Question for those who sell on heritage.

[RedGiant]

I've bought a number of books on heritage and all makes sense, I bid 20% less than I'd be willing to pay because of the buyers premium. eBay and Clink makes sense as a seller, they keep 10%, you get 90%. I can't figure out how much a seller keeps on heritage. I'm sure it's on their website, but I'm having trouble finding the info. I'm sure plenty of boardies sell on heritage, so could you please fill me in.

 

For example, say final bid was $1200, $1000 for the book plus the buyer premium. Of that $1200 what does the seller get and what does heritage keep?

[thirdgreenham]

Typically, Heritage will charge a 10% seller's fee.

[mintcollector]

I'll be honest, it depends on what you have for sale. Someone selling a $100,000 + collection or a book worth that much is going to be able to negotiate better commissions than someone selling an item worth $5,000 or less.

 

Don't know what there standard rate is however, it if you have a high value collection most auction houses will negotiate better terms via contract. I knew a coin collector who didn't pay all that much (he wouldn't say the exact amount, if any) when he sold his collection and auction houses were fighting to be able to sell it. In the antiques world, this occurs a lot. The better the collection or items for sale the better the terms are for the seller.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[RedGiant]

Typically, Heritage will charge a 10% seller's fee.

Thank you, but is it 10% of the $1200 (in example above) or $1000? What is with the buyers premium? Why not just have a straight auction? There must be something in it for heritage, right?

[Flaming_Telepath]

Typically, Heritage will charge a 10% seller's fee.

Thank you, but is it 10% of the $1200 (in example above) or $1000? What is with the buyers premium? Why not just have a straight auction? There must be something in it for heritage, right?

 

About 30%.

[TheMightyJohn]

Heritage collects the seller fees and they collect the BP.

 

The BP is added to the final sale price of the auction and charged to the buyer. This is how pretty much every real auction house operates. Ebay, is not a real auction house fyi.

 

Charging the buyer and seller both is what covers the overhead and generates profit for the auction house.

[zosocane]

I noticed that Comicconnect is now charging 30% commission on raw books; but they stick with 10% on graded books.

[Flatliner1313]

You get the bid price, minus any SELLERS premium (If any).

Then they charge the BUYER premium on top of the bid price.

 

So say for example someone wins with a $1000 bid.

You get $1000 (Minus any Seller premiums) and then they charge their Buyers Premium on top of the winning bid price, which doesn't effect your cut.

[TheMightyJohn]

It also should be noted that Heritage require $5,000 worth of comics in order for them to sell your books. Even then they may shoot you down if your 5K is spread across a bunch of low value books.

[RedGiant]

So is there any benefit of selling "low price" books on heritage? Say you have a handful of $1k+ books totaling around $20k. If you sell a $1k book on heritage, you only get 90% of $837 (1k/1.195). End of the day about $750. That same $1k book on clink, eBay, and other comic auction sellers, you take home $900. What am I missing here? Why do people sell any "cheap" comics on heritage? I know that's not their target market, but every Sunday they auction off a bunch of cheap books.

[Mike's Rack]

It also should be noted that Heritage require $5,000 worth of comics in order for them to sell your books. Even then they may shoot you down if your 5K is spread across a bunch of low value books.

You mean they won't take my 30,000 books that are worth $5k?

[revat]

well on ebay you have to take all your own pictures, create your own postings, ship individual items out yourself to a million different addresses, deal with bad feedback/non-payers/bad customers/questions on your own. You're responsible for lost items/broken slabs/theft. Heritage does typically deal with 'higher caliber' customers on average in terms of responsibility and spending, and they handle EVERYTHING I just mentioned above. Its just a matter of time and convenience. If you want to sell 20K of comics and the fee difference is 2K, 19K vs 17K (ebay might be 9% ebay plus 3% paypal). If the uncertainty of ebay and all of your time is worth the extra $2K, that's for you to decide. Time is worth different things to different people. That's the crux of it.

[namisgr]

I've bought a number of books on heritage and all makes sense, I bid 20% less than I'd be willing to pay because of the buyers premium.

 

This math is a bit off. If you'd be willing to pay $100 for a comic and bid 20% less, your max bid is $80. However, if the comic sells for $80 plus buyer's premium, your grand total is only $96. You can bid a bit over $83 to realize a grand total of $100.

 

As to why someone would sell on Heritage in spite of the commission and the buyer's premium, a main reason would be the expectation that the comic will realize a higher price there than any other venue. This may not be true for all value levels and genres, but it seems to hold for certain types of books.

[RedGiant]

I've bought a number of books on heritage and all makes sense, I bid 20% less than I'd be willing to pay because of the buyers premium.

 

This math is a bit off. If you'd be willing to pay $100 for a comic and bid 20% less, your max bid is $80. However, if the comic sells for $80 plus buyer's premium, your grand total is only $96. You can bid a bit over $83 to realize a grand total of $100.

 

As to why someone would sell on Heritage in spite of the commission and the buyer's premium, a main reason would be the expectation that the comic will realize a higher price there than any other venue. This may not be true for all value levels and genres, but it seems to hold for certain types of books.

I was being over simplistic in that first post, yes, I realize that math doesn't match - you would actually divide the price you are willing to pay by 1.195. For example - $100/1.195 = $83.68.

 

As for realized prices, maybe it's what I'm bidding on, but in general, I tend to see the same prices realized as other places.

 

And I understand they do a lot of leg work, deal with collecting payment, etc - but don't other comic auction sites do the same thing for 10%? So if heritage is collecting roughly 25% vs. 10% - then their realized prices need to be significantly greater than say clink, mycomicshop, comic connect, etc in order for a seller to net the same amount at the end of the day.

[RedGiant]

Of course, one can always sell on these boards with zero fees.

[Ghost Town]

So is there any benefit of selling "low price" books on heritage? Say you have a handful of $1k+ books totaling around $20k. If you sell a $1k book on heritage, you only get 90% of $837 (1k/1.195). End of the day about $750. That same $1k book on clink, eBay, and other comic auction sellers, you take home $900. What am I missing here? Why do people sell any "cheap" comics on heritage? I know that's not their target market, but every Sunday they auction off a bunch of cheap books.

I suspect the cheaper books are parts of large consignments or collections they've acquired.

[asteroid-comix]

People sell big books on HA because of their client base. More bidders = big hammer.

[zosocane]

People sell big books on HA because of their client base. More bidders = big hammer.

 

What about Sparkle City eBay Stores? Sparkle has been getting really nice sales with plenty of bids on graded books. Do they auction on consingment or are they dealing their books working off the buy-sell spread?