Buying records on the web at Vinyl-collector. com.

Vinyl-collector is a website exclusively dedicated to vinyl records though we do not sell or buy any record ourselves.

Some people want to sell records, some want to buy records, we are the go-between.

By creating this website, we intend to do our best to

• - propose to record collectors from all around the world the rarest records offered by the most specialized record dealers.
• - offer to record dealers their best window on the web.
• - provide and promote cultural information around the vinyl records.

Vinyl-collector : How does it work? A users’ guide.

Part one : the buyers’ side

• Registering (step 1)
• Searching for the record(s)
  • Browsing the database
  • How to make a request?
  • The record’s page
  • Placing an order
  • The basket
  • The payment
    • Bank card
    • The other payment method
      • Personal check
      • Paypal
      • Postal Money Order
      • International Money Order - IMO
      • Cash
  • The reception
    • Routing delay
    • Confirmation of reception
    • Grading the transaction
    • Complaints
    • Guarantee
  • The links

Part two : the sellers’ side

• Registering (step 2), Information concerning for the record(s)
  • “You know what you sell”
  • Entering your records on the Vinyl-collector website
    • From the website
      • List of the data fields
    • From an Excel file
  • The selling process in 9 steps
  • The shipping charges
  • The seller’s payment
  • Our charges

Part one : the buyers’ side

Access to the Vinyl-collector website is completely free, but to buy records, you need to register first.

Registering (step 1)

Registering on Vinyl-Collector is fast and free.

During this registration, you will have to choose an ID and a password.

They will allow you to connect you as a member and thus to modify your personal data, consult your orders, ask questions to sellers and to register as a seller too.

1 – Click on “ Register now “ on the home page

2 – Enter your personal data

3 – Submit

Within a few minutes, you will receive an email at the address you have given.

This email contains a link to the Vinyl-collector website.
Click on that link: you are now registered with the Vinyl-collector and connected on the site as a member.

Searching for the record(s)

On the home page, you will find a selection of the last items entered on the Vinyl-collector website with a photo, in each of the main musical categories.

Click on the upper part of the home page for having all the items available on the site listed, sorted alphabetically by name of artist.

Browsing the database

The Vinyl-collector has a powerful search engine that will help you go straight to the core of your research without loosing any time.

How to make a request?

You can build a request on the following fields :

1 – The artist or group name (or part of this name.)
2 – The record’s title (or part of this title.)
3 – The label’s name (or part of this name.)
4 – A keyword inside the comment.
5 – The musical genres.

The musical genres are defined on 1, 2 or even 3 levels (for jazz and classical music only.)

Due to the difficulty of classifying records into definite genres, we have opted for a simple, logical, and even musicological approach of musical genres that goes from general to particular…

6 – The country or region.

You will find listed in there most of the existing countries but also countries that do not exist anymore (URSS, Czechoslovakia) and regions with strong cultural / musical identity like Bali, Brittany, Corsica, Euskadi (Basque Country), Kurdistan, Occitania (South of France), Scotland, Tuva, etc…

7 – Browse by country of pressing.

All these requests can combine one with another.

The matching items will appear by name, sorted alphabetically .

If you click on “OK” without making any choice, you will get a selection at random.

We have the intention to improve this search engine regularly according on the records that will be put on this site and on your suggestion.

Reading the following examples may be very useful :

?   You are searching for records by David Bowie?
     è Type “Bowie” in the field “Name”
If the artist you are searching for has homonyms you can type his or her first name in the field “First name”. But do not type “David Bowie” in the field “Name” : you would get no matching items !

?   You are searching for records by the Beatles?
     - Type “Beatles” in the field “Name”, but do not type “The Beatle” : you would get no matching items !

?   You are searching for female singer singing in Romanian?
     - Select “Song” , then “Woman” in the filed “Genre.”
     - Select “Romania” in the field “Country.”

? You are searching for English progressive rock record in original pressing only?
     - Select “Rock” then “Progressive” in the field “Genre.”
     - Select “England” in the field “Country.”
     - Select “Great-Britain” in the field « Country of pressing.”

