Diary of a Low-Volume Seller
airjoedan
Posts: 776 ✭✭✭
Regardless of whether or not anyone will read or comment, there have been many times in the past where I have been able to successfully vent and feel better with a post on this message board. Members have offered advice and support for buying/selling challenges and sometimes all I really need to do is talk about something that went wrong to cheer me up. In addition, it is always fun to share the positive stories about the great people I meet and fantastic deals or neat items I'm sometimes lucky enough to find.
History
I'm a long-time collector but at the start of 2017, I decided I would try something new to fund my non-collecting interests. As money has been sometimes pretty tight in the last few years, it was a real challenge to set aside any money for family vacations. In order to allow us to take the kids to the beach, visit my folks back in Texas, and maybe one day take the elusive trip to Disney - I decided I would start to seriously sell on eBay.
The Plan
My collecting fund pretty much consisted of buying large lots and selling most items quickly and keeping the few items I really wanted for next to nothing. When I decided to start this side venture in 2017, I made the deal with myself that I would continue to buy the same way I always have - except now I would sell everything and price appropriately, waiting patiently with the BINs that I know are possible with time. I set aside a small amount and devoted 1-2 hours each night to list and pack items.
Status
The plan has generally worked. While I haven't been able to fund a Disney trip with the low-volume of sales I have, we have been able to take a few trips each year that have been fully funded solely by sales related to this business. I have managed to make sure this doesn't interfere with my personal life (I work enough each day as it is), so I continue to devote just an hour or two each night to manage the listing/packing.
Diary Purpose
I don't really have a lot of people that understand the issues to vent to. From difficult buyers to losing profits to the many taxes (local, state, sales tax, federal), managing the books, and shipping challenges - there is a lot to vent about sometimes. Also, sometimes it is nice to share good stories as a break from some of the negative aspects of the trade. I've always received some great tips from people as well.
I have thought about starting a post for my sanity a few times already as many of you have helped me in the past. For one of the most annoying issues I've had, reference the thread below:
Comments
Current Vent
I had an "0" feedback seller purchase a $200 item last week. While the low feedback scores still give me heartburn, I have found that I honestly have little trouble with them. Generally, the new eBayers seem to be gung-ho and are overly responsive/helpful. So, I packed the item up and shipped it promptly without thinking about it again--until today:
The Item
Tom Petty Autograph Cut - SGC Certified
Description:
Hey there, up for auction is a Tom Petty autograph cut, affixed to a scrapbook page with black & white photo, certified/encapsulated as authentic by SGC. The entire piece is 5" x 7" and this is encapsulated in a large 7 1/2" x 10 1/2" SGC plastic holder. The autograph itself is huge, measuring 2" x 6".
The Return Request
My Reponse
I have not received a response and the buyer has not printed out a label yet.
In selling nearly 1800 items in almost 2 years since I started this, I have only had 3 returns. One in which a buyer said some pages were missing from a program (the description noted the exact pages missing), one where a buyer said he thought an autograph looked fake (it was a low value autograph but I submitted it based on principle and relisted it shortly afterward with a PSA/DNA sticker), and this one. I take pride in providing great pictures and great descriptions...and being as honest as possible. I might be reading too much into the return request, but to me this was never presented as a photo and it should have been clear from the high resolution scans and description that this is exactly what they wanted.
A side rant would be that eBay requires I offer 30 day returns (at my cost) to keep Top Seller status.
I can not figure out in the hell anyone can actually make money on eBay. So please tell me how the hell people do it ? They have to acquire the cards somehow before they sell them. They're not pulling them out of their back side. So, how in the hell do they do it ?
I ask myself this same question; Airjoedan; Your 1800 items are much more items than mine in the past 2 years. Ebay is tuff nowadays. I can't speak about any one else, but I will enjoy reading this thread as I am pretty much doing the same thing; the only difference is I have a huge collection {>20 yrs worth} I am drawing from. But I must say, sometimes it's very frustrating. I can sell 10 cards 1 day all BIN; and then nothing for 20 days. I think or at least try to price my stuff reasonable. I gave up my trs+ a few months ago when they required the 30 day free returns. To me it wasn't worth it; I changed my handling time to 3 days and returns to 14 days buyer pays. I still ship next day 99% of the time but at least this way I don't feel like I have to or get punished {defects} when PO doesn't scan right away. Good luck and keep us posted. If you ever want to do a side chat just PM me. Tony
I have to much S**t; so if you working on sets or are a player/team collector, send me your want list, with conditions desired. Keep in mind I have a another job so please allow me a few days to respond.
Well, I sell on eBay and on message boards, by referral, and sometimes use the occasional auction house. Generally, 90% of what I sell is on eBay.
You’re right, it is tough to make an extra buck with all the fees. However, this would bring me to another side rant. People (especially online) are quick to criticize someone for a pickup at a great price. For example, if someone posted about buying 10,000 cards worth $5,000 for $1,000, some people would say they took advantage of a seller - even if it was a seller’s asking price! What people frequently don’t take into account is that to break up a large collection of low dollar items and make the “true value”, it takes an additional investment - your time!
