It's rarely more than two because there are so many aggressive buyers on eBay. Every time I list a PQ coin for a reasonable price, that coin is gone in 48-72 hours.
eBay is hungry and I LOVE it.
Just a suggestion- You might want to do a past sales archive search on GC and just validate that your buy price is as good as GC. If it is, I am glad for you.
WS
Also I should mention a big reason why I prefer eBay over GC is because I control the images... GC has inadvertently set me up to fail with bad pics in the past on some tougher toned coins to image so I am hesitant to send them anything but obviously easy coins to image. I have asked, they are unwilling to run my photos side by side with theirs. For a specific example, I sent them a Morgan Toner that I paid $175 for. It sold for $100 at GC, and shortly thereafter I saw it listed and sold in hours for $350 by an instagram dealer. That should have been a $100+ profit for me, not a nearly $100 loss.
That said, GC's lack of a dedicated, quality numismatic photographer is what is really stopping me from doing a LOT more business with them. If they had a quality in-house photography staff I'd probably be consigning closer to 6 figures with them per year instead of 5. There's no excuse for this, in this day and age there's a whole slew of very good coin photographers. Pick one or two and hire them.
Anyway, rant aside, eBay gives me more control on the presentation of what I'm selling (and no, I don't juice my images and rip people off), more flexibility on what I list, more flexibility on sales prices via BIN OBO, costs less in fees, and only takes a bit more work... And really, listing/selling/shipping isn't that hard once you have a workflow established. I spend 20-30 hours a week on buying, grading and selling and should eclipse 1/2m in revs this year. If I continue to scale (not happening), I may decide to work more with auction houses, but at present scale, it introduces unnecessary risk of loss due to a lack of control.
If you all want my unsolicited opinion on the best coin imaging in the auction house world, it is Stacks, hands down. All the others should aim to emulate their approach, whatever it is.
Per photos! Let Great Collections stay where they are...after you learn their pictures...to an extent...makes for some bargains!
As per Stacks....YIKES! They are near the bottom, at least they are starting to link trueviews though. Heritage you can usually tell from the slab photos what a coin looks like.
I thought it was disgraceful that Stacks used TrueViews as glamour shots in the Hendricks Auction.
It's rarely more than two because there are so many aggressive buyers on eBay. Every time I list a PQ coin for a reasonable price, that coin is gone in 48-72 hours.
eBay is hungry and I LOVE it.
Just a suggestion- You might want to do a past sales archive search on GC and just validate that your buy price is as good as GC. If it is, I am glad for you.
WS
My buy prices? My bread and butter is buying raw and grading it... Apples to oranges.
If you mean sales prices, well since I play mostly in the $200-$500 region, GC's 12.5% cut hits a good bit harder than eBay's effective 9% cut (factoring in sales tax transactions).
I do consign some stuff to GC, but just the stuff that tends to do real well there like toned Morgans.
WHAT? You mean ebay is cheaper???? But people call it "Feebay"....
I will say this, ebay is expensive when you consider what they actually do. I remember in the early days thinking....man they are making a killing just having a bunch of servers whirring away racking in the dough. I would have bought into ebay when they went public if I had been given the opportunity...turned out it was an invite only. I talked at length with someone I met later who was given that opportunity. He went and viewed their operation and it was just a room full of servers, etc. He passed! I told him I bet you understand now that was a big mistake! It didn't take a genius to figure out how much money they were raking in just on listing fees alone! He did agree with me!
And now listings are free
I actually wish that eBay would charge a listing fee on every listing
Yeah would be great if certain sellers wouldn't relist their barbers so dang often.
"It's like God, Family, Country, except Sticker, Plastic, Coin."
It's rarely more than two because there are so many aggressive buyers on eBay. Every time I list a PQ coin for a reasonable price, that coin is gone in 48-72 hours.
eBay is hungry and I LOVE it.
Just a suggestion- You might want to do a past sales archive search on GC and just validate that your buy price is as good as GC. If it is, I am glad for you.
WS
Also I should mention a big reason why I prefer eBay over GC is because I control the images... GC has inadvertently set me up to fail with bad pics in the past on some tougher toned coins to image so I am hesitant to send them anything but obviously easy coins to image. I have asked, they are unwilling to run my photos side by side with theirs. For a specific example, I sent them a Morgan Toner that I paid $175 for. It sold for $100 at GC, and shortly thereafter I saw it listed and sold in hours for $350 by an instagram dealer. That should have been a $100+ profit for me, not a nearly $100 loss.
That said, GC's lack of a dedicated, quality numismatic photographer is what is really stopping me from doing a LOT more business with them. If they had a quality in-house photography staff I'd probably be consigning closer to 6 figures with them per year instead of 5. There's no excuse for this, in this day and age there's a whole slew of very good coin photographers. Pick one or two and hire them.
Anyway, rant aside, eBay gives me more control on the presentation of what I'm selling (and no, I don't juice my images and rip people off), more flexibility on what I list, more flexibility on sales prices via BIN OBO, costs less in fees, and only takes a bit more work... And really, listing/selling/shipping isn't that hard once you have a workflow established. I spend 20-30 hours a week on buying, grading and selling and should eclipse 1/2m in revs this year. If I continue to scale (not happening), I may decide to work more with auction houses, but at present scale, it introduces unnecessary risk of loss due to a lack of control.
