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Advice on Selling

Started by stanley1883,

14 posts in this topic

stanley1883

stanley1883

Posted
Posted

So I haven't sold a lot of books on these here boards and I'm looking for some advice. I may need to sell some of my collection to fund the move for my Wife and I up to Seattle.

 

Ultimately, how would you guys price your books, and outside of fee's would there be any other reason to sell here as opposed to eBay.

 

For example, If I have a book that recently sold for lets say $500 on eBay, how would you price it on here? Slightly less, like about $450?

 

I'd be looking to price it accurately where it doesn't sit but rather sells quickly but I also want to make sure I'm not leaving too much money on the table......any advice from some of the more seasoned sellers for a noob such as myself?

 

Thanks in advance.

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AKA Rick

AKA Rick

Posted
Posted

It depends on your motivation, if it's:

 

A) To avoid using eBay for all of it's associated downsides of "buyer protection" (opening up exposure for you as a seller being victim of fraud) and all of the commissions and fees.

 

B) To maximize your personal net profit per sale

 

C) To be a member of a community and find the right home for the books you sell, even if at a discount lower than the maximum potential you could realize elsewhere.

 

D) For convenience, the least amount of effort for the most amount of revenue (so, in other words, not a "firesale" nor selling to a LCS or dealer locally)

 

If you're dealing in books in the neighborhood of $500 valuation, I'd probably consider those high-end and suggest using ComicLink or Heritage, 'tho you pay a commission, they protect you from payment fraud and deliver the upper echelon of bidders vying to buy. The good thing about those places are you ship them the books, they take care of the collection and fulfillment as well as communication with the buyer(s).

 

If your books are high end but low interest (i.e. not "hot" books and possibly slower moving niche) then I'd say post 'em on msg boards like this and there's 2 approaches.

 

One, is to just put it at the price you want, a fair price and it's non-negotiable knowing it should be swiped up. I think that's what you want. With that just go to eBay and look at the "sold" completed auctions for actual sales precedent to determine rough high, low and average valuation of what you're selling.

 

The other, and anytime you use the term "or best offer (OBO)" it's assumed it won't sell for that price and you'll get all sorts of random (as well as insulting low-ball) offers, so to that point, just mark the price up by 20-35% knowing that you've built in negotiation room, and it no bites, then start dropping the price (but by bigger increments otherwise you look like that pie in the sky dreamer gauging with over market value pricing). But that sounds like a non-option since you wrote you want to price accurately and move the book quickly so it doesn't sit.

 

I'm not sure what the "flake factor" is on msg boards, if it's like Craig's List or if folks are prompt to pay...

 

Good Luck !!!

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kav

kav

Posted
Posted

Sounds like you need to sell them so price them to sell. Doesn't seem like you have time to around. I think $450 for a $500 book is about right. Remember people are going to look at your price then check ebay to see if they can get similar book cheaper.

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BarryAllen

BarryAllen

Posted
Posted

For "quick" sales here:

90-95% of GPA on major keys over $1,000

85-95% of GPA on all other keys $250-$1,000

70-85% of Guide on everything else

 

Dealers on here are also a good quick option, but they will likely want ~20% off GPA to make it worth their wild.

 

If you want to maximize profit, you will probably need to be fairly patient on here. People only seem to pay full value on hot books.

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Michelangelo

Michelangelo

Posted
Posted
For "quick" sales here:

90-95% of GPA on major keys over $1,000

85-95% of GPA on all other keys $250-$1,000

70-85% of Guide on everything else

 

Dealers on here are also a good quick option, but they will likely want ~20% off GPA to make it worth their wild.

 

If you want to maximize profit, you will probably need to be fairly patient on here. People only seem to pay full value on hot books.

 

I agree with this if you're selling slabs

 

take a much bigger % off if they are raw books

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