Ebaying advice

[Jkaen]

I think this question belongs in this forum, anyway:

I have decided to thin down my miniature collection, so am selling off the stuff I dont want to paint properly/keep, ebayed a few things for nominal amounts but was wondering what people thought was the best way to do this.

Example: I have a volleygun (would rate it 5), 12 handgunners in same colour scheme (5), 8 fanatics (6) and 32 unpainted old halbediers - the old fixed pose ones. How do people think I would maximise my money, sell each unit individualy, sell as one army or somewhere in between? Also given I live in UK (to me it seems things in ebay.com go for more than ebay.co.uk) is ebay the best place to sell or should i look elsewhere?

Thanks in advance for any help

 

[Corvus]

IMO older and less-well painted are better sold in one big auction.

Not long ago I sold my black templars in 4 seperate auctions and they sold for quite a lot (more than I expected). I guess that because a lot of people play space marines someone could be interested in a seperate item...

eBay.com might sell you items for more, but you\'ve got to remember that if you sell to a guy from, let\'s say, the US you\'ll have to use a PayPal account or something similar to receive your money, and this type of services also want to have a few percentages of the total amount of money you transfer. So this might level the difference between ebay.com and .co.uk...

These are my thoughts, as I am not a real expert on ebay at all....

 

[Jkaen]

Thanks Corvus since there dont seem to be any conflicting opinion I will do that.

 

[Corvus]

There\'s one thing I\'m not sure about: selling painted and unpainted minis together in one auction.

I think there are two types of people buying minis on ebay: people who paint their minis themselves look for unpainted bargains and people who do not paint, but want to buy painted armies in stead.

You might want to take that in consideration also...

Good luck!

 

[supervike]

my humble opinion..

As a fellow e-bayer (mostly a buyer, but occasionally a seller) I think minis sold as a regiment tend to sell for a better overall price.

Selling everything as a group has an inherent risk of either getting to a point where a lot of bidders are scared off or everything goes for an unfair lower price.

If you sold everything as an individual unit, you could possibly take a little bit of a loss on unit A, and then make it up on unit B. Plus, it keeps the item price down, which would increase bidder appeal.

I always kind of thought that there are plenty of single, nicely painted individual miniatures for sale on e-bay, but there doesn\'t seem to be alot of ready to play regiments.

I can\'t speak to the ebay vs. ebay.uk thing, but I believe you have a better chance of reaching the largest possible market with e-bay, and as long as you state your shipping costs and info up front you should be in good shape.

Good luck!

 

[Corvus]

To give you an idea of the PayPal costs: my black templars sold for just over 150 EUR (minus the ebay sales commission) and I\'d had to pay about 7 EUR of fees to paypal...

@Supervike: I also think that seperate regiments sell for more, but I believe JKaen is trying to sell older miniatures from some game (which?) so this may be better in one big batch (except for the unpainted ones, what do you think about those, supervike?)

 

[supervike]

good point...

Originally posted by Corvus

@Supervike: I also think that seperate regiments sell for more, but I believe JKaen is trying to sell older miniatures from some game (which?) so this may be better in one big batch (except for the unpainted ones, what do you think about those, supervike?)

I assumed they were all Warhammer, but I guess I shouldn\'t have assumed that. If they are for a specific game with a smaller audience, selling the whole lot may be better.

I agree about not mixing painted and unpainted together. I am not sure how people would react to that. As a bidder, I think I would prefer to see those seperated, unless of course they are part of a \'set\' as mentioned above.

Not sure how much time Jkaen wants to spend, but also I have notice even primered regiments selling higher than unpainted ones.

 

[Jkaen]

Just wrote a long reply without entering my username so dont want to type it all again, to summarise they are all Games Workshop but some dont have a place in the army lists anymore. The priming idea seems good, will try that. Thanks

 

[KatieG]

Originally posted by Corvus
To give you an idea of the PayPal costs: my black templars sold for just over 150 EUR (minus the ebay sales commission) and I\'d had to pay about 7 EUR of fees to paypal...

Note that ebayers in the UK are allowed to pass on the cost of using paypal to their customers. In the US this is illegal (and can get you suspended from eBay and Paypal), but it is not in the UK, so he can recoup the costs of paypal this way (Check out paypal rules, it explains this there).
--Katie G.

 

[Nelson]

Yep, I think thats basically it. ...If they aren\'t as well painted, minis sold as regiments can get QUITE alot of money, while sold seperately, they may make little or even no money. You\'ve gotta consider the shipping cost, since no person in their right mind is gonna pay one dollar for, say, a dwarf warrior, then an additional 7 bucks in shipping. For very well painted regiments (comp regiments and such) and single minis, go fer the single auction.

Also, if you are sellin\' a regiment that includes a champ, sell him seperately. I haven\'t sold stuff over the \'net, but it works well in commisions, etc....People will pay alot for a decent champ, in my experience
Just think like a used-car salesman, or a lawyer, and you\'ll do pretty good.....:innocent:........