uchiha101

10 hours ago, Foley said:

That sounds great Gabe, but you should probably focus on getting more paid hours at work before volunteering your time to a pursuit that hasn't worked out very well to this point.

 

I'm aware of that as well but I'm still interested in volunteering and it hasn't worked well because of my mistakes but one by one they're getting fixed. 

Thoughts

I'm considering volunteering at my lcs, I would get experience with a cash register, customer service and I would enjoy volunteering there.

On 5/11/2017 at 6:55 AM, 1Cool said:

Nice!  I had my CGC 9.6 #1 signed on the case by Tony Isabella last fall.  It's been sitting around waiting for a couple previews to surface.

Yes I have 5 copies myself so I'm happy to see this news as well

http://comicbook.com/dc/2017/05/10/black-lightning-gets-a-series-order-at-the-cw/

3 hours ago, Logan510 said:

As the kewl kid on the boards, can you explain to this old geezer what that means?

 

 

It's a doge meme 

10 hours ago, Turtle said:

I've been out of this thread (but still monitoring) since sometime in 2016 and I haven't posted in it since until now. 

My money is still on "Gabe is messing with us".  Seriously.  Go to any point in this thread.  Any point at all.  The advice doesn't vary much.  The responses don't vary much.  He's gotta be messing with us. 

 

 

 

I'm not messing with anyone 

11 hours ago, W16227 said:

It is against the rules of the boards to threadkrap in a sales thread.  This includes bashing pricing.  Many general comment threads have sprung up in other board areas discussing this. The reality of the boards, is the overpriced books sit.  Same as eBay. Sellers that consistently overprice things do not get as many looks as those who price better. Same as eBay. Sometimes things sell here for more than one might think they should, same as eBay.  The very best sellers have a good overall feel for pricing strategies and will have a lot of sales. 

 

That makes sense thanks

2 hours ago, Red84 said:

This response makes no sense.

Why would you care about turning bidders off who make offers below what you consider to be even a reasonable offer?

"you can't call out overpriced comics" - What are you talking about? You're the seller selling the overpriced comics.

And as someone said previously, there's a difference between asking 10-20% above gpa and asking 100% above gpa.  The former can facilitate negotiation.  The latter encourages everyone to ignore you as not serious.

 

My grammar still needs work, and I was saying that in response to boardies selling their own comics. I see

2 hours ago, W16227 said:

Who says its fine?

Many books in the sales forum are way overpriced - and just sit there. People do not call them out in threads because it is not allowed.

Some sell - might be for a good reason or not - but really - you were going to set a price at more than 2x FMV to see what "offer" you were going to get. No comparison.

 

 

FYI - ebay has a way for you to auto-decline lowball offers.

 

I know but I don't like using auto decline because it turns people off more often then not and you can't call out overpriced comics?

2 hours ago, 50AE_DE said:

Much more reasonable.

Thanks and when I get the comics I'll put the up and ask what the other boardies think since there aren't many fans of modern comics and variants :P

2 hours ago, Iceman399 said:

I can't speak to everyone but it depends on the book.  Right now I would love to buy an AF15 CGC 3.5 at GPA.  Why cause GPA isn't correct as to where the market is.  GPA isn't the be all and end all answer...but if after a few ebay searches one can find that you are significantly over priced its not a good idea.  Do boardies do it?  Sure.  Have I done it?  Absolutely.  GPA isn't the answer.  It is a guide and if the guide isn't correct why would I follow it?  ASM 300 is super hot right now cause of the venom movie a CGC 9.6 90 day gpa is $511 at the moment, however most sales are closer to $550.  Why is GPA only at $511 then?  Because the movie bump happened within the last 90 days, so even though there are lots of sales one has to look at where the market is (which is closer to $550 than $511).

 

You mean Keith is beside me  

 

Ah I see what you're doing and yes that's what I meant to say.

2 hours ago, Iceman399 said:

There is a difference between seeing what offers and searching for a sucker.  There is enough info out there for Invincible books to know that $800 is searching for a sucker.  It's one thing to see if call it 10% above market will fly, especially trending hot books, but 2.5x (250%) that's a bit much.

ERComics.  I'll have a double booth in a pod of 4, probably beside Keith's pod.

@Wall-Crawler Normally would love to have help, but already bringing in extra hands for this con as I have so much space (50+ long boxes).

 

Then how come I see boardies charge higher then 10% over gpa and it's fine? Also it's cool that you're beside Keith 

3 hours ago, Wall-Crawler said:

You should let him volunteer at your booth, teach the boy some selling skillz 

That's actually a decent idea 

2 hours ago, chrisco37 said:

This is such a great post.  

Of course, the entire point was missed.  At least we don't have to worry about the phone thing.

 

He said not to answer the questions but it's something to think about and no I haven't missed the point I read it

3 hours ago, Iceman399 said:

Why play games with your customers?  Why not provide them with an honest & fair price from day one instead of hoping to "test" them.

Yes I'll be set up at NFCC

 

I want to see what offers I would have gotten that's one of the reasons and what's your company named again?

2 hours ago, thehumantorch said:

I didn't miss any points.  Regardless, good luck with your sales.

Then why address everything else? And thanks.

