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Hello

I bought a few to many boxes the other day and I'm not happy with some of the newest GW models, not enough options/dislike the face on some of them.

So I thought I'd paint them up nicely and try to sell them on ebay for the price I payed for them, not interested in making a profit just want to have fun with them so I don't have to sell them with a loss. I also think this will help me paint things I'm not 100% on, and good practise

Without seeing any of my painted miniatures, would there be a market for painted miniatures on ebay?
I know its a silly question, I can either sell them with a loss or paint them and hope to get my money back while having fun, but selling the boxes might be the quickest way to get my money back... Hrmpfh!

There is; but the market does not usually sit at cost price.

You'll generally make a profit if your work is good enough for people to pay for - it's not usually as much as to-order commission work - OR (and this is by far the more common) you'll make less than selling unpainted models as people are paying 'second hand' rates with the intention of repainting or stripping.

Without seeing your standard of work I couldn't tell you which the case is, just that it's very unusual indeed to be able to recover purchase cost exactly.

EBay also has a issue of a lot of white noise. A lot of people trying to sell their old beat up paint jobs as pro-painted.

I would be much more inclined to trade on a retail to retail basis for other product. Painting and hoping for retail on ebay is seldom a successful proposition. Either the painted is bought with the goal of stripping and thus, much below retail, or the paint is of such a high quality that it brings well above retail.

There is, but it's not really at cost. I think you're actually more likely to make the most if you sell the boxes as-new. This might only be a little less than retail, but after feeds you always lose a bit.

Best bet might be to sell them to other people in a gaming club, or put them up in the swap shop...

If the miniatures are very nicely painted you might make more than retail.

If the paint is so/so probably less than retail.

Keep in mind most people looking on ebay can easily buy the models from a store or other discounter for 20-30% off retail so they will calculate that into their offers.

Not to mention if you sell on ebay prepare to be robbed blind by fees. Ebay used to be a friendly place to sell alittle unwanted stuff now and then. Now its almost excessively expensive to sell there unless your a well establish ebay retailer.

I sold a bunch of extra unwanted stuff over the last couple months and on average between ebay and paypal you are paying 15-20% of everything you make in fees to them.

Not to mention they charge you the seller a percentage of the shipping money as well. So you have to overcharge on shipping just to break even or offer free shipping and jack up the auction price to compensate....again pushing away buyers. Ebay to me anymore is very unfriendly for sellers.

Kern wrote:
Without seeing any of my painted miniatures, would there be a market for painted miniatures on ebay?

No, so you'll sell them only if you're very extraordinarily lucky, and it's certainly not going to be anywhere near retail price. Even if you sell the boxes straight up, you're not going to get retail for them, and that's excluding ebay fees. Since most people buying online knows they can get NIB for 20% off retail without even trying, when going through e-bay they're usually looking for even better deals than that.

Painting them will only lower their value even more. With few exceptions, people typically aren't looking for finished models. If someone has a custom SM chapter paint job, then they're probably not going to be interested in whatever chapter you choose to paint the models as, no matter how nice. There's also the disincentive that even if things match up, if your skill/style is distinctly different from theirs than that might turn them off too.

It's possible to sell pre-painted miniatures but I wouldn't count on it being worth much.

Just remember that your "nicely painted" is my "throw directly into the bucket of paint stripper" and set your expectations appropriately. NIB has value to everyone, but painted models, no matter how well they're painted, are worth considerably less than retail price to a lot of people because of the extra work required to strip them and take them apart before they can be used. If you want even close to retail price you'd better be a really good painter and have the patience to leave an item up for sale until you get lucky and find a buyer who considers the paint an asset instead of a drawback.

Most of the time unless you are a known painter you will not get what your time is worth. Primed miniatures tend to be more desirable then something that is painted ok.