If you all want my unsolicited opinion on the best coin imaging in the auction house world, it is Stacks, hands down. All the others should aim to emulate their approach, whatever it is.
Per photos! Let Great Collections stay where they are...after you learn their pictures...to an extent...makes for some bargains!
As per Stacks....YIKES! They are near the bottom, at least they are starting to link trueviews though. Heritage you can usually tell from the slab photos what a coin looks like.
I thought it was disgraceful that Stacks used TrueViews as glamour shots in the Hendricks Auction.
IMHO there is nothing wrong with using TV's as long as they're used in tandem with other images that give a better idea of how the coin looks in-hand. It's not that TV's don't accurately represent most coins, it's that they show the "best possible angle" on most coins, which doesn't really set reasonable expectations.
"It's like God, Family, Country, except Sticker, Plastic, Coin."
Per photos! Let Great Collections stay where they are...after you learn their pictures...to an extent...makes for some bargains!
As per Stacks....YIKES! They are near the bottom, at least they are starting to link trueviews though. Heritage you can usually tell from the slab photos what a coin looks like.
Agree to disagree, Trueviews are rarely an accurate in-hand representation of the coin, why would you give them credit for using those? They have utility on certain coins that need to be imaged outside of the slab for best results, but otherwise, I never rely on them to form a solid opinion on a coin, more just as a data point to take into account in combination with other images/videos.
Who all is there that handles a decent volume in US? there's four main players right? This is how I'd rank them.
Stacks
David Lawrence
GreatCollections
Heritage
If you expand to the more limited, niche auctioneers you could probably put Legend on top of that list. Or do you really wanna tell me HA's scans are better than Stacks close ups? That GC's slab shots with no extra images are better than SB? DLRC is the only one of the group that provides close ups of every coin they sell and their images are lackluster at best, and I say this as somebody who knows their coin photography well.
Love your passion but reverse your rankings.
If you think HA has the best pics in the business, I can only guess you maybe own a stake in HA? Seriously, their images are atrocious. Their glamour shots are not great either, I take better images than whoever they use. And if anybody wants to go after Stacks for using TV's, they should go after HA for using TV's AND the NGC images.
EDIT: Upon review, HA's recent in house glamour pics are decent. Now they just need to do them for every coin they get in because their slab shots are still baaaaad.
Just my two cents.
"It's like God, Family, Country, except Sticker, Plastic, Coin."
It's rarely more than two because there are so many aggressive buyers on eBay. Every time I list a PQ coin for a reasonable price, that coin is gone in 48-72 hours.
eBay is hungry and I LOVE it.
Just a suggestion- You might want to do a past sales archive search on GC and just validate that your buy price is as good as GC. If it is, I am glad for you.
WS
My buy prices? My bread and butter is buying raw and grading it... Apples to oranges.
If you mean sales prices, well since I play mostly in the $200-$500 region, GC's 12.5% cut hits a good bit harder than eBay's effective 9% cut (factoring in sales tax transactions).
I do consign some stuff to GC, but just the stuff that tends to do real well there like toned Morgans.
WHAT? You mean ebay is cheaper???? But people call it "Feebay"....
I will say this, ebay is expensive when you consider what they actually do. I remember in the early days thinking....man they are making a killing just having a bunch of servers whirring away racking in the dough. I would have bought into ebay when they went public if I had been given the opportunity...turned out it was an invite only. I talked at length with someone I met later who was given that opportunity. He went and viewed their operation and it was just a room full of servers, etc. He passed! I told him I bet you understand now that was a big mistake! It didn't take a genius to figure out how much money they were raking in just on listing fees alone! He did agree with me!
And now listings are free
I actually wish that eBay would charge a listing fee on every listing
Yeah would be great if certain sellers wouldn't relist their barbers so dang often.
If your talking about me...mine run for 28-30 days before I relist. I do 25 a day usually and have +/- 800 listings in Barber Halves. I could double that but try not to duplicate too much. Mr. Arnie ends and relists his probably twice a week. Then you have a few sellers that are relisting low grade raw coins weekly...some at auction...Those sum up to several hundred a day!
For those wanting sellers to pay listing fees....you would see a lot of the decent coin listings dry up. I was always pretty stubborn about listing fees so my coins would cycle every 3 months. Covid made ebay realize how much sales were boosted when they opened up the amount of listings. I would say free but I am paying a subscription.
It's rarely more than two because there are so many aggressive buyers on eBay. Every time I list a PQ coin for a reasonable price, that coin is gone in 48-72 hours.
eBay is hungry and I LOVE it.
Just a suggestion- You might want to do a past sales archive search on GC and just validate that your buy price is as good as GC. If it is, I am glad for you.
WS
My buy prices? My bread and butter is buying raw and grading it... Apples to oranges.
If you mean sales prices, well since I play mostly in the $200-$500 region, GC's 12.5% cut hits a good bit harder than eBay's effective 9% cut (factoring in sales tax transactions).
I do consign some stuff to GC, but just the stuff that tends to do real well there like toned Morgans.
WHAT? You mean ebay is cheaper???? But people call it "Feebay"....
