Caution - Wet Paint
Selling Painted Miniatures on Ebay.
(Excerpts from postings to egroups mini-painter list)
| Message 14019 From: Steven Skutell Date: Sun Oct 29, 2000 6:15am Subject: Re: needed a good base Here is a little basic guide to selling miniatures on Ebay based on what I have observed.
I don't know if this will help anyone get any more money for their miniatures on Ebay,
but it can not hurt. |
| Message 14020 From: Chern Ann Ng Date: Sun Oct 29, 2000 6:28am Subject: Re: Re: needed a good base An append to that, if some miniatures are in an obvious series (Rackham female barbarians for example), break them up and sell them separately, but at the same time. The desire to own them all will drive prices up. Chern Ann Ng
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| Message 14028 From: Greg Mount Date: Sun Oct 29, 2000 11:12am Subject: Re: Re: needed a good base Very true. This is why I sell no large units and few male figures on eBay. I'll paint up such for local customers, but only rarely does a beautifully painted unit compete online with an adequately painted female. Something else that brings in bids: conversions! When you've seen a dozen of figure X, all posed and painted 'like the book,' anything different, even a sword swap, grabs attention. Regards,
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| Message 14951 From: Craig Stocks Date: Fri Nov 10, 2000 4:37pm Subject: Re: Not sure if I should ask but here goes. (OT)
What Sell off your old lead!? Isn't that some form of sacrilege? ;-) But, ebay can be a good source to get some money that otherwise you wouldn't get anywhere else, unless you knew collectors, or at least knew friends of collectors. But, one thing to do is to make sure you list your stuff in the correct category. (games/miniatures, or games/warhammer) Then, in your title description, make sure there is spaces between words where they are supposed to be. I.e. Games Workshop, instead of Games Workshop. (I found an ogre bodyguard for Mordhiem for 6 bucks, with 1.25 shipping, got it for 1/2 price) Add all sorts of extra words in your description, like Warhammer, AD&D, CoC, Games Workshop, Citadel so when people do a search for certain things, the search hits your auction page and lists it. Are the mini's painted? PICTURES SELL, even on unpainted stuff. And with ebays IPIX, uploading pictures are super easy now. (but the charge for 3+ images). Make sure you read all the categories carefully when your setting up each auction (like where to ship, who pays shipping, do you take other forms of payment...get a Paypal account, it makes moving money around REALLY easy) If you have old citadel miniatures, LIST them, with the old stock numbers (if you are unsure of what you have, go to www.stuffoflegends.com and look them up, or just ask Edwin E., he is an old lead guru) and if you have a few more questions, just look around ebay and look at other peoples auctions for tips on what to add to each auction. Also, the United States post office will send you free shipping supplies for priority and overnight shipping. Just order over the Internet. http://new.usps.com/cgi-bin/uspsbv/scripts/front.jsp and look for the order supplies tab. (I have enough stuff to last for quite some time, tape, labels, boxes...saves me money) hope that helps |
| Message 14981 From: Katie Gonzalez Date: Sat Nov 11, 2000 3:16pm Subject: Re: Not sure if I should ask but here goes.
Hi, I've been selling stuff on ebay (not minis though, I am still trying to buy those!), and I have learned several things. First make your minimum bid an amount you are willing to accept and don't use reserve prices, people don't like those. Set up your auctions on a weekday (M-Thurs) during a time that is evening (for me that means setting them up about 10pm Eastern Time) and make it for 7 days so it ends that same day during the busiest times. This tends to get you more money :) Also sign up for Paypal (although be warned they are getting stricter and stricter as more people sign up, I am beginning to suspect its not always going to be free... there's another site Exchangepath.com that's the same thing but not as many limits as Paypal), because a lot of people like being able to pay immediately for faster shipping. Finally state everything up front and have good pictures...people are less willing to bid on items where they don't have pics...which equals less money for you. You'll need to know prices for shipping, and should decide whether you will accept international bids or not, since this could severely affect shipping cost, especially on something as heavy as lead figures. Finally if you are more interested in making more cash vs. just getting rid of lots of stuff, sell items individually. If you sell 20 figs but most people are buying the set cause they like say 5 or 6 of them, they won't be willing to pay as much as for buying the individual figs that they really like. This creates a lot more stuff to keep track of, so that's the downside. Anyways, I hope this was helpful :) |
| Message 15052 From: Craig Stocks > Date: Mon Nov 13, 2000 4:18am Subject: Re: painted miniatures on ebay
one word, Paypal. http://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=p/gen/approved_countries-outside this addy shows all the countries that Paypal serves. I've used it in the USA and haven't had problems with it yet. Saves me the cost of stamps, money is deposited directly into my account at Paypal, and moved in a couple days to my bank account at my discretion. Also, people ship stuff faster if you pay with this service. I've bid on stuff, and received it within 5 days. Sometimes it takes that long for a piece of mail to go one way. look into it, Ming regards all, |
| Message 16982 From: Harry Colquhoun To: mini-painter@egroups.com Sent: Friday, December 15, 2000 5:41 AM Subject: [mini-painter] Re: Masterseck
As an eBay whore, I can offer a whole lot of advice on selling items through ebay. 1.) The most important thing is to get your mini in the correct
category. 2.) For the title of your auction item, there are some words that are a MUST. First of all, make sure you mention that it is painted! I've seen a few minis go through with very low bids just because they weren't marked as painted. Another big one to add is "Warhammer". Unfortunately, 90% of people that play warhammer are not even aware that there are other miniature companies out there. They go to ebay and type in "warhammer" for a search. You miss out on a lot of hits without that word in the title! 3.) When you post an item through ebay, you have the option to provide a link to a picture (as opposed to including image tags in your auction description). I have a 1 pixel x 1 pixel picture that I supply in here. If you leave this field blank, the item is posted without the little picture icon. A lot of people won't go near your auction if they don't see that little picture icon. 4.) The most important thing for selling minis on ebay is to provide a real good picture! Make sure the paint job can be clearly seen. Also, if you can, put a small picture of the mini in the actual auction and link to a real larger picture. The above I would consider a must. Below are some recommendations: 1.) DO NOT put "A++++", "Painted by a pro", etc in your auction title or description. This has become somewhat of a joke phrase on ebay, since everyone seems to think they paint at a golden demon level. 2.) If you plan on selling a lot of painted minis on ebay, put a unique bit of text in your auction items to let people know it's one of your auction items. There's a seller on ebay, Chamber of Miniatures, that always puts (CoM) in their auction title. A lot of people who like what they see will do searches for (CoM). 3.) To get the most money, list many minis at once. There's a strange mentality surrounding bidding that makes people go nuts when they've placed a bid on three items from the same person and someone outbids them on one of those. Hope this helps, |