?   You are searching for free-jazz records issued in the former Soviet-Union?
     - Select “Jazz” then “Contemporary” then “Free jazz” in the field “Genre.”
     - Select “URSS” in the field “Country of pressing.”

?   You are searching for records that include use of mellotron ?
     - Type “Mellotron” in the field “Comment.” All the records with mellotron entered by seller as a keyword will come out.

The record’s page

When you select a record, you create its page with all the available information.

     1 –   Artist (or group) name
     2 –   Label
     3 –   Musical genre
     4 –   Size and speed
     5 –   Country or region
     6 –   Country of pressing
     7 –   Year of issue
     8 –   Cover’s condition
     9 –   Record’s condition

    10 –  Price

All these features are necessarily described by the seller.
Besides, he may also add certain number of supplementary details concerning the musical contents or the state of the disk as well as photo and comment.

NB : The seller is free to choose his language for the comment.

If you need further information or want to make an offer for a lower price, you can send an e-mail through Vinyl-collector.

NB : The seller is free to accept to receive e-mails or not. If he does, he is in no case obliged to answer to them.

On each item’s page, a link takes you to the seller’s other items.

Placing an order

To achieve your order, you will have to be signed in first and to be connected as a member through your ID and password.

NB : Your Internet browser must accept cookie. If it does not, check your parameters.

The basket

When you visualise the page of the record you are interested in, click on the “Add to basket” button.

You then have the possibility to continue your research or to continue your order.

Once you have validated your order, you will have to choose the shipping method and your mean of payment.

You will then get the total amount of your order including shipping charges.

Up to that point, you are free to change the shipping and payment method, to withdraw an item or to quit without buying anything.

The shipping method

We propose choice between Economy and Priority mailing.
Registration is optional.

The shipping charges

Shipping cost are charged to the buyer and prepaid by the seller.

They are estimated by Vinyl-collector on the basis of the weight of the parcel, respective places of residence of the seller and of the buyer and current postal rates.

They are fixed and can differ slightly from the real cost of the transport and packaging cumulated.

Our rates are calculated so that the difference, if any, is always in favour of the buyer.

The payment

In any case, the payment of the ordered items will be processed by Vinyl Collector.
For each order, you can choose the payment method.
You are asked to choose the payment method before you know the total of the order as you choice may influence the total amount (Paypal).
List of available means of payment :

Bank card

When you choose to pay by bank card, you are directly connected with the Cyberpaie website. The process is the following :

1. Cyberpaie verifies the validity of your card.
2. Demand of confirmation is sent to you bank via SSL.
3. The seller is informed of your order and confirms the availability of the item(s).
4. Your card is charged and seller is asked to ship the order.

 !   If the item(s) are not available any more, the order and the payment are cancelled.
If only part of the order is available, the total amount (including shipping charges) gets automatically recalculated and your card gets charged accordingly.

!      The data of your bank card does not  pass through the Vinyl-Collector website at all so that at no moment can we have access to your credit-card number.

The other payment methods

The remarks below are for any payment except the Credit-card :

1 – Do not send your payment before you have received confirmation of the availability.

2 – Your payment must arrive within 12 days after we sent you the confirmation email.

Personal check

Being France-based, Vinyl-collector can only accept :

1. Checks in euros issued on a French bank.
2. Checks in euros issued outside France but payable in Paris.

Eurocheques are not accepted.

Checks must be made out to “Vinyl-collector” exclusively.

!      Checks that do not match the name or the shipping address of the buyer will not be accepted.

Paypal
 
This mean of payment his charged 0,35 € + 4% of the payment amount at the day this section is written.
It will evolve according to the fixing of price scale of the Paypal society.
This covers exclusively the charges of the Paypal society (no extra charge by Vinyl collector).
Our Paypal account is: paypal@vinyl-collector.com.
For any information about Paypal, you can visit the website http://www.paypal.com/.

Postal Money Order

For France-based members only.