I will say this, ebay is expensive when you consider what they actually do. I remember in the early days thinking....man they are making a killing just having a bunch of servers whirring away racking in the dough. I would have bought into ebay when they went public if I had been given the opportunity...turned out it was an invite only. I talked at length with someone I met later who was given that opportunity. He went and viewed their operation and it was just a room full of servers, etc. He passed! I told him I bet you understand now that was a big mistake! It didn't take a genius to figure out how much money they were raking in just on listing fees alone! He did agree with me!
And now listings are free
I actually wish that eBay would charge a listing fee on every listing
Yeah would be great if certain sellers wouldn't relist their barbers so dang often.
If your talking about me...mine run for 28-30 days before I relist. I do 25 a day usually and have +/- 800 listings in Barber Halves. I could double that but try not to duplicate too much. Mr. Arnie ends and relists his probably twice a week. Then you have a few sellers that are relisting low grade raw coins weekly...some at auction...Those sum up to several hundred a day!
For those wanting sellers to pay listing fees....you would see a lot of the decent coin listings dry up. I was always pretty stubborn about listing fees so my coins would cycle every 3 months. Covid made ebay realize how much sales were boosted when they opened up the amount of listings. I would say free but I am paying a subscription.
I was just messing with you lol. I relist mine every 30 days.
I don't think listing fees are a good idea to be clear. Especially not when I already pay for a store, we agree there.
"It's like God, Family, Country, except Sticker, Plastic, Coin."
I think eBay should charge "buyers" who look at stuff but rarely buy anything. I mean- as long as we're considering making things more difficult for sellers here. Only seems fair...
I know the dealers hate eBay I understand that I’ve asked several dealers to keep an eye out for stuff never heard back I’ve found 98% of the beaver collection on eBay
@jabba said:
I know the dealers hate eBay I understand that
Lots of dealers sell on eBay, too.
@jabba said:
I’ve asked several dealers to keep an eye out for stuff never heard back
Want lists are a lot of work. You go to the trouble of finding coins for people and they still end up not buying for one reason or another.
Lots of dealers like ebay. Some dealers have issues that arise from eBay. For example, people will come in with a corroded 1909 cent and bring an ebay comp of a PCGS graded MS64 and get mad when they are offered 3 cents for the coin. But plenty of dealers use eBay.
I don't even keep want lists. Too often the would-be buyer passes on the coin and I'm stuck with something in inventory that I didn't really want to buy.
@MasonG said:
I think eBay should charge "buyers" who look at stuff but rarely buy anything. I mean- as long as we're considering making things more difficult for sellers here. Only seems fair...
I think that would do major damage to their bottom line. I would promptly close my eBay and PayPal account.
@MasonG said:
I think eBay should charge "buyers" who look at stuff but rarely buy anything. I mean- as long as we're considering making things more difficult for sellers here. Only seems fair...
I think that would do major damage to their bottom line. I would promptly close my eBay and PayPal account.
That was sarcasm. People seem to like suggesting things that benefit them, but impose a cost on others.
@alaura22 said:
I look on ebay and buy elsewhere. Not going to give into there tax practices
You mean your state's tax practices. eBay is, like it or not, simply, though imperfectly, following state laws. As they stabilize, I suspect eBay's practices will perfect.
@alaura22 said:
I look on ebay and buy elsewhere. Not going to give into there tax practices
You mean your state's tax practices. eBay is, like it or not, simply, though imperfectly, following state laws. As they stabilize, I suspect eBay's practices will perfect.
My state, Utah has no sales tax on coins and most collectibles yet they still want to charge me tax on my coin purchases. Until they fix it I won't buy higher priced coins there
It's rarely more than two because there are so many aggressive buyers on eBay. Every time I list a PQ coin for a reasonable price, that coin is gone in 48-72 hours.
eBay is hungry and I LOVE it.
Just a suggestion- You might want to do a past sales archive search on GC and just validate that your buy price is as good as GC. If it is, I am glad for you.
WS
My buy prices? My bread and butter is buying raw and grading it... Apples to oranges.
If you mean sales prices, well since I play mostly in the $200-$500 region, GC's 12.5% cut hits a good bit harder than eBay's effective 9% cut (factoring in sales tax transactions).
I do consign some stuff to GC, but just the stuff that tends to do real well there like toned Morgans.
WHAT? You mean ebay is cheaper???? But people call it "Feebay"....
I will say this, ebay is expensive when you consider what they actually do. I remember in the early days thinking....man they are making a killing just having a bunch of servers whirring away racking in the dough. I would have bought into ebay when they went public if I had been given the opportunity...turned out it was an invite only. I talked at length with someone I met later who was given that opportunity. He went and viewed their operation and it was just a room full of servers, etc. He passed! I told him I bet you understand now that was a big mistake! It didn't take a genius to figure out how much money they were raking in just on listing fees alone! He did agree with me!
And now listings are free
I actually wish that eBay would charge a listing fee on every listing
Agree. Charge a high listing fee. If the coin sells, they get the fee back. It would discourage non-sense listings such as common circulated Lincoln cent for $10,000.
How high of a listing fee? A legitimate seller may be turned off.
I don't think sellers should be discouraged from listing stuff for sale. If you think it's overpriced, just skip over it. eBay provides plenty of search filters to help you do just that.
@MasonG said:
I don't think sellers should be discouraged from listing stuff for sale. If you think it's overpriced, just skip over it. eBay provides plenty of search filters to help you do just that.
