Looking for advice on a pricey eBay auction

Mike_TV

Mike_TV

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Hey all, this isn't gaming related, but I'm hoping someone here can give me a little guidance. I recently put up a lot of The Walking Dead comics on eBay, having found them during a move. It's issues 32-100, with 35& 36 missing and some water damage on a few. I don't really know anything about comics, but with the show in vogue I figured they might be worth a few hundred bucks. I started the auction at $100 without a Buy-It-Now, and soon received an e-mail from from a buyer asking me to put a Buy-It-Now and offering $200. I declined. The next day I received two similar requests and denied both. Tonight the first buyer contacted me saying they could still do $200. I declined mentioning the other interested parties, and he then offered $1000.

I declined as I don't trust the guy, but now I'm really unsure what to do. I've never sold an item on eBay worth this much before, and I'm a little leery of being scammed. I plan to use UPS to ship and to have the item insured with a signature required, but I'm worried someone might try to open a INAD to scam me. Does anyone have any advice for selling high value items like this on eBay? Should I just take it to the local collector's shop? Should I break it up? And advice would be much appreciated.

 
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So I found your auction on eBay, something is definitely fishy with that buyer offering $1000. I added it all up and got an appr. book value of $536. Given the popularity of the show it is not hard to get book value for them, but $200 is definitely too low. If someone offered you $500 for the whole lot I think that would be fair, but $1000 is way over book value and makes me think the buyer has plans to do something devious whether a chargeback or complaining for a partial refund or something of the like.

I wouldn't worry too much about selling them on eBay, if I were you I would end and relist as a BIN auction at $550 with best offer and auto decline anything below $400. Too many people bid and then never pay, there is actually a whole thread on Reddit my friend sent me where they pick auctions on eBay to troll bid and never pay which is a dick move because items rarely do as well when relisted for a second auction.

If you brought them to your local comic shop they would likely offer you something close to the $200 offers you turned down, if not less. I know the local comic shop to me pays 25% of book value for Walking Dead comics.

Anyways, hope this help
 
I don't understand what you mean by "I started the action at $100 with a Buy-It-Now", especially since there's no BIN option for your listing, but...

Items like this that aren't easily valued should always go the full auction.  Ignore anyone E-mailing you asking you to change the terms of it and end early.  They either don't understand how an auction works or are hoping that you don't.  Every eBay auction gets the most bidding action in the last few minutes & seconds before close.  If you'd like to respond to those people at all, simply say "sorry, I'm letting this one run the full length, but feel free to bid on it anytime!"

Double-warning: due to the not perfect condition of your comics, you should be especially careful of people highballing you.  At least you don't have people asking if you can change the starting bid to a BIN so they can get it right away :roll:

 
Sorry, I meant that I didn't have a Buy It Now.

At any rate, thanks folks. I've updated the description mentioning that I'm not interested in ending the auction early and how I plan on shipping the lot. Honestly I'm still tempted to take them to the comic shop to see if I could get $300, just for the lesser amount of stress involved.

Oi, I should really just stick to video games.

 
The most important thing to do is ACCURATELY describe the comics, make sure people know what comics are for sale and their condition. You can have up to 12 pictures without incurring additional charges and for a lot like this I suggest using all 12. You can insure against loss or damage in transit pretty easily regardless if you go with USPS, UPS or FedEx but what leaves you the most exposed is a SNAD (not as described) claim.

Also, as long as you have proof of shipping (receipt combined with tracking) you'd be covered against an unauthorized use claim/chargeback.

But back to SNAD---as I said before you need to go under the assumption that you're going to have a super anal retentive buyer which is why you need to describe any and all defects. Something like "Most comics are in good shape but some show wear and/or water damage" will not be adequate. I imagine some issues are worth more then others therefore it is important to describe what issues have wear/water damage individually.

And worse case scenario if a buyer does file a SNAD complaint (really not as common as people make it out to be) they are required to send everything back before a refund is issued as long as you follow the instructions in the case/dispute and if they don't you can always appeal the outcome

 
So here's the link to the auction. Didn't think it was appropriate to post it before for some reason.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/191207910449?ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1555.l2649

I think I've been pretty detailed with regards to what issues have water damage and the condition of the lot. I even went through them all again last night to check. Then again, I'm far from an expert here and I really don't want to get slammed by a INAD.

 
If that lot was worth $1000, then there would have been some bidding activity by now. When I was still into comics, I know I would sometimes consider paying a bit more for a large run of something, even if a few issues were missing, simply for the convenience. But to go from $200 to $1,000 should raise lots of red flags. 

Only thing I can think is that, maybe you have some unknown variant/misprint/incentive issue that's worth a ton of money or something and you don't know it. 

I once listed a Yu-Gi-Oh game on eBay hoping to get $5 for it but before the auction ended, I decided to see if the cards with the game were worth anything. I learned that were worth $100+ together. Glad I caught that one... 

 
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