If a seller knew ahead of time which items wouldn't sell, he wouldn't list them. As for why they're still sitting around, the answer is above...
@jmlanzaf said:
But once the time was put in to list them, what's the incentive [to end them]? They sell. It just takes time.
Actually some research in completed and sold items before you start listing would tell you what was likely to sell and at what numbers, but that wasn't the point. The only way to make any money selling uber cheap items is to do a LOT of volume. If your inventory is still sitting there years later then you aren't making money. And meanwhile your costs still go on.
As to "it just takes time", how long is enough? When you go to a local coin show and you see the same guy with the same stuff he's had at the last 5-10 shows, what do you think of his business acumen? Meanwhile there's a guy down the aisle with fresh inventory and blowout specials on stuff he wants to move, be it singles or lots. Who's more likely to have a good show?
Same applies to eBay. If people see the same junk listed and relisted over and over then they move on to one of the hundreds of other guys who change things up. Just saying...ymmv
If a seller knew ahead of time which items wouldn't sell, he wouldn't list them. As for why they're still sitting around, the answer is above...
@jmlanzaf said:
But once the time was put in to list them, what's the incentive [to end them]? They sell. It just takes time.
Actually some research in completed and sold items before you start listing would tell you what was likely to sell and at what numbers, but that wasn't the point. The only way to make any money selling uber cheap items is to do a LOT of volume. If your inventory is still sitting there years later then you aren't making money. And meanwhile your costs still go on.
As to "it just takes time", how long is enough? When you go to a local coin show and you see the same guy with the same stuff he's had at the last 5-10 shows, what do you think of his business acumen? Meanwhile there's a guy down the aisle with fresh inventory and blowout specials on stuff he wants to move, be it singles or lots. Who's more likely to have a good show?
Same applies to eBay. If people see the same junk listed and relisted over and over then they move on to one of the hundreds of other guys who change things up. Just saying...ymmv
You are extrapolating. You can turn over 90% of your inventory and still have items that have been around for years.
You are extrapolating. You can turn over 90% of your inventory and still have items that have been around for years.
Not if you are paying attention. Again, we're talking $1 items here. If we have accumulated such things and it's obvious they aren't going to sell singly they get put into lots. If the lots don't sell they get blown out wholesale... but no way do they sit for years with me hoping someone will pay $1 each for them...
Still a decent amount of good stuff on eBay if you put your time in. Summer is usually dead in my experience but I can still turn up a nice coin or 2 from time to time.
@telephoto1 said:
Actually some research in completed and sold items before you start listing would tell you what was likely to sell and at what numbers...
If what you're listing can be found with a search, sure- well... maybe, anyway. If none have been listed recently, the only way to find out if they'll sell is to list them yourself.
@telephoto1 said:
If your inventory is still sitting there years later then you aren't making money. And meanwhile your costs still go on.
Some things sit, some sell right away. Eventually, they all sell.
@telephoto1 said:
As to "it just takes time", how long is enough?
As long as it takes. Nobody's holding a gun to my head to get everything sold.
@telephoto1 said:
When you go to a local coin show and you see the same guy with the same stuff he's had at the last 5-10 shows, what do you think of his business acumen?
Honestly? I don't think about it. When I go to shows, I'm looking for coins to buy that I can make some money on. If I find them, I buy them. It really doesn't matter to me how the dealers there run their businesses.
@telephoto1 said:
If people see the same junk listed and relisted over and over then they move on to one of the hundreds of other guys who change things up.
I have about a thousand coins listed on eBay and some have been relisted numerous times. I don't think there are any, however, that are also being offered by hundreds of other sellers. In many cases, there are no others comparable to the one I have listed. Hard to find, yet not expensive- such is the way of things when you sell world coins.
@telephoto1 said: You are extrapolating. You can turn over 90% of your inventory and still have items that have been around for years.
Not if you are paying attention. Again, we're talking $1 items here. If we have accumulated such things and it's obvious they aren't going to sell singly they get put into lots. If the lots don't sell they get blown out wholesale... but no way do they sit for years with me hoping someone will pay $1 each for them...
That's assuming I care if they hang around. If the choice is wholesale at 3 cents or retail at $2, what's the hurry to get the 3 cents?
