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A new article titled A Guide to Selling Miniatures on Ebay has been added to the dakka articles system.

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This is a good idea for an article. I was amazed at how easily the thread magically became an article (at least I hope it didn't involve hours of transcribing for the 11 year old laotians Legoburner keeps in his basement).

We could add a few bits of wisdom for buying warhammer stuff off of eBay and truly make it a Dakka Rules of Aquisition.

The tips about selling times are great, thanks for that, I never really thought about it before.

Polonius wrote:This is a good idea for an article. I was amazed at how easily the thread magically became an article (at least I hope it didn't involve hours of transcribing for the 11 year old laotians Legoburner keeps in his basement).

We could add a few bits of wisdom for buying warhammer stuff off of eBay and truly make it a Dakka Rules of Aquisition.

Laotians? I wish I had laotian levels of money, I am stuck with trained monkeys :(

Buying warhammer stuff on ebay would be a useful article as well, and is actually on my todo list at some point, but I am in no hurry to add it just yet as I am working on a dozen other things right now. If you want to get started on it as an article then please be my guest, or start a forum thread to collect people's thoughts on the matter.

Kudos to yakface for cleaning up the article and making it much easier to read too!

Simple and useful, thanks for the post.

One thing about business that is always mentioned: "Know your customers"

So here is a comment from someone who frequently visits ebay to rebuild their 40k army and what I look for, what I avoid and things that just really p*ss me off.

First thing I always look for is lots of random bits. If the picture shows that I can build at least a couple marines, then I'm interested. Half of the hobby for me is assembling the miniatures how I want and unless I buy new, this is the next best thing. And it's always fun to see how lucky I get with a purchase by how many marines I can build.

Paint quality doesn't matter to me because I'm going to strip everything and paint them to match my current models anyway (I found that Pawls brand pet urine remover does an awesome job at stripping models and I can get it dirt cheap for 32 or 64 oz bottles) Which means I'm going to avoid any auction labeled "Pro Painted" because that just means "overpriced".

I look for bids that start low, I want a chance to get a used model cheaper than buying new. So starting bidding off at 75% retail cost, I'm going to skip as I might as well head on over to Amazon and buy brand new.

The next thing I make sure to note is shipping cost. I've sold a couple of really large warhammer lots on ebay and I have a pretty good idea how much shipping is so there is no way I'm paying $10 or more for shipping on something that can be shipped for less than $5. In fact, in my auctions I listed mine as free shipping. The cost for me to ship was low enough it really didn't affect the profit much and those auctions always get my attention first so it's more likely the free shipping will be countered by higher bidding.

I always avoid single models unless they are character models and even then I'm weary of the auction. I especially hate the single model auctions where a package was opened, the pieces separated, and just the basic pieces put into the auction. A good example of this is the space wolf thunderwolf cavalry. These are being sold for about $20. First, there's no customization choice as all the alternate bits are left out and 2nd, by the time you've bought 3 of them (which is what comes in a brand new box) you've paid $20 more than if you would have bought brand new AND had all the customization options.

This also goes for splitting up a model, selling the head in one auction, the body in another, the legs in a 3rd and so on. These auctions actually get me to make a list of sellers to avoid because they are trying to do nothing more than rip people off.

Another thing I hate is the bit lots of all the same part. I want a random mix (see above), what am I going to do with 50 heads? Sure I may need 1 or 2, but I'm not going to pay $10-15 for a crap load that I don't need. I'll find those 1 or 2 in a mixed lot and be happier with a wider variety of mod options for my models.

I think that pretty much does it for now, except those god-awful conversions that look like you glued a cereal box and plastic straws to a tank body. Don't do it, just don't. If you can, remove the mod. I actually seen a auction for a land speeder (priced at near brand new price to boot) where someone took the alternate front end of a rhino and glued it over the cockpit, then proceeded to glue 4 plastic straws in a line to the bottom where the assault cannon goes.

I hope this helps anyone wanting to sell on ebay have a perspective on what some people may be looking for and what may drive them away faster than stepping through a warp gate.

Good guide, quick and easy to understand and read.

As a buyer though, I'd only ever buy stuff that's off limits otherwise. (like the DG Noxious Blightbringer which is exclusive to the 95 pounds Dark Imperium set).

With these, I look for the ones that are just unassembled and unprimed. No risk with the ones that haven't been touched.

I would suggest wrapping the S&H fees into a buy it now price. I've had much better luck with listing items at what I would want an auction to finish at, with an additional $5 or so added on top for S&H, then charging $10-$15 for international pending on the weight. I allow users to make offers, with auto decline set to what I consider to be lower than I would ever go. I make the listing last 30 days and set the mini aside.

Generally within 2 weeks I'll get a buyer.


Sell units as units, take the time to price everything out and sell each unit instead of each army. The extra time it takes is well worth it. Very few people want to buy an entire blood angels army, a great deal of people want to buy an extra sanguinary guard squad, or blood angels rhino.

Patience is the name of the game with ebay.