I was not going to list any audiobooks for auction this week, as auction sales have been pathetically low these last few weeks. It costs ~$3.50 to list 10 of them, since I generally start the bidding between $1 and $9.99. This means if only one sells, with the PayPal fees and Final Value Fees deducted, there's not much (if any) money left over for Dad.
BUT this changed when eBay announced a 2-day sale on their listings for 7/20 and 7/21. Auction and Fixed Price items only $0.20 apiece. SO, I listed 20 audiobooks to auction on Thursday as 3-day auctions (ending later today) and another 20 on Friday as 7-day auctions.
Already three of the ones ending Friday have bids, and one ending later today has been bid up from an initial $7.50 to $12. Not bad at all. And it only cost $4 for each batch to list them, so there's a pretty good return. Additionally, one of the books from the Store sold for $20, and it's possible that one of the auction books led the person to my Store.
The Big Bad News of late is that later in August eBay is changing their Store fees. What now costs $0.02 to list in the Store will go up to $0.05 - a rather substantial increase. And the Store Item Final Value Fees will also be increasing. All in all, it's going to be a great deal less cost-effective to have a large Store inventory like I have.
So, I also listed a whole lot of my own stuff for auction or fixed price this week, taking advantage of the $0.20 sale. So far none of the auction items have bids. I did, however, relist the 10 Fixed Price Magic cards that didn't sell last week, and three of them have sold. Go figure.
Next time I'll have a Lot 1 and Lot 2 update as well as the results of all the auctions and stuff this week.
Sunday, July 23, 2006
Wednesday, July 19, 2006
Some quick updates...
I just thought I'd bring you up to speed on a couple of items...
First off, the attempt to have comic book auctions that end on Friday night was a complete disaster. Absolutely none of them sold. Was it the day of the week? Or did I not list comics people were interested in? Impossible to know the reason for sure, of course, but I think that I will avoid Friday night endings from now on.
Next up the fixed price Magic cards. None of them sold either, but I believe that they did help drive some traffic to the Store, so for that purpose they were worthwhile. I have relisted the 10 items this week, but changed it so that they end on Sunday night instead of Tuesday night. That might increase the number of them that sell, as they will appear higher on search lists during those crucial weekend sales days.
As for the Lots, I have sold cards from both so far. Lot 1 still has $21.25 to go to break even, and Lot 2 still has $82.10 to break even. These figures do not include the fees to list the items (or the Final Value Fees of the sold items), but it also does not include cards that have sold but payment has not yet arrived. I still believe I will make a profit on both of these Lots, but it will obviously take a while.
No further word from the seller who had filed an Item Not Received complaint with eBay. Hopefully that means that my evidence of delivery was enough to quiet that. I'm hoping it was a simple case of forgetting that they had gotten the card, and now they're embarrassed.
Finally, a bit of an oddity - for some reason I had very poor sales over the weekend (my typical busy time), yet in the past 24 hours I have sold three sets of comics for $42 total to three different people (including one in Portugal!). I have no idea what is suddenly driving traffic to my Comic Book section (I have none up for Fixed Price or Auction right now), but I'm glad for it!
First off, the attempt to have comic book auctions that end on Friday night was a complete disaster. Absolutely none of them sold. Was it the day of the week? Or did I not list comics people were interested in? Impossible to know the reason for sure, of course, but I think that I will avoid Friday night endings from now on.
Next up the fixed price Magic cards. None of them sold either, but I believe that they did help drive some traffic to the Store, so for that purpose they were worthwhile. I have relisted the 10 items this week, but changed it so that they end on Sunday night instead of Tuesday night. That might increase the number of them that sell, as they will appear higher on search lists during those crucial weekend sales days.
As for the Lots, I have sold cards from both so far. Lot 1 still has $21.25 to go to break even, and Lot 2 still has $82.10 to break even. These figures do not include the fees to list the items (or the Final Value Fees of the sold items), but it also does not include cards that have sold but payment has not yet arrived. I still believe I will make a profit on both of these Lots, but it will obviously take a while.
No further word from the seller who had filed an Item Not Received complaint with eBay. Hopefully that means that my evidence of delivery was enough to quiet that. I'm hoping it was a simple case of forgetting that they had gotten the card, and now they're embarrassed.
Finally, a bit of an oddity - for some reason I had very poor sales over the weekend (my typical busy time), yet in the past 24 hours I have sold three sets of comics for $42 total to three different people (including one in Portugal!). I have no idea what is suddenly driving traffic to my Comic Book section (I have none up for Fixed Price or Auction right now), but I'm glad for it!
