My blog today concerns the reader that wants to dispose of a few items or a collection.
I’m one of five writers on Collectors’ Quest (CQ) and we all get questions on value and how to rid yourself of your once prized items (hopefully, at a profit.) We all have a sense of value on the items we discuss, but none of us qualify as appraisers.
My recommendation has been to research the net for value and check local shops for comparable prices in your area. Many good resale or antique shops will tell you the retail price and what they are currently willing to pay (the wholesale price). Normally these prices are based on their knowledge of the current market in your area, how long they may wind up holding onto it before it is going to sell and what is not selling. A check of several stores may reveal a difference in price, based on different clientèle purchasing habits. It’s the same on net sites where you want to see the average selling price not the asking price.
You may want extra cash for a new play thing, computer, flat screen or fishing motor. Could be your cash flow is down due to a layoff and the extra cash is more important than your signed artworks. Or maybe your last child started full time school and you’re bored, and see potential in selling off designer clothing the grandparents flooded the kid with. Could be you just retired and finally have time to thin out your stacks of stuff before you move south.
These are all good reasons to explore selling a collection.
My first suggestion, of course, is to place your collection on Collectors’ Quest – Marketplace using the “tab” above. The easy sign-up and step by step instructions will guide you through the process, and all you will need to start is a digital camera and an idea of the item’s real value. Our Market Place will work well for the collector down-sizing or selling a complete collection of like items.
If your collectibles are bath tubs or buffets, you probably want to use a service like Craig’s List with local pick up as your best bet.
Collectors with tons of high end pottery, china and old glass will do well with a site like TIAS, over the long haul.
A new site with strong early exposure, I Collect 24-7, is a low cost venue for the collector with a broad range of different product to unload, with the restriction, it must be old stuff.
Esty is newer too, and deals with the artsy type collectibles. I imagine you can suggest a few places on the web you might have found for selling your stuff, that you can add to my list by writing a reply at the bottom.
Did I leave out the big elephant in the room? Yes Ebay. Not easy for the beginning net seller to deal with for all the requirement and restrictions imposed on the seller. But still the way of selling a good quantity of items with patience.
Which ever route to success you choose, remember this one rule:
It’s retail sales, the customer is always right, unless they’re wrong.
Buy Low and Sell High, unless you paid too much.
Pack your shipments, as if you’re going to receive it. You may, if you got the label wrong.
You can satisfy all of the customers some of the time, and some of the customers all of the time, but in sales you can’t satisfy all of the customers, all of the time.
In a future post I’ll give you some suggestions on how to handle inventory, cutting costs on packaging and shipping, and lots of incidental stuff you will need to be a successful on line seller.
Good Hunting, and if you can, hold onto your collections for better times.
July 3rd, 2009 at 12:00 PM
Note that Etsy has specific policies about selling items. You can’t just go on there and sell your old collectibles – they need to be either sold as a) supplies to make art out of, or b) some kind of art that you, personally, have created.
For my money, BigCartel is an AMAZING service that enables you to do the same thing, but inventory creation and management is way, way smoother and superior. Listing anything on Etsy is a Kafkaesque nightmare.
I’ve had so many problems with deadbeat bidders on eBay lately that it’s taken 3 months to resolve one $500 issue, during which I couldn’t even use PayPal or eBay safely. Still, despite eBay changing their policies to protect deadbeat bidders and leave sellers in a position where they’re regularly abused, it’s pretty much the only game in town if you want your stuff to sell with minimal promotion.
July 6th, 2009 at 12:52 PM
My grandfather was head photographer for the Cleveland Plain Dealer and I recently came across some of his glass plates. Most noteworthy of these are Eleanore Roosevelt and Amelia Earhart. There are many other plates of the Cleveland Indians during training. I’d like to scan these negatives and share them on this Website to see if there’s a collector interested in purchasing them at a fair price.
Can you please tell me if I should scan these glass plates with a regular scanner (Canon Pixma MP500) then upload them to the market place or do you recommend another route?
Thank you in advance.