Somehow this thread went from a complaint about the lack of new material on ebay to suggestions on how to discourage people from listing new material.
eBay used to charge listing fees based on starting price. In 2007, the fees ranged from 20c to a bit under $5. Those fees didn't discourage people from listing new material. They DID discourage:
Listing the same material over and over at a high price that generated no bids the last time
Listing garbage that is unlikely to sell at any price
Those fees ENCOURAGED:
Low starting prices (especially for items that items that the seller knows will get high final bids)
The thing is, all three of those bullet points are the opposite of what eBay wants. eBay is catering to commercial sellers. They WANT people (or better, companies) to list huge inventories of items that rarely sell, so that customers view eBay as a destination place to show when they are looking for consumer goods. eBay also benefits from the final-value fees when an overpriced item finds a sucker^H^H^H^H^H buyer eventually -- it's no skin off eBay's nose to have all of the useless listings sitting in their system until that lightning strikes.
For that matter, it hurts eBay's bottom line when a seller starts an item low and it sells for its natural price after a week's worth of bidding. They get higher final value fees from sellers who know the market and have higher starting prices in the first place.
All of that makes sense in the retail space where all items are interchangeable. It doesn't make sense for collectibles where every item is unique. In the retail space, eBay wins by encouraging small numbers of high-volume sellers. In the collectibles space, eBay (and everyone else) wins by having large numbers of small sellers, each selling unique items.
We're where we are because eBay views the retail space as the way to make money. As much as I hate that answer personally, I can't say that they've made the wrong decision for their business.
I have been selling on eBay for a number of years. I sold $500 worth of coins this year, but I do not plan to sell anymore as I do not want to deal with the 1099 form. eBay could be losing some causal coin sellers because of the rates, taxes, manage payments and 1099 form, If I sell anything else this year, it will be at Great Collections.
@jonathanb said:
eBay also benefits from the final-value fees when an overpriced item finds a sucker^H^H^H^H^H buyer eventually
"Overpriced" is a matter of perspective. I have no doubt you've paid more for coins than I would have. Does that make you a sucker?
@jonathanb said:
it's no skin off eBay's nose to have all of the useless listings sitting in their system until that lightning strikes.
Those listings aren't useless if they attract a buyer. So what if it takes a week or a month or a year? They're not harming anyone by being there. Not every coin has thousands of prospective buyers looking for one. How many people do you think there are looking for a specific date/denomination from Ghana? I sold a coin today that I've had in my store for about three years. It was listed with a price and the "Make Offer" option enabled. Nobody had offered on it yet and the buyer didn't, either- he paid the asking price. Useless listing? Sure, I guess- up until it's not. And for the ones that never sell- so what? "But they clutter up the site." Depending on who you ask, anything can be clutter. Good luck getting eBay onboard with only allowing listings for stuff you're interested in.
@jonathanb said:
In the collectibles space, eBay (and everyone else) wins by having large numbers of small sellers, each selling unique items.
Charging listing fees certainly won't encourage more small sellers to offer stuff for sale.
@jmlanzaf said:
Somehow this thread went from a complaint about the lack of new material on ebay to suggestions on how to discourage people from listing new material.
People don't want to discourage ALL new material- just the stuff they're not interested in.
@alaura22 said:
I look on ebay and buy elsewhere. Not going to give into there tax practices
You mean your state's tax practices. eBay is, like it or not, simply, though imperfectly, following state laws. As they stabilize, I suspect eBay's practices will perfect.
My state, Utah has no sales tax on coins and most collectibles yet they still want to charge me tax on my coin purchases. Until they fix it I won't buy higher priced coins there
Same here. I was able to get them to refund tax charges without much effort. Not sure why they can't just fix it though.
@slider23 said:
I have been selling on eBay for a number of years. I sold $500 worth of coins this year, but I do not plan to sell anymore as I do not want to deal with the 1099 form. eBay could be losing some causal coin sellers because of the rates, taxes, manage payments and 1099 form, If I sell anything else this year, it will be at Great Collections.
@ErrorsOnCoins said:
Actually they are harming people as in a waste of time spent searching.
Haven't you bragged about scoring deals from people who list coins with poor descriptions?
@ErrorsOnCoins said:
Some of my best coin deals come from sellers with crappy pictures, no return policy, and primarily sell other stuff like antiques or auto parts.
If you want these kind of coin deals, you have to put up with the parking lot coin people, too.
@ErrorsOnCoins said:
Actually they are harming people as in a waste of time spent searching.
Haven't you bragged about scoring deals from people who list coins with poor descriptions?
@ErrorsOnCoins said:
Some of my best coin deals come from sellers with crappy pictures, no return policy, and primarily sell other stuff like antiques or auto parts.
If you want these kind of coin deals, you have to put up with the parking lot coin people, too.
Two different things apples to peanuts.
I love buying great coins from horrible photos.
I hate searching through all the krap that shouldn't be there in the first place..
I spend more hours searching than any other part of the job. Because I have to search through crap, it takes more of my time and thus I have to charge a higher markup to pay me for my time.
