The Energon Pub

So I'm looking to move abroad for a while and want to sell my collection. I want to find the quickest way to unload everything but still get what they're worth. Does anyone have any suggestions?

Personally, I feel the best way to get the full value is to sell them seperately.

As one full collection, you'd be hard pressed to find someone willing to take it all off your hands and give you the full value.

Burn wrote:Personally, I feel the best way to get the full value is to sell them seperately.

As one full collection, you'd be hard pressed to find someone willing to take it all off your hands and give you the full value.

That's what I thought too. I just have so much it would take me months to sort everything and I want to leave in April.

I love buying from fellow collectors. Make a thread in the Buy sell trade forum with some pics or for starters a list of the items being sold. Lay out your guidelines( paypal, shipping international or not etc etc..) Ebay will get your items to a larger audience but it costs money and can take longer to sell..

You know, if selling them is too much of an effort, you could always give them away.

And seeing as that awesome suggestion came from me I should get first dibs.

nah seriously, try the Trade Forum here, if that doesn't work you can then *shudder* try other TF forums. And when they fail ... there's E-Bay.

I tend to go straight to E-Bay myself, but that's simply because I choose to only sell in Australia (too lazy to deal with international postage) and no one on the Australian forums seem to have any interest in dealing with me. oh woe is me ... take pity on me The Legend and give me some of your TF's.

Sell here for a bit before you go to Ebay. I buy off the forums quite a bit and chek regularly.

From collector to collector, don't charge scalper prices. If you need the money then go through Ebay and auction it off.

Sell your figures individually. Lots more work but you'll get what they're worth.

The Legend wrote:

Burn wrote:Personally, I feel the best way to get the full value is to sell them seperately.

As one full collection, you'd be hard pressed to find someone willing to take it all off your hands and give you the full value.

That's what I thought too. I just have so much it would take me months to sort everything and I want to leave in April.

You can find some places to sell them to, but selling the whole thing is going to get you way less than selling individual figures. Probably going to lose 40-50% of your values compared to what you would get selling individuals here or eBay. You could find another collector to piece together and sell for you, but you would still loose a good percentage by paying them.

Burn wrote:Personally, I feel the best way to get the full value is to sell them seperately.

As one full collection, you'd be hard pressed to find someone willing to take it all off your hands and give you the full value.

That's good advice- start taking pics ASAP of the toys you've got and put them up on Ebay or Crave (or both) as you go so you've got plenty of time to sell them before you go.

Individually is the way to go to get as good a price as possible for them. You could group them in lots if you're collection is really big but be careful no to put too many higher value/harder to find figures in the same lot. Put them in separate lots so as to increase interest in all of your figures/lots instead of lots of interest in only one or two.

Transformerland.com buys collections. They pay better than other resellers. Tell Matt I sent ya'.

So individual lots on eBay it is then.
I have never sold anything on eBay so my seller feedback will be at zero [I have bought a fair bit though]. Will this affect bidding on my items much?
I live in the UK and want to offer my items worldwide. How would I go about working out postage quotes? Or would it be best to work out postage after the auction ends? I don't want to sell a Fort Max or something and have the buyer refuse to pay because the postage is too high to ship to their country.

The Legend wrote:I have never sold anything on eBay so my seller feedback will be at zero [I have bought a fair bit though]. Will this affect bidding on my items much?

Maybe. It depends on the prospective buyer. Some may be hesitant to deal with someone who has no feedback, while others may not give a toss.

I dealt with someone who had hundreds of positive feedbacks, but my item never arrived, last I heard from him was he'd gone into hospital with heart troubles, never heard from him again after that and never got the item. Feedback isn't the be all and end all of e-baying.

I live in the UK and want to offer my items worldwide. How would I go about working out postage quotes? Or would it be best to work out postage after the auction ends? I don't want to sell a Fort Max or something and have the buyer refuse to pay because the postage is too high to ship to their country.

Hit up Royal Mail's website, they should have a postage calculator on there. Do a few items and you'll get a rough feel for costs. Then you can put a price on up front (I find that more attractive in auctions). Or you could just wait until the end, bundle it all up and head to the post office then.

When i've sold i've always had a rough figure for postage, it often worked out I lost a dollar or two but that was no biggie to me.

Burn wrote:

The Legend wrote:I have never sold anything on eBay so my seller feedback will be at zero [I have bought a fair bit though]. Will this affect bidding on my items much?

Maybe. It depends on the prospective buyer. Some may be hesitant to deal with someone who has no feedback, while others may not give a toss.

I dealt with someone who had hundreds of positive feedbacks, but my item never arrived, last I heard from him was he'd gone into hospital with heart troubles, never heard from him again after that and never got the item. Feedback isn't the be all and end all of e-baying.

If I listed the things I don't expect to make much first I expect the feedback from those would help my other items get bids.

Burn wrote:

I live in the UK and want to offer my items worldwide. How would I go about working out postage quotes? Or would it be best to work out postage after the auction ends? I don't want to sell a Fort Max or something and have the buyer refuse to pay because the postage is too high to ship to their country.

Hit up Royal Mail's website, they should have a postage calculator on there. Do a few items and you'll get a rough feel for costs. Then you can put a price on up front (I find that more attractive in auctions). Or you could just wait until the end, bundle it all up and head to the post office then.

When i've sold i've always had a rough figure for postage, it often worked out I lost a dollar or two but that was no biggie to me.

I also wouldn't bid on an item from an international seller without at least a rough idea of postage. Maybe I should list the weight and dimensions of each item to give people enough information to work out a rough postage.

The zero feedback thing will deter very few buyers. If you take good, clear pics and describe your items well then you're golden. Transformers are a popular item to shop for on Ebay as it's the only place to get a lot of older figures and accessories so it'll be fine.

Basically it's easy to offer your items to be available worldwide. If you're worried about postage then most of the big worldwide shipping companies will offer an online estimate service that you can include in your auctions or can check if an interested buyer asks how much it will cost to ship to their country. You just need to know the approximate weight of the items in KGs so you can do an estimate. You can encourage buyers from foreign countries to contact you for shipping estimates before bidding.

Remember that you'll need to use trackable shipping to protect yourself from the (very rare) dishonest buyers you may encounter and lost items in the post. it's best to say upfront how much the shipping will cost as some buyers are really whiny about how much it costs. If people have a problem with the cost then tell them quite clearly - don't bid on my items.

To encourage bidding on multiple auctions you can try offering combined shipping with discounts which work a treat if you're trying to sell many items plus it's convenient to you as it means less trips to the post office!

Also include a short note in the auction which states that you are not liable for customs fees or import duties as I had a bad experience with a buyer once (only one time out of 200+ transactions) where he had reasonably high shipping because he lived far away but got hit with a customs fee and expected me to pay for it! The rude f***er left negative feedback despite getting his item within a week and in perfect condition.

Hope this helps, if you have any other questions then please just let me know!