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Apologies if this isn't the right place to post it, but...

When selling large quantities of minis (i.e. an army) on eBay, is it best to sell them individually as units, or as a whole army? By 'best' I mean 'most profitable for me'

Thanks in advance!

Best to sell individual units rather than an entire army. 20 dollars for a 2nd hand space marine tactical squad is much nicer than 800 for a full army. ..And plus, you can pick out the bits you want exactly, without getting models you won't use/need.

A major factor in that is if they are painted. If the army is nicely painted in a cohesive manner, then a single auction could sell well.

If everything is bare or just primered, then single unit auctions are the way to go. You might not sell everything, but you will sell something, as opposed to running the risk of the entire army not selling as a whole.

Also keep in mind that Ebay takes about 10% of the final sale price, which oddly enough they don't take until 2 weeks after the end of the month in which an item was sold. And then some times they are late on that as well.

How much is your time worth to you?

The thing about selling an army piecemeal is that although you will get a better return, you also run the risk of not being able to sell many of the pieces at all. For example, if you were selling Tau, then I would wish you luck offloading your Kroot, or just about anything except the Suits and hammerheads.

 azazel the cat wrote:
How much is your time worth to you?

The thing about selling an army piecemeal is that although you will get a better return, you also run the risk of not being able to sell many of the pieces at all. For example, if you were selling Tau, then I would wish you luck offloading your Kroot, or just about anything except the Suits and hammerheads.

This. I sold Tau piecemeal and got raped anyway on transports and piranhas, only got a fair price for suits and hammerheads. Kroot and Fire Warriors remain unsold!

I would rather sell as one big lot, it's easier! Top tip = lots of photos (use HTML) and use Buy it now or Best offer, then set the BIN price purposefully high. I find it the only way to get people to pay a fair price is when they think the fair price is a lot less than what you want.

Well, the army I'm selling is Dwarves. Not as popular as Space Marines, but I'm hoping they'll go nonetheless.

All units are painted and based to a reasonable standard, but as I enjoy painitng, I'd happily spend an extra week making them look even better if it'd mean I get some extra cash.

Any extra advice based on this?

Oh yeah, and bear in mind that I'm not too familiar with eBay at the moment...

If its painted, I'd honestly try and sell as a complete lot initially. Put the minimum price you are willing to accept and let it loose.

Note there are free listing weekends around every three to four weeks at the mo, think we are due one this or next weekend. So that's always a good time to list as you do get hit by up front seller fees, if it doesn't sell you loose nothing.

If it won't sell together you can try splitting it, once again list the minimum per squad you are willing to take.

This way you won't get caught out with items that you paid £20 for selling for £2-3. Yes some folks won't buy if your starting bid is £10-15, but at least if it sells with that one bid, you are happy with the result, and if it sells for more, its all a bonus.

Don't get caught out by postage, packaging unless you are in a weird position is not free. Plus postage can cost a fair bit, especially if you allow Internationals, and you want some kind of recorded mail. Recorded airmail to the US for example costs about £4.50, before the actual postage and any packaging costs.

However Internationals are well worth it, as Australia gamers for example can actually buy the stuff at new British prices and still be saving a fair bit of money on their own local prices.
Sadly ebay have been a bit scummy on that regard however as they now charge a fee per item to allow all ebay sites around the world to see it, otherwise you have to hope Australians and other international folks are coming direct to the UK ebay site.

On a final note, the fact they are painted may hurt you in the long run, folks often won't bid on painted items, as they either think they can do better (regardless whether they can or not) don't like your posing, scheme, basing or a hundred other things that mean they'd have to strip all the figures to make them worth while. In which case they'll want them for less than half value.
If they however are painted to a good tabletop standard, or even better, they may well sell to use right out of the box.

Good luck on your travels with ebay, just follow a golden rule and be sure you are selling things for prices you are willing to accept. Nothing worse than sitting there when the auction ends and thinking, I'd rather have kept them for that kind of money.

It's usually best to sell individual units, especially if you think each lot will make less than £30 each, as you can generally make a little on the P&P.

Copied from another 40k forum I am on basically someone asked the same question

I always try for my auctions to end on a weekend as that is ebays busiest day and people are usually bored at home, so around 6pm is a good time to list them, you can also set when you want the auction to go live (and therefore end) but it costs a little more. Pictures are key, I use photobucket to host my pictures and enter the html tag into the description so i gives a full size picture in the description had a lot of good feedback doing it that way.

As erid says be honest, i mainly sell Salvage cars and have a fixed price as i know what i want for them and what they are worth but if you want whatever for the items put them in a 99p start price if you want more make sure you list them at the price you are comfortable selling them at. Everything i sell I describe exactly as they are, any faults or damage describe it and picture it and a very good point about postage postage costs me loads! plus you have to add on the cost of packaging, i.e the cost of say bubble wrap or envlopes and your time for going to the post office (or waiting in for parcel2go for larger items) I say do this because if you list a lot of things and want to send them all out together there will be at lest once person who doesnt pay ontime so it may well involve a few trips to the post office and maybe a trip for just one small item

MY seller ratings are 4.95 for description, 4.92 for commiuncation 4.81 for dispatch time (even though I state it will take 2 working days before it is sent out to cover my rear end) and 4.89 for postage costs.

Also last and most important point, be aware of the ebay fee's and research before hand how much they will take off you when you sell (for car parts it is pretty much 10% final value fee on ebay) and also paypal will take their cut being another few percent. As erid said made 500 but I but the fee's werent nice, I currently give ebay 300-400 a month in poxy fee's until i get annoyed with them like this month.