• When you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to, the eBay Partner Network.

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

Selling a high grade collection...best method?

Started by JiveTurkeyMoFo,

33 posts in this topic

JiveTurkeyMoFo

JiveTurkeyMoFo

Posted
Posted

Hey all,

 

With the exception of a few rare books, I've decided to sell off a large chunk of my collection. Mostly Bronze, but lots of Silver, and 95% of which is VF/NM or better.

 

So, how best to proceed? I'm an eBay PowerSeller with flawless feedback, but eBay is both time consuming and can get expensive if trying to piece everything out individually (and the prices realized aren't as great as they were 4-5 years ago on raw stuff, even on high grade books). Should I compile a list and shop it around with dealers? Try a large collection listing with tons of pictures/scans and be prepared to lug a lot of long boxes to the post office?

 

Anyone recently sell off a lot of books, and if so, what route did you take to do it?

 

Any advice or suggestions would help. Thanks! hi.gif

Link to comment
Share on other sites
deathlok

deathlok

Posted
Posted
Do what Aces did, and post a list of books by Age and Title, and let the forum freaks fight it out.

 

Seemed to work well for him.

 

...or ask for want lists, demand immediate payment by Paypal when I call you, and then say that the books have been sold already. 893scratchchin-thumb.gif

Link to comment
Share on other sites
FlyingDonut

FlyingDonut

Posted
Posted
Hey all,

 

With the exception of a few rare books, I've decided to sell off a large chunk of my collection. Mostly Bronze, but lots of Silver, and 95% of which is VF/NM or better.

 

So, how best to proceed? I'm an eBay PowerSeller with flawless feedback, but eBay is both time consuming and can get expensive if trying to piece everything out individually (and the prices realized aren't as great as they were 4-5 years ago on raw stuff, even on high grade books). Should I compile a list and shop it around with dealers? Try a large collection listing with tons of pictures/scans and be prepared to lug a lot of long boxes to the post office?

 

Anyone recently sell off a lot of books, and if so, what route did you take to do it?

 

Any advice or suggestions would help. Thanks! hi.gif

 

I sell lots of books. Sell them individually online. The price you get individually online will be higher than any dealer will give you. What do you have?

Link to comment
Share on other sites
fantastic_four

fantastic_four

Posted
Posted
Sell them individually online. The price you get individually online will be higher than any dealer will give you.

 

What percentage of your time spent on your ebay sales is spent on shipping? If you sell a bunch of stuff individually, it seems like a lot of overhead to ship books out like that. I just looked through your completed auctions, and it looks like you sell a bunch of books in the $5 to $20 range...is your wife doing your shipping, or are you doing it?

 

If you were paying someone $8 to $10 an hour to do your shipping, would you still be profitable? As I analyze the best business model for selling comics to match my lifestyle, even if I'm spending my own time doing it, I try to factor in the cost per hour on shipping, and selling like you do seems to take quite a bit of shipping time. crazy.gif

Link to comment
Share on other sites
FlyingDonut

FlyingDonut

Posted
Posted
Sell them individually online. The price you get individually online will be higher than any dealer will give you.

 

What percentage of your time spent on your ebay sales is spent on shipping? If you sell a bunch of stuff individually, it seems like a lot of overhead to ship books out like that. I just looked through your completed auctions, and it looks like you sell a bunch of books in the $5 to $20 range...is your wife doing your shipping, or are you doing it?

 

If you were paying someone $8 to $10 an hour to do your shipping, would you still be profitable? As I analyze the best business model for selling comics to match my lifestyle, even if I'm spending my own time doing it, I try to factor in the cost per hour on shipping, and selling like you do seems to take quite a bit of shipping time. crazy.gif

 

I spend a lot of time shipping, but its time that I would be sitting on my [!@#%^&^] anyway. I ship at night, usually while watching TV.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Wally's Comics

Wally's Comics

Posted
Posted
Sell them individually online. The price you get individually online will be higher than any dealer will give you.

 

What percentage of your time spent on your ebay sales is spent on shipping? If you sell a bunch of stuff individually, it seems like a lot of overhead to ship books out like that. I just looked through your completed auctions, and it looks like you sell a bunch of books in the $5 to $20 range...is your wife doing your shipping, or are you doing it?

 

If you were paying someone $8 to $10 an hour to do your shipping, would you still be profitable? As I analyze the best business model for selling comics to match my lifestyle, even if I'm spending my own time doing it, I try to factor in the cost per hour on shipping, and selling like you do seems to take quite a bit of shipping time. crazy.gif

 

I spend a lot of time shipping, but its time that I would be sitting on my [!@#%^&^] anyway. I ship at night, usually while watching TV.

 

I tell you dougnut, evey time I read one of your threads I have to force myself not

to think that I'm listening to Ron Jeremy. smirk.gif

Link to comment
Share on other sites
lighthouse

lighthouse

Posted
Posted
Sell them individually online. The price you get individually online will be higher than any dealer will give you.

 

What percentage of your time spent on your ebay sales is spent on shipping? If you sell a bunch of stuff individually, it seems like a lot of overhead to ship books out like that. I just looked through your completed auctions, and it looks like you sell a bunch of books in the $5 to $20 range...is your wife doing your shipping, or are you doing it?

