The Superior LEGO Market – eBay vs. BrickLink – MSRP $25 – $49.99

Welcome to the third installment of a series started by Comicblast called “The Superior Market - eBay vs. BrickLink”. The purpose of this article is to compare the average sale prices of LEGO sets over the last 6 months. These numbers are the final sale prices, according to data acquired from BrickLink and BrickPicker from August 2013 to January 2014 (yes I realize that the January data isn't 100% complete, but I believe the impact will be minimal).

Comicblast's original blog post's can be found here ($0.00 to $9.99) and here ($10 to $24.99). The original intention of his blog articles was to simply compare the average selling price of 25 different sets. In the spirit of Comicblast's original attempt to create an unbiased list of sets, I perused the set lists from 2010-2013 and tried to pick sets that offered a variety of successes and failures in terms of resale value. Older sets are retired and newer ones are readily available at retail prices.

I have decided to take it one step further and look at what the advantage would be before and after calculating the fees a seller would need to pay to eBay, BrickLink and PayPal based on their typical rates. I realize this does not match everyone's selling situation (i.e. if you have an eBay store, you might pay less), but in general it should help to show which marketplace will earn you top dollars for your sets. Fees for eBay were calculated as follows:

• No insertion fee was included.
• 10% was subtracted off the sale price for eBay.
• Fees on any shipping cost were not included since it is impossible to calculate.
• 2.9% + 30 cents was subtracted off the sale price for PayPal.

Fees for BrickLink were calculated as follows:

• 3% was subtracted off the sale price for BrickLink.
• 2.9% + 30 cents was subtracted off the sale price for PayPal.

** One word of caution for the BrickLink values. BrickLink shows me the values in Canadian dollars and doesn't offer the ability to switch to a different currency despite the claims made by it's settings. I used an average of the exchange rate (1.0504) between the CDN and US dollars over the last 6 months to find the BrickLink US sale price. I.e. $1.00 US = $0.952 CDN  ** The results for the MSRP range from $25 to $49.99 are as follows:

• In this price range, eBay holds an advantage in the number of sets that sell for more.
• Without fees, eBay holds a big lead: 18.5% vs 5.9%
• With fees, BL comes out slightly ahead: 12.1% vs 11.4%

In the $25 to $49.99 MSRP price range, the picture isn't much different than the previous two ranges. Many sets don't sell for a significantly higher amount in either marketplace, but some do. If you are willing to sell in both, by choosing the right place to sell, you can make more money in this price range.

Additional things to consider:

• If you have an eBay store, you may pay significantly less fess.
• There is no free shipping on BrickLink, so the sale price shown is the true sale price.
• eBay prices will more than likely include listings that had free shipping as part of the sale price.

I'm going to call this round a draw. If you have an eBay store, less fees means eBay would hold the advantage; however, considering that the Brickpicker values likely contain sales with free shipping, the numbers are potentially slightly inflated.