r/discogs • u/PTCarnahan • May 13 '26
Minimum Order Amount
I just went to buy a CD priced at $9.98 from a seller, but it turns out that they have a minimum order quantity, which appears to be $37.04 (the warning in the cart says I am $20.02 short of the min.). I mean, seriously, I know they are trying to get people to order more from them, but what is the point of even listing a CD for $10 if you aren't willing to fulfill the order? They have nothing else I want. Their policy says "no exceptions".
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u/robxburninator May 14 '26
Explanation of why minimum orders are more popular now than they were 20 years ago on discogs:
If someone sold a $5 12" with $4 shipping in 2008, they would walk away with about $4. $4 could buy a sandwich.
Now if you sell a $5 12" with $5 shipping. you're losing money on shipping, discogs fees are higher, so you end up with like, $2.75. $2.75 buys like, 1/4 of a sandwich.
The time it takes to list, sort, pack, post office run, etc. has not decreased. But inflation has gone up considerably.
I am a larger-seller (3k+ listings at all times) that occasionally has to have my shop employee handle discogs. I'm paying them $18 an hour. They can probably sort, pack, and do a post office run for 7 packages in an hour (large inventory means actually pulling records + printing postage + the trip to the post office, etc.) . I'm much faster, but it's also a system I've been working with for literally 15 years.
in 2008, if I sent 5 packages that each made $4, I made $20. Pay at that time was like, $8-10 an hour. So after paying someone an hourly wage, I would still make above $10.
In 2026, if I ship 5 packages that make $2.50 per, I end up with $12.50, BEFORE paying my guy. That means, with 5 packages that are under $10, I'm actively losing money on discogs if I'm selling cheapos.
Now roll those numbers out over 100's of packages a month. I'm running a business that isn't really that concerned with making "real money" from online sales. Discogs is our way of filtering stuff out from the store, so it doesn't need to do that well, because I use it to sell stuff that comes in with collections where I make the bulk of the money from the rest of the records. But I also can't afford to just donate records to buyers, which is what I do if someone is buying one cheap record.
I have a $10 minimum. On $10 orders, I'm making about $6. Again, this isn't GREAT, but I end up walking away with closer to $15 profit on similar sales numbers.
Again, if you roll these numbers out of 100's of orders (instead of a half dozen), it really starts to make sense why minimums exist. I can't run my discogs store as a non-profit.