Constructive criticism for Limited Pressing

[kurtz]

(I am posting this here instead of the Limited Pressing forum simply because I check this forum more often)

I want to preface this by saying that in general I like the Limited Pressing site and hope it continues to grow. I hope my opinions are thought of as constructive criticism rather than petty internet bitching.

I was just perusing the auctions and from a buyers standpoint one thing really turns me off. That is the number of auctions that are simply a distro's stock. Nerd Alert especially seems to have every record he stocks listed as an auction. Now I mean no offense to Nerd Alert or any other distro on LP, but I think it would be a good idea to limit the number of new distro items being auctioned. Personally I go to auction sites to find used and OOP records. If I want new records I will go to an online distro.

Maybe it would be a good idea for distros to just list a few auctions and link to their site in the auction. That way LP is not bogged down with so many new, widely available records.

[cactusbot]

Kurtz makes a very valid point.

I agree with this statement 100%:

"Personally I go to auction sites to find used and OOP records. If I want new records I will go to an online distro."

[alertthemute]

Totally agree with that. I think the new store features on LP should be used by the distros rather than auctions.

[forgeagain]

Maybe he does it the same way a lot of people list their own releases on eBay - to prevent people from paying way too much for it because they don't know it's still in-print?

[rockstar71888]

Possibly implement a filter that hides distro postings? That may solve your problem

[david]

From what I've heard, Tony from Nerd Alert only does that because the admins from LP asked him to.

However, I won't disagree that this is endlessly frustrating.

[mattisr1984]

just sayin... but this is in large part why i dont even really bother going to the site. in-print stuff can be found anywhere and i dont feel like digging through it all.

[seafoamgreen]

I was just about to start a thread about LP, but maybe I can bump this one and keep the conversation going. Let me first say that LP is an absolutely great idea and I want to support it and help nourish it as a vinyl collecting community. I want it to be THE place that people go to buy rare records. While I totally agree with the OP's statement about the new stuff in repeating auctions doesn't do much for me, I wouldn't have such a problem with those if they were tempered by lots of good OOP listings as well. But right now there are only 3 pages of auctions and 90% of them are new stock and the other 10% are at store prices, not auction prices (i.e. Juan's Falcon records- not dissing the price, but they're not the $.99 "might get a bargain" enticements we've all grown to love on the 'bay).

So here's my major complaint for LP:

There are lots of incentives for sellers, but absolutely no incentives for buyers.

Free listings are awesome- lots of people will want to post their records there! But, without buyers, sellers know they won't get the price the need to break even/pay rent/etc. so they go to eBay because the market is larger. Then the sellers realize no one is biting their store-priced auctions and they bail for eBay because they need the money.

So the question is, how do we draw buyers to LP? Buyers want good deals. But sellers don't want to get hosed. It's quite a dilemma and I don't have the answers. But right now, it's not a marketplace- it's a dead storefront. How do we bring it to life? Here are some options for us and for LP to consider:

1. Post your used records at below-market prices.

2. Fuck the rules and spam the shit out of people on eBay.

3. Drop some coin on a wee bit of marketing.

4. Make a video showing how to use the site (https://squareup.com/ has a great one- and I can help!).

5. Create a database or work with DF to use their database. Imagine GEMM if there weren't 18 different "versions" of the same record.

6. Use user-submitted data to create a price guide, wiki-style.

7. Create an iPhone/iPad/Android app to search for pressing info, current auctions and pricing info (would be a big help in Reckless or Amoeba!).

8. Find a way to get non-punk rock users!

Okay, several of these are WAY out of reach right now and I know that, but I can't help but think big. Look at GEMM (http://www.gemm.com/) and how much traffic and money they pull in... and the site is utter and complete SHIT. But they've got #8 locked- they've got every type of music in the world represented so music collectors of all types from all over the world know that that's the place to go. Of course, they've been on the internet since 1996 or something ridiculous. It's a real challenge to break into these markets but I think there's a chance that it could start right here.

And this is a perfect time to start-

I just got my first invoice from eBay with the new store inventory fees in place and it's literally four times the price of my last one. At that rate, I'd need to sell 8 records just for the fees to be taken care of and taking a 100% loss on inventory costs. That means I need to sell like 50 records a month at a 40% markup to make money. No way that's happening. I'm shutting down my eBay Store tonight.

Where do I go? I'd love to say LP but it's just not there yet... maybe I could sell my Larry Arms and Alk3 records there, but no one's searching for Alice In Chains and Foo Fighters there (much less Loretta Lynn and Frank Sinatra!). Let's brainstorm... this is a great community of which I'm proud to be a part and, despite my abhorrence of the "rah rah" attitude I feel like I've got going right now, I think some riling up is needed!

Thoughts?

- Andy

[evvandflow]

they need to spend a little money to get more traffic onto the site. then more people will keep their updated tradelists there; more deals; more auctions. love the idea of the site, and i hope it can make itself relevant.

[Guest Admin]

I agree with everyone that LP is a great site and I think this is a great conversation into ideas to help the site get better.

Here is one suggestion to separate out of print and used records from the records that are widely available at store prices, how about using a hash tag like the ones used in Twitter. I am sure that the LP folks can write code to do something similar, but in the mean time, if you list an out of print record, maybe hashtag the listing with #oop or if you start your listing at 99 cents, maybe you can hashtag #99cents. Both could be searchable terms or better yet, can have prominent links to items with those hashtags on the front page.

I have a lot of faith in the LP guys and plan to help them get the word out all I can.

