Well, I genuinely never thought I'd see the day, but I can't afford to have a collection of games and machines lying around that never get played. Looking at it honestly, I really only play the 360 and sometimes the Wii so everything else is redundant. I'm even looking at the CD collection thinking "If I got 2 quid for each CD I'd have 600 quid – that’s a cooker and a fridge!" I'm desperate to buy my own house, so my collection will have to be sold. (It’s not worth as much as a house obviously - but it'll help). There's no pressure from external influences, the decision has been reached by me only which is the best reason I can have - I'd stubbornly resist selling if I were being nagged by a girlfriend. So - the question is: How do I best go about selling my collection for maximum profit? 1) Is it best to sell a machine with one or two games just for the buyer to be able to play immediately or is it best just to sell the machine on it's own and try to sell each game individually? 2) The weapon of choice will probably be eBay of course. Any tips for selling this sort of stuff on there? Being an experienced e-buyer I know reserve prices that are too high can put people off, and tempting buy it now prices can lead to a click even if I wasn't sure I really wanted it. 3) Is it just too risky to start low with no reserve for something you hope to get a reasonable amount of money for? Of course - I'm not going to trip blindly into CEX or cash convertors only to end up having to pay them for the pleasure of taking it all off my hands. I sold some stuff to an independent shop about 7 years ago as I was desperate for cash only to have them give me basically nothing. They honestly still have the PCE USA/JAP convertor I sold them sitting on sale for 70 quid. I wonder why that's not sold in 7 years... TIA
If you want maximum money...list and ship everything separately on eBay. If you want quick money...list everything in bundles on eBay. -hl718
For anyone perplexed by this post, go to the top of the message window directly under the T of ''Time...'' and hit the left mouse button, keep it pressed and drag the mouse downwards and you'll see the 'hidden' message contained within. You might wish to edit the message so that others see it. As for the query you are never going to get a decent price at these local retail stores or Cash Generators / Convertors. They have a 50% mark up as minimum and tend to quote the lowest value possible. eBay and local listings, other auctions and site market places are your best bet.
Ummm, it looks fine to me in IE7 - but Firefox throws away the first paragraphs... Not sure why. I'll try to tweek it back to default plain text settings. Thanks. And thanks for the advice re selling.
This is as simple as it gets. hl718 is exactly right. When I list things, A bulk order to me is like 3-4 things. If you want to sell the entire collection you can, but expect it to sit for a while.
Definately no more than 3 or so items in a bundle, unless its all or most of a series (e.g. RE0-4 on GC). My preference with consoles is one or two games with it to help test the console is working, although for maximum cash (unless you have many copies of Fifa 96) you wouldn't do this
Few things I've found when selling: 1. Choose the time of the auction carefully, 11pm-midnight GMT is probably best as you get people at home after work and really importantly - you cover USA and European timezones. (people in US won't get home till 6pm EST=11pm GMT - I'm ignoring DST here). 2. If you do it at the weekend then think hard when people will be in the house (to bid). 3. Be as straight about postage as you can in your auction. Personally I've avoided auctions in the past which have no postage info for fear of being ripped off. Offer to ship anywhere in the world. Also say clearly you'll pack them fully padded etc - anal collectors (myself included) want to hear this! 4. Put up good sized images - good images can really sell an item for you. 5. Pay the extra and get an image in the listing rather than just a text listing - only costs 60p or something. 6. If you are selling alot of collectables for one system then space them out over time (few weeks). Collectors will often see 10-20 things they want in one week and can't afford to bid on them all. So sell them over a few weeks (for a given system). 7. Kick off your auctions 5 minutes apart - I often will bid on one thing but if I loose it I'll go and bid on the next one (I can't afford two bids but one is fine) - however often the seller makes them all end at the sametime and I miss out (and hence the seller misses out). 8. Check ebay just before you put it up to avoid putting an item up when the same one is up from another seller. Good luck.
My rules: 1 do not sell the rare things on ebay for auction one by one now and then. Never. You can choose to sell the rare things on dedicated forums OR put ALL your rare things on ebay at the same moment, tell in every auction's description what rare stuff you also sell (like this, people will found all your auctions with their "favourite auctions" thingy if they were looking for only one of your rare stuff) and do a lot of advertisement on many forums (of course, one rare item = one auction) 2 wait for ebay promotions such as the 20 cents day auction to list everything at once with a ridiculous starting price: the auction will last 10 days + 10 another days (coz it didn't sell) and will attract a lot of people to your ebay nickname (you should say stuff like "I'll be listing everything separately so don't forget to save me to your ebay favourites" or "send me a list of what would interest you so I can email you back whenever I list these items" and of course, the classical "do no hesitate to send me sensible offers on anything you might be interested in" etc etc etc) 3 for all the common games, make thematic lots "for kids" "for sports addict" "for puzzle games addict" etc etc etc, of course, you should never mix games for different systems 4 at last, list the shitty and/or dirt cheap ultra common games in lot: basic game system + all leads and controllers + all the unsoldable shitty games.
I'm not sure how it works for games but I sold a stack of vinyl recently on eBay and was very surprised at the results. