Where To Sell
Same stock, two very different shops. The right choice often isn't "pick one" — it's knowing which platform suits which record, and what each one actually asks of you as a seller before you list.
Discogs sells into a narrower, more specialized audience who already know what pressing they want — they're searching by catalog number and matrix detail, not browsing. That audience pays for accuracy and rewards correct grading and identification.
eBay sells into a vastly larger, more general audience. Faster turnover, less specialist knowledge among buyers — which can work for you or against you depending on whether what you're selling is common stock or a pressing only a Discogs-literate buyer would recognize the value of.
Most active resellers end up using both — common, high-turnover stock on eBay for speed and reach, correctly-identified rarities on Discogs where the right buyer will actually pay for the detail.
| Discogs | eBay | |
|---|---|---|
| Selling fee | 9% of the item price plus postage, deducted when the buyer pays. | Private sellers: none on most items since October 2024; the buyer pays a Buyer Protection fee on top. Business sellers: a percentage of the total, by category, plus a per-order fee. |
| Listing fee | Always free to list, however many items you have. | A monthly allowance of free listings, then a small fee per extra listing — larger with a Store subscription. |
| Listing format | Fixed price, with an optional "Make an Offer." | Auction, fixed price (Buy It Now), or both together. |
| Monthly limits | No inventory cap — list as much as you have. | New sellers face a monthly item-count and total-value cap that eases as your track record builds. |
| Getting verified | Verified PayPal account required, plus identity verification before listings go live — commonly around a week for new sellers. | Identity and bank verification required to receive payouts; selling limits ease automatically with performance. |
| Getting paid | Funds land directly in your connected PayPal at the moment the buyer pays, fee already deducted. PayPal can hold new or unusual payments for up to 21 days, so don't count on the money the same day. | eBay collects payment itself and pays out to your linked bank account on its own schedule. |
| Required grading | Goldmine scale is a mandatory field on every listing. | Free text — you set your own standard, buyers rely entirely on your description and photos. |
| Price guidance | Real median/low/high sold prices shown for the exact release you're listing. | No built-in sold-price history on the platform itself. |
Fees change on both platforms. If you sell on eBay as a business, your rate moves over time and by category, so it's worth a quick check on your Seller Hub before pricing anything tight.
On eBay UK, what you pay depends on which kind of seller you are. Since October 2024, private sellers pay no selling fee on most items: you keep the sale price and the postage you charged, and the buyer pays a small Buyer Protection fee on top. Business sellers pay a final value fee, a percentage that varies by category, plus a fee per order, and those rates have gone up more than once.
Which you are isn't a box you tick for the lower fee. If you're buying records to sell them on, you may well count as a business. eBay's own guidance, and HMRC's, decide that. Check both before you choose.
Current rates: see eBay's own fees page, because they change.
Discogs enforces a standardized grade field, but that only sets the vocabulary — you still assign the grade. Overstating condition is a leading cause of returns on both platforms, and reputation damage outlasts any single sale.
New and lower-volume accounts are capped on both item count and total value each month. It resets monthly, and you can request an increase roughly once a month through Seller Hub — worth doing proactively rather than waiting until you're blocked mid-listing.
New seller accounts go through an identity and PayPal verification step before listings actually go live for sale — commonly around a week. Worth factoring in if you're planning to list a specific batch by a particular date.
Common, easily-identified pressings tend to move faster on eBay's larger audience. Anything where the specific pressing, country, or matrix genuinely matters to value is where Discogs' collector audience and price-history data earn back its 9% fee.