Saturday, July 15, 2006
Amazing Spider-Man 36 CGC 9.4 White Pages 9/11 story; Akira 1 Katsuhiro Otomo CGC 9.4 White Pages; Superman/Batman 8 1st Print CGC 9.6 First Supergirl
My package from the CGC arrived today. I now have three CGC graded comics listed in my store. I'm not sure if I'm thrilled about the gradings - only 9.4 for two of the comics ("Near Mint") and a 9.6 for the least-valued of the three ("Near Mint+"). But in theory it increases the value of the books.
I had some trouble decided on the price of these three. There are few comps out there to use to gauge what to charge. Most of the other Amazing Spider-Man #36 issues graded 9.4, for example, are signed by either the author (J. Michael Straczynski of Babylon 5 fame) or the artist (John Romita Jr.). That, of course, increases their value - but by how much? The only CGC graded copies of Akira #1 on eBay right now are rated 9.6, not 9.4 - again this increases the value, but by how much? And most of the copies of Superman/Batman #8 that are CGC rated on eBay right now are second or third printings, which decreases their value.
I finally settled on prices ($80, $100 and $60, respectively). It cost me over $60 to have these graded, so I hope that I can get that money back at the very least. We shall see. I'll of course keep you posted.
Another issue which I had not anticipated - the cases that these comics are now sealed in are larger than any box I currently have. I'm not sure how I'm going to ship these things when they're bought!
I had some trouble decided on the price of these three. There are few comps out there to use to gauge what to charge. Most of the other Amazing Spider-Man #36 issues graded 9.4, for example, are signed by either the author (J. Michael Straczynski of Babylon 5 fame) or the artist (John Romita Jr.). That, of course, increases their value - but by how much? The only CGC graded copies of Akira #1 on eBay right now are rated 9.6, not 9.4 - again this increases the value, but by how much? And most of the copies of Superman/Batman #8 that are CGC rated on eBay right now are second or third printings, which decreases their value.
I finally settled on prices ($80, $100 and $60, respectively). It cost me over $60 to have these graded, so I hope that I can get that money back at the very least. We shall see. I'll of course keep you posted.
Another issue which I had not anticipated - the cases that these comics are now sealed in are larger than any box I currently have. I'm not sure how I'm going to ship these things when they're bought!
Friday, July 14, 2006
Best $0.14 I ever spent?
When I ship off a single card, the card + plastic sleeve ("toploader") + bubble mailer envelope comes to just a tad under 1 ounce, so the basic postage is $0.39. Since a bubble mailer is "nonmachinable", there's a $0.13 surcharge added to that. And when I order a mailing label through PayPal, there's an additional $0.14 charge to get a tracking number. All told then a single card costs me $0.66 to ship (plus the cost of the materials: ~$0.08 for the toploader, ~$0.20 for the mailer and ~$0.04 for the label, or $0.32 total there).
Anyway, the point to this is that today a customer from back in May opened a dispute claiming that their item was never received. I shipped that item back on 5/24. Using the USPS website tracking function, I find that the package was delivered on May 30.
SO, either the USPS website is somehow wrong, the package was delivered and stolen, the customer has forgotten that it arrived, or the customer is just for some reason out to get me. Thankfully, I have a tracking number and the USPS site on my side in this dispute, should it go any further (I provided all this info to the customer and hopefully it will not go any further than this). If I had simply taken the package to the Post Office and not gotten the tracking number, I'd have nothing but a receipt saying I shipped something to Independence, LA on May 24. This way I have a little bit more ammo as it were.
So, very glad to have spent that particular $0.14!
Anyway, the point to this is that today a customer from back in May opened a dispute claiming that their item was never received. I shipped that item back on 5/24. Using the USPS website tracking function, I find that the package was delivered on May 30.
SO, either the USPS website is somehow wrong, the package was delivered and stolen, the customer has forgotten that it arrived, or the customer is just for some reason out to get me. Thankfully, I have a tracking number and the USPS site on my side in this dispute, should it go any further (I provided all this info to the customer and hopefully it will not go any further than this). If I had simply taken the package to the Post Office and not gotten the tracking number, I'd have nothing but a receipt saying I shipped something to Independence, LA on May 24. This way I have a little bit more ammo as it were.
So, very glad to have spent that particular $0.14!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)