Welcome to the second installment of a series of articles I am putting together called “The Superior Market - eBay vs. BrickLink”. The purpose of this type of article is to compare the average sale prices of LEGO sets over the last 5 months. These numbers are the final sale prices, according to data acquired from BrickLink and BrickPicker.
Some readers were a little confused on the purpose of the first article, which you can read at: http://www.brickpicker.com/forum/index.php/blog/15/entry-430-the-superior-market-ebay-vs-bricklink-msrp-001-999/. I analyze the market prices that each respective site sells at. It does not take into account how easy it is to list, whether or not it is a more “friendly” site, and quantity of sales. Perhaps in the future, an analysis is possible, but at this point, it is purely on sale prices.
I am trying my hardest to keep the sets averaged as unbiased as possible, and if you have any concerns over this matter, by all means, post what sets you want analyzed in the next article! There will be 25 sets analyzed, to try to draw together a better picture of which market has higher sale prices. Fees are not taken into account in the table below.
Ladies and gentlemen...Please enjoy the second installment of The Superior Market - eBay vs. BrickLink - MSRP $10.00-$24.99!
If the table is a little small, please click on the image, and a zoomed in version will appear. * Values represent average sale prices from May 2013 to September 2013
A Breif Analysis: On average, sets that were sold for a higher price on eBay sold for 17.02% more, and on BrickLink 13.03% more. In addition, 56% of sets sold for a higher price on eBay, signifying a very close tie between both markets.
The Bigger Picture: When looking at these numbers of 17.02% and 13.03%, we are only just scraping the surface of what the numbers show. As a buyer, these two percentages are really the only thing that matter - what website has higher sale prices, not including any additional shipping costs. As a seller, on the other hand, we must take into account a variety of other costs: site, and PayPal fees. eBay charges 10% on all transactions, capping at $200 of fees. 99% of the time, PayPal is used to transfer money from the buyer to the seller, which costs $0.30 per transaction along with 2.9% on the total transaction. This brings the total fee percentage to 12.9% plus $0.30.
Of course, if you are one of the “big boys” on eBay and have acheived Top Rated Seller, 20% of the final eBay fees are taken off, but you are bound to certain shipping and handling time restrictions. If so, eBay fees cost 8%, not including PayPal fees, which are constant. In this case, fees take a total of 10.9% of your final cost, plus an additional $0.30.
BrickLink on the other hand, charges 3% on all orders costing $500 USD or less, and including 2.9% and $0.30 in fees, you pay a total of 5.9% + $0.30 in fees.
Let’s take another look at the numbers and do a re-analysis…
Average of 17.02% higher prices on sets sold on eBay, and 13.03% on BrickLink. 56% of sets analysed sold for more on eBay. Now let’s subtract each fee percentage to the percentages we already have (17.02% and 13.03%), to see whether or not eBay actually sells for more when fees are taken into account.
eBay: 17.02% - (10% + 2.9% + $0.30) = 4.12% + $0.30
BrickLink: 13.03% - (3% +2.9% + $0.30) = 7.13% + $0.30
In Conclusion: Overall, BrickLink sales actually surpassed seller profitability of eBay sales by 3.01%, quite contrary to the sale prices.
I hope you learned something by reading this installment, and you can definitely expect installment 3 to be released in the near future!!
Sources:
Installment #1: $0.99-$9.99
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