[nickmango]

Hey I appreciate all the ideas and the criticism for sure. One thing that should be made clear is auctions don't define us, they help describe us. A lot of people focus on the fact that we do auctions, and since no one other than ebay does them, we're an auction site. A lot of that thinking was created by the charity auctions where we raised nearly $20,000. When you do something like that so soon after your conception it's hard for users to take a step back and see everything we actually do. For instance, since we launched on Nov 2nd we have had more than 1000 deals created in our deal making system. This doesn't even count the deals that go down through messages. There's more than 25,000 items available for sale or trade in bartertown. We have a news aggregator for underground music news sites and blogs, no one has this. At least not now. And finally we have easily the best online store on the internet. Price, features, quality, it's all there. Why did we undercut bigcartel so insanely and add a million more features? Cause this is not a business. I design building, and my brother owns a software company. We did this for the scene we love. I started listening to punk and hardcore in the very early 90s, and all my life I said I wanted to be a part of an industry defining project. I believe that Limited Pressing is a great start.

Thanks guys, keep these ideas coming. I may contact a few of you privately to discuss them more in depth. Bounce some ideas off you. I want our auction section to work as smoothly as you guys do. Until then, go get a store free on Suburban Home and Limited Pressing. We're here to stay.

[icecream]

Does anyone know is it possible to search for completed auctions on LP.com ?

[desensitizedbyu]

Does anyone know is it possible to search for completed auctions on LP.com ?

It's not possible, you can only see completed items if you have the link to it. They said around the end of February that they may have it up in a month or two.

[jhulud]

Hey seafoamgreen...thanks for the dis man!!!

J/K!!!

I recently contacted a few fellow VCers to get their thoughts on what my starting prices were. I got a few different answers but all constructive. Once it's time for me to relist my auctions I will adjust all prices. My main thought is that I always want to try and at least get what I originally paid for. I know...that's contradictory to what some of the prices currently are.

I'm learning as I go along I guess...at least w/ LP. Ebay I am trying to stay from...esp. now that they jacked up the seller rates.

[benchwarmer]

did they take down the message board section?

[jemsklile]

Is there a way to search auctions by price? Or organize them by price. There are a lot of records out there that I want that are usually pretty expensive so it would be nice if while searching you could quickly filter to look at highest priced items first.

[jhulud]

did they take down the message board section?

Yes they did. About 3-4 weeks ago.

[nickmango]

Is there a way to search auctions by price? Or organize them by price. There are a lot of records out there that I want that are usually pretty expensive so it would be nice if while searching you could quickly filter to look at highest priced items first.

before the redesign we had recently added, soonest to end, and recent comments. We wanted to relaunch today so we needed to cut some corners to make it happen. All usual LP features like these will be up by the end of the weekend probably. Thanks a lot.

[One Hundred Fifty-Two]

My beef is I have 26 feedbacks I'm waiting for people to leave me. It seems like people go to check out one auction or sell their items and then never come back. Explore the whole site. And leave feedback once I pay or you get my item.

Also, kind of like on dead format people have their list up, but never log in. I send messages or deals asking about a record and never get a response.

[seafoamgreen]

I recently contacted a few fellow VCers to get their thoughts on what my starting prices were.

For the record, I think your prices are pretty much in line. What I'm saying is that you should have more options than starting your auction at the lowest price you'd accept for selling a record. There should be an eBay Stores-like store option for that type of thing. That's the crux of the problem- no one wants to take a bath on their records but people are put off by the high starting price of an auction. Virgil's idea for hashtags makes perfect sense, but there are only like 150 auctions on the site anyway... I looked through the whole stock in 3 minutes.

And, to the point that LP isn't just an auction or sale site- that's totally cool. But what I'm looking for is an auction/sale site and you guys could totally be that. I'd love for someone to focus on developing that aspect of a site because I'm in need of that service and it's a service that I'd pay for. I'll gladly give a 10% Final Value Fee to any site that give me a good market to sell records and I know LOTS of people would do that too.

If that's not LP's thing or LP would rather focus on being a portal or Dead Format 2.0 (not a knock- DF needs a reboot), that's awesome and I'll be involved as always. But damn do I think there's a market for niche auction/sale sites... If I knew Thing 1 about making a damn website, I'd be on it. Unfortunately I only know how to make stupid videos and put them on websites. Career path FAIL!

[daniel]

I just checked up on the site.

IT LOOKS SO DIFFERENT.

[jcamps]

i dont think there is quite enough hype over limited pressing yet. i'm not too into the auction system, a while back i bid on an oop cat power 7" and won it for very cheap (like $5). the seller obviously didn't want to let it go for that, and asked me to if i wanted to make a higher offer. i wasnt exactly looking to drop a ton on it when i made my $5 bid, so i didn't. the situation annoyed me though, since it wasn't marked with a reserve price and the seller was the one who set the bidding price so low.

[seafoamgreen]

i dont think there is quite enough hype over limited pressing yet. i'm not too into the auction system, a while back i bid on an oop cat power 7" and won it for very cheap (like $5). the seller obviously didn't want to let it go for that, and asked me to if i wanted to make a higher offer. i wasnt exactly looking to drop a ton on it when i made my $5 bid, so i didn't. the situation annoyed me though, since it wasn't marked with a reserve price and the seller was the one who set the bidding price so low.

Exactly the problem I'm talking about... it takes a lot of momentum to move past a juggernaut like eBay though...

[eddieruckus]

i cant figure out what half the shit is on there, what is bartertown and how does it work?

[cj]

i think you guys should take a small note from ebay, and on the auction pages list all the private auctions first and then the store items afterwards (separated by a bar or something that states they are store items).

i honestly hate going through pages and pages of records that are all from the nerd alert store and have either 0 bids or are only the purchase price