@jonathanb said:
eBay used to charge listing fees based on starting price. In 2007, the fees ranged from 20c to a bit under $5. Those fees didn't discourage people from listing new material. They DID discourage:
Listing the same material over and over at a high price that generated no bids the last time
Listing garbage that is unlikely to sell at any price
Those fees ENCOURAGED:
Low starting prices (especially for items that items that the seller knows will get high final bids)
The thing is, all three of those bullet points are the opposite of what eBay wants. eBay is catering to commercial sellers. They WANT people (or better, companies) to list huge inventories of items that rarely sell, so that customers view eBay as a destination place to show when they are looking for consumer goods. eBay also benefits from the final-value fees when an overpriced item finds a sucker^H^H^H^H^H buyer eventually -- it's no skin off eBay's nose to have all of the useless listings sitting in their system until that lightning strikes.
For that matter, it hurts eBay's bottom line when a seller starts an item low and it sells for its natural price after a week's worth of bidding. They get higher final value fees from sellers who know the market and have higher starting prices in the first place.
All of that makes sense in the retail space where all items are interchangeable. It doesn't make sense for collectibles where every item is unique. In the retail space, eBay wins by encouraging small numbers of high-volume sellers. In the collectibles space, eBay (and everyone else) wins by having large numbers of small sellers, each selling unique items.
We're where we are because eBay views the retail space as the way to make money. As much as I hate that answer personally, I can't say that they've made the wrong decision for their business.
I will counter you with this from my history on ebay. Back around 2000 or so I was just about fed up with ebay. They were actually making more than I was and I was doing all the work and taking all the risks! I listed 20 coins which included every key date coin in the 20th century...yes, 01-S + 16 quarters etc as a test. Most were certified and I started them very cheap...basically break even if they sold at the opening bid. I didn't sell a single coin. Within the next month I had sold all but 2 at shows, mostly to dealers for considerably more than I started them for on ebay and had no fees to pay other than my table rent. And yes...I had a good rep back then also. I don't think I got my 1st neg until the 2010's from an Italian trying to rip me off using feedback as extortion.
You know what I did???? I stopped selling on ebay for over 10 years! What drew me back was the fact that they did finally bring in more serious buyers with their seller protections etc. I still think ebay needs to back off their FVF fees a bit. Perhaps then folks could list a lot of the stuff you are referring to where it would sell!
@MasonG said:
Charging listing fees certainly won't encourage more small sellers to offer stuff for sale.
The encouragement comes from building a thriving community where sellers can count on getting good prices for the items they list. One way to do that is to discourage the crap listings that drive away the potential buyers who reasonably feel that eBay is a waste of their time.
People don't want to discourage ALL new material- just the stuff they're not interested in.
Many listings are the equivalent of used bubblegum. An item shouldn't be listed just in the hope that someone somewhere someday will be confused enough to buy it.
Many more listings are the equivalent of selling unused bubblegum for $10 a pack. The seller makes money from the occasional clueless bidder. So does eBay. The buyer loses, and so does the community.
We don't get new listings now. We get the same retreads that don't sell over and over for months or years on end.
Give me new listings, and I would tolerate the occasional used bubblegum.
@jonathanb said:
Many listings are the equivalent of used bubblegum. An item shouldn't be listed just in the hope that someone somewhere someday will be confused enough to buy it.
Sounds like you would do better on a more structured website where there are professional numismatists to decide what kinds of coins will be made available to choose from and leave eBay for those who don't mind a more "flea market" type experience.
@MasonG said:
Charging listing fees certainly won't encourage more small sellers to offer stuff for sale.
The encouragement comes from building a thriving community where sellers can count on getting good prices for the items they list. One way to do that is to discourage the crap listings that drive away the potential buyers who reasonably feel that eBay is a waste of their time.
People don't want to discourage ALL new material- just the stuff they're not interested in.
Many listings are the equivalent of used bubblegum. An item shouldn't be listed just in the hope that someone somewhere someday will be confused enough to buy it.
Many more listings are the equivalent of selling unused bubblegum for $10 a pack. The seller makes money from the occasional clueless bidder. So does eBay. The buyer loses, and so does the community.
We don't get new listings now. We get the same retreads that don't sell over and over for months or years on end.
Give me new listings, and I would tolerate the occasional used bubblegum.
There are a lot of "junk coins" that people buy. Complaining about what is listed amounts to wanting only listings that interest you. You have curated sites and auction houses for higher end material.
@slider23 said:
I have been selling on eBay for a number of years. I sold $500 worth of coins this year, but I do not plan to sell anymore as I do not want to deal with the 1099 form. eBay could be losing some causal coin sellers because of the rates, taxes, manage payments and 1099 form, If I sell anything else this year, it will be at Great Collections.
Potentially penny wise, pound foolish
Gotta agree. I avoided going all in on eBay for years because, while I do report my income, I didn't want the hassle of a 1099. This year, I embraced it, LLC'ed it up, and it's just been absolutely bonkers on eBay. For the first time in my life as a hybrid collector/dealer, I'm legitimately struggling with burnout. Never realized I could move this many coins for this strong money this fast.
"It's like God, Family, Country, except Sticker, Plastic, Coin."
@slider23 said:
I have been selling on eBay for a number of years. I sold $500 worth of coins this year, but I do not plan to sell anymore as I do not want to deal with the 1099 form. eBay could be losing some causal coin sellers because of the rates, taxes, manage payments and 1099 form, If I sell anything else this year, it will be at Great Collections.
I don't see how that helps. GC is under the same 1099 requirements as eBay. They may be required to collect sales tax in some states. They have buyer premia. None of which is to say there aren't reasons to sell through GC rather than eBay, but I'm not so sure that the ones you've enumerated apply.
