used CDs

#329: Selling My CDs (RSTs Mk II: Getting More Tale)

RECORD STORE TALES Mk II: Getting More Tale

#329: Selling My CDs

We all end up with CDs that we no longer want or need.  I very rarely sell my CDs anymore. I’d rather donate them to a new home, where I know they will be loved and appreciated.  The money part is less important to me.  The last time I decided to sell off some CDs, I decided to try Sunrise at Fairview Mall (now closed). I’d never tried selling there before, but I had bought plenty.  Their pricing was more than fair, but the guy was very slow.  He didn’t seem as knowledgeable as the people I was used to dealing with. For example, I sold him my original, non-remastered CD copy of Twisted Sister’s Stay Hungry. He asked me, “What is wrong with this CD?” It seemed he didn’t know what remastered vs. non-remastered was, only that the bar code he had punched in came up as something “discontinued”.  So I had to explain the remastered vs. original thing to him. He ended up giving me $5 for the CD which was good, and I took store credit (which was a little bit more).

Still, it took him a lot of time. I only had a handful to sell that day (10 CDs if I remember) and it took the guy more than half an hour to look at them.  It wasn’t a bad experience; I ended up with enough store credit to buy a some things.   The money was good, about the same as I would have got at my old workplace.  It was a comparable total, and I was happy with it, but the wait was a little excessive.   I used the store credit to buy my friend Peter the new Metallica live set for his birthday.

I have also sold my discs (CD and DVD) at garage sales, an experience so memorable that I’ve written a future Getting More Tale about that story.  Stay tuned!  I’m saving that one.  Let’s just say that serious garage sale people are an entire species to themselves; the cheapest people you will ever meet in your life.

I don’t need to do any more major purges of my music collection, currently.  Any time I need to weed things out (usually an old version of a CD that I have upgraded) I can always find them a new home.  You might say, “Sure, but money is better.”  Maybe, but my friends return the favor in spades, so I can’t complain.  I’m often the recipient of used CDs and movies that are sent to me in repayment for the discs I gifted earlier.  Nobody ever asks for repayment, we just seem to have created circles of friends who share the wealth.  In fact I’ve acquired some really great collectible stuff just due to the charity of friends.  Thanks!

What do you do with your old CDs?  Sell ’em, trade ’em, gift ’em?  I’m curious so let me know in the comments!

Part 301: A Nice Pair

“Feet-ture” image:  @heelsofmine

RECORD STORE TALES Part 301: A Nice Pair

I was working the afternoon shift, and another guy named Dave was working the morning. I arrived at work at about 1:30 in the afternoon, with a big box of used stock in my hands. Upon entering, I saw that Dave was already dealing with a big box of CDs. A customer was wandering around the store, as Dave picked through his big box of discs.

I saddled up to help Dave go through the discs. The customer, a male in his early 30’s, was just looking around while he waited. He liked to talk a lot, and would periodically pipe in with a comment. “This here is a great CD, eh?” There were other customers in the store as well, including a well-dressed woman. The dude took a gander at the woman, who was wearing high heels.

When the woman was out of earshot, he said (to no one in particular):

“Woah. That’s a nice pair of feet.”

And that was something I never heard in public before. The end.

 

Part 298: Why I Couldn’t Give You A Quote Over the Phone

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RECORD STORE TALES Part 298:
Why I Couldn’t Give You A Quote Over the Phone

 

We advertised that we paid cash or credit for used CDs.  A lot of customers used to call with the titles of their CDs, to get a quote over the phone for selling them.  “Hey, I have 30 CDs here to sell, if I read off the titles, can you tell me what you’ll pay me for them?”

The answer was no, for a number of good reasons.  For us, buying used CDs wasn’t a science.  We tried to create a system as best we could, but there were so many variables.  In addition, a lot of the process is subjective.  I’ll try to help you understand.

First and foremost – quality.  We were exceptionally picky about all discs that we bought.  If the disc was scuffed, we could buff certain scratches out.  (Not top scratches and pinholes though!  They are a whole other chapter to the story.)  A lot of customers would call and say, “My discs are all mint.”  Well, I found that for some, “mint” had a broad definition.  It could mean anything to brand-new to scratched like a hockey rink.  If a customer said “mint” you couldn’t go by that.  Likewise with “they all play fine.”  Until I look at it, I don’t know if it’s in a condition good enough to sell to my customers.  You probably have your own standards regarding CDs you want to keep in your collection.

But there’s more to quality than just the CD itself.  Is the front cover present?  How about the back?  A lot of customers discarded the back covers, in order to store their discs in those stupid travel wallets.  Bad idea, since those wallets scratch up CDs, sometimes beyond repair.  Not to mention, we wouldn’t take a CD missing its back cover.  Maybe the front cover is also water damaged – we couldn’t take a CD when the pages of the book were stuck together like a teenager’s Playboy mag.  That happened a lot more often then you might expect.

When it came down to the pricing of the CD, we had a lot of additional factors to consider.   How much do we sell it for?  How many copies do we have?  Do any of our other stores need a copy?  It is rare, or scarce to find used?  For example, Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon was not a rare CD, but it was hard to find copies used in good condition.  I’d be interested in paying more for Dark Side of the Moon than I would Van Halen’s Balance, even if we sold them both for the same price.

Let’s say you’re an annoying customer, and you called my store looking for a price quote.  Let’s say the person answering the phone forgot the rules, and gave you a quote over the phone.  Then when you actually come in to sell them, I’m working instead, not the person who gave you the price quote.  So imagine that scenario.

You come in and I start going through the discs.  Immediately, you’re pissed off that I’m passing on that scratched up Metallica CD that somebody quoted you $5 for.  The reason?  A hard-to-spot top scratch that cannot be fixed.  Or a missing back cover.  Or a deep scratch I can feel with my fingernail.  Or perhaps I could take it, but I need to have the scratches buffed out and I can only pay you $2-3.

Then next up, you have a Guess Who Greatest Hits.  When you called for your quote, I had none in stock.  Now I have two.  (It happens!)  So I can’t give you what the other person quoted, because now I have two copies and I don’t need it as badly.

Finally, let’s say you were quoted that you were going to get $3 for your Hanson CD.  The person you spoke to on the phone saw that we didn’t have any Hanson in stock.  However, I know that is an unusual happenstance and we always have tons of Hanson everywhere.  I might pay a buck where somebody else offered you $3, because I know better.  Them’s the breaks, right?

This doesn’t even account for other stupid things that can happen.  For example, a customer saying to you that he has Metallica Garage Days when he actually has Garage Inc.  Basically if you could think of a way information could be miscommunicated over the phone, it happened.

Customers seldom understood.  “I don’t want to come all the way down there unless I know I’m going to get good money for these discs.”  Unfortunately, coming down there was the only way.  No ifs, ands, buts, or exceptions.  People sucked sometimes.