How do I buy? What should in know first?

First of all, LDDb.com is a marketplace and not a shop owned by a single individual. eBay.com is also working on this model, they do not sell anything physical but rather provide the service to make buyers and sellers agree on a transaction. This is what I intend to do too with a more crafted approach focusing on Laserdiscs, and more effective tools and pricing history to provide anyone with fair and free information on past transactions.

Second, although the Feedback number is a useful information to evaluate a Seller/Buyer profile, I cannot guarantee the seriousness of every Shops here. I can only create good conditions for a flawless transaction but payment methods, conditions and timing are up to both Seller and Buyer. I will of course collect claims and terminate accounts in case of major problems.

Locating Titles

There are many ways to locate/find LDs:

1. On each LD list, you will be able to click on to get this symbol next to titles available in shops.
2. On each LD Display page, the Shop availability is clearly stated (none, one or more).
3. In each User Shop, you can run a cross-check of titles available in both your Wishlist and this Shop
4. In the Global Shop, you can run a cross-check of titles available in both your Wishlist and All Shops

Wishlists and automatic Email Notification

Your Wishlist (kept strictly anonymous) is very useful for both buying and selling.

From a Seller point of view, when you input a title in your wishlist, it will be added to the wishlist ranking of this title (refreshed daily) and help building the list of the most wanted titles.

Once a title has beed inserted in your Wishlist, a click on "Show Notify" in a Wishlist view will display the Notification controls. You then have several levels of notification available:

• Yes/No: check this box if you want to receive an Email when this title is added to a Shop

• Condition: the minimum condition (from 1 to 10) required to trigger a notification.
  Any LD avaible with a condition below this value will be ignored.
  Leave this information empty to indicate any condition.

• Price: the maximum price (in US$) at which you are interested in buying this LD.
  Any LD avaible with a price above this value will be ignored.
  Leave this information empty to indicate any price.

• Both Condition and Price: both values will be used to trigger an Email Notification.

Additionally, when you set a maximum price and set the Notification to YES, this is considered a virtual Bid and will be used to give Sellers an evaluation of the current bid price. If you don't want to see your max price values used to calculate this "best bid", do not check the Notification box. However, Email Notification will then be turned off. Note that there is absolutely no obligation to buy at the price you set: it's only a good information for Sellers that might make them sell a title they would otherwise have kept.

Let's buy new titles!

Please note that you will be forbidden from buying anything if your Account is currently frozen or invalid. All Users account should be kept up-to-date and provide honest and accurate information.

How does the basic "Best Offers" work for the Buyer exactly?

Assuming the Shop Options enabled "Best Offers", one can now freely submit a lower price offer for consideration by the Seller:

• When "Best Offers" are accepted, will appear in the list of a shops offer for a specific LD
• If you have a pending offer, the button will turn into
• Offer can be anywhere from 1% to 50% discount on the current price, by steps of 0.5%
• A best offer is valid for 48 hours and can either:
  • Be accepted (this will create a regular transaction)
  • Be rejected (you may then submit a new best offer as long as its price is above the previous one)
  • Expire
  • Be removed because the LD was removed from the Shop
  • Be removed because the LD was purchased at the normal price
  • Be removed because the LD was purchased through another Best Offer
• The point of a Best Offer is to bring more balance in prices offered and requested than the "best bid" mechanism used with the wishlists.

How does the new "Counter Offers" system work exactly?

Based on users (both buying and selling) feedback, I decided that the Best Offers needed to reach a new level of flexibility and here is the version 2.0.

The most frequent criticisms were about too short time to act and no counter-offers:

1. 48h are sometimes too short for a Seller to catch a best offer and validate it.
   => Expired best offers will now be eligible for "re-offering", giving the original potential Buyer another 48h to confirm his/her interest
   On the diagram: New best offer -> [Pending] -> [Expired Seller] -> [Counter Seller] -> Buyer's decision to accept or reject.
   
   
2. There was no automated way to signal to a potential buyer that his/her best offer was too low (most -50% gets rejected) other than reject/expire.
   => Sellers will now be able to propose a counter-offer between the original price and the too low offer, giving the original potential Buyer another 48h to consider a higher price
   On the diagram: New best offer -> [Pending] -> [Counter Seller] -> Buyer's decision to accept, counter-offer or reject.
   
   
3. If the Seller can counter-offer, so should the Buyer to keep things fair and try to converge towards a agreeable price for both sides.
   => Buyers will now be able to propose a counter-offer between the best Seller's discount to date and the best Buyer's discount to date, giving the Seller another 48h to consider a lower price
   On the diagram: New best offer -> [Pending] -> [Counter Seller] -> [Counter Buyer] -> Seller's decision to accept, counter-offer or reject.