The Truth About The Discogs Value of Your Collection

In my opinion, Discogs is one of the seven wonders of the internet. As a professional independent music dealer, I use Discogs daily to research releases and to help price CDs and albums. While you can glean a lot of information from the Discogs value, the number can be very deceptive, both high and low.

I’m often approached by people selling their collections based on what Discogs says they’re worth. The Discogs Median value frequently creates false expectations that usually poison the well. In other cases, you might sell yourself short. I’ll explain both scenarios in this article.

The Discogs Value Is A Gross Value

The number you see in Discogs is the gross value of a collection, assuming you sell every piece at the median value with no selling costs, which is an impossibility. Usually, 30% of the stuff never sells and becomes dead stock. This value is pre-tax and doesn’t include the cost of employees, tape, labels, mailers, scammers, refunds, and chargebacks.

I point this out because you can’t look at a collection link on Discogs with a 5K value, offer the seller $2500, and profit $2500; it’s far from that. If you embark on the arduous process of selling them yourself, you will never see 5K either, and it is a ton of work, bordering on a second job. You will make more money in the long run, but expect a massive investment in your time.

The Truth About Selling Costs

I don’t sell on Discogs. I sell exclusively on eBay. While their fees may be higher, the sales come in significantly faster. If you list your collection on Discogs, you might sell 10-15 pieces monthly. However, on eBay, the turnover is much quicker, allowing you to see returns sooner.

Selling costs to eBay are almost 31% (this includes postage). eBay advertises 18%, but to sell professionally, you have to offer free shipping and pay to promote your listings, and that is what gets it so high.

Discogs fees are much less, at just 10%. The problem, especially if you are in the US, is the lack of domestic traffic. It’s also worth noting that just because Discogs has a value for an item does not mean you can buy it at that price, especially after VAT taxes and shipping costs.

How Discogs Calculates Value

Discogs determines a release’s value based on recent sales history divided by the varying amounts an item has sold for. For CDs and albums released in the last 5-10 years, Discogs tends to skew the value very high; most sales are new copies at full retail. For older releases, Discogs tends to skew the value low in many cases because many of the sales are from data from many years past.

FAQ / Other Factors

Some FAQs about the value of a Discogs collection.

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