Are you selling LEGO on eBay?

[Doofy McGee]

I sold on amazon for years with no issue. I was not into selling legos just other items mainly video games. I had 3 negative feedbacks in one week and even with explanation they yanked me. Mind that one person complained and gave neg feedback because they did not like the game....lol. Amazon was so dumb to not see how rediculous this was. There fees suck too. Ebay is getting bad. I recently discovered bricklink and think that may be the best selling site for now.

Bricklink is great because the fees are so low, and everything is pretty simplified, but it would be very difficult to make much money. There is tons of competition. Just about any part you try to sell, there are about 500-1,000 other people selling it too. You need really rare parts, super low prices, and preferably very large quantities/offerings if you want to get anywhere with this.

I've also noticed that people pay a lot more for pieces on eBay. To give you one example, I recently sold two pieces of kryptonite from 6862 for $3 on eBay! You can get two pieces on Bricklink for about $0.40. Bricklink is awesome for collecting pieces, and a good way to move some miscellaneous pieces out of your inventory, but don't expect to get very busy or make much money doing it.

[keanlim]

I just started selling my collection on eBay this month. I sold off a UCS Rebel Blockade Runner and an X-Wing last week both Brand New. The fees are pretty high but downunder we don't have that many choices to reach a big audience. I have 2 more UCS sets to sell off and a bunch of smaller sets. All of my sets are from 1999 - 2002. Ed - did you happen to bid on my set - it ended about a week ago?

[smuddger]

Bricklink is great because the fees are so low, and everything is pretty simplified, but it would be very difficult to make much money. There is tons of competition. Just about any part you try to sell, there are about 500-1,000 other people selling it too. You need really rare parts, super low prices, and preferably very large quantities/offerings if you want to get anywhere with this.

I've also noticed that people pay a lot more for pieces on eBay. To give you one example, I recently sold two pieces of kryptonite from 6862 for $3 on eBay! You can get two pieces on Bricklink for about $0.40. Bricklink is awesome for collecting pieces, and a good way to move some miscellaneous pieces out of your inventory, but don't expect to get very busy or make much money doing it.

I sell a lot on bricklink with vey little hassle, ebay has more sharks on it.

The key to bricklink is having lots of varied items that hit people want lists, they would rather buy from 1 seller who has more things they need.

[daveblok]

Yes I sell on ebay. Last week I sold a 7905 Tower Crane NISB. I also have around 100 sets for sale at the moment on ebay.co.uk. http://stores.ebay.co.uk/RECORDS-AND-LEGO-FROM-HOLLAND?_trksid=p2047675.l2563 I also trade with other collectors.

[glucapg]

I don't usually sell that much on Ebay, but I assume that once I start selling some of the sets I bought I will be more active. As of now I prefer to sell on Amazon.

also an individual can sell on amazon or you must be a professional seller?

[sadowsk1]

Buying is so much more fun than selling

I hear that, the thrill of the hunt is unbeatable. I sometimes feel sellers remorse at unloading some sets to free up some cash, but when the profits are good and the money is in my pocket I feel better about selling. It's just that initial parting with a set I've held for a while and sometimes I didn't even initially like the set, almost like stockholm syndrome.

[jefflord]

I've been selling various things on Amazon -- including new Lego sets and minifigures -- since mid April 2012. Assuming there is serious interest and I can find the time to do it, I am happy to share what I've learned from the experience. I've occasionally sold things on eBay and for a few months in 2011 operated a BrickLink store, so I can also respond to some questions about what makes each venue different.

For now, I'll answer a couple of the questions asked in earlier posts. And then I'll address two other subjects. Here goes:

Do you need to be a professional seller to use Amazon?

No, not at all. There is no charge for signing up and you can offer just a few things for sale if you like.

Are Amazon's fees higher than eBay's fees?

This one is not as easily answered. Here is a rough, general standard that I think may be helpful to those thinking about starting to sell online.

- If the average item you sell is priced at $15 or less, I suspect Amazon's fees will almost always be meaningfully higher than eBay's.

- If the average item you sell is priced over $15, the fees charged by Amazon and eBay are often quite close. Amazon may typically be a little bit higher, but in most cases it won't be by very much.

That said, I would choose Amazon over eBay even if my average selling price was below $15. I wouldn't be happy about the higher fees (which obviously reduce my profitability), but there are other things about Amazon that make it a much, much better fit for me. I am happy to explain more about Amazon's fees in another post. They are not as simple as they could or should be and thus it easy to get very confused when you start out.

