Advice on selling my DVD Box sets LOT on Ebay

S

SpartanWarrior

CAGiversary!
I am selling a few of my DVD box sets which all are complete and in PERFECT condition

They include

24 Season 1,2,3
The Shield Season 1,2,3,4

so should I sell them indivualy or just throw them on Ebay seperate, and about how much will they pull in?
 
Here's what I'd do:

- Now is a *terrible* time to sell. People are carrying ~$5000 in Christmas card debt & have locked up their wallets, to avoid spending. - Best time to sell is November or December. I would wait until at least April before trying to sell anything.

-

- That said, I would list each game individually for 99 cents, because that's the cheapest listing fee. Don't worry. If a TV show (like Star Trek) is worth $100, it will rise up to $100 naturally through bidding wars.

- I would also go with a 10-day listing over two weekends, so you get the most viewers. And set your shipping/handling at $4.00 to cover your packaging/gasoline expenses.

- Then wait.



- Anything that does not sell for 99 cents, you get a free relisting. Drop the price to $0.01, raise ship/handling to $5.00, and try again.

- Wait.

- Anything that does not sell for $0.01, you can then keep for yourself and/or relist as one large multi-item auction.



That's the methodology I use & it's profited me greatly (literally... I make money off ebay).

troy :)
 
I'd probably look at selling them grouped by show -- Either that or individually. I'd avoid grouping different shows into a single lot.

And I like to use fixed price auctions (basically buy it now only) with the price set at around where the very highest auctions end. Works very well for me. But it's more work and just setting them at $0.99 may bring the same result.

To determine how much they'll pull in do a completed auction search on eBay and look at the average. (I like to limit my search to US only as DVDs sold from China, etc are generally bootleg and go for much less.)
 
I know your talking ebay, but I have had wonderful luck on Amazon Marketplace selling DVDs, Strategy Guides, and Games for great premiums over what the highest prices on ebay fetch.

Amazon does take about 15% commission though.
 
I'd second the Amazon marketplace idea. They have a higher commission, but you don't have to deal directly with annoying buyers, and you can adjust your price as much as you want. And it stays live for three months or so, then you just have to confirm a relist.
My amazon sales have slowed down after Christmas, but I sold three things the first three days they were posted--for more than I paid for them, or right at what i paid for them, even after commission.
If you did sell them on ebay, I would not combine series. Either single releases, or complete sets of one show. However, when something isn't collectible like comics or baseball cards, I personally [as a buyer] plan and am willing to pay *less* for a bundle, than the separate items. I generally won't pay *more* for a bundle of common items than it would cost me to buy them separately. I don't know if I'm in a minority there or not.
 
Amazon sucks. They give you only $1.75 for shipping, even if it costs you $5.00. So you end up taking money out of your own pocket to ship the item.


Also, what's the deal with amazon charging Your customers $3.25 for shipping & then only giving you $1.75 of it? Why do they pocket the other $1.50???

I sold on amazon for a while, but ultimately decided Ebay is better. You set your own S&H rates & have control over how the sale is handled with the customer.
 
Because they are, oh, running a business. Factor in shipping in the price you're asking. If you don't like what they charge to sell something there, don't. Which you're not. Personally, the higher commission is vastly outweighed by the fact that I don't pay unless/until it sells, and I decide what price I'm willing to sell for, without having to pay a reserve fee or a listing fee.
Ebay is great for certain things, but I think the 'power sellers' and the hoarders and the charge-ten-bucks-to-ship-a-dvd assholes are, and have been, ruining it. For selling 'common' items that I want to get rid of and recoup some money, I've had good luck on Amazon. I also don't want to do this 'full time'. I want to post an item, post a description, pack it up, and send it. The first three things I sold on Amazon, had sat on Half.com for months, and were going for less on ebay.
With Amazon, you have access to people who are going to Amazon to do their 'real' shopping, not just their 'auction' shopping.
A lot of it depends on how much work you want to do with these things. I have better things to do than take a bunch of pictures of standard, common dvds, and compete with the power sellers, and deal with arranging payment, deal with relisting if it doesn't sell, etc.
 
[quote name='electrictroy']Amazon sucks. They give you only $1.75 for shipping, even if it costs you $5.00. So you end up taking money out of your own pocket to ship the item.


Also, what's the deal with amazon charging Your customers $3.25 for shipping & then only giving you $1.75 of it? Why do they pocket the other $1.50???

I sold on amazon for a while, but ultimately decided Ebay is better. You set your own S&H rates & have control over how the sale is handled with the customer.[/QUOTE]

Amazon gives me $3.49 and $5.49 for normal or expidited shipping.