Pour envoyer un mandat :
Présentez-vous muni d'une pièce d'identité, dans un bureau de Poste et remplissez l'imprimé.
Contre une remise en espèces et l'acquittement des frais, le guichetier vous remettra le volet 1 et 3 de l'imprimé.
Transmettez le premier volet au destinataire pour qu'il puisse se présenter dans un bureau de Poste et percevoir les fonds.

International Money Order - IMO

For members leaving out of France. Very fast from Japan and Italy. Never no be used from North America.

Bank transfer

You can pay via Bank transfer.
Please make sure that all the charges are supported by you. If not the case, your payment will be refused.
Références bancaires du compte de Vinyl-collector :
SOCIETE : ASS VINYL COLLECTOR
BANQUE : CCM LE PERREUX BRY

Account data (France)
Code banque 10278 / Code guichet 06186 / Numéro de compte 00020145301 / Clé RIB : 51

Account data (outside France)
IBAN : FR76 1027 8061 8600 0201 4530 151
BIC (Bank identifier code) : CMCIFR2A

Cash

If you choose this mean of payment, we recommend that you send the letter via registered mail with all the data that will permit us to identify you.

Only Euros will be accepted.

The reception

Routing delay

International routing delay may vary in a large proportion.
Usually, a parcel sent at Priority rate should arrive within five days while a parcel sent at economy rate will take usually 12 days between Western Europe and Japan, but more than one month between United States and Europe.

Confirmation of reception

We ask you to confirm the reception of your order as soon as possible.

!      Please do not consider this validation as a mere formality: your validation informs us that we can pay back the seller (who has prepaid the shipping cost).

Your validation will also help us know more about shipping delay and inform in return the buying members.

!      If we have not received anything from you within 20 days, we shall consider the transaction as completed.

Grading the transaction

At the time you confirm the reception of your order, you may grade the transaction by giving a satisfaction mark (from 0 to 10) to the seller upon the following criteria: conformity of grading with the received item, swiftness of shipping, quality of packaging, etc.

Complaints

If the delay seems abnormally long to you, we advise that you contact the seller via Vinyl Collector first.

!      If you receive no answer or if the situation remains unchanged, please contact us within a 20 days time  after the order has been confirmed: we shall then delay the seller’s payment until the situation is solved.

Guarantee

In terms of the European directive 97/7/CE concerning the protection of the consumers regarding contracts from afar, you have a delay of seven working days to count from the reception of the item to retract without indication of the motive.

However, refund will take place only after the seller has informed us that he has received the item in return. The record will have to be returned imperatively via registered mailing, the return charges remaining to the expense of the purchaser.

Example:
If you have received a parcel on a Tuesday, you have until the Thursday of the following week to inform us of your retraction.

!     In case of a sealed record, this rule cannot be applied if protection has been open!

It seemed useless to us to add anything to this very protective legal.
Therefore, after the seven working days delay, no reclaim will be accepted.

Nevertheless, if the record you have received does not match with the one you have ordered, if you have received a counterfeit or a reissue instead of an original copy, if the information given to you by the seller was wrong or incomplete, if the item has arrived damaged, then, the item(s) will be returned at the seller’s expense.

The links

You will find on Vinyl Collector some links.

Some to commercial websites.

Some to non-commercial websites that provide interesting information for vinyl records collectors or for music lovers at large.

Our choices will be necessarily conditioned by our own orientations and musical tastes but we are opened with any suggestion since it suits to the activity and orientations of the Vinyl-Collector website.

We will provide too some information about books and publications concerning music.

Part two : the sellers’ side

We assume that as a conscientious seller, you read the “buyer’s side” before reading the following…

Registering (step 2)

To register as a seller, you need to register as a buyer first. Once this is done, identify yourself with your ID and password and click on “Register as seller”.
You will then have to enter the requisite data for us to pay you back the amount of your sells.

Information concerning for the record(s)

“You know what you sell”

Our idea is that a visitor keeps an eye on a website as long as he can find the pieces of information he is searching for : if the information is incomplete or out of reach, he will leave for another.