Time is money and life is short. Taking photos/scans, writing descriptions, marketing, packing, keeping records, and filing taxes is a lot to do. While someone may end up reselling the $1,000 investment for $5,000, it might have taken them 50 hours and 2 years of waiting to realize that amount. In addition, they would now have $4,000 of profit to pay taxes on (which could in turn cost you over 30% across the board).
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I hear you Tony. I have thought about giving up the Top Seller status as well but it seems to put my items higher up in best match searches (maybe it is my imagination). The discount is small but I look at it this way - with the power eBay and PayPal give a buyer, they’d probably get a free return out of me by force anyway if a claim of any sort was filed. So, I might as well take the discount and after all, 3 returns in 1,800 sales is not too bad.
I totally agree; if I were factoring in my time; I'd be better off selling pretzels on the street corner, but that aside; I vent a lot too, however, at times, I must admit I enjoy it {not the ebay bull***t but the buying and selling}. Especially when someone leaves that really glowing thought out feedback; although it is less and less anymore. Lately; I do believe ebay throttles listings; why I can't imagine, what do they have to gain. But many times when I search for my own cards there buried on page 2, and the ones in front of me are not even same player, let alone year or number. even though I'm among lowest price, than I search by price and I'm up top. I wonder if people {the occasional buyers, I'm talking about} remember to search by price. I've had 2 returns in the last 2 years, they returned the item in same condition and I refunded. In the past 6 months I've had more cancellations than anything. They buy a card, and then 3 hrs later they message me, saying oh I made a mistake.....really? I just refund and move on, I know I should block but why bother. I haven't really tried the message board approach yet and/or facebook, but I may.
I have to much S**t; so if you working on sets or are a player/team collector, send me your want list, with conditions desired. Keep in mind I have a another job so please allow me a few days to respond.
On a positive purchasing note, I've had luck obtaining signed GPCs for resale in the last few years. Notably, when buying a less expensive item from a seller, I've inquired about what else is available and have been able to work out good deal by buying the collection and saving the person time listing each item.
Here are a few of the best ones I purchased:
All since sold except for the last Hornsby, which I just got back today in the new SGC holder:
Ads on craigslist that you buy cards and lowball the crap out of people that are desperate.
Very seldom make a profit selling on EBay .What pisses me off is the few sellers that seem to have a monopoly on most of the vintage stuff sets and post prices that are listed at twice or more their worth and it sits on the board for months.
It's actually pretty easy, you just have to search through a LOT of auctions. The problem is making enough to do much of anything with your profits.
I know what you mean, Tony. If you are looking for a vintage Topps set, there will be a bunch out there. Someone like Dean's Cards have multiples of them but they are all way overpriced.
I understand what everyone is talking about, it is a challenge to make a profit - which is why I couldn't imagine doing this for more than a side income. For one, I just don't have enough to invest (time and money)...
There's always the challenge of the larger sellers who have the same items for cheaper. When it comes to signed cards for example, you'll see cards worth no more than $10 that are encapsulated by PSA/DNA and for sale by a high-volume seller for $19.99. I can't imagine how cheap they are getting items slabbed for (it certainly isn't the $13-$20 I frequently pay). Like people noted above, they just sit for years until they sell. I just don't have that luxury to sell at cost or wait that long for a sale.
I hear people complaining a lot about items related to cost and resale - but not taxes. My biggest complaint above eBay/PayPal fees, and cost...is taxes. I have local, state, and federal and it eats up A LOT of any profit.
Specific to autographs, I typically have items valued $50 and over authenticated by PSA/DNA, BAS, JSA, or SGC. As a lot of people have their preference and the price for certain premium players can vary greatly, I try to mix it up. Authentication is an added expense (a BIG added expense) to whatever I originally paid for the item.
Early in 2018, I purchased a few lots of photos from a seller on eBay. As I started talking to the seller more, he noted this was part of his father's collection that had sat in a storage for years. While he got most all of the autographs in person, the majority were not authenticated (most were obtained in the early/mid-90's) and I had to take that into account when determining how much I could pay for the collection. I took off work one day and drove 6 hours each way to pick up the collection and while we both ended the deal happy, I really underestimated how long it would take me to piece it out and make my money back. Good deal regardless and was a lot of fun to go through...
Here are a few items from that collection I had authenticated:
Auctions suck period. BIN's are the way to go and you have to wait out the cheapskates. chaz
Feed the cheapskates your auction junk. Stuff that isn't worth much put up for auction. If the cheapskates don't buy it, then try a couple of auction relists and if that doesn't work, then donate to charity to get rid of it and claim tax write off. Good stuff BIN. chaz
I called eBay tonight and since the buyer did not print out a label and did not respond to my message afterward, they closed this case in my favor. Good news I suppose but I guess there is still the PayPal route. I would have returned it without problem, not sure why they didn't just print out the label since they clearly didn't seem happy with it given the original message.
Maybe the buyer was trying to get half off. Keep the card and you send him half the refund. That trick happens a lot on ebay by scamming buyers.