What (if anything) makes selling on Amazon distinctive compared to eBay, Bricklink or other online marketplaces?

There is something that sets Amazon apart from its competitors: it is the only marketplace I know of that (if you elect the option), will "fulfill" some or all of your sales for you. As you may know, "fulfillment" is the term retailers use when talking about filling a buyer's order. Fulfillment involves identifying the exact product that was ordered, packaging it so it arrives safely, labelling the package so it is sent to the right buyer, obtaining the needed postage and getting the package to a shipping company (usually the USPS, UPS or FedEx).

At eBay and BrickLink, sellers must fulfill all orders themselves. eBay and Bricklink provide sellers with an amazing electronic marketplace where buyers and sellers can transact with each other. Amazon offers that service to sellers too. In Amazon jargon, it's called MFN - the Merchant Fulfilled Network. Sellers who choose the other option (called both AFN (the Amazon Fulfilled Network) or more commonly, FBA, Fulfillment By Amazon) don't have any responsibility to fulfill individual orders. Instead, they ship all the items they want listed on Amazon.com to an Amazon warehouse and Amazon takes care of everything else.

Amazon charges sellers (like me) who use FBA various fulfillment fees that are not charged to sellers who fulfill orders themselves. As Amazon reminds us, however, while sellers who fulfill orders themselves don't pay fulfillment fees to Amazon, they still have fulfillment expenses. They just pay them directly. These expenses include some or all of the following: padded envelopes and boxes in a range of sizes, packing material, shipping labels, printer ink, a weight scale and postage. In addition, sellers who fulfill orders themselves have to drive to shippers to drop off their packages. And finally, they should account for the amount of time they had to devote to fulfilling orders and responding to buyer inquiries (another Amazon does for you if you use FBA), time that cannot be spent doing other things.

Most of the time I spend on my Amazon business is spent searching local stores for items I can sell profitably, and then listing those items and shipping them to an Amazon warehouse. My listing goes live on Amazon.com moments after it is scanned and remains live until it is sold.

There is LOTS more to know about the process, but this is key distinction to bear in mind if you are thinking about becoming an online seller. Again, I'll happily respond to questions as best I can if you'd like to know more.

I am certain that I could not replicate my Amazon business on eBay or BrickLink without hiring 1 or 2 employees to help me. I only sold a few things in my first few weeks on Amazon in April and May last year. But after sending Amazon appx 300 books and 200 Lego minifigs (giving me a healthy online inventory of 500 items), my sales picked up.

Last summer, I sold about 45 items in an average week. It would have been a big time burden to fulfill those orders by myself, but my guess is I could have managed it. But in September, I became more aggressive and started buying a lot more stuff to sell (much of it with the year-end holidays in mind). My sales took off in October when I sold 200 items per week. Then in November, it was 300 per week. And in December it was 400 per week! Just finding enough stuff to buy that I wanted to sell was a huge struggle ... it would have been impossible if I also needed to package and ship hundreds of individual items at the same time. (FYI, since Christmas, my sales are back to my Sept 2012 level - about 70 per week, though this month will be higher).

Before closing, I should mention how Lego fits into this. Last summer, Lego represented more than 50% of my sales. Today it is around 20%. (Don't assume that means Lego has become less popular; it's solely because I diversified and found lots of other things to sell) . Here are some conclusions I've reached about selling Lego on Amazon (though these continually evolve as I learn even more).

First, there appears to me to be a robust appetite for retired Lego sets on Amazon. And interestingly, the prices I've gotten for most of these sets has been higher than what they sell for on eBay .... sometimes a lot higher. (Those of you who would sell retired sets exclusively should consider researching this ... if my experience is representative, the difference in price dwarfs the slightly higher fees you might pay on Amazon compared to eBay).

Second, Amazon buyers also seem to have great interest in sets that are currently in production but may be hard to find. This goes way beyond Lego's formal category of "hard to find" ... it includes them but also sets that Target and Walmart stock but sometimes don't have on the shelves.

Third, the Amazon marketplace for minifigures and minifig accessories is not quite embryonic, but it seems less sophisticated than eBay's and is downright crude when compared to BrickLink. Sellers get minifig names and Lego themes wrong, use pictures that show minifig's with accessories but don't include the accessories in their package, etc. I think it is getting better, but progress is slow. If you are the type who distinguishes between an Anakin Skywalker minfig that came in a building set from those that came from an early magnet set, Amazon is not the place for you to do business.