You have the information at hand.
Our job is to help you make it available and accessible to as many people we can.

For that reason, we have put the stress on 3 points:
        1 – The precision of the information.
        2 – The consistency of the data.
        3 – The quality of the search engine.

Giving precise information is your field: your records will then be correctly indexed in the database and thus easily accessible by the prospective buyer who can evaluate them quickly and precisely. As a result, you will sell more records.

You will find listed below all the fields that appear on the ‘Sell a new record’ form.

Please read the comment below before starting to enter records.

Entering your records on the Vinyl-collector website

From the website

Log in, click on “My records”, then “Sell a new record” and enter you data.

List of the data fields
 
Underlined fields must be completed, the others are optional.

     1 –   Artist (or group) name

The name and the first name are entered inside 2 different fields.
This will help when one wants to sort items alphabetically.

You may leave the “Name” field blank: this allows you to enter ethnic music records for which no artists are identified.

By “Name”, we mean the family name of the artist or the name of the group.

Example:
Dylan, Lennon. Do not enter “Bob Dylan” or “John Lennon”. (You can enter the first name inside the next field.)

For groups: do not enter ”The Beatles”, but simply “Beatles”. (You can enter “the” inside the next field too.)

!      If the record has several artists (compilation, festival), enter “V.A.” for “Various Artists”.

     2 –   First name

     3 –   Record’s title

     4 –   Label

You are free to enter just the label name or the label name + record number.

     5 –   Musical genre

Musical genre is defined on 3 levels.
Some have only one level; some have two and some (jazz and classical) have three.
You will have to choose the musical genres form a list.
When you select a genre, if a second level exists, a new field will appear below. The process is the same for the third level.
The first level is the only one that must be completed, others are optional.

Example:
You want to sell a jazz record? Select “jazz” in the field dedicated to musical genre.
A second field then appears just below.
You are free to stop here and go straight to the next step but you also have the possibility to precise which kind of jazz it is about by selecting: “Roots”, “Classical”, ”Modern” or “Contemporary”.
If you choose “Contemporary”, then again you can stop here or select “free jazz”, “jazz-rock”, etc.

!      Keep in mind that the more precise the definition is, the more visible your record will be when a request by genre is made.

!      Your record does not fit in any of the given categories? Please send us a mail and we shall work something out.

     6 –   Some precisions

Press the Ctrl button on your keyboard and select each of the matching fields:
a – Compilation (one or several artists)
b – Library
c – Reissue or Reprint
d – Original soundtrack

     7 –   Country or region of origin

Select from a list.

?     A country or Region is missing? Please send us a mail and we shall work it out.

     8 –   Country or region of origin

Select from a list.

?     A country is missing? Please send us a mail and we shall work it out.

     8 –   Year of pressing

Select from a list.
If you are not quite sure of found no information, you can choose for instance “196?“ for sixties or “197?” for seventies or even “19??”.

     8 –   Year of first issue

Select from a list.
Use this field only if you want to add this precision to a reissue.

     9 –   Size

Select from a list.
To define the size, choose the speed first (33, 45 ou 78 rpm), then the size (12, 10 or 7 inches) and number of records.

Most of the possibilities are considered including multi-records items with both 45 and 33 rpm disc.

     10 – Condition

Grading scales are just an agreement. We have chosen the scale that is the most familiar to us and also the most commonly used in continental Europe. We suggest that you read the explanations below before putting your records on sale.

a – Record

M          Record new and unplayed. If you are not sure, please grade it M-.

1. Record a new, no marks, no airlines, no sound alterations.

Ex         Record in excellent condition: few minor surface marks possible (airlines) but almost no sound alteration. State of a record seldom played and always manipulated with care.

Vg++    Record in very good state. Few superficial surface marks possible. Some light noises.

Vg+      Record in good state. Some marks and light surface noises, but hearing still comfortable.

Fair       Record in average condition or worse.

Records in average condition are not welcome on the vinyl-collector website... This grade should be used for very rare items only.

b – Cover

M          Cover new and in perfect state.

