Selling eBay (How do I do it?)

[djclawson]

I\'ve been selling on eBay with only minimal success.I see some people selling overprice stuff and selling every mini they offer, while others majorly undersell and still don\'t get bids. There doesn\'t seem to be a pattern, unless you call a lot of obvious lying about winning 15 Golden Demons a pattern.

Anyone else sell on eBay?

 

[Wappellious]

ebay minis

I think I can say that we are proof that it does not take winning Golden Demons (or even claiming to have one them) to be able to sell minis on Ebay.

I have never entered a GD contest, and have pretty much written off contests altogether.

Everything which is painted is done for Ebay or commissions. That was how we started in this business. Doing commission work for people we knew.

The first minis we put up on ebay did not sell for very much at all. In fact, it took several months before we made significant progress.

Linking the auctions to CMON was a major difference, and it had an immediate impact. If you see a mini selling for big $$$ on Ebay, it\'s probably somebody who has been around long enough to get that name recognition. It took me 11 years to get any sort of a \"name\" in the 2D fantasy art business Even that wasn\'t much.

It was only after selling a few hundred figures on Ebay that we saw our stuff gain in value. All I can say is that you just have to put up the best work you have, and stay in it for the long term.

However, there are times where the miniature almost has nothing to do with the final price. I have seen it happen at many convention art shows. It is possible to get a bidding war going on between two people who just don\'t like each other, and they only want to see the other guy pay more for something (even if they have no interest in the figure themselves).

It just gets crazy sometimes

 

[djclawson]

Well, what about eBay stores? Is it worth it to pay for one? Is seems like it\'s actually less exposure than the live auctions.

 

[Corvus]

djclawson: do you have a link to one of your past auctions? Maybe we can take a look on the page and tell you what you might have done wrong...

My experience is that the way you offer your product is very important. For example a webcam image of a fantastic mini won\'t probably sell for the price you had in mind....

 

[djclawson]

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=5916698023

Reposted this a few times, with better and better pictures, and lower prices. This is actually the highest price yet, because my mentor on eBay said not to undersell or I wouldn\'t make money.

 

[KatieG]

I apologize in advance for being blunt, but it will be rare you\'ll be able to sell what you\'ve got there for what you are asking. People buying minis on eBay are either looking for cheap gaming minis or high quality collectors minis, and right now, you have neither.

Also, eBay is slower at this time of year, things pick up a bit in September. As a rule, the more exposure the better, advertise here and anywhere else you can think of, but I still don\'t think that will help you a lot, because frankly, what you are selling isn\'t really what\'s in demand.

Also be warned your auctions can get pulled for including Warhammer in the title when you aren\'t selling a Warhammer mini. Yes, it gets you more hits, but you run the risk of having your auction shut down.

I\'m sorry I am not of much help, but to sell on eBay you need to stand out from the crowd, and right now, you aren\'t doing that.

--Katie G.

 

[djclawson]

Originally posted by KatieG
I apologize in advance for being blunt, but it will be rare you\'ll be able to sell what you\'ve got there for what you are asking. People buying minis on eBay are either looking for cheap gaming minis or high quality collectors minis, and right now, you have neither.

Also, eBay is slower at this time of year, things pick up a bit in September. As a rule, the more exposure the better, advertise here and anywhere else you can think of, but I still don\'t think that will help you a lot, because frankly, what you are selling isn\'t really what\'s in demand.

Also be warned your auctions can get pulled for including Warhammer in the title when you aren\'t selling a Warhammer mini. Yes, it gets you more hits, but you run the risk of having your auction shut down.

I\'m sorry I am not of much help, but to sell on eBay you need to stand out from the crowd, and right now, you aren\'t doing that.

--Katie G.

Never had an auction get shut down but that\'s good to know.

I guess I get my hopes up when I see a lot of painters who are worse than me really sell their objects. There\'s the many people who are better than me, of course, but those people also price their miniatures higher. What I really need is to be a better painter, which I\'m working on.