@slider23 said:
I have been selling on eBay for a number of years. I sold $500 worth of coins this year, but I do not plan to sell anymore as I do not want to deal with the 1099 form. eBay could be losing some causal coin sellers because of the rates, taxes, manage payments and 1099 form, If I sell anything else this year, it will be at Great Collections.
I don't see how that helps. GC is under the same 1099 requirements as eBay. They may be required to collect sales tax in some states. They have buyer premia. None of which is to say there aren't reasons to sell through GC rather than eBay, but I'm not so sure that the ones you've enumerated apply.
I'm not sure that's true. On eBay you're a "stuff" seller/buyer, not a coin dealer. On GC, you're consigning to them, and I think that makes a big difference. I don't get a 1099 if I sell thousands of dollars worth of coins to my local dealer.
@slider23 said:
I have been selling on eBay for a number of years. I sold $500 worth of coins this year, but I do not plan to sell anymore as I do not want to deal with the 1099 form. eBay could be losing some causal coin sellers because of the rates, taxes, manage payments and 1099 form, If I sell anything else this year, it will be at Great Collections.
I don't see how that helps. GC is under the same 1099 requirements as eBay. They may be required to collect sales tax in some states. They have buyer premia. None of which is to say there aren't reasons to sell through GC rather than eBay, but I'm not so sure that the ones you've enumerated apply.
I'm not sure that's true. On eBay you're a "stuff" seller/buyer, not a coin dealer. On GC, you're consigning to them, and I think that makes a big difference. I don't get a 1099 if I sell thousands of dollars worth of coins to my local dealer.
@slider23 said:
I have been selling on eBay for a number of years. I sold $500 worth of coins this year, but I do not plan to sell anymore as I do not want to deal with the 1099 form. eBay could be losing some causal coin sellers because of the rates, taxes, manage payments and 1099 form, If I sell anything else this year, it will be at Great Collections.
I don't see how that helps. GC is under the same 1099 requirements as eBay. They may be required to collect sales tax in some states. They have buyer premia. None of which is to say there aren't reasons to sell through GC rather than eBay, but I'm not so sure that the ones you've enumerated apply.
I'm not sure that's true. On eBay you're a "stuff" seller/buyer, not a coin dealer. On GC, you're consigning to them, and I think that makes a big difference. I don't get a 1099 if I sell thousands of dollars worth of coins to my local dealer.
Hmmm, wonder if Heritage has to issue 1099's now if some are expecting them from GC? It' been awhile but there was a time I had 100K+ in sales through Heritage in a year.
@slider23 said:
I have been selling on eBay for a number of years. I sold $500 worth of coins this year, but I do not plan to sell anymore as I do not want to deal with the 1099 form. eBay could be losing some causal coin sellers because of the rates, taxes, manage payments and 1099 form, If I sell anything else this year, it will be at Great Collections.
I don't see how that helps. GC is under the same 1099 requirements as eBay. They may be required to collect sales tax in some states. They have buyer premia. None of which is to say there aren't reasons to sell through GC rather than eBay, but I'm not so sure that the ones you've enumerated apply.
I'm not sure that's true. On eBay you're a "stuff" seller/buyer, not a coin dealer. On GC, you're consigning to them, and I think that makes a big difference. I don't get a 1099 if I sell thousands of dollars worth of coins to my local dealer.
Hmmm, wonder if Heritage has to issue 1099's now if some are expecting them from GC? It' been awhile but there was a time I had 100K+ in sales through Heritage in a year.
The ebay law was specifically for marketplaces. They did not (yet) change the rules for auction houses.
Getting or not getting a 1099 has nothing to do with owing taxes. It only matters if you're thinking about not paying taxes on your profits and you don't want the government to know about them.
@MasonG said:
Getting or not getting a 1099 has nothing to do with owing taxes. It only matters if you're thinking about not paying taxes on your profits and you don't want the government to know about them.
If you sell coins at a loss, there's no taxes owed but when you still get a 1099 you have to do extra work filling your taxes.
Worry is the interest you pay on a debt you may not owe.
"Paper money eventually returns to its intrinsic value---zero."----Voltaire
"Everything you say should be true, but not everything true should be said."----Voltaire
Comments
I thought it was disgraceful that Stacks used TrueViews as glamour shots in the Hendricks Auction.
There are tons of coins out there for sale on ebay if you are looking for overpriced cleaned crap
You just have to look harder for the good stuff - searches with high volume cleaned crap sellers excluded help with that.
I just bought an outstanding raw 1924 buff on ebay. I could not be happier with it.
Collector, occasional seller
Yeah would be great if certain sellers wouldn't relist their barbers so dang often.
"It's like God, Family, Country, except Sticker, Plastic, Coin."
IMHO there is nothing wrong with using TV's as long as they're used in tandem with other images that give a better idea of how the coin looks in-hand. It's not that TV's don't accurately represent most coins, it's that they show the "best possible angle" on most coins, which doesn't really set reasonable expectations.
"It's like God, Family, Country, except Sticker, Plastic, Coin."
If you think HA has the best pics in the business, I can only guess you maybe own a stake in HA? Seriously, their images are atrocious. Their glamour shots are not great either, I take better images than whoever they use. And if anybody wants to go after Stacks for using TV's, they should go after HA for using TV's AND the NGC images.
