Anyone else experiencing major drops in eBay sales lately???

[Young_Gun21]

It's a little arrogant to assume you've corrected anyone, you've merely given an opinion.

To answer your questions in a previous post. Buyers are not reducing in size, after all investors are buyers themselves but it's pretty apparent that with the amount of investors coming on board and competing is having an affect on flipping sets EOL for short term gain. I still believe that most sets still continue to show growth over time as they have in years gone by but will take longer to increase in value due to larger stock piles. This doesn't apply to all sets and differs on themes. Take the Fire Brigade as an example, it's seeing great returns right now but Lord of the Rings is struggling. I've been keeping an eye on Helm's Deep in the UK and alot of auctions sell at 80 - 90% RRP.

I don't have figures, if you want those speak to Ed. I can only comment on my own sales and my observations from eBay sales

Keep in mind that theme popularity/demand varies across each region.

-I don't always go shopping, but when I do I buy Lego-

[Anakinisvader]

Can u two just go fight out back or something.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hV1wJFfGjHE

[Ed Mack]

It's a little arrogant to assume you've corrected anyone, you've merely given an opinion.

 

To answer your questions in a previous post. Buyers are not reducing in size, after all investors are buyers themselves but it's pretty apparent that with the amount of investors coming on board and competing is having an affect on flipping sets EOL for short term gain. I still believe that most sets still continue to show growth over time as they have in years gone by but will take longer to increase in value due to larger stock piles. This doesn't apply to all sets and differs on themes. Take the Fire Brigade as an example, it's seeing great returns right now but Lord of the Rings is struggling. I've been keeping an eye on Helm's Deep in the UK and alot of auctions sell at 80 - 90% RRP.  

 

I don't have figures, if you want those speak to Ed. I can only comment on my own sales and my observations from eBay sales 

I've been following your conversation and I can have Jeff run a query(when he has time) and see what the total amount of LEGO eBay monthly sales are for the last year or so.  Maybe he can also figure out how many different sellers there are as well.  

[legoman12323123]

I just don't get that argument - that everybody and their mother is investing in Lego.

 

I live in a pretty big metro area - San Diego.  Within an hour of me, there are over 15 different Walmarts.  The same with Target and the other big retailers.

 

You might think I'd see tons of stuff go on sale, but we don't.  We get the occasional clearance sells, but for the most part, they don't exist.

 

In 1 1/2 years on this site, I've found two other people that live in San Diego - and that was just within the past week.

 

I don't know *anyone* that does Lego investing in my real life.  I talk about it often with friends and family, mostly because they want to know how I seem to buy all these Legos, and finance such an "expensive" hobby.  No one has ever taken my advice about investing.  No one has ever come to be with more questions on where they can find sets cheap.  Even when I hear about Slickdeal level type deals, and pass those along to friends and family, no one ever takes advantage of them.

 

It seems like we tend to think we're a lot bigger than we are.  It's just like any fandom.  I've been apart of Star Trek, Star Wars, and Doctor Who fandoms in varying degrees over the last 25 years, and when you're in that group, you think you're a majority.  But you are really a tiny tiny minority in the bigger picture.

 

There's still plenty of room and plenty of niches to carve out in Lego investing.  Slow and steady wins the race.  Figuring out the strategy that works for you, and what your investment goals are, will be what makes you a success.  Sometimes, though, you can't see the forest for the trees.

 

Maybe the people you know and hang out with arnt investor types .. not everyone likes to invest in things just sayin!

From my experiece alot of people I know dont invest in anything either hence they are poor, It takes risk to get rewarded and quite frankly alot of people are not willing to risk their money in order to make more money, If everyone invested there would be no money to be made in anything.

[No More Monkeys]

Maybe the people you know and hang out with arnt investor types .. not everyone likes to invest in things just sayin!

From my experiece alot of people I know dont invest in anything either hence they are poor, It takes risk to get rewarded and quite frankly alot of people are not willing to risk their money in order to make more money, If everyone invested there would be no money to be made in anything.

" If everyone invested there would be no money to be made in anything", except investment advisers. and investment book authors. and web sites about investing. oh...

[Crustybeaver]

" If everyone invested there would be no money to be made in anything", except investment advisers. and investment book authors. and web sites about investing. oh...

Are you suggesting that Jeff makes money from this site

Sent from my iPhone using Brickpicker

[No More Monkeys]

Are you suggesting that Jeff makes money from this site

Sent from my iPhone using Brickpicker

oh no, i read the other thread, they are basically broke if not for full time jobs and a few millennium falcons under mattress. I am just saying they want to maximize the user base, so nobody should expect BP to suddenly become less visible :-)

[Anakinisvader]

Are you suggesting that Jeff makes money from this site

Sent from my iPhone using Brickpicker

If he didn't, I don't think you all should be taking "investing" advice from him.

