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 Post subject: For all you laserdisc sellers - what, where and how many...
PostPosted: 02 Apr 2015, 21:51 
Jedi Candidate
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I've been mainly a buyer of laserdiscs and an occasional seller.

What do I sell ?
=============

Originally I only sold music LDs because that is all I was ever buying. I'd no experience with selling movies.
The lion's share of my collection is therefore still music titles and will always remain that way.
In the last few years I've sold some movies - mainly the rarer cult titles that people ask about or late releases that are highly sought after to help pay for any I had previously purchased myself as they tend to be prohibitively expensive. It would be uneconomic for me to sell more common LDs as I'd be making a loss every time when I pay for import, handling, commission, currency exchange, paypal, site, & internal & external shipping fees so I don't bother with those.


Where do I sell ?
==============

Most of my sales are actually private via word of mouth.
I tend to get a lot of repeat business from music collectors who stumble upon me on Ebay or here on LDDB.com. I'll make one sale on Ebay or LDDB.com and nearly all subsequent sales to the same person are conducted privately. This reduces the fees so I can make a better offer and also tailor the goods more precisely to what the person really wants by offering items in different condition if that is what they want.

LDDB.com is very good and I love the whole experience of selling on LDDB.com.
Can't fault it at all. Very smooth and pleasant process end to end and the fees are very modest.

Ebay - I tried both auctions and also running a shop for 1 year some time ago.
The shop was incredibly expensive to maintain and didn't generate many direct sales.
It did however help to generate many indirect sales due to the huge exposure that Ebay generates so I suppose it was still worthwhile.
Almost all of my best customers found me on Ebay.

Discogs - I love that site for buying music so I thought I'd give it a try.
Again although I have had very few direct sales - indirectly it has been fantastic for drumming up new business - especially if you are selling music LDs as I mostly am since the site is dedicated to music. The whole experience is very pleasant selling on discogs although the fees do mount up compared with say selling on LDDB.com or better still privately!


How many have I sold to date ?
===========================

I've kept records of every single laserdisc sale (and purchase ever made) - very detailed records in fact.

From this information I'm able to give the approximate breakdown currently:
200+ private sales through people just emailing me
118 sales via my shop on LDDB.com
29 sales via Ebay
3 sales via discogs.com

I know that probably doesn't sound like much but music titles tend to fetch way above what most movies sell for, even the more common titles so this has really helped grow my own personal collection much faster than would normally have been possible.

I've only ever had one person ask to return a disc for a full refund and I happily allowed them to do so and even paid for the shipping. They were new to LD and appeared to expect Blu-ray quality from a 1984 Berlin music LD!


Locating titles on people's wishlists
==============================

Quite soon after I started collecting LDs I began assembling my own wishlist of titles I really wanted to locate.
It is interesting to look back at some of those lists to see what is still outstanding. I found that many collectors do likewise and would send me their wishlists to help them track down specific titles. I also noted that the titles people were asking me to find were 9 times out of 10 insanely hard to locate! They had obviously tried all of the conventional laserdisc stores and contacts known to everyone on this forum and were coming to me as a last resort.

I got a buzz out of tracking stuff down and to date only 1 disc has eluded me that I have been asked to find. I actually have that disc in my own personal collection but have been unsuccessful finding a spare. All others were successfully sourced and provided to buyers and usually very promptly. My average find time for a title is a few months. I use trading to source titles even sooner if I cannot find them myself - see below. I will search for any title for free - there is never an obligation to buy it even if I have purchased something specifically for a buyer. The reason is very simple I never get asked to find easy titles so any I do locate are easily sold elsewhere if the buyer changes their mind. Also no deposits are ever required. Just don't be mad with me if I sell your disc to someone else because you changed your mind....some music LDs are very popular and often I have multiple buyers wanting the same titles!!


Other ways of trading
===================

As I mentioned I'm mainly a buyer of LDs so often I would do swaps with trusted people I did a lot of business with.
This involved sending each other an agreed set of titles in lieu of some other laserdisc titles from my want list.
I've done hundreds of swaps all over the world and this was often the most economic way to obtain titles that otherwise eluded me. I still do this to this day - roughly 1 shipment every 1-2 months currently. A shipment can comprise anywhere from 2-20 discs. I've never been disappointed with any swaps conducted but I pick the people to trade with very carefully.



What types of titles do others sell?
Where do you find most successful for selling laserdiscs?
Roughly how many LDs have you sold to date?
Do others ever swap /trade titles?
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