Selling on eBay

[Undead Dan]

Hey all, I'm going to be using eBay to sell some gear for the first time ever, basically a few of my armies and some books and things, I know that lots of you guys have used it pretty extensively, anyone got any advice for me?

For example, I have Night's Dark Masters. I see it for sale for pretty crazy prices (£40 from the other side of the world with massive postage, or £150+ from Amazon), what kind of price should I start it off at, and how long should the auction run?

On the other hand, an army of High Elves (standard kind of contents), basically fully painted. Would it be best to separate it into individual units, or sell it all in one go? Again, how long to list for would you recommend?

(I also have Daemons and Vampire Counts I'm selling, contact if interested ;) )

Thanks for any helps!!

[fatolaf]

For example, I have Night's Dark Masters. I see it for sale for pretty crazy prices (£40 from the other side of the world with massive postage, or £150+ from Amazon), what kind of price should I start it off at, and how long should the auction run?

Start off low, to encourage bidding, have a buy it now price for what ever you really want for it (will only costs a few pence extra) but this will disappear after the first bid but is worth a go for those punters who really want it. Start your auction at £4.99 and run it for 10 days, you will get a good price, dont worry..

DO REMEMBER THAT EBAY NOW TAKE 10% AND ANOTHER 4% IF THEY PAY BY PAYPAL.

If it's heavy do not sell abroad as you wont be able to post it safely! DO NOT EVER post to ITALY!

On the other hand, an army of High Elves (standard kind of contents), basically fully painted. Would it be best to separate it into individual units, or sell it all in one go? Again, how long to list for would you recommend?

Sell it as an army, 10 days, £4.99 starting cost

If you want for a small commision, I could sell it through the OG Games Ebay account, 1750+ Pos feedback as a seller, and take care of piccies, listing, questions and postage for you?

I recently sold Gary's CoC stuff and got him £112 for one booster pack  and sold Steve's IG army and got him over £500..

[Mike]

I echo Ols' 'Never post to Italy'... and throw in a 'NEVER post to Spain'.

As Ol says start low... you'll always see a flourish of activity in the last 5 mins. 
make sure you take good photos... very essential with models.

never ever EVER!!... use the Term 'Pro Painted'  I want to personally Face F$%k anyone who puts that.  I always put 'Unlike many falsely claim this is not Pro-Painted... im not a pro its my hobby.  It is however painted to xxxxx standard'  People seem to like that.

The debate between selling a whole army compared to individual lots will go on forever.

I broke down my Skaven into individual units and made a killing..... but it was a pain!
Worth putting a reserve on a whole army to stop it going for much less than you expected.

[maelzch]

I'd say also never post to greece, been screwed on that before.

The selling a whole army or individual lots I find comes down to what you've got. If its all quite stock stuff, with nothing rare/converted/otherwise fancy, I'd say sell it as a lot. However, if you've got anything that would fetch a decent price on its own (oop/converted/rare), its definately worth listing those seperately. I've made a killing over the years in flogging rarer minis

[Undead Dan]

Cheers guys, lots of great advice to take on board (Will PM Ol especially). Is it okay to only sell to Britain?

[Tom Hale]

never post in belgium, got burnt on that one. my opinion the sum of the parts is greater than the whole: you make more money by breaking down armies into units

[Mike]

Dan,

I tend to put UK only on my sales.  Also if you sell on ebay.co.uk then I believe only people in the UK can bid... unless you specifically allow someone from abroad by approving them.

That said.. people get around it.

I just got someone banned on ebay.co.uk because they lived in Brazil and put the last line of the address as:

Brasil
London
United Kingdon

To get round the UK only bit... they then claimed after 5 months to have never recieved the items and kicked up a fuss!

Moral of the story... UK only is best to avoid hassle.

[fatolaf]

Is it okay to only sell to Britain?

I do all the time, as Mike says you will occasionally get some people faking their address, but just report them, cancel their bid and give it to the 2nd highest bidder if it happens...

IMO do not ever put a reserve on it, it puts bidders off and costs extra as well.

[Undead Dan]

Got a Polish guy asking if I'll ship (just the book on eBay so far) to his country. Think I should allow it? I have 5 watchers so far...

[The Trampoline]

Yes, don't limit your market to just the UK Dan, sell abroad, you open yourself up to thousands more bidders. If you're really worried about Italy and Spain specify that you won't sell there.

The main piece of advise I can suggest is to weigh your items and accurately work out postage rather than guessing especially if you ship abroad.

Also the thing with Italy and Spain is that the postal service isn't very well regulated so items that have a large postal value (i.e. the amount you spent posting them) can tempt posties to nick them in the hope that something valuable is inside.

Andy

[fatolaf]

Got a Polish guy asking if I'll ship (just the book on eBay so far) to his country. Think I should allow it? I have 5 watchers so far...

Weigh it and go here to find out how much it will be via international signed for, the only way to post to Europe so that you dont get screwed...

http://sg.royalmail.com/portal/rm/PriceFinder?catId=23500532&gear=pricingcalc

[Undead Dan]

Got a few more requests for international postings, why's it always the Poles and the Turks who want my stuff? Guess I'll do as Ol suggests and look at the international signed for stuff, if it's expensive, not my problem...

If anyone's interested (A few HE, VC and Daemon bits) you can look around at what I've got to sell at http://myworld.ebay.co.uk/rodarov/

[cunningmatt]

why's it always the Poles and the Turks who want my stuff?