 

[KatieG]

It also matters WHAT you sell, not just how well you paint. Warhammer sells better than Reaper for example because people want painted armies to play with without having to do the work (most don\'t go for what they are worth though in terms of painting time). Folks who want Reaper minis are a smaller group, usually people who want a mini to represent their player character or something... but its hard to sell to those folks too because they usually have exactly in their mind what their character looks like and if your mini doesn\'t match it... they aren\'t interested. If you\'re aiming for that crowd, I\'d go with things that could easily be used as monsters the PC\'s meet instead.

I\'d suggest that at the level you are at, either go for quick painted regiments (just be warned that you often don\'t get more than 2X retail for these, so paint really fast) or character minis for Warhammer. And just remember that all this is practice, and that\'s the best way to get better - practice and experiment. Think of eBay as a way to offset the costs of the hobby and not as a way to make a profit just yet.

--Katie G.

 

[djclawson]

Originally posted by KatieG
It also matters WHAT you sell, not just how well you paint. Warhammer sells better than Reaper for example because people want painted armies to play with without having to do the work (most don\'t go for what they are worth though in terms of painting time). Folks who want Reaper minis are a smaller group, usually people who want a mini to represent their player character or something... but its hard to sell to those folks too because they usually have exactly in their mind what their character looks like and if your mini doesn\'t match it... they aren\'t interested. If you\'re aiming for that crowd, I\'d go with things that could easily be used as monsters the PC\'s meet instead.

I\'d suggest that at the level you are at, either go for quick painted regiments (just be warned that you often don\'t get more than 2X retail for these, so paint really fast) or character minis for Warhammer. And just remember that all this is practice, and that\'s the best way to get better - practice and experiment. Think of eBay as a way to offset the costs of the hobby and not as a way to make a profit just yet.

--Katie G.

The problem with Reaper is it\'s like crack. Very, very cheap crack that\'s the same quality as GW at a lower price per miniature. You see the Reaper stuff, you want to paint it, it doesn\'t sell as well as a skaven warlock. But the skaven warlock is double the cost.

I don\'t see a lot of people having success with painted regiments. They\'re selling them for around the price of the original regiment, or maybe ten dollars more. 10 dollars for painting ten or twenty miniatures?

 

[Wappellious]

auctions terminated

I can speak from experience about including \'Warhammer\' in your description getting your auction killed (on Reaper minis, no less).

That happed to us twice in one day. We had included that word, since it had been done many times on other listings we had seen. That was well over a year ago, and we have tried to exclude any references to Warhammer since. Also, you will want to avoid including your web site as part of your description. While we continue to see many listings including websites, our auctions wer shut down when we did it. Best not to even test that!

However, if you use Games Worshop paints (or even primer), you could include that in your description, getting yourself some extra hits in that way.

Most of our first Ebay figures were Reaper, and they did sell for less. They were cheaper, and therefore less risk. Those early commissions I mentioned before were GW miniatures.

These days, the Reaper minis sell for the same prices as our GW and even our Confrontation stuff. I\'m willing to bet that these figs are not being used for any sort of gaming, though!

I used to give shipping discounts on multiple figure purchases, which helped early on. Do you include a Buy it Now price? Most of my best customers prefer that. They would rather not go through the trouble of waiting out the auction, only to lose with a few seconds left.

Seeing a piece get tons of bids is nice, but it can have a tendency to discourage a person if they continually lose out.

I hope this helps

 

[Sturmhalo]

Take on the advice already given and just keep plugging away. The more you sell, the more your name will get around.

 

[Gypsy]

I don\'t think people buy Reaper stuff only because they want a display piece or a mini representing their RPG character. Lots of the Reaper figs can be special Warhammer characters for your Bretonnia, Empire, Elves or Chaos army. You just have to find a way to tell your costomers that without having your auctions pulled.
It works, on eBay Germany someone sold an unpainted Reaper Warlord mini as a Dark Elves champion and got thrice the original price for it. Probably because the kid who bought it thought it was a very rare limited edition fig or something. lol

 

[Corvus]

I agree with all that has been said above: this mini isn\'t good enough for a display piece or centerpiece of an army, but too good for a gaming piece.

