I have reached a point where I need to fuel my hobby, with my hobby.  In the interests of my finances and my available storage space I have reached the decision to sell off a complete set of Harbinger so that I can create a fund to power future mini's purchases.  

With that being said, I am looking for advice on pricing this set.  The minis in question are unbagged.  Most have been played with, but I keep my minis and cards in superb condition.

The set also feature many of each common and many of most uncommons.  In total almost 210 minis.  There are a number of duplicate rares as well, specifically the large earth elemental, ogre, and troll.

Also I am hoping to sell to a community member, but I feel that Ebay is the safest route.  I know its more profitable to break out the rares individually, but its just too much work to do it all separate.  I'm not looking to make a fortune, just to fund future purchases

My questions are:

What is a fair price?  
What is the best venue to make the sale?  (eBay, forums, etc)
Who is my target buyer? (dealers, enthusiasts, etc)

Thanks for your input.

- Moe

Personally, I'm a big fan of 'paying for your hobby with your hobby'.  I've gone so far as to say if I don't have any money in my Paypal account from selling things, I'm not allowed to buy things (luckily that situation is rare, though it does happen).  There are benefits to each method of selling (Ebay and Forum)

First, on Ebay, you are much more likely to get a quick sale.  Selling through forums definitely requires more patience.  I have ended up selling items from threads that are no longer even on the first page and I thought were dead. 

Just a quick glance at Ebay leads me to believe you'll get between $500-$700 for a set of Harbinger, with the extras it'll probably be closer to $700-$900 or a little more, depending on the breakout of uncommons vs. commons.  (The guides here will show much higher 'value', but the best way to judge the value of an item is to look at actual auction sales and prices).  If you do a search, the last two sets sold for $482 and $689.  (One of the drawbacks to Ebay is the range of prices you may get.)

You really need to set a reasonable starting bid, even though your instincts may be to set a high reserve or high starting bid (because you don't want to get less than they're worth), because I have found the more interest you generate in your auction, the higher it will sell for.  I've had much better results since I started using low auction start prices, because everyone likes a bargain, but at the same time it also makes for more competitive auctions, which drives the end price up.

The main drawback for Ebay for me is fees.  If you end up selling your figs for $800, you might end up paying $60-$90 in fees between your listing fee, end value fee, and the Paypal fee.  To me, that's always been a very high percentage of the sales price, and one of the main reasons I prefer private sales.

As for Ebay being the safest route, that may or may not be true.  If you are paid through Paypal and the buyer has a confirmed address (whether privately or through Ebay), you are automatically covered for $250 of the sale.  You can purchase insurance for the rest (and can build that into the sale price if you choose).  There is still also the same potential for fraud on Ebay, if not more (because there are many people who make a living defrauding people on Ebay, while most forums are pretty specialized affairs); I have lost more money to fraud on Ebay (Around $400 over the last 6 years) than in private sales (Around $20).  It is definitely more structured and you can protect yourself reasonably well if you know what to look for.  After much time, I have learned many of the warning signs of fraudulent buyers (Low feedback, buying an item type they have never bought before (this is the biggest warning sign I have seen), recent negative feedback, lots of pre-sale communication (some is good, too much is them trying to make you feel comfortable with them), and the like).

Forums have their own system that deters fraud, and that is the community.  Most of the people here, and on forums in general, are enthusiasts in their hobby, and the last thing they want is to screw someone and get cast out.  The same warning signs apply:  be wary of people who have 'just joined the forum to buy your item', people with rare log-in dates, people with no trade history and the like.  Also, Google is your friend when it comes to preventing fraud.  I had a buyer with only 1 post here want to buy a pretty big lot from me, so I was immediately on guard.  However, a quick Google search showed he had accounts with Maxminis, Hordelings, and Wizards site, as well as a large number of posts and trades on other sites (he just didn't use Maxminis often), and so I ended up having a great transaction.

Anyhoo, good luck and I hope you enjoy the process; selling things is fun!

Thanks for that very informative reply TLorin, this info would be useful to be referenced in the future.

Dave

I think this belongs in the market place, though, not the trade forum.

It sounds like you have your mind made up already but breaking it up and selling individual rares on ebay will net you much more money with which to fund future purchases. You should seriously reconsider it. Yes, there are various fees. Yes, it's time consuming but you will net higher gains this way. Last year I sold complete Harbinger and Archfiends sets here to a fellow board member and to this day I wish I had kept them and sold them off piecemeal. Just my 2 cents.

How would you maximize the U/C's?  Some will sell well, orc warrior, gnoll, etc, others won't.  Would you sell them all individually? Or sell individual rares and the U/C's as a set of each?  I ask because I'm seriously considering selling a complete set of Archfiends.  I haven't convinced myself to sell Har yet.

Yeah, let me clarify. Sell the rares individually and combine shipping for buyers. I listed my stuff over several weeks and used a shipping system something like this...

1st class shipping in the U.S.
1-4 minis - $3.00
4 or more - $4.00

Airmail shipping to Canada
1-4 minis - $3.00
4 or more - $4.00


I'm convinced it led to higher bids. Zenako might agree with me if he wasn't ritting his brain with DDO

As far as c/uc is concerned, I would group them in bunches. Doing a set of commons and a set of uncommons is probably a decent way to go. Either that or just put them all in one big lot of c/uc.

Oh yeah, start ALL your auctions at 99 cents. I'm also convinced that starting the bidding very low will net you the best returns in the end. It did for me and I consistently see low starting auctions doing better than higher starting ones.

DDO Brain rot is right....just came off a bonus weekend and need to step back a bit...

Tlorin's advice is sound.

Rule of thumb that still seems to operate is that complete sets sell on EBAY for about 40-50% of guide price. While I do not track them quite as closely as I once did, I do spot checks and find the rules still apply.

Break up or set sales. How much is your time worth to you for extra packing and shipping and details and dealing with a number of buyers? Only you can answer that question. There are MANY buyers out there only looking for a few minis to complete a set and go to EBAY to find them cheaper than the online stores offer them at. So what you are hopeing to do is to get close to the store price (maybe even over it since not everyone knows of the stores). That is a realistic maximum price on average. If I need a Shambling Mound, i might pay a bit extra for it, But not even bid on an entire set....

Oh well, DDO forums were down this morning, perhaps burned out from the servers loads this past weekend....so I was checking out some of these threads. I still spot many familiar names on mini bidding...

see ya around