I put up some books a week a go. Over night I made over $350 after shipping.

I put a piece of computer hardware and some video games. Sold with in two days.

Every item I sold was higher (by as much as nearly 50%) then what was listed on Half.com or ebay.

For example, one of the items I sold was a Donkey Kong Country 3 guide. I sold it in 2 days for $35 on Amazon. I really doubt I would have gotten that much for it on ebay. Shipping cost was $2+change and Amazon gave me $3.49. I made off after the commission right about $32.

I have the opposite feeling you do. I don't like ebay that much. Fees, fees, fees. Lots of untrustworthy and/or shady buyers and sellers. Inflated prices on many items and lots of counterfeits. Some of these can be said for Amazon too, but it seems alot less painful to me. Almost forgot to mention the $8+ shipping ebay sellers are charging for first class, parcel, and media mail. Now that is low.
 
Hmmm. Maybe they changed it? ~4 years ago amazon would give me $1.75 for media mail, which covered postage, but it cost me more than that to drive to the post office & buy their $1 padded envelope. ------ In contrast Ebay lets me collect $4.00 and thereby make sure all my expenses are covered.
[quote name='dtcarson']For selling 'common' items that I want to get rid of and recoup some money, I've had good luck on Amazon. [/QUOTE] That was another problem. I was selling common items & competing against other people listing these items at $0.01. Some of my rarer stuff sold, but the common items didn't sell even after 6 months of listing, because I refused to give stuff away for a penny.

I grew tired of constantly relisting stuff that did not sell. Overall I found amazon.com a great place to buy, but that's about it.



I found Ebay easier for selling. It sells within 1-2 weeks & you get can good prices though the "bidding war madness". Some guy paid me $55 for a $50 FF10-2 game. Another paid $45 for a $40 Paper Mario 2. I got $60 for a used GameCube.

I doubt I'd get those prices on amazon. At least I didn't 4 years ago when I tried amazon sales.
 
Whatever you do - don't trust electrictoy's advice on eBay - he can't even handle his own business yet seems to delight in spreading his $50 an hour knowledge :roll:
 
[quote name='joevan']Whatever you do - don't trust electrictoy's advice on eBay - he can't even handle his own business [/QUOTE] Provide proof please. Show us copies of my financial records that my "business" (correction- HOBBY) on Ebay is going bankrupt.

thanks.
 
I sell DVD box sets quite a bit on ebay, I am one of the largest DVD box set sellers on ebay in the entire world. i am right up in the top ten or so used game sellers on ebay in the entire world. not kidding on either of those numbers, check my ebay if you do not believe me. DVD box sets always go more when you put them in a complete series. for example, I just sold 24 s1-3 as a set for $105 plus shipping via set price listings on ebay, yet if I had sold them seperately, I would have gotten around $90. obviously not a drastic difference, but you save on fees from if you had listed them seperate, your time for listing them seperate and you still get that 15 percent bonus in money. the shield is also worth a lot more listing them as a set of season 1-4 in one auction. I personally only use set price listings on ebay. it just seems to make the most sense that I get exactly what I want out of the item. No, I do not hoard my items, as you can probably see by taking a look at my auctions. I am close to quite a few mom and pop store owners and they sell me items in bulk that do not sell very well in their store. I then sell the items on ebay for a profit. Ebay is a lot of work and you can make a lot of money, but I personally too am tired of ebay. I am tired of fees on top of fees. I am tired of the insane amount of fakes. I sell a LOT of DVD box sets and my prices go down because of the vast amount of fakes. they seriously need to either crack down on fakes or ebay is going in a terrible direction. I am looking unto using amazon.com in the future. I have talked to people who sell on both and they seem to lean towards amazon. as for electrictroy, he is no longer a registered user on ebay, so take that with a grain of salt. good luck with ebay, or amazon.
ps: here are my auctions for sale right now
http://cgi6.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?MfcISAPICommand=ViewListedItems&since=30&userid=raregamergirl&include=0&rows=200&sort=2&completed=1
I try to keep my prices reasonable so that they actually sell and I have very good customer service, that is the number 1 important thing to selling on ebay
 
[quote name='raregamergirl']I just sold 24 s1-3 for $105 plus shipping via set price listings on ebay, yet if I had sold them seperately, I would have gotten around $90. [/QUOTE]Fascinating. Why do you suppose that is? When I look at amazon's prices, it's the exact opposite. Multi-seasons sets are cheaper. Example, I got Voyager seasons 1-7 Set for ~$65 per season but it costs ~$100 individually. (shrug). I'm just surprised by your results. [quote name='raregamergirl']I sell DVD box sets quite a bit on ebay, I am one of the largest DVD box set sellers on ebay in the entire world.[/QUOTE] I no longer trust powersellers. I ordered a bunch of games/dvds from various sellers & it was the small-timers who gave me flawless product.