Staying over there, buying all your stuff! Sorry probably shouldn't have read the Daily Mail today.

[Undead Dan]

Hehehe sold Night's Dark Masters for £56

[fatolaf]

Hehehe sold Night's Dark Masters for £56

Good price sir, it's up there with the Skaven supplement (shadow of the horned rat?) in the rareness stakes..

[Tom Hale]

any progress on my stuff ol?

[fatolaf]

any progress on my stuff ol?

Not actually had time to list them yet buddy, hoping to do it tomorrow

[Dave]

On a related topic is anyone else a compulsive ebay shopper?  I go through periods where I'll avoid it and then I decide I'll just pick up a something I need for an army and then because there are some excellent offers available all of sudden I'm bidding on about 10 items!

My decision to pull out my wood elves for another go has lead to some slightly weird purchases.  I started off realising I needed another 10-15 archers.  So I've now bought around 30 'because they were cheap'.  Not actually too bad as I'm sure certain lists using 50+ will be viable and generally not too filthy to get hit by the comphammer.

The strange one was someone was selling off 40+ glade riders.  Obviously they're rubbish so why would anyone want that many.  Well it turns out that I do.  Not really sure that an all glade rider army is any good (in fact I'm sure it will be rubbish) but they were a steal coming at £46 including a GW carry case and they are perfect material for a dark rider army if I ever decide to do something like that.  But guaranteed I'll use them down the club for an all mounted WE avoidance army of silliness! (50+ glade riders and wild riders, a couple of mounted heroes and mages all of which moves at 18" a turn in a game which is now more infantry based than ever before, what could possibly go wrong!).

I'm now on the scavenge for dryads to get over 40 with them.  I've decided pre owned is just too good value as it basically means I'll get pre-base coated figs as it's pretty hard to do dryads badly wrong.  Plus with all the WE rage quit there are a fair number up for sale for not a lot of cash!

[Tom Hale]

dave investing for when glad rider spam will be the new filth! it is certainly a buyers market out there for wood elf stuff that is true

[Undead Dan]

Now what's the bet way to package models I'm selling? I'm currently selling large-ish models like chariots and groups of a few models at a time, there any cheap box-sized things sold on the cheap?

[Tom Hale]

Errr I just recycle stuff from my eBay purchases! You can use tissue/bog roll  to pad the box out (imobalise them snotty can rattle around and break) box, hell Gw unit boxes reinforced with some cardboard or a shoe box or something should do.

[fatolaf]

Now what's the bet way to package models I'm selling? I'm currently selling large-ish models like chariots and groups of a few models at a time, there any cheap box-sized things sold on the cheap?

Buy cheap bubble wrap from here

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/750mm-WIDE-x-10m-Long-AIRCAP-Bubble-Wrap-Free-24HR-P-P-/350100381502?pt=UK_Packaging_Materials&hash=item51839bdf3e

and then you will be fine, remember that if any figures turn up broken etc, the buyer can now complain to Paypal (if they used it ) and get their money back AND keep the figures, so dont do a crap job on the good stuff when wrapping...

[Undead Dan]

Cheers, got some (for slightly more) down the shops...

And so begins the arduous process of posting off my £200 of sales from the last week. Already had someone send me a "where's my army book" message from the stuff I posted a week ago, hope that's not a sign of things to come...

[fatolaf]

Already had someone send me a "where's my army book" message from the stuff I posted a week ago, hope that's not a sign of things to come...

True story: I had a buyer complain to me and file a report against me with Paypal, on the same day he had bought the item off me, complaining he had  not received it.
Paypal amazingly backed him and told me to give him a refund.....

[Undead Dan]

Wow, that's dumb!

I'll be doing another batch myself in a bit, if you want and have a bunch spare I can slip an OG Games card in with them next time...

[fatolaf]

Ta mate, good idea...

[Undead Dan]

Some people on eBay are nuts! I put 20 Plague Monks, without the rats from the sprues onto eBay, and within one day they're up to £16. Considering the £3 P&P, that's more than they cost brand new in the shops, and they could buy them brand new from OG for £15.30 delivered.

Not that I'm complaining of course

[Dave]

Hmm, where as I just bought a box off a guy on TWF who was selling up to get out the hobby.

It contained
1 dreadnought
9 marines
Inquis eisenhorn
2 converted oblits (kinda junk but look ok, will fleabay them I reckon)
38 skaven slaves
WE forest dragon
skaven assassin & some other metal gutter/night runners.

64 different paints and some duplicates
stack of brushes, modelling tools, cutters, glue, green stuff, flow improver, retarder, snow base, army painter quick shade (small tin), course sand etc etc
O&G army book
how to paint miniatures book (latest version)
mordenheim rulebook

All for £60 including postage.  I reckon I can probably sell those as parts for more than that should I want.

The skaven gutter/night runners are probably closing on being worth the cost alone and will be added to my IoB rats to get painted up as i'll stealth build a skaven army whilst not even thinking about ever playing them.

[fatolaf]

Some people on eBay are nuts! I put 20 Plague Monks, without the rats from the sprues onto eBay, and within one day they're up to £16. Considering the £3 P&P, that's more than they cost brand new in the shops, and they could buy them brand new from OG for £15.30 delivered.

Were they built?

[Undead Dan]

Nope, just in sprues, a la
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=280620216861&ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT#ht_500wt_1147

Weird...

P.S. sent my WW to you

[fatolaf]

No explanation for that at all...