that doesn’t seem to know that. Companies copy other companies until all of them are doing it.
I wonder if Qrates is running into the same kind of sustainability issues that drove PledgeMusic to its grave.
I use discogs as I have no choice as I live in Australia and what I collect I can not find much if any in Australia
I'm getting sick of sellers on discogs that can't respond to u with photos or any reply about a sale
I'm not saying there all like this as I've had some wonderful experiences also I guess it's a case of good and bad
But sellers with 70 or more bad reviews should not be selling records
Some them are shocking to read
U gotta be careful out there
Popsike is way better than Discogs.
Popsike is just a history not a marketplace or database though
Never seen a fake seller. Of course I don’t buy thousands of records
Sounds like Qrates is most definitely done for….
Hmm i havnt heard of discogs scams yet.. 😮
1:22 “Maybe my opinion piece actually had a bit of weight to it” 😂 That article doesn’t site you. Perhaps you have an opinion shared by many others, including journalists at the verge.
You’ve never heard of plagiarism? Look it up in the dictionary.
Why are you such in a urge when speaking? Broader international audience might requiered to slow down a bit…😅. BTW, good topics and perspective.
Good point! I just get passionate sometimes. I'll try to slow it down.
They can turn on captions. I watch some Jamaican youtube channels but can’t tell them to stop speaking patois.
Discogs is a curse on record collecting. Discogs has created a greedy market with many novice non collector punters buying and selling just for profits. I say "get a real job and leave the few remaining bargains for the true music lover"
Postage
It's simple, Bidenomics.
Like Biden decides anything. He’s a puppet just like T Rump.
I don't like Discogs. The prices are unrealistic. I hope they go for good.
Discogs doesn’t set the prices to be fair
@@TooManyRecords I know. It's the "community".