In contrast, the three Powersellers falsely-advertised "mint" or "like new" condition but when I received the items, the cases were falling apart and the discs were scratched. Some didn't work at all!

NO Big Deal. I simply returned the games & asked for a refund. They refused.

So I no longer trust "big sellers" aka powersellers, because the ones I've encountered falsely advertise products as "new/mint", and then sell scratched/used junk instead. The three I encountered were liars in their auction, dishonest in their emails (promising refunds but then not giving it), and gave lousy customer service. I don't see how these dishonest powersellers are allowed to remain on ebay when they're scamming thousands of people each year.
 
Hmm, I might have to look into selling on Amazon. Since I'm too lazy to take 3 minutes and look it up myself... Is there a fee for listing stuff for sale or is it like Half where they just take a cut when something does sell?

Still I have a good 100 or so items on Half, pain in the ass to move them all to Amazon. If they really wanted to lure people they'd make an automated tool to suck all your current Half listings into Amazon. But eBay would probably sue them if they did...
 
[quote name='raregamergirl']DVD box sets always go more when you put them in a complete series. for example, I just sold 24 s1-3 as a set for $105 plus shipping via set price listings on ebay, yet if I had sold them seperately, I would have gotten around $90. [/QUOTE]
Okay I did a quick search. However I did my search on Star Trek, because that's what I will be selling later this year.

Star Trek TNG complete = $230 = $33 each season ($280 = $40 each) ($99 = $14 each season)

vs. Star Trek TNG individual seasons = $65. $44. $47. $55. $49. $49. $49. $50.

As you can see, individual seasons sell for higher prices than the Boxed sets. Which makes sense, because many people already have some seasons in their possession, and don't want to buy Repeats. So, there's more demand for individual seasons & they go for higher prices.

A quick scan of TwentyFour showed similar results (~$30 per season individually vs. ~$20 per season for boxed sets). I'd advise the Original poster to sell individually as he'll likely get more money.
 
There is no charge for listing on Amazon.

However, making a good amount of money will be dependent on your description and trust worthiness. There are ALOT(!!!) of bootleg and lazy sellers on Amazon (relative to Amazon).

For example, my mom wanted this DVD, she sees that it is only a few dollars on Amazon marketplace, so being the CheapAssMom she is, buys it. It comes and is obviously a bootleg. It would not even play in our DVD player and the cover art was a joke. She requested to return it and it was easy as pie. She got her money back and bought it at Hastings with the buy-2-get-1-for-a-penney deal they always have on clearance rentals (previous rentals).

Another example, you can get really cheap books off Amazon for school. When you see a book selling for over a hundred brand new or even over half that brand new and the lowest prices on the marketplace are $5 and $10 it is almost a given that it is the international or a previous edition. But the sellers don't say that in their description. They just hope you don't request a return. The international edition is exactly(!) the same as the hard cover, but uses cheaper paper and is paper back. Some people don't know this or don't care.

So, from my experience to be successful on Amazon you have to set a fair price for what it looks like legitimate sellers are selling for. If you are near the low end (which is usually way higher then ebay or Half) you sell very quickly.

Anyway, I have had nothing except a good relaxing and stress free relationship using the Amazon Marketplace. Listing is easy. No fees and I can relist a hundred times if I so please. I can change the price and description at any time.

The only downside is they do seem to get a pretty big chunk (~15% - 20 % it seems) of the final sale (shipping included).

The shipping they provide is for the most part adequate. The shipping Amazon gives you varies, depending on the item. Media items (books, DVD, ...) seem to get $3.49 for normal shipping and $5.49 for expidited. For these I just use media mail and pray that the book fits in the flat rate priority mail envelope respectively. Non-media items get more for shipping (my computer hardware I sold was < 13 oz so I did 1st class at $2.xx but was given $4.99 from amazon for normal shipping).

I am not saying Amazon Marketplace is great, but I like it better then ebay for a few reasons. Those reasons are why I don't sell nearly as much as I would or could. You might make more on ebay due to the Amazon fees being so much, but if you list it as an auction, who knows how much you'll sell it for. Which is why I have not listed anything on the bay for a while now.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
bread's done
Back
Top