Selling Tips for eBay?

[PeaveyFury]

Curious about other’s experiences selling on eBay. I’ve recently decided to sell off some items from my collection that I don’t really need or want anymore, and though I’ve bought a ton over the years, I haven’t really sold much, other than a handful of things over my many years as a member.

 

The bulk of my listings are ~$5 game-used jersey cards and such, but I have a couple of more significant items listed for buy-it-now prices that are fair, with the make-an-offer feature enacted. So far, I’ve only received completely low-ball offers of like 10% of the BIN price. For those that sell, is this typical? Other than lowering prices, are there other ways to drum up interest ?

[jerichoholicninja]

I have an eBay business so not exactly what you're doing but similar. Rare items will sell for high dollar but you will probably have to wait awhile for the person willing to pay your price to find it. Don't waste your time with cards unless you have something that is rare. Look through solds to see if any card is worth your time. 99% of the time it isn't. Even bulk lots of cards. There's not much you can do to "drum up interest". If people want it, they will find it.

 

If you let me know what other things your selling or PM a link to your store I can look and tell what I think of your listings.

[PeaveyFury]

Thanks! I'm only selling off G-U/memorabilia cards and cheaper autos (Bill Hall, anyone?) at this point, no standard cardboard.

 

For the others, it sounds like it's just a waiting game until someone comes along that wants it, which is fair. Just making sure that it wasn't atypical to have little interest after a week or two.

[BrewersSuperCollector]

I go to some of the National shows and pick up the Bill Hall types of game used and autos for $1 each.

[TURBO]

You could always offer up your items here too, save the ebay fees if they sell to board members...

[PeaveyFury]

Other than my Bill Hall noted above and my Brett Favre jersey card, most of my stuff is random NFL or NCAAFB stuff not associated with the Brewers or Wisconsin sports, so I'm not sure how much of an interest there would be. I certainly had that thought, though!

[OldSchoolSnapper]

eBay is such a nightmare to deal with now with the cut they take. It's obscene, especially once you get really valuable stuff and it starts to really be noticable. There's an ease of it that's nice I guess, but I try to unload things basically by any other means, like Facebook or even Craigslist first.

 

Facebook has many dedicated memorabilia groups where the users are thoroughly vetted and trusted and vouched for by other members. I'm in one for WI stuff but I'm sure they have groups for anything you're selling. If you have a lot to sell, you get to keep a lot more of your money that way.

 

Razzing stuff will also sell for a higher price than it does on eBay.

[nodakfan17]

Have you looked into COMC.com for selling sports cards?

 

I have an account and occasionally buy and flip cards there (spending ~$10/month), but I’ve sold my own items with modest success. The nice part about COMC is you only have to ship to them. They take care of listing your cards and shipping them to buyers. The all-in cost to you is about $0.50 per card.

[PeaveyFury]

Thanks for the heads-up! I've bought from COMC at some point in the past, but didn't know the story. Are you saying that they cover the ebay fees and such, or are they just sending you the net amount factoring that in?

[nodakfan17]

I know COMC has an eBay auction option, but it was added fairly recently and I don’t have any experience with it as a buyer or seller. However, I have sold a few batches of old sport cards through their standard sales approach (similar to eBay’s ‘Buy It Now’ feature).

 

Basically, you mail your cards to COMC and they process the cards and add them to your ‘owner dashboard.’ From your dashboard, you are able to list your cards for sale and set the prices you’d like to receive. When a card sells on COMC, you get an email alert and receive the sales proceeds in the form of store credit. COMC mails the card to the buyer, but typically buyers will wait until they have multiple cards to ship so they can save on shipping costs (buyer pays 100% of shipping),

 

What are the fees? Well, you have to mail your cards to COMC. I’ve found that when I’ve mailed a batch of 100 cards, the shipping charge and cost of materials to ship safely run about $20 (so $0.20 per card). Then COMC charges a processing fee of $0.25 per card to list them on their site (so we’re up to $0.45 per card). COMC also charges a 5% sales commission and an ongoing fee of 1 cent per month per card. So hypothetically, a $2.00 sale would net you about $1.30 after fees (assuming it was listed for sale for about 10 months).

 

I mainly use COMC to build small collections of my favorite 1990s Packers and to speculate (or flip) cards I think are listed for sale below their actual value. I spend about $10/month and it’s a fun, inexpensive hobby. That’s really the extent of my sports card knowledge and I’m sure other, more experienced collectors could weigh in here. I just wanted to mention COMC as an option because my experience has been very good.