I've sold 75,000 items in 20 years on ebay. There are a couple hundred items that are several years old. They gradually sell, but it takes time. If I'm turning 90+% of my inventory annually, the lingering inventory is not a big deal if there is such little money trapped in it.
I have items on eBay that have been there for 10 to 15 years.
WTF Dude, Flip baby Flip!!!!!
LOL. I'm trying. I send offers out every day. It appears that some people just can't pull the trigger on a $1.79 purchase. LOL
If you popped it into a 99c start, no reserve, people would try for your "bargain."
At least that's my opinion and it is your business anyhow.
You can't ship a coin for 99 cents. Using eBay Standard shipping, it costs 51 cents (or 70 cents over 1 oz) Managed Payments are 8.45%+30 cents. So, a 99 cent coin shipped costs 89 (1.08 if over 1 oz) cents in fees + cost of the envelope and corrugated mailer.
Thanks for your explanation, I do not "EBAY" but I know the fees add up
boston
I have items on eBay that have been there for 10 to 15 years.
WTF Dude, Flip baby Flip!!!!!
LOL. I'm trying. I send offers out every day. It appears that some people just can't pull the trigger on a $1.79 purchase. LOL
If you popped it into a 99c start, no reserve, people would try for your "bargain."
At least that's my opinion and it is your business anyhow.
You can't ship a coin for 99 cents. Using eBay Standard shipping, it costs 51 cents (or 70 cents over 1 oz) Managed Payments are 8.45%+30 cents. So, a 99 cent coin shipped costs 89 (1.08 if over 1 oz) cents in fees + cost of the envelope and corrugated mailer.
Thanks for your explanation, I do not "EBAY" but I know the fees add up
boston
I've literally had people send me 79 cent offers. I tell them. "Only if you pick it up at my house". Lol.
I for one, can not imagine selling on the bay now-a-days.
You really need to understand ALL of the legalities.
Best of luck to you @jmlanzaf
.
PS
I love your input and posts to this forum.
@1630Boston said:
I for one, can not imagine selling on the bay now-a-days.
You really need to understand ALL of the legalities.
Best of luck to you @jmlanzaf
.
PS
I love your input and posts to this forum.
I very much appreciate you. You're the closest thing we have to Roger Burdette for historical content.
I only sell through E-Bay. My costs are essentially 10%. I only buy and sell $20 DE's. I am more aggressive on prices. should I buy too many coins. Otherwise I have an outlet to sell that costs $20 / mo. Cheap enough.
I maybe have a dozen coins on at any point in time. I apologize to anyone who can't look at 12 "stale" coins. I haven't sold a coin since July 26 so I know what dead inventory looks like.
I'm not selling coins to give anyone a better deal than at a show or store I try to be somewhat competitive to online sellers. I also try to have coins that might have somewhat more appeal than a generic coin. If I have higher costs than most dealers, I have no interest to compete on price. If I don't sell anything I write off $20 for the month. I have no pressure to sell.
I don't have a great motivation to attend shows. Thus I am a buyer as well on E-Bay. I am constantly looking through junk
but hey... I don't have to leave my home in the rain to look through other sellers inventory. In addition, looking at stale inventory keeps me busy between horse races.
The big complaints many dealers have about eBay is with their poorly informed sales tax policies and their total tilt toward buyers.
A dealer was complaining to me yesterday about getting charged Florida sales tax on some U.S, coins he had purchased on eBay. There is no sales on U.S, coins in Florida. That is a simple fact. Yet, eBay is charging it on sales to Florida according to this dealer. He has contacted them on several occasions and gotten no response.
The second issue is with returns. More than few dealers have told me they have shipped coins to eBay buyers only to have them "returned." The trouble is the dealer has gotten back a rock instead of the coin.
Needless to say I know a few dealers who are done with eBay.
Retired dealer and avid collector of U.S. type coins, 19th century presidential campaign medalets and selected medals. In recent years I have been working on a set of British coins - at least one coin from each king or queen who issued pieces that are collectible. I am also collecting at least one coin for each Roman emperor from Julius Caesar to ... ?
@FrankH said:
Okay, now that we've hashed out the different inventory management, and turnover..............
How about the stale coins on eBay?
Go to your local coin store and see how many "stale coins" there are. Then go to your local coin show and see how many "stale coins" there are.
The fact is that there are new buyers all the time. And keeping inventory around until someone comes along who loves it is not exactly a crime.
