Improve Ebid - Be Realistic With Your Collectables

[HannaHolly]

I went coin shopping this morning here. LOL Had a good laugh. Some of the coin/ banknote stores dont have coins at all. Those that do are way over Priced. No wonder no one shops here. Who wants to have to search for a good deal.
Good thing I get bidders from my other site coming over here

No one shops here? where are all my buyers coming from then

[marschenegger]

Hello!

As a collector and part-time seller of Canadian paper money, here is my perspective. The Canadian paper money market is growing rapidly. That encourages investors to infiltrate the market, as well as sellers looking for investors to soak. You get a lot of paper money listings with prices way over book as a result. Sometimes, the book value is genuinely low, but other times, the seller is just looking for a sucker.

There's another good reason why some dubious sellers price way over book. They are not trying to make sales at all. They are just trying to influence the market upward. If they actually make a sale at those rediculously high prices, great, they reap a winfall. These kinds of sellers actually do more harm than good. FleeceBay used to be a good place to sell paper money, but not any more. The dubious sellers moved in, opening up stores with rediculous prices, and worse yet, they use American grading companies like PMG to slab their notes. Canadian grading is stricter than American grading, so there's simply no good reason to use a disreputable service like PMG for pushing Canadian notes.

I agree that sellers on this site should use realistic pricing for their items. Smart buyers know what they need to pay to obtain specific items. Selling on this site at minimal price with no reserve is suicide. If I was to do that, all I would get is vultures paying me $5 for notes worth $500, and then those same vultures will immediately put the notes on FleeceBay to reap a big profit. Maybe there are some people with low-value collectables who can sacrifice some bargains to increase traffic to this site, but not all of us can do that and remain afloat.

This is not an auction site for serious high-volume sales. Because of the high ratio of sellers to buyers, we must accept that this site is more for part-time hobby sales, not serious business. If you have something that you absolutely must sell right now, do it on FleeceBay. If the sale can wait, or you have a number of items that you can sell slowly over time, this is the right place.

Cheers,
Mark

[TiasTreasures]

For now we're going to list all our items in our stores. We still have a few hundred to move from FeeBay, then we'll go back to the boxes in storage. We decided not to try the auctions until we get all this stuff listed.

Our big problem is pricing. There is such a wild variety, we have to research each item individually. So far, I've found no comparable items on eBid and very few on FeeBay, so I use Google and Dogpile. My daughter and I have become educated about a few categories, but it's slow going. I think many sellers of collectibles have the same problem. In a few cases we made a wild guess, and the item sold within a few days. Since our store gets lousy rankings in FeeBay, I'm sure that means they were underpriced and a knowledgeable collector found them by searching for a very specific item name.

I haven't found any posts in these forums where people are helping each other out with price estimates. It would be to a seller's advantage to NOT have a competitor underpricing items, and it would be great to get input from specialists when I find an item that isn't listed anywhere on the web.

[JerseyDevil]

No one can master every category, Tia. We don't live long enough. I would suggest you and your daughter specialize in learning 2 or 3 fields each. When you get to an item you have limited experience with and can't google it quickly simply price it on what you have invested in it and the minimum you would accept at the moment. This way you can get your lists up more quickly. If an item is priced too low and someone gets a great deal you'll still have your initial investment in pocket, plus a small profit and you just continue on. Never look back. Never have remorse.

[TiasTreasures]

I wasn't complaining that some of the things we sold were underpriced, it just underscored my point that correct pricing is difficult. Perhaps the people who complain that items are overpriced don't realize that many sellers honestly don't know what an item is worth, and can't find comparable items for sale anywhere to get even a ballpark figure.

We are not buying and reselling. We inherited a massive number of items from two different families (mine and my husband's), going back to the early 1900's. They were homesteaders in the midwest, and those farm houses were huge, with heated attics and finished basements. So, nothing got thrown away. And they were collectors.