IT CAN'T BE A TRUE PLAYOFF UNLESS THE BIG TEN CHAMPIONS ARE INCLUDED
Hopefully the buyer realized at some point they got exactly what they bid on and have decided to do the right thing and live with the results.
Saying they are over priced is a very big understatement.I can buy a VG/EX for the price he sells a very low grade set for.
PACKING ITEMS UP
While I like selling things - it is the whole point of listing an item for sale...I really hate packing things up. I take my pride in how I pack things and it might take me a bit longer as a result. I don't mind a few items selling each night but 4-5 in each of the past few days hasn't been enjoyable to keep up with. I packed 3 items up last night only to wake up and see "4 Items Paid - Ready to Ship" on the eBay app in the morning. I think I had a book, baseball, magazine, and oversized trading card sell - all different types of packages.
So, I appreciate the sales - but man, I really wish someone else was packing them up sometimes - or that they came at a lower and more consistent volume (2-3 per night without the random spikes). Regardless, can't complain about sales - it might be more of the Top Rated Seller requirement to ship within 24 hours that sometimes gets me paranoid to keep up no matter what!
PHOTO EDITING
With cards, books, anything - I like to provide scans of the back & front, which takes extra time. I tend to scan 50 items at once and then spend a good hour renaming all the files and then editing them (cropping, rotating, etc.). So, before I even get to the tedious description writing and listing process, I think the photo editing process ends up taking me the most time up front. It is the name of the game and I hope buyers notice that I try to go the extra mile with pictures and descriptions - it is what I would want if I were looking at an item. So, I suppose this shouldn't be a complaint as it is something I'm doing to myself by causing twice the time with twice the photographs/scans. Anyways, thanks for listening :-)
In the spirit of sharing something positive instead of just venting, I got this back from PSA today:
This is a 1966 card and Dressen passed away in August 1966. From what I see on the population report, this is the first authenticated.
Dressen was the manager for the Dodgers who called Branca in to face Thompson. Cool card.
Alright, new one - very frustrating.
For inventory, I try to buy out small collections. Basically, when I buy one card or photo I ask if they have other items and make a deal for the rest...
I spent maybe 3 hours in the last few days communicating via text message and email with a seller about his autograph collection. After making a deal for over $2,000 AND PAYING, he sends me a text that says "I just looked up the value of one of the autographs and they go for over $1,500 each on eBay - you are getting 2 of them plus everything else". He then goes on to tell me that he'll have to refund "unless I want to offer more" because he feels he is being robbed. I asked for a refund and he did refund a few minutes ago...
Basically, he looked up the overly high BIN prices on eBay and assumed that is what the autograph goes for. The autograph is a $400-$500 autograph when authenticated - and the authentication fee is $100 per item. This is the only autograph worth over $100 in the entire collection and it would require extra money in authenticating. I had factored $300 per when determining what I was willing to pay (paying $300 and incurring $100 authentication fee and the risk of it passing = me paying $400 WITH RISK for a potential $500 sale - that is beyond fair). This is only the 2nd deal I have had cancelled after it was agreed upon - and the first I have ever had cancelled after the payment was made.
Well, at least I got the money back. What I won't get back is my time - and I had such excitement for how cool this little collection was. I was actually worried about making my money back but thought it would have been cool enough to go through that I was willing to take a chance.
DEFLATING.
Where did you find this person, the seller? CL? Forums? Ebay? Show?
This one was from an online auction, usually where I find stuff. I buy a lot of $5-$20 autographs. Usually after all the headache in listing/packing a few dozen and only getting $10 or so each for them, a lot of former collectors are willing to sell as bulk in one lot for a decent price. It can always be risky with the mostly low dollar items as the time to list/pack is a lot too.
I understand someone having trouble letting go of their collection and I certainly understand always feeling items are worth more - but it after a deal is made it just gets frustrating because of the time spent and the excitement as a collector.
Like I said, this is the first time I have had a deal cancelled after payment was made. The only other time I had a deal cancelled was before payment and was worse than this...
A few years ago I bought a few signed baseball cards from a seller on eBay and asked if he had anything else. As it turned out l, he was a former batboy and had over 20,000 signed cards. He didn’t have any list but decided it would be easiest to send me photos via text message. The guy literally sent me 500 photos over a few day period where he would have a book open (2 9-card pages) to pick what I wanted....
I made a nice excel sheet from the photos for what I wanted (player, year, set) and found maybe 1000 cards I wanted. We agreed on a price and before I could send payment, he said “cancel - I think I’m giving away too many star players and am afraid I’ll be left with too many commons. If you want to buy more commons I will do the deal.”
This was more frustrating than the one yesterday because I probably spent at least 10-12 hours going through the lists and making the spreadsheet - I mean, the guy wasted a lot of time taking the photos too. I tried to buy a smaller quantity afterward and he just said he’s only looking to sell a large lot at once...so frustrating.
Neither one of these deals were easy money given so many low dollar autographs. Both deals were just kind of exciting and while I didn’t look forward to added authentication costs and listing time, these types of “one owner” autograph collections are always a blast to go through - the type of stuff that makes collecting fun.