Once a dealer does the research on a coin and puts it into inventory, there's less incentive to simply dump it into a bucket and sell it by the pound just to get rid of it. And how stale is stale? If you are talking 10 years, that's excessive. If it's been 6 months or a year, I really don't see the problem.
If you look at my sell through rate, typically 25% of new material sells in a week. Another 25% sells within 30 days. Of the remaining 50%, about 80% of that is gone within a year. That last 10% sometimes sits for several years. Maybe 1% lasts longer than 5 years.
The only thing I use eBay for is finding the seller's city and then doing a google search on that city.
Best are the sellers who have their own websites.
Relatively easy to deal with someone on the phone.
And Collector's Corner beats eBay like a bad dog.
@FrankH said:
The only thing I use eBay for is finding the seller's city and then doing a google search on that city.
Really? That's not the word on the street...
@FrankH said:
Stale stuff. If it doesn't sell, they keep showing it. For YEARS.
I've been SCOURING eBay for a long long time and coming up dry as a bone.
Comments
Actually some research in completed and sold items before you start listing would tell you what was likely to sell and at what numbers, but that wasn't the point. The only way to make any money selling uber cheap items is to do a LOT of volume. If your inventory is still sitting there years later then you aren't making money. And meanwhile your costs still go on.
As to "it just takes time", how long is enough? When you go to a local coin show and you see the same guy with the same stuff he's had at the last 5-10 shows, what do you think of his business acumen? Meanwhile there's a guy down the aisle with fresh inventory and blowout specials on stuff he wants to move, be it singles or lots. Who's more likely to have a good show?
Same applies to eBay. If people see the same junk listed and relisted over and over then they move on to one of the hundreds of other guys who change things up. Just saying...ymmv
RIP Mom- 1932-2012
You are extrapolating. You can turn over 90% of your inventory and still have items that have been around for years.
eBay is not what it used to be.
But, with that being said---there are still nice coins every now and again.
You must dig through the dreck to find the gems.
Sometimes, it's frustrating and, sometimes, it's fun.
A numismatist must have patience, regardless of the selling medium or platform.
Even our favorite dealers have lulls in their inventory offerings, at times.
It's all part of the 'Big Game', as I like to call it.
Sometimes, it’s better to be LUCKY than good. 🍀 🍺👍
My Full Walker Registry Set (1916-1947):
https://www.ngccoin.com/registry/competitive-sets/16292/
You are extrapolating. You can turn over 90% of your inventory and still have items that have been around for years.
Not if you are paying attention. Again, we're talking $1 items here. If we have accumulated such things and it's obvious they aren't going to sell singly they get put into lots. If the lots don't sell they get blown out wholesale... but no way do they sit for years with me hoping someone will pay $1 each for them...
RIP Mom- 1932-2012
Still a decent amount of good stuff on eBay if you put your time in. Summer is usually dead in my experience but I can still turn up a nice coin or 2 from time to time.
eBay sucks.
I saw a raw coin there over a year ago that I had to have and bought it.
The seller got sketchy and squirmed out of the deal. I was bummed. No coin for me.
I have been searching ever since for the same or similar coin for well over a year now.
I found a PCGS MS certified one on eBay for half the price I woulda have paid for the original raw coin.
Ebay sucks as I want my coins now and not to have wait a year to buy a discounted coin.
If what you're listing can be found with a search, sure- well... maybe, anyway. If none have been listed recently, the only way to find out if they'll sell is to list them yourself.
Some things sit, some sell right away. Eventually, they all sell.
As long as it takes. Nobody's holding a gun to my head to get everything sold.
Honestly? I don't think about it. When I go to shows, I'm looking for coins to buy that I can make some money on. If I find them, I buy them. It really doesn't matter to me how the dealers there run their businesses.
I have about a thousand coins listed on eBay and some have been relisted numerous times. I don't think there are any, however, that are also being offered by hundreds of other sellers. In many cases, there are no others comparable to the one I have listed. Hard to find, yet not expensive- such is the way of things when you sell world coins.
That's assuming I care if they hang around. If the choice is wholesale at 3 cents or retail at $2, what's the hurry to get the 3 cents?