[Jeff Mack]

Here are some graphs to show that overall, it looks like total sales and total listings are up over the last 365 days

 

[Young_Gun21]

Is this just LEGO or all of Ebay?

-I don't always go shopping, but when I do I buy Lego-

[Ed Mack]

Basically looks we are about the same place we were at this point last year sales and dollars wise.

[mcortez]

What I'd like to see is region sales info -- but I'm not sure if your ebay data includes *where* the items were shipped to?  I'd love to know things like west coast versus east coast U.S.  Breaking down theme by region would be totally awesome, but again only possible if you have some data (any data) on where items got shipped to. County/State would be good,  Zip codes would be better.

 

Particularly because I've been trying to decide if I should look at using regional rate boxes with USPS -- if the majority of buyers are west coast then I'm going to definitely look at using regional rate boxes more (I'm located on the west coast) -- but if sales data says most the LEGO is going to the Atlantic states, then focus more on shipping options that are cheaper when doing 8 zone shipping. 

[mcortez]

Basically looks we are about the same place we were at this point last year sales and dollars wise.

 

If the data includes seller account names, can you do distinct sellers over the same time period?

[Ed Mack]

Is this just LEGO or all of Ebay?

-I don't always go shopping, but when I do I buy Lego-

LEGO sales.  We only buy LEGO data.

[Ed Mack]

If the data includes seller account names, can you do distinct sellers over the same time period?

Working on that.

[justafrog]

I wish you would stop confusing us with facts. The sky is falling and we're all going to die, several people have said so repeatedly, so it must be true.

[Jeff Mack]

Is this just LEGO or all of Ebay?

-I don't always go shopping, but when I do I buy Lego-

 

This is just the LEGO category.  I am working on other bits of data see what i can pull out.  

[weakside]

What I'd like to see is region sales info -- but I'm not sure if your ebay data includes *where* the items were shipped to?  I'd love to know things like west coast versus east coast U.S.  Breaking down theme by region would be totally awesome, but again only possible if you have some data (any data) on where items got shipped to. County/State would be good,  Zip codes would be better.

 

Particularly because I've been trying to decide if I should look at using regional rate boxes with USPS -- if the majority of buyers are west coast then I'm going to definitely look at using regional rate boxes more (I'm located on the west coast) -- but if sales data says most the LEGO is going to the Atlantic states, then focus more on shipping options that are cheaper when doing 8 zone shipping. 

If you sell online...don't you sorta have this data already, track where your sells are going over time and decide for yourself.  And if it makes that much of a cost difference on which box/method to use, wouldn't you buy both and change shipping methods/couriers depending on where the buyer is?  I'm a small time reseller so maybe I'm totally off base.     

[Ed Mack]

What I'd like to see is region sales info -- but I'm not sure if your ebay data includes *where* the items were shipped to?  I'd love to know things like west coast versus east coast U.S.  Breaking down theme by region would be totally awesome, but again only possible if you have some data (any data) on where items got shipped to. County/State would be good,  Zip codes would be better.

 

Particularly because I've been trying to decide if I should look at using regional rate boxes with USPS -- if the majority of buyers are west coast then I'm going to definitely look at using regional rate boxes more (I'm located on the west coast) -- but if sales data says most the LEGO is going to the Atlantic states, then focus more on shipping options that are cheaper when doing 8 zone shipping. 

This is the type of information we can supply and will supply when we launch the "premium" membership.

[mcortez]

If you sell online...don't you sorta have this data already, track where your sells are going over time and decide for yourself.  And if it makes that much of a difference on which box to use, wouldn't you buy both and change shipping methods depending on where the buyer is?  I'm a small time reseller so maybe I'm totally off base.     

 

I will, once I have a sales history of more than 13 listings...  I just have too small a sample size at this point.  To get a good idea, would require a sample size of several thousand listings sold.  

 

Another problem with only looking at my own sales history, is that it would be skewed -- it costs more to ship from CA to NY, than it does from say NJ to NY -- so all other things being equal, I will sell more sets to people on the west coast than on the east.  You really need to look at data from many sellers, located all around the country to get a good (relatively unbiased) view of where the buyers are.

[Migration]

One full day of work and I miss all this? I'm never leaving the dock again.

[No More Monkeys]

I wish you would stop confusing us with facts. The sky is falling and we're all going to die, several people have said so repeatedly, so it must be true.

This obviously requires proper citation:

 

"Homer: [scoffs] Facts are meaningless. You can use facts to prove anything that's remotely true. Facts schmacts"

[Anakinisvader]

I wish you would stop confusing us with facts. The sky is falling and we're all going to die, several people have said so repeatedly, so it must be true.

Didn't you know that if its said on the internet it has to be true?

[dbost01]

Not true

[Anakinisvader]

Not true

So is this statement true or not true? (start infinite circle)