EDIT: Upon review, HA's recent in house glamour pics are decent. Now they just need to do them for every coin they get in because their slab shots are still baaaaad.
Just my two cents.
"It's like God, Family, Country, except Sticker, Plastic, Coin."
If your talking about me...mine run for 28-30 days before I relist. I do 25 a day usually and have +/- 800 listings in Barber Halves. I could double that but try not to duplicate too much. Mr. Arnie ends and relists his probably twice a week. Then you have a few sellers that are relisting low grade raw coins weekly...some at auction...Those sum up to several hundred a day!
For those wanting sellers to pay listing fees....you would see a lot of the decent coin listings dry up. I was always pretty stubborn about listing fees so my coins would cycle every 3 months. Covid made ebay realize how much sales were boosted when they opened up the amount of listings. I would say free but I am paying a subscription.
I was just messing with you lol. I relist mine every 30 days.
I don't think listing fees are a good idea to be clear. Especially not when I already pay for a store, we agree there.
"It's like God, Family, Country, except Sticker, Plastic, Coin."
I think eBay should charge "buyers" who look at stuff but rarely buy anything. I mean- as long as we're considering making things more difficult for sellers here. Only seems fair...
Time to discuss the elephant in the room! I believe the biggest reason for the decline in sellers is the 1099-K....mic drop!🤣😂
Collectors who want to play dealer but don't want to pay taxes on profits from their sales? I wouldn't be surprised.
Good riddance to tax cheats.
I know the dealers hate eBay I understand that I’ve asked several dealers to keep an eye out for stuff never heard back I’ve found 98% of the beaver collection on eBay
https://www.pcgs.com/setregistry/quarters/washington-quarters-major-sets/washington-quarters-date-set-circulation-strikes-1932-present/publishedset/209923
https://www.pcgs.com/setregistry/quarters/washington-quarters-major-sets/washington-quarters-date-set-circulation-strikes-1932-present/album/209923
Lots of dealers sell on eBay, too.
Want lists are a lot of work. You go to the trouble of finding coins for people and they still end up not buying for one reason or another.
Lots of dealers like ebay. Some dealers have issues that arise from eBay. For example, people will come in with a corroded 1909 cent and bring an ebay comp of a PCGS graded MS64 and get mad when they are offered 3 cents for the coin. But plenty of dealers use eBay.
I don't even keep want lists. Too often the would-be buyer passes on the coin and I'm stuck with something in inventory that I didn't really want to buy.
I guarantee that will happen.
I think that would do major damage to their bottom line. I would promptly close my eBay and PayPal account.
That was sarcasm. People seem to like suggesting things that benefit them, but impose a cost on others.
I look on ebay and buy elsewhere. Not going to give into there tax practices
Mike
My Indians
Danco Set
You mean your state's tax practices. eBay is, like it or not, simply, though imperfectly, following state laws. As they stabilize, I suspect eBay's practices will perfect.
My state, Utah has no sales tax on coins and most collectibles yet they still want to charge me tax on my coin purchases. Until they fix it I won't buy higher priced coins there
Mike
My Indians
Danco Set
Or maybe they see the coins on eBay and look for a website or Instagram site to buy it cheaper.
How high of a listing fee? A legitimate seller may be turned off.
I don't think sellers should be discouraged from listing stuff for sale. If you think it's overpriced, just skip over it. eBay provides plenty of search filters to help you do just that.
Somehow this thread went from a complaint about the lack of new material on ebay to suggestions on how to discourage people from listing new material.
eBay used to charge listing fees based on starting price. In 2007, the fees ranged from 20c to a bit under $5. Those fees didn't discourage people from listing new material. They DID discourage:
Those fees ENCOURAGED:
The thing is, all three of those bullet points are the opposite of what eBay wants. eBay is catering to commercial sellers. They WANT people (or better, companies) to list huge inventories of items that rarely sell, so that customers view eBay as a destination place to show when they are looking for consumer goods. eBay also benefits from the final-value fees when an overpriced item finds a sucker^H^H^H^H^H buyer eventually -- it's no skin off eBay's nose to have all of the useless listings sitting in their system until that lightning strikes.
For that matter, it hurts eBay's bottom line when a seller starts an item low and it sells for its natural price after a week's worth of bidding. They get higher final value fees from sellers who know the market and have higher starting prices in the first place.
All of that makes sense in the retail space where all items are interchangeable. It doesn't make sense for collectibles where every item is unique. In the retail space, eBay wins by encouraging small numbers of high-volume sellers. In the collectibles space, eBay (and everyone else) wins by having large numbers of small sellers, each selling unique items.
We're where we are because eBay views the retail space as the way to make money. As much as I hate that answer personally, I can't say that they've made the wrong decision for their business.
I have been selling on eBay for a number of years. I sold $500 worth of coins this year, but I do not plan to sell anymore as I do not want to deal with the 1099 form. eBay could be losing some causal coin sellers because of the rates, taxes, manage payments and 1099 form, If I sell anything else this year, it will be at Great Collections.
"Overpriced" is a matter of perspective. I have no doubt you've paid more for coins than I would have. Does that make you a sucker?