Fourth, the Amazon market for Lego elements truly is embryonic. There are relatively few listings and very little beyond smallish bricks and plates. (I've just made my first big effort in this area with a nomeclature that I hope catches on: I use the term "Lego Parts" at the beginning of each title). And none of the listings that do exist have yet risen to become big sellers. Amazon also makes things a lot more difficult than they need to be by not allowing different colors of the same element to be sold on the same page. They allow this practice in other areas (like clothing) but they have yet permitted it in toys. I've urged them to reconsider.

Fifth, though most items sold on Amazon allow you to offer used and collectible versions, the actual sales of these versions appears to be tiny (except for books and dvds). I don't offer any used Lego or used toys of any kind because I think the risk that a buyer will be unhappy is too high. And negative feedback from buyers is the one sure way for my sales to plummet.

I don't believe you can search for sellers on Amazon the way you can on eBay. I obviously didn't write this note for marketing purposes since it could help some of you to become competing sellers, so I haven't mentioned my Amazon seller name yet. It is BrickStreet. If you search for "Lego Parts," click on one of the results that has that phrase at the beginning of a title. That should lead you to a product page that I created and for which I'm probably the only seller. If you see BrickStreet on the page somewhere, clicking on it will bring you to my "storefront," where if you are inclined, you can see my store policies and all the stuff I've currently got listed.

Again, I hope this is helpful. I welcome any questions or comments.

[Jackson]

Jefflord, is selling your full-time job? How do you ship the items to Amazon? Put everything in a huge box and use USPS Parcel service?

[Quacs]

Jefflord, This may sound stupid, but for FBA orders can you set your own sales price, or does Amazon set a price for your item?

[Ed Mack]

I've been selling various things on Amazon -- including new Lego sets and minifigures -- since mid April 2012. Assuming there is serious interest and I can find the time to do it, I am happy to share what I've learned from the experience. I've occasionally sold things on eBay and for a few months in 2011 operated a BrickLink store, so I can also respond to some questions about what makes each venue different.

For now, I'll answer a couple of the questions asked in earlier posts. And then I'll address two other subjects. Here goes:

Do you need to be a professional seller to use Amazon?

No, not at all. There is no charge for signing up and you can offer just a few things for sale if you like.

Are Amazon's fees higher than eBay's fees?

This one is not as easily answered. Here is a rough, general standard that I think may be helpful to those thinking about starting to sell online.

- If the average item you sell is priced at $15 or less, I suspect Amazon's fees will almost always be meaningfully higher than eBay's.

- If the average item you sell is priced over $15, the fees charged by Amazon and eBay are often quite close. Amazon may typically be a little bit higher, but in most cases it won't be by very much.

That said, I would choose Amazon over eBay even if my average selling price was below $15. I wouldn't be happy about the higher fees (which obviously reduce my profitability), but there are other things about Amazon that make it a much, much better fit for me. I am happy to explain more about Amazon's fees in another post. They are not as simple as they could or should be and thus it easy to get very confused when you start out.

What (if anything) makes selling on Amazon distinctive compared to eBay, Bricklink or other online marketplaces?

There is something that sets Amazon apart from its competitors: it is the only marketplace I know of that (if you elect the option), will "fulfill" some or all of your sales for you. As you may know, "fulfillment" is the term retailers use when talking about filling a buyer's order. Fulfillment involves identifying the exact product that was ordered, packaging it so it arrives safely, labelling the package so it is sent to the right buyer, obtaining the needed postage and getting the package to a shipping company (usually the USPS, UPS or FedEx).

At eBay and BrickLink, sellers must fulfill all orders themselves. eBay and Bricklink provide sellers with an amazing electronic marketplace where buyers and sellers can transact with each other. Amazon offers that service to sellers too. In Amazon jargon, it's called MFN - the Merchant Fulfilled Network. Sellers who choose the other option (called both AFN (the Amazon Fulfilled Network) or more commonly, FBA, Fulfillment By Amazon) don't have any responsibility to fulfill individual orders. Instead, they ship all the items they want listed on Amazon.com to an Amazon warehouse and Amazon takes care of everything else.