My daughter inherited her father's camera repair shop inventory and the scenic photographs he sold as slides. She's become quite knowledgeable about those items, But we also have vintage photographs, a beer stein collection, three (3) coin collections, a stamp collection, winery tasting glasses, miniatures, art prints, pulp science fiction magazines going back to the 1950's, LP records, 78 records, Avon collectibles, silver serving dishes, old jewelry and jewelry boxes, vintage binoculars, vintage figurines. Plus many boxes we haven't even opened yet. Even items like the coins and stamps, where price guides are readily available, require expertise on grading their condition. So your advice on becoming knowledgeable in two or three categories won't help us very much.

We have a store on GreedBay that we're moving here. We sold about 300 items in the ten months the store has been open, in spite of their shuttling our items to the back end of the searches. I have no idea how many of those items were priced correctly.

[JerseyDevil]

You just have too much 'stuff' Tia.
For one Beer Steins are viable collectibles.
Same with stamps and coins.
Matter of fact most of what you mentioned have great sales potential.
Unless you are in dire need of cash select one type of item ( the steins for example ). Google what you can. Check out books on the subject. Check out auctions on other sites and THEN list them.
Ditto the stamps....and so on.
You're here in the States? Market for beer steins has always been strong here. Stamps are tricky.
As for coins. A guide book will help definitely. You see a coin listing for a nice sum in low grade you pay a few bucks and have a pro grade it for you. You find that most of the dates you have are common....play it by ear.
Just decide the direction you want to go first and as our beloved President has said: " Stay the course."

[TiasTreasures]

I know we have too much stuff! That's why we're wading through it deciding what to keep, what to give away, and what to sell. That list was just to explain why we can't become experts on everything. The coins, stamps and photographs will probably be the last things we list because they're small. We literally have run out of room. We hauled all that stuff from the midwest to California and piled it up in our garages and spare bedrooms. We can't move them to storage until we take pictures, weigh them, and write the description for the listing --- one at a time.

My original post was to defend people like us who may not have the correct price on their auctions. When we make a guess, it could be high and it could be low. That's why criticising people because they're asking too much for an item doesn't seem fair. If another seller sees I'm asking too much or too little for an item, I'd be delighted to learn from his or her expertise.

[penny291]

I sell my items with an auction price, this is the minimum I am willing to accept, I also put a BIN which is the price I would be happy to accept. My small collectables store does very well, I believe there is a buyer for everything, it is just a matter of patience and waiting for them to come along this site is getting more and more sellers and buyers daily. I have seen things on here and on other sites that are grossly overcharged, for instance a t shirt from abroad, good price, but shipping £16 now they are living in a dream world

[burgyeb]

Hi Tias Treasures:
I would take my time, do my homework- focus on one grouping at a time & research pricing ranges. It can be done with on-line search tools (specialized in market pricing); keyword searches; official grading publications; expert evals, etc. Treat it like it is a full time business; structure it as such. You are fortunate to have come into your inventory as estate inheritances. Stop looking at it as "too much" and get focused step by step. That's actually your hardest challenge.

P.S. I would also consider competitive pricing and not trying to squeeze out every dollar/pound of "value" because the last thing you want is that large inventory just sitting there looking back at you.

[burgyeb]

I know we have too much stuff! That's why we're wading through it deciding what to keep, what to give away, and what to sell. That list was just to explain why we can't become experts on everything. The coins, stamps and photographs will probably be the last things we list because they're small. We literally have run out of room. We hauled all that stuff from the midwest to California and piled it up in our garages and spare bedrooms. We can't move them to storage until we take pictures, weigh them, and write the description for the listing --- one at a time.

My original post was to defend people like us who may not have the correct price on their auctions. When we make a guess, it could be high and it could be low. That's why criticising people because they're asking too much for an item doesn't seem fair. If another seller sees I'm asking too much or too little for an item, I'd be delighted to learn from his or her expertise.

Have you considered large lot sales by category? Like coins, stamps, etc.