I've sold 75,000 items in 20 years on ebay. There are a couple hundred items that are several years old. They gradually sell, but it takes time. If I'm turning 90+% of my inventory annually, the lingering inventory is not a big deal if there is such little money trapped in it.
No matter where the bourse is….somewhere in the room is the best deal. You have to find it and know it when you see it.
Thanks for your explanation, I do not "EBAY" but I know the fees add up
boston
Successful transactions with : MICHAELDIXON, Manorcourtman, Bochiman, bolivarshagnasty, AUandAG, onlyroosies, chumley, Weiss, jdimmick, BAJJERFAN, gene1978, TJM965, Smittys, GRANDAM, JTHawaii, mainejoe, softparade, derryb, Ricko
Bad transactions with : nobody to date
I've literally had people send me 79 cent offers. I tell them. "Only if you pick it up at my house". Lol.
I for one, can not imagine selling on the bay now-a-days.
You really need to understand ALL of the legalities.
Best of luck to you @jmlanzaf
.
PS
I love your input and posts to this forum.
Successful transactions with : MICHAELDIXON, Manorcourtman, Bochiman, bolivarshagnasty, AUandAG, onlyroosies, chumley, Weiss, jdimmick, BAJJERFAN, gene1978, TJM965, Smittys, GRANDAM, JTHawaii, mainejoe, softparade, derryb, Ricko
Bad transactions with : nobody to date
I very much appreciate you. You're the closest thing we have to Roger Burdette for historical content.
Ebay is quite useful for finding odd numismatic items.
The Mysterious Egyptian Magic Coin
Coins in Movies
Coins on Television
I only sell through E-Bay. My costs are essentially 10%. I only buy and sell $20 DE's. I am more aggressive on prices. should I buy too many coins. Otherwise I have an outlet to sell that costs $20 / mo. Cheap enough.
I maybe have a dozen coins on at any point in time. I apologize to anyone who can't look at 12 "stale" coins. I haven't sold a coin since July 26 so I know what dead inventory looks like.
I'm not selling coins to give anyone a better deal than at a show or store I try to be somewhat competitive to online sellers. I also try to have coins that might have somewhat more appeal than a generic coin. If I have higher costs than most dealers, I have no interest to compete on price. If I don't sell anything I write off $20 for the month. I have no pressure to sell.
I don't have a great motivation to attend shows. Thus I am a buyer as well on E-Bay. I am constantly looking through junk
but hey... I don't have to leave my home in the rain to look through other sellers inventory. In addition, looking at stale inventory keeps me busy between horse races.
The big complaints many dealers have about eBay is with their poorly informed sales tax policies and their total tilt toward buyers.
A dealer was complaining to me yesterday about getting charged Florida sales tax on some U.S, coins he had purchased on eBay. There is no sales on U.S, coins in Florida. That is a simple fact. Yet, eBay is charging it on sales to Florida according to this dealer. He has contacted them on several occasions and gotten no response.
The second issue is with returns. More than few dealers have told me they have shipped coins to eBay buyers only to have them "returned." The trouble is the dealer has gotten back a rock instead of the coin.
Needless to say I know a few dealers who are done with eBay.
Okay, now that we've hashed out the different inventory management, and turnover..............
How about the stale coins on eBay?
I peruse the sold to see how well I did on my purchases. I have gotten better at buying so it’s rewarding. Most of the time 😁
🎶 shout shout, let it all out 🎶
Buy them or don't. It's not rocket science.
Go to your local coin store and see how many "stale coins" there are. Then go to your local coin show and see how many "stale coins" there are.
The fact is that there are new buyers all the time. And keeping inventory around until someone comes along who loves it is not exactly a crime.
Once a dealer does the research on a coin and puts it into inventory, there's less incentive to simply dump it into a bucket and sell it by the pound just to get rid of it. And how stale is stale? If you are talking 10 years, that's excessive. If it's been 6 months or a year, I really don't see the problem.
If you look at my sell through rate, typically 25% of new material sells in a week. Another 25% sells within 30 days. Of the remaining 50%, about 80% of that is gone within a year. That last 10% sometimes sits for several years. Maybe 1% lasts longer than 5 years.
The only thing I use eBay for is finding the seller's city and then doing a google search on that city.
Best are the sellers who have their own websites.
Relatively easy to deal with someone on the phone.
And Collector's Corner beats eBay like a bad dog.
Really? That's not the word on the street...