Amazon charges sellers (like me) who use FBA various fulfillment fees that are not charged to sellers who fulfill orders themselves. As Amazon reminds us, however, while sellers who fulfill orders themselves don't pay fulfillment fees to Amazon, they still have fulfillment expenses. They just pay them directly. These expenses include some or all of the following: padded envelopes and boxes in a range of sizes, packing material, shipping labels, printer ink, a weight scale and postage. In addition, sellers who fulfill orders themselves have to drive to shippers to drop off their packages. And finally, they should account for the amount of time they had to devote to fulfilling orders and responding to buyer inquiries (another Amazon does for you if you use FBA), time that cannot be spent doing other things.

Most of the time I spend on my Amazon business is spent searching local stores for items I can sell profitably, and then listing those items and shipping them to an Amazon warehouse. My listing goes live on Amazon.com moments after it is scanned and remains live until it is sold.

There is LOTS more to know about the process, but this is key distinction to bear in mind if you are thinking about becoming an online seller. Again, I'll happily respond to questions as best I can if you'd like to know more.

I am certain that I could not replicate my Amazon business on eBay or BrickLink without hiring 1 or 2 employees to help me. I only sold a few things in my first few weeks on Amazon in April and May last year. But after sending Amazon appx 300 books and 200 Lego minifigs (giving me a healthy online inventory of 500 items), my sales picked up.

Last summer, I sold about 45 items in an average week. It would have been a big time burden to fulfill those orders by myself, but my guess is I could have managed it. But in September, I became more aggressive and started buying a lot more stuff to sell (much of it with the year-end holidays in mind). My sales took off in October when I sold 200 items per week. Then in November, it was 300 per week. And in December it was 400 per week! Just finding enough stuff to buy that I wanted to sell was a huge struggle ... it would have been impossible if I also needed to package and ship hundreds of individual items at the same time. (FYI, since Christmas, my sales are back to my Sept 2012 level - about 70 per week, though this month will be higher).

Before closing, I should mention how Lego fits into this. Last summer, Lego represented more than 50% of my sales. Today it is around 20%. (Don't assume that means Lego has become less popular; it's solely because I diversified and found lots of other things to sell) . Here are some conclusions I've reached about selling Lego on Amazon (though these continually evolve as I learn even more).

First, there appears to me to be a robust appetite for retired Lego sets on Amazon. And interestingly, the prices I've gotten for most of these sets has been higher than what they sell for on eBay .... sometimes a lot higher. (Those of you who would sell retired sets exclusively should consider researching this ... if my experience is representative, the difference in price dwarfs the slightly higher fees you might pay on Amazon compared to eBay).

Second, Amazon buyers also seem to have great interest in sets that are currently in production but may be hard to find. This goes way beyond Lego's formal category of "hard to find" ... it includes them but also sets that Target and Walmart stock but sometimes don't have on the shelves.

Third, the Amazon marketplace for minifigures and minifig accessories is not quite embryonic, but it seems less sophisticated than eBay's and is downright crude when compared to BrickLink. Sellers get minifig names and Lego themes wrong, use pictures that show minifig's with accessories but don't include the accessories in their package, etc. I think it is getting better, but progress is slow. If you are the type who distinguishes between an Anakin Skywalker minfig that came in a building set from those that came from an early magnet set, Amazon is not the place for you to do business.

Fourth, the Amazon market for Lego elements truly is embryonic. There are relatively few listings and very little beyond smallish bricks and plates. (I've just made my first big effort in this area with a nomeclature that I hope catches on: I use the term "Lego Parts" at the beginning of each title). And none of the listings that do exist have yet risen to become big sellers. Amazon also makes things a lot more difficult than they need to be by not allowing different colors of the same element to be sold on the same page. They allow this practice in other areas (like clothing) but they have yet permitted it in toys. I've urged them to reconsider.

Fifth, though most items sold on Amazon allow you to offer used and collectible versions, the actual sales of these versions appears to be tiny (except for books and dvds). I don't offer any used Lego or used toys of any kind because I think the risk that a buyer will be unhappy is too high. And negative feedback from buyers is the one sure way for my sales to plummet.

I don't believe you can search for sellers on Amazon the way you can on eBay. I obviously didn't write this note for marketing purposes since it could help some of you to become competing sellers, so I haven't mentioned my Amazon seller name yet. It is BrickStreet. If you search for "Lego Parts," click on one of the results that has that phrase at the beginning of a title. That should lead you to a product page that I created and for which I'm probably the only seller. If you see BrickStreet on the page somewhere, clicking on it will bring you to my "storefront," where if you are inclined, you can see my store policies and all the stuff I've currently got listed.

Again, I hope this is helpful. I welcome any questions or comments.

Fantastic information. What does Amazon charge to store and ship your products?