 

If you were paying someone $8 to $10 an hour to do your shipping, would you still be profitable? As I analyze the best business model for selling comics to match my lifestyle, even if I'm spending my own time doing it, I try to factor in the cost per hour on shipping, and selling like you do seems to take quite a bit of shipping time. crazy.gif

 

I spend a lot of time shipping, but its time that I would be sitting on my [!@#%^&^] anyway. I ship at night, usually while watching TV.

 

I like to pretend I am a big battleship... and crawl around on the living room floor scaring the cats... sumo.gif

 

Oh, different kind of shipping... foreheadslap.gif

 

When I used to do enough volume to have buxom employees working in my shipping department, we averaged around 17 boxed packages per man-hour, or 26 enveloped packages per man-hour. That's taking them from books sitting in long boxes to packages sitting fully ready to go. International packages took over twice as long. And international packages over 4lbs took about three times as long.

 

I found that the 17 box per hour rate wound up with an error rate around 1% (an incorrect item, incomplete order, or incorrect address). The lackeys could do them as fast as 25 boxes per hour, but the error rate approached 4% if they did, and you start to lose too much money in re-ships and time in email exchanges (not to mention the potential loss of repeat customers).

 

As a test, we started double-checking every shipment at three steps in the process, with a second employee confirming the contents, matching the invoices, and comparing shipping labels. The error rate dropped to around 0.4%, but it took so much more time that it just wasn't worth it. So we arbitrarily picked a dollar value and double-checked every package above that value, but accepted the 1% error rate on the rest... confused-smiley-013.gif

 

It all comes back to economies of scale... well, that and crawling around on the floor pretending to be a battleship... or an AEGIS Cruiser if you prefer... thumbsup2.gif

Link to comment
Share on other sites
DawgPhan

DawgPhan

Posted
Posted
Sell them individually online. The price you get individually online will be higher than any dealer will give you.

 

What percentage of your time spent on your ebay sales is spent on shipping? If you sell a bunch of stuff individually, it seems like a lot of overhead to ship books out like that. I just looked through your completed auctions, and it looks like you sell a bunch of books in the $5 to $20 range...is your wife doing your shipping, or are you doing it?

 

If you were paying someone $8 to $10 an hour to do your shipping, would you still be profitable? As I analyze the best business model for selling comics to match my lifestyle, even if I'm spending my own time doing it, I try to factor in the cost per hour on shipping, and selling like you do seems to take quite a bit of shipping time. crazy.gif

 

I spend a lot of time shipping, but its time that I would be sitting on my [!@#%^&^] anyway. I ship at night, usually while watching TV.

 

I tell you dougnut, evey time I read one of your threads I have to force myself not

to think that I'm listening to Ron Jeremy. smirk.gif

 

I just prefer to think that I AM listening to Ron Jeremy. Hey Ron I heard that you recently showed your junk to Paris Hilton in a "I'll show you mine, You show me yours" swap...not bad...Makes sense to me.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
JiveTurkeyMoFo

JiveTurkeyMoFo

Posted
  • Author
Posted

I sell lots of books. Sell them individually online. The price you get individually online will be higher than any dealer will give you. What do you have?

 

Right now, its looking like about 2,000 books...of which 500 are Mylared/Mylited (is that even a word?!?) Bronze and Silver high graders. The remaining 1,500 run the gamut, but its mostly mainline modern stuff from several original owner unread collections I picked up over the last two years. I know I can sell the 500 premium books without much problem individually (though it will take both time and effort), but that leaves me with a lot of modern books that I will have to be creative with to try and move.

 

Then again, isn't that what the summer is for...many mind-numbing trips to the post office, waiting in long lines, just to ship comics? crazy.gif

Link to comment
Share on other sites
FFB

FFB

Posted
Posted
It all comes back to economies of scale... well, that and crawling around on the floor pretending to be a battleship... or an AEGIS Cruiser if you prefer... thumbsup2.gif

 

Someone's been playing Civilization II....

Link to comment
Share on other sites
lighthouse

lighthouse

Posted
Posted
It all comes back to economies of scale... well, that and crawling around on the floor pretending to be a battleship... or an AEGIS Cruiser if you prefer... thumbsup2.gif

 

Someone's been playing Civilization II....

 

Years ago... I wish there was a way to make the difficulty even harder... Between Civ II and Civ III I haven't lost a game in a good six years... It's a very pleasant mental exercise in resource management, but it stopped being a game for me long ago...

Link to comment
Share on other sites
DKB

DKB

Posted
Posted

If ya got a full run of Tomb of Drac from 11-70, I'd try to talk them all off you =p For that matter Captain Marvel 12 - 62. Champions 1 - 15, Night Nurse 1-4, The Cat 1-4...

 

Nevermind, I can't afford all I want. EYES TOO BIG! wallet too small.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
bobpfef

bobpfef

Posted
Posted
Years ago... I wish there was a way to make the difficulty even harder... Between Civ II and Civ III I haven't lost a game in a good six years... It's a very pleasant mental exercise in resource management, but it stopped being a game for me long ago...

 

Diety level is *EASY* for you on CIv III?

 

confused.gif

 

Sheesh.... I must REALLY be an insufficiently_thoughtful_person!

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Go to topic listing