2 hours ago, revat said:

To me the point is not 'yay, I've learned something, I'll lower the price to something more reasonable'

the question is "Why were you at such a high price to begin with? Is your methodology for determining price flawed?  is your methodology for determining FMV flawed? Is your strategy to just try and catch the occasional uniformed sucker (actually a viable strategy if you don't need the money or really care about selling or the book is ultra rare, like ultra rare)?"

Its not all about these specific books, but establishing a methodology for determining achievable prices going forward.  Do you understand why your previous price was wrong?  Do you understand why your process to establish that price was wrong?  Do you truly understand how and why your new price is better (other than people told you it is)?

Do you understand why you have to factor in ebay and paypal fees (based expected gross revenue from sale) when you decide whether or not to make a purchase?  Do you understand why that wasn't a factor in your decision making before?

Aside from that, do you realize that busting out a phone or list IN PERSON while you're in the middle of negotiations to check prices often results in you paying a higher price? or being priced out all together?  The best deals have always happened for me when you can eyeball something fairly quickly and offer cash quickly.

 

I don't want or need the answers to these questions.  But you should consider them.  And honestly, you should already have asked yourself these questions.  If you really want to be good at this and focus on it, you have to really analyze your decisions, maybe write things down as you make decisions.

 

Ok I'm just going to address the last part, I don't bust out my phone in negotiations because I meet these people online and I just recently got this phone. But yes I should write my decisions down more often. 

2 hours ago, Red84 said:

Then what is your asking price?

$325 shipped

2 hours ago, Red84 said:

It's not fair market value.  We showed you that already when a lot with better books than yours didn't sell for $300 less than your asking price.

You can ask whatever you want, but you're delusional if you think $800 is fair market value.

 

You're either not keeping up or not paying attention to where I'm at right now. The $800 OBO is in the past and I said I would put it at FMV or a little above it thanks to speaking with two boardies.

2 hours ago, thehumantorch said:

I buy books all the time at or close to GPA.  Most of the time it's in person so I can see the book and avoid shipping and duty costs.  It's always a key book that I believe is going up over time and I'd better be right 95% of the time.  At our last show I sold a lot of $1 books, sets, mid and low value keys and bought Daredevil 1, ASM 129, Hulk 181, Avengers 57 and Batman 232.  I then sold the ASM 129 for a $100 profit and bought another.  It can work but it requires patience, laser focus on value, knowledge of the hobby and some money.

 

Yes and I'm not at that level or even close to it but I do see an obvious pattern now 

2 hours ago, thehumantorch said:

Call it a test, call it a turtle, call it a kumquat, call it whatever you want.  Doesn't matter, you're setting an absurdly high price hoping to find a buyer who will overpay.  What you call something doesn't matter, what you're actually doing does matter.  Once again, you're doing nothing illegal and we could argue about the morality of this practice all day.

 

Then why beat a dead horse? Also, why do you keep missing the points I make? I said that I was going to put it up high on ebay because I know there are lowballers, I didn't calculate fees and it's heating up. I also said that I'm willing to negotiate and if I get a good offer I'll take it and that's in addition to me paying attention to prices and changing them when it calls for it. 

2 hours ago, chrisco37 said:

I always end up getting sucked back into this thread.  

As we've said for years, you need lower cost entry books that you can flip for quick profit.  That way, if you can't flip it, you're not in too deep.

Here's an example...a few months back, I did a small, local show.  I had some decent wall books, but mostly I had boxes of $2-10 books.  I had a bunch of Jim Lee Batmans.  I had them marked at $5/book and I sold a few of them.  Near the end of the show, after the crowds were gone, I went over to another table that was filled with dollar boxes.  Guess what I pulled out of them?  Yep, Jim Lee Batmans.  For a buck each, I replaced all the books I just sold and then some.  I also pulled out quite a few AH Catwoman books.  Those are easy $5-10 books in my boxes or on IG.  

Buy for $1, sell for $5.  Yep, it's more work than one big flip.  But I'm not out of pocket at all if I sell nothing.  Do a bunch of those and learn the game.  Make a few bucks along the way.  

 

I see, I only tried that a few times and failed but I understand what you're saying and catwoman comics are on the  list I have.

3 hours ago, revat said:

well lets say you saw a comic with a GPA price of $1,100, but you saw it on a website for $850.  Well you might be thinking to yourself "Hmmm I'll buy that and flip it for $250 real quick"  What I'm saying is that for the purpose of resale, it might not be the best deal.  Factor in shipping, and insurance, the you might have to add $30.  If you were to sell it on ebay, that might be more than 10%, then paypal fees, and you're dealing with maybe $100 worth of profit for nearly $900 of investment, which is TERRIBLE.  That's not including the risk of fraud from the seller or your eventual buyer, damage from shipping, the time it takes to sell, the opportunity cost of having your money tied up. 

That's not an investment any rational person would make.

 

Thanks for explaining it.

3 hours ago, Red84 said:

Every time you decide on a price you need to have a reason for that price.  Not a wish, not a hope, but an actual reason why the price you picked makes sense.

Then I'll make it clear, the price I want and have in mind is FMV or a little bit over nothing more.

3 hours ago, Red84 said:

That's what everyone has been telling you to do for 3 years.

Yes and like I said when I got back here I've been paying attention to valuable modern comics and variants and I have about 140 comics saved in my phone's memory