CD's gathering dust? (Eil.com)

Member Name: mreyre

Product:	Eil.com
Date:	06/02/02 (151 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: all the latest new releases are available, very good and rapid customer service, you get paid!!

Disadvantages: you have to pay out for postage, records have to be in mint condition, some of the features on the website are not worthwhile

There are a great many music dealers on the internet these days, I would imagine most people out there use Cd-Wow for purchasing new release / chart CD albums. I do, anyway, and although they usually take about a week to come, the prices must be the most competitive out there. In fact, why anyone shops in HMV or Virgin these days is beyond me.

However, if, like me, you are a serious collector of all things vinyl and really get annoyed by the prospect of vinyl being completely phased out one day – then www.eil.com is definitely your kettle of fish. Don’t get me wrong, I love CD’s and I have a state-of-the art CD player stereo at home (though not in the car yet, unfortunately), but I had to insist that it came complete with record deck. I grew up with vinyl and got a buzz out of rummaging in the bargain bin at my local Woolies for 25p ex-chart 7” singles. Call me sad, but I don’t get the same effect with Cd’s in this modern age. There was something about buying a new LP or 12” single – you certainly got a lot for your money in those days!

During the eighties I built up my collection and have literally hundreds of 7”, 12” singles and LP’s, as well as many CD singles. However, there comes a time when the space in your house literally gets squeezed. This is otherwise known as the “child factor”. Unfortunately, Lucy’s “stuff” takes precedence these days, so I set about looking around for places where I could sell some of my vast collection. Firstly I considered setting up a car boot stall, but that sounded like too much effort – standing around all day on my day off in a muddy field – so I decided to look elsewhere. Also, I have many rare records which I wanted to get a reasonable price for.

I remembered that about 10 years ago, I bought a lot of rare records from a company called Esprit Mail Order, advertising in “Record Collector&
#8221; magazine at the time. I therefore decided to check their presence out on the world wide web.
I was amazed about what I found on their website www.eil.com. This is such a vast database of vinyl and CD’s that it took me a good week or so to completely explore the site and get totally familiar with it.

Let’s start with the (perhaps cluttered) Home page. Always a good place to start!
On the left hand side, there is a very useful menu, split into three distinctive categories; “Help”, “Search” and “Explore”.
Help
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Here, you can find all about the background to the company and the site map to aid your navigation around this huge site. There is a list of postage rates if you wish to order records from the UK or abroad. It also tells you how to order stuff in really simple terms, and finally the guarantee part of the site.

Search
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Perhaps the most useful part of the site, this effective search tool enables the user to search on a huge variety of topics, including a topical Brits Awards section, 80’s music (definitely my scene!), album charts, future releases, rare vinyl, singles chart and worldwide charts. You can also perform a more extensive search and be quite specific in what you enter – it will probably find it!

Explore
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This is the more “fun” way to navigate the site. Here you will find a list of the latest arrivals, which is very regularly updated. In fact, this is such a large amount of text that my computer often crashes as I try to read it! Next, you can find information regarding items to sell, which I will move on to shortly. For a bit of fun, you can meet the team behind eil.com. Also, there is a press centre for those in that line of business. There are jobs advertised in this section too – ideal if you live in the Kent area, but not particularly great for me! Finally, there is a section entitled R
20;collectors guide” and any discount offers which happen to be available.

Also on the welcome page, there are current items which are available. These are usually rare new items, eg. DJ Promos, imports and remixes. On the right hand side are items which are currently on special offer.
At the top right hand side you have the option to subscribe to the weekly eil.com newsletter which is sent to you via e-mail.

Finally on the welcome page, at the very top, you have a choice of “folder-type” menus. This is the Quick Shop feature which is usually a feature of most web sites of this nature, whereby you can check your shopping bag and view your account. However, one particular “tab” is the one I find the most beneficial – that is the “Visitor Centre”.

Visitor Centre
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From here you can access a menu which consists of the following features:

About us
Chat
Jobs
Collectors Guide
Eil.com webcam
Music Links
Request a catalogue
Accessories
Wanted
Your comments
Press centre
Currency convertor

As a collector, and a seller, I was most interested in the “Wanted” section. This is not a list of criminals, but a list of all the rare and collectible vinyl / CD’s which Esprit are looking for and would be willing to buy. This is a very large file of text. Initially, I attempted to print it straight off the website but my printer kicked up a fuss, so I just clicked on “Select All” and copied the whole file into a Word document. I could then print off the document a few pages at a time. It came out as 157 pages of A4. One black ink cartridge later…..! After reading through the document, this gave me a good insight into what type of thing Esprit were looking for.

I then looked through my collection and found several items on their wants list, so I bundled them up in a parcel and sent them
off, e-mailing eil beforehand, to get confirmation. You then print off their e-mail for their and your records and enclose a copy in the parcel.

A week later I received a nice cheque! I then catalogued some of my CD singles and e-mailed eil a copy. These were not on their wants list, but on the website the “wants” section states that they will be interested in any items. They e-mailed me back within a couple of days with their offers, so I sent them another parcel and within a week I received another cheque!

Quite an easy way to make money on a collection which is (or was) gathering dust in my loft. There are only two disadvantages to using this company which I have come across so far.

1) Esprit only purchase items which are in excellent/mint condition. Having said that, I have only had one CD single returned to me as it obviously didn’t meet their criteria. For collectors like myself, most of my collection is in that condition anyway, but it means that you can’t simply trawl your local Oxfam shop in the hope of selling on bent and tatty 12”’s !

2) Unfortunately, Esprit do not have a Freepost address. The nice lady in the post office has worked out for me that the cheapest way for me to send parcels to Esprit (which are over 2kg) is by Parcelforce. This costs £6.50 and can take up to 5 days to reach the destination. I always obtain a certificate of posting to act as proof, but this does only insure contents up to £50. I usually take a risk though and “touch-wood” I have so far sent 4 parcels to Esprit and none have got lost. Anyway, the point is that you have to initially part with £6.50, then you receive this amount back as part of the cheque which Esprit send you for your goods.

So far I have only sent Cd singles which are quite easy to post. I have recently sent eil a list of all my 7” and 12” singles – I think these will be harder and possibly more exp
ensive to send by post, but I will let you know!

Anyway, If, like me, you have a huge collection of vinyl and CD singles gathering dust, before you resign yourself to a car boot sale in the middle of a muddy field – give Esprit a try on www.eil.com. Of course, you could give e-bay a try, but this may cost you even more in postage to post items to individual collectors, and more trips to the post office.

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