Those listings aren't useless if they attract a buyer. So what if it takes a week or a month or a year? They're not harming anyone by being there. Not every coin has thousands of prospective buyers looking for one. How many people do you think there are looking for a specific date/denomination from Ghana? I sold a coin today that I've had in my store for about three years. It was listed with a price and the "Make Offer" option enabled. Nobody had offered on it yet and the buyer didn't, either- he paid the asking price. Useless listing? Sure, I guess- up until it's not. And for the ones that never sell- so what? "But they clutter up the site." Depending on who you ask, anything can be clutter. Good luck getting eBay onboard with only allowing listings for stuff you're interested in.
Charging listing fees certainly won't encourage more small sellers to offer stuff for sale.
People don't want to discourage ALL new material- just the stuff they're not interested in.
>
They're not harming anyone by being there.
Actually they are harming people as in a waste of time spent searching.
As an example, anyone can list for free a thousand parking lot errors in my favorite eBay category of Error Coins.
There are about 1000 fake or no values error coins listed for every good one.
The coin market is hungry.
Same here. I was able to get them to refund tax charges without much effort. Not sure why they can't just fix it though.
http://ProofCollection.Net
Potentially penny wise, pound foolish
Haven't you bragged about scoring deals from people who list coins with poor descriptions?
If you want these kind of coin deals, you have to put up with the parking lot coin people, too.
Two different things apples to peanuts.
I love buying great coins from horrible photos.
I hate searching through all the krap that shouldn't be there in the first place..
I spend more hours searching than any other part of the job. Because I have to search through crap, it takes more of my time and thus I have to charge a higher markup to pay me for my time.
I will counter you with this from my history on ebay. Back around 2000 or so I was just about fed up with ebay. They were actually making more than I was and I was doing all the work and taking all the risks! I listed 20 coins which included every key date coin in the 20th century...yes, 01-S + 16 quarters etc as a test. Most were certified and I started them very cheap...basically break even if they sold at the opening bid. I didn't sell a single coin. Within the next month I had sold all but 2 at shows, mostly to dealers for considerably more than I started them for on ebay and had no fees to pay other than my table rent. And yes...I had a good rep back then also. I don't think I got my 1st neg until the 2010's from an Italian trying to rip me off using feedback as extortion.
You know what I did???? I stopped selling on ebay for over 10 years! What drew me back was the fact that they did finally bring in more serious buyers with their seller protections etc. I still think ebay needs to back off their FVF fees a bit. Perhaps then folks could list a lot of the stuff you are referring to where it would sell!
"Shouldn't"? Because it's an annoyance for you?
Because the parking lot coins are not errors, they are trash. A waste of everyones time including the sellers.
The minor error coins are fine because the are error coins.
eBay is not for everybody.
The encouragement comes from building a thriving community where sellers can count on getting good prices for the items they list. One way to do that is to discourage the crap listings that drive away the potential buyers who reasonably feel that eBay is a waste of their time.
Many listings are the equivalent of used bubblegum. An item shouldn't be listed just in the hope that someone somewhere someday will be confused enough to buy it.
Many more listings are the equivalent of selling unused bubblegum for $10 a pack. The seller makes money from the occasional clueless bidder. So does eBay. The buyer loses, and so does the community.
We don't get new listings now. We get the same retreads that don't sell over and over for months or years on end.
Give me new listings, and I would tolerate the occasional used bubblegum.
Sounds like you would do better on a more structured website where there are professional numismatists to decide what kinds of coins will be made available to choose from and leave eBay for those who don't mind a more "flea market" type experience.
There are a lot of "junk coins" that people buy. Complaining about what is listed amounts to wanting only listings that interest you. You have curated sites and auction houses for higher end material.
Gotta agree. I avoided going all in on eBay for years because, while I do report my income, I didn't want the hassle of a 1099. This year, I embraced it, LLC'ed it up, and it's just been absolutely bonkers on eBay. For the first time in my life as a hybrid collector/dealer, I'm legitimately struggling with burnout. Never realized I could move this many coins for this strong money this fast.
"It's like God, Family, Country, except Sticker, Plastic, Coin."
Boy I'll say..
it's taken me months to fill another hole, so to speak, in my holed cbh set.
I don't see how that helps. GC is under the same 1099 requirements as eBay. They may be required to collect sales tax in some states. They have buyer premia. None of which is to say there aren't reasons to sell through GC rather than eBay, but I'm not so sure that the ones you've enumerated apply.
I'm not sure that's true. On eBay you're a "stuff" seller/buyer, not a coin dealer. On GC, you're consigning to them, and I think that makes a big difference. I don't get a 1099 if I sell thousands of dollars worth of coins to my local dealer.
http://ProofCollection.Net
Currently, GC doesn't issue 1099s.
Hmmm, wonder if Heritage has to issue 1099's now if some are expecting them from GC? It' been awhile but there was a time I had 100K+ in sales through Heritage in a year.
The ebay law was specifically for marketplaces. They did not (yet) change the rules for auction houses.
Getting or not getting a 1099 has nothing to do with owing taxes. It only matters if you're thinking about not paying taxes on your profits and you don't want the government to know about them.
If you sell coins at a loss, there's no taxes owed but when you still get a 1099 you have to do extra work filling your taxes.
Worry is the interest you pay on a debt you may not owe.
"Paper money eventually returns to its intrinsic value---zero."----Voltaire
"Everything you say should be true, but not everything true should be said."----Voltaire