If you search the Discogs forums you will sometimes see posts from people who dream of giving up their regular job and make their money with Discogs and wonder if that is a smart idea.
I was asking myself the same question, not because I want to become a full time record dealer, but because I wondered if it actually is possible. After researching it a bit my answer is: most likely it is not possible, unless you are willing to put in a lot of time and effort, accept a cut in income, add uncertainty and perhaps move to another country to cut costs.
I live in the Netherlands, which is definitely one of the more expensive countries to live in in Europe: incomes are higher than in most parts of Europe, but taxes are also higher, as are prices for many things, such as housing, restaurants, postage, flights (dynamic pricing, sigh), and so on. So that is already a bit of a challenge.
According to the Dutch government the minimum wage (from July 1 2019 onwards) is € 1635.60 per month (before taxes), or € 75.49 per day. Some taxes would still need to be paid, but because it is minimum wage there likely are subsidies available for housing and other things. But if instead of being an employee you start a company, then things change a little: insurance becomes almost unaffordable, there are a lot more costs involved, you need to do bookkeeping, and so on, although there are also some benefits to having a small company.
So even if you would aim for the minimum that means that you will have to sell for a bit over € 400 per week (minus the Discogs costs and other additional costs like Paypal) on Discogs. If you want to have a proper income you should sell at least 1.5 times as much and then you would still not be making much, and preferably you want to make 2 to 3 times that. That is a lot of sales, especially if you mostly have cheaper items.
On to inventory: unless you really have records that sell like hot cakes, or special items, then you will not sell everything in your inventory. In fact, it will be extremely likely that you won't sell that much at all: if you look at the Discogs marketplace there are lots of releases that are simply not selling, even for low amounts. What I often see is that the one or two copies sell and after that it seems that nothing happens. If there are records that only a handful of people want and they are offered for little money and not selling, it is a sign that it is probably not worth trying. So that means that you will have lots of records that won't sell immediately, or only after a long time (so you would need storage).
You might sell well during your first few months but to keep sales up you would need to replenish stock, meaning you need to start sourcing records, which is not always easy either, meaning you need to go to charity shops, yard sales, recycling centers, and so on. Although I have gotten lucky a couple of times these are rare events. You really need to know what will sell, how much you can sell it for, how quickly it will sell, and so on. Buying these records will cut directly into your profits, so you will need to spend wisely and possibly be ruthless when buying records from other people and negotiate prices down. It changes the game as well, because what as a record collector might seem like a reasonable price to pay for a record will be too expensive if you are buying records to sell on to others. If you are a record collector who is becoming a full time seller you have to be able to separate the two or either you will be paying too much when buying for selling if you think like a collector or become unreasonable if you are buying for your own collection if you think like a seller.
Then adding items to Discogs: as I have said before adding releases to Discogs is complex and if you have to add a few thousand entries as inventory it will cost you a lot of time to make sure you have the exact item in the catalog in your store and then also keep up to date with the changes being made in the catalog by users, who don't know how to use the database and will change entries so your entries no longer match and you will get bad reviews because apparently you didn't deliver what was offered for sale (even though it was correct when offered it for sale). This is taking a lot of time, especially if you have several thousands of items, so I can understand the frustration of sellers, who simply have started to describe the item in the marketplace instead.
And finally: there will be difficult buyers, who will be irritating, don't pay, cancel orders, demand refunds, be aggressive and unreasonable, and so on and you will need to be able to deal with that, or the frustration and negativity will start eating at you.
If you want to cut costs, then moving would definitely help. The Netherlands has the third highest minimum wages in the EU (after Ireland and Luxemburg) and moving somewhere where prices are lower could help.
Taking all the above into account: it wouldn't be for me, except perhaps as a hobby. If you are thinking about it, make sure that you first do the math and get your numbers right before you leap into an adventure (unless, of course, you are not a number person). Some people actually have successful shops on Discogs, so it is possible.
I was asking myself the same question, not because I want to become a full time record dealer, but because I wondered if it actually is possible. After researching it a bit my answer is: most likely it is not possible, unless you are willing to put in a lot of time and effort, accept a cut in income, add uncertainty and perhaps move to another country to cut costs.
I live in the Netherlands, which is definitely one of the more expensive countries to live in in Europe: incomes are higher than in most parts of Europe, but taxes are also higher, as are prices for many things, such as housing, restaurants, postage, flights (dynamic pricing, sigh), and so on. So that is already a bit of a challenge.
According to the Dutch government the minimum wage (from July 1 2019 onwards) is € 1635.60 per month (before taxes), or € 75.49 per day. Some taxes would still need to be paid, but because it is minimum wage there likely are subsidies available for housing and other things. But if instead of being an employee you start a company, then things change a little: insurance becomes almost unaffordable, there are a lot more costs involved, you need to do bookkeeping, and so on, although there are also some benefits to having a small company.
So even if you would aim for the minimum that means that you will have to sell for a bit over € 400 per week (minus the Discogs costs and other additional costs like Paypal) on Discogs. If you want to have a proper income you should sell at least 1.5 times as much and then you would still not be making much, and preferably you want to make 2 to 3 times that. That is a lot of sales, especially if you mostly have cheaper items.
On to inventory: unless you really have records that sell like hot cakes, or special items, then you will not sell everything in your inventory. In fact, it will be extremely likely that you won't sell that much at all: if you look at the Discogs marketplace there are lots of releases that are simply not selling, even for low amounts. What I often see is that the one or two copies sell and after that it seems that nothing happens. If there are records that only a handful of people want and they are offered for little money and not selling, it is a sign that it is probably not worth trying. So that means that you will have lots of records that won't sell immediately, or only after a long time (so you would need storage).
You might sell well during your first few months but to keep sales up you would need to replenish stock, meaning you need to start sourcing records, which is not always easy either, meaning you need to go to charity shops, yard sales, recycling centers, and so on. Although I have gotten lucky a couple of times these are rare events. You really need to know what will sell, how much you can sell it for, how quickly it will sell, and so on. Buying these records will cut directly into your profits, so you will need to spend wisely and possibly be ruthless when buying records from other people and negotiate prices down. It changes the game as well, because what as a record collector might seem like a reasonable price to pay for a record will be too expensive if you are buying records to sell on to others. If you are a record collector who is becoming a full time seller you have to be able to separate the two or either you will be paying too much when buying for selling if you think like a collector or become unreasonable if you are buying for your own collection if you think like a seller.
Then adding items to Discogs: as I have said before adding releases to Discogs is complex and if you have to add a few thousand entries as inventory it will cost you a lot of time to make sure you have the exact item in the catalog in your store and then also keep up to date with the changes being made in the catalog by users, who don't know how to use the database and will change entries so your entries no longer match and you will get bad reviews because apparently you didn't deliver what was offered for sale (even though it was correct when offered it for sale). This is taking a lot of time, especially if you have several thousands of items, so I can understand the frustration of sellers, who simply have started to describe the item in the marketplace instead.
And finally: there will be difficult buyers, who will be irritating, don't pay, cancel orders, demand refunds, be aggressive and unreasonable, and so on and you will need to be able to deal with that, or the frustration and negativity will start eating at you.
If you want to cut costs, then moving would definitely help. The Netherlands has the third highest minimum wages in the EU (after Ireland and Luxemburg) and moving somewhere where prices are lower could help.
Taking all the above into account: it wouldn't be for me, except perhaps as a hobby. If you are thinking about it, make sure that you first do the math and get your numbers right before you leap into an adventure (unless, of course, you are not a number person). Some people actually have successful shops on Discogs, so it is possible.
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