Ebay Pricing

[mrsmavrik]

Hi

I know this has been discussed but couldn't find the thread(s)

 

Question: what is the basis for listing  items (currently available @ Lego store, etc) for higher prices than currently available and have them bought.

example:  Seller (maybe some here) currently has the ewok village listed for $294 (current is $275) with $12 shipping.  7 are available and 12 SOLD.

 There are more extreme cases but this was just the 1st one that comes to mind

 

http://www.ebay.com/itm/LEGO-Star-Wars-EWOK-VILLAGE-Set-10236-BRAND-NEW-HAND-/281169750262

 

 

I am currently building my  inventory (Emazers style     ) and looking to start my Ebay selling in approx 6 months or so, and learning a lot on  how to buy and sell from BP, and this is one of many questions that come up.

txs 

[justafrog]

Not everyone is aware there is a Lego store - eBay and Amazon enjoy the benefit of being popular "shopping mall" style sites where people will sometimes purchase without trying to find a better deal elsewhere first.

 

I wouldn't personally adopt it as a selling style because the margins are too slim - I can make more parting it out if I need to make quick money on that particular set for some reason; and more still by buying/holding and/or putting most of the parts on Bricklink for slower but better money.

[DoNotInsertIntoMouth]

There are rarely any sets you can do this with. And really if you want, Amazon is the way to go for that as it is the most convenient site for some people so they will pay more.

 

Selling on Ebay is harder than it appears to most people when they start. I have been doing it for about 3 months and I am freaking exhuasted.

 

There are not too many things out there that you can just buy and flip. In reality I can only think of a very few and really your margins are too low for it to matter unless you have a store or already go to the PO everyday.

 

If you use a buy and hold method, then selling on Ebay isn't bad as once the sets appreciate you can sell them and you will hopefully be dealing with a decent enough profit margin that you will be ok.

 

But starting out, its tough. Probably need to get something 30% below what you can sell it for (and at the beginning this will be on the down side of the sold listings) before you are making money.

[mrsmavrik]

There are rarely any sets you can do this with. And really if you want, Amazon is the way to go for that as it is the most convenient site for some people so they will pay more.

 

Selling on Ebay is harder than it appears to most people when they start. I have been doing it for about 3 months and I am freaking exhuasted.

 

There are not too many things out there that you can just buy and flip. In reality I can only think of a very few and really your margins are too low for it to matter unless you have a store or already go to the PO everyday.

 

If you use a buy and hold method, then selling on Ebay isn't bad as once the sets appreciate you can sell them and you will hopefully be dealing with a decent enough profit margin that you will be ok.

 

But starting out, its tough. Probably need to get something 30% below what you can sell it for (and at the beginning this will be on the down side of the sold listings) before you are making money.

Thanks all for the feedback...

I don't think i want to be a flipper(busy with job and 2 kids!  )...Im kinda of taking the Emazers approach, larger ticket items and having the discipline to hold on for a while.  Im hoping Jabba's Palace will be my first listing, assuming it goes EOL at end of year.  My other targets are B wings, R2s, DS, SSD, with some HH's...

Definitely going to look at using Amazon also...

[MartinP]

There are rarely any sets you can do this with. And really if you want, Amazon is the way to go for that as it is the most convenient site for some people so they will pay more.

 

Selling on Ebay is harder than it appears to most people when they start. I have been doing it for about 3 months and I am freaking exhuasted.

 

There are not too many things out there that you can just buy and flip. In reality I can only think of a very few and really your margins are too low for it to matter unless you have a store or already go to the PO everyday.

 

If you use a buy and hold method, then selling on Ebay isn't bad as once the sets appreciate you can sell them and you will hopefully be dealing with a decent enough profit margin that you will be ok.

 

But starting out, its tough. Probably need to get something 30% below what you can sell it for (and at the beginning this will be on the down side of the sold listings) before you are making money.

Also when you are starting out, just like you said, you need to get a set that is about 30%+ discount before you can sell it. This is because of the eBay and Paypal fees when you are selling a set. Those fees make everything harder when selling. That is why I like the buy and hold method. The set can appreciate enough that you can make a decent profit with all the fees factored in. Sometimes, if you hold a set for a really long time, the price goes way high like the 10179 MF. You can sell one now for about $3,000 MISB, but fees would still get in the way.

[c4dreams]

Flipping is a lot more work than it would initially seem.  But to your original statement, Yes I think it's very odd that some sets sell for over retail.  I've sold about 5 new Lego Sets at $10-$20 more than it would cost to buy them from Lego.com.  And they get shipped to places I know Lego would ship to, so I have no idea why people do this.  But, it took an average of about a month to sell each set at that high price, so it's not going to be a huge money making strategy.

[DoNotInsertIntoMouth]

Flipping is a lot more work than it would initially seem.  But to your original statement, Yes I think it's very odd that some sets sell for over retail.  I've sold about 5 new Lego Sets at $10-$20 more than it would cost to buy them from Lego.com.  And they get shipped to places I know Lego would ship to, so I have no idea why people do this.  But, it took an average of about a month to sell each set at that high price, so it's not going to be a huge money making strategy.

 

Exactly. This is only a really good practice if you already have an Ebay store or something of the same on Amazon. At that point, your margins are a little better and you can earn VIP points and cash back you can use to find stuff for your store.

 

In reality, I think flipping will continue to become harder and harder and more people get deal savy.

 

It was amazing in TRU today how many people I saw looking on their phones for price comparison.

[sadowsk1]

People are crazy that sell.  People are crazy that buy.  Everyone has their own reason.  Put a set out there at whatever price you want and see what happens.  Ebay listings are free to list to a certain extent for some.

[Qaz]

Something else to consider is that the people buying those sets on eBay for more than what they cost here in the US may be from other countries, where LEGO sets are either more expensive, or not readily available.  Unfortunately eBay no longer allows third-party, interested folks to see where an item's buyers are from, so it's hard to confirm that.  Until the buyers leave feedback, of course

[justafrog]

Something else to consider is that the people buying those sets on eBay for more than what they cost here in the US may be from other countries, where LEGO sets are either more expensive, or not readily available.  Unfortunately eBay no longer allows third-party, interested folks to see where an item's buyers are from, so it's hard to confirm that.  Until the buyers leave feedback, of course

 

They're actually in the process of changing that, too - a seller will be able to see information on his or her own buyers, but they're now hiding the identity of buyers in other sellers' feedback (using the same asterisk system they do for bidding, so they show the winner as k**l with 67 feedback, but you can't through to see k**l's history, location, feedback, etc.

[DoNotInsertIntoMouth]

They're actually in the process of changing that, too - a seller will be able to see information on his or her own buyers, but they're now hiding the identity of buyers in other sellers' feedback (using the same asterisk system they do for bidding, so they show the winner as k**l with 67 feedback, but you can't through to see k**l's history, location, feedback, etc.

 

Which is somewhat irritating for people like me who are nosy.