Also, remove the words \"pro painted\" from the description, because a lot of ebayers (like me) simply don\'t look at auctions with pro painted or a+++ in their titles.

Good luck!

 

[djclawson]

Originally posted by Gypsy
I don\'t think people buy Reaper stuff only because they want a display piece or a mini representing their RPG character. Lots of the Reaper figs can be special Warhammer characters for your Bretonnia, Empire, Elves or Chaos army. You just have to find a way to tell your costomers that without having your auctions pulled.
It works, on eBay Germany someone sold an unpainted Reaper Warlord mini as a Dark Elves champion and got thrice the original price for it. Probably because the kid who bought it thought it was a very rare limited edition fig or something. lol

Well, I don\'t outright lie about anything, which is I think why things haven\'t been pulled. It\'s usually \"painted reaper mini on Warhammer base\" or something - which is pretty outright for a title. That\'s what it is. A Reaper mini on a Warhammer base.


Also, is image hosting elsewhere worth it? If so, where?

 

[KatieG]

Originally posted by djclawson

Well, I don\'t outright lie about anything, which is I think why things haven\'t been pulled. It\'s usually \"painted reaper mini on Warhammer base\" or something - which is pretty outright for a title. That\'s what it is. A Reaper mini on a Warhammer base.


Also, is image hosting elsewhere worth it? If so, where?

It doesn\'t matter whether you frame it like that or not, mixing Warhammer with Reaper dilutes both of their trademarks. If you actually look at GW\'s site, they have a list of things not to do with their stuff, and one of the things they say not to do is mix their bitz with other companies, again because of the trademark dilution thing. It has to do with protecting their trademark, if they don\'t do it, they could lose it. It\'s what happened to aspirin - used to be a brand name, but now it just means the drug itself, the company lost the trademark because they didn\'t defend it and it came to mean the drug itself. Xerox had a similiar problem...

As for image hosting, got an AOL account? That\'s where I host my images from. Otherwise check out your internet host, if you can upload stuff to make a webpage, you can also (usually) host images there also. It\'s better than using eBay because eBay a) charges you money for multiple pics and b) shrinks the pics in a way that can screw them up. I then use html to put them in the auction itself. I usually just throw them all in at the end since my html skills are only just up to that task
--Katie G.
P.S. I hear you about Reaper, I like painting their minis myself As for painting regiments and selling them not making much money... well, you can do OK if you don\'t pay retail price for the regiment in the first place... also I would suggest painting just the minimum regiment size (eg. 5 for mounted figs, 10 for foot), not necessarily the amount that comes in a box set. Use the leftovers to do another command group (or for conversions to create unique characters) and sell those seperately...

 

[Mosch]

Orginal gepostet von djclawson
Also, is image hosting elsewhere worth it? If so, where?

I always recommend http://www.imageshack.us

NO signing up, nothing at all. Just enter your picture and upload it. It even gives you several preformatted links.

 

[Wappellious]

long time

As others have said here, it does take time to build up that all important following.

One thing that can increase the price of minis for Ebay is to do something special for the base. It was something I noticed early on. When we signed up for CMON one year ago yesterday, that\'s when I really saw the difference a specialty base could make.

Depending on how complex that base is, it could increase the potential asking price anywhere from 3x to 10x It does not have to be something huge. There are many many examples right here on CMON of fantastic bases that have made figs go for much more on Ebay.

It took me quite a while to learn about all the different landscaping materials, but there are some very nice ones available from the CMON store.

 

[praetorian0_1]

Some kind folks told me when you sell is also important - to max out viewing on the front page by having the auction end close to 2000hrs in your time zone on Sunday night so people can get in and snipe away. Pretty basic but it seems to help.
Promote on CMON is a must.
Flexibility about payment is important sometimes.
A snappy title- another mini is a kiss of death here- so it goes on ebay. And, most of all, listen to everyone here- they\'re smart. Listen to what you like too- odds are if you like it someone else will too.