!      A record may be new but the cover more or less damaged due to bad storage conditions or cellophane shrinking. In this case, please use a lower grade.

M-           Cover like new with no alterations at all.

Ex           Cover in excellent condition. Some minor alteration possible but in great shape.

Vg++      Cover in good shape with only minor cover wear (like light ring wear, small writing, small tear).

Vg+        Cover has suffered manipulation and is not very fresh any more but still looks clean.

Fair         Cover in very average condition or worse.

Covers in average condition are not welcome on the vinyl-collector website... This grade should be used for very rare items only.

     11 – Some precisions about condition.

Press the Ctrl button on your keyboard and select each of the matching fields:

1 – Bent Corner
2 – Box Set
3 – Coloured Vinyl
4 – Corner Cut
5 – Embossed Cover
6 – Gate-fold Cover
7 – Gimmick Cover
8 – Hole
9 – In Shrink
Film opened but not removed.
10 – Insert (s)
Any document that comes with the record: booklet, poster, sticker, promo sheet, scores, etc.
11 – Laminated Cover
12 – Mono
13 – Original Inner Sleeve(s)
14 – Picture Disc
15 – Promo
16 – Quadra
Quadraphonic recording.
17 – Ring Wear
18 – Seam Split
19 – Shape
20 – Side Cut
21 – Sticker on Cover
Any sticker on the cover (promo, price, library…)
22 – Still Sealed
23 – Tear on Cover
24 – Test Pressing
A few copies are pressed as a test. Label is white w/ handwritten data.
25 – Writing on Cover
26 – Writing on label

     12 – Price

Now more than ever the record market is very unstable, and to find the “right price” is not that easy.
Seek for information, trust your feeling and do not hesitate to revise your prices if necessary.
And beware of price guides.

     13 – Your comment

You are free to use or not this field for a comment, some details (musicians), a link or just keywords. Any language will do.

     14 – Photo of the item

If you choose to add a photo, it has to be the photo of the very record you are selling, not just an illustration picked up from the web.

From an Excel file

If you have many records to sell, it will be easier download our prepared Excel file and send it back once you have entered your data. (You can use a zip compression program.)

Once your stock is entered, you can update from the website.

The data fieds are exactly the same as the ones listed above. Your records will then be integrated directly into the Vinyl-collector database. Click here to download the file.

If you have your records already listed on a file (table or text) and it doesn’t match with Vinyl-collector and you don’t feel like doing the job a second time, let us know and we shall help you .

The selling process in 9 steps

Here is the process of records selling on Vinyl-collector explained in 9 steps.

• – We receive the order for you, concerning 1 or several items.

• – We send you an e-mail asking you to confirm the availability of each item.

• – You check and confirm availability of each item individually.

!      Do not send the record(s) at this point : we have not received the payment yet!

• – We receive payment from the buyer.

• – We send you an second e-mail informing you that we have received the payment and that you can now send the parcel.

• – You send the record(s).

• – The buyer receives the parcel.

• – The buyer informs us that the parcel has arrived and gives a grade to the transaction.

• – We credit your account .

!      If the seller never confirms, your account will be credited after 20 days.

The shipping charges

Shipping cost are charged to the buyer and prepaid by the seller.

They are estimated by Vinyl-collector on the basis of the weight of the parcel, respective places of residence of the seller and of the buyer and current postal rates.

They are fixed and can differ slightly from the real cost of the transport and packaging cumulated.

Our rates are calculated so that the difference, if any, is always in favour of the buyer.

The seller’s payment

When you register as a seller you settle the way you wish to get paid. (You can change later by updating your data.)

There is no periodicity for your payment. It is for you to decide when it you which to get paid.

Charges

Vinyl collector will charge you 10% on the record’s price.

Example:
You sell a record at € 100. Buyer pays € 100 + € 12 for mailing charges = € 112.
We pay you 90 per cent of € 100 + € 12 = € 102 (minus the bank transfer charges if any).

The charges on money transfer only cover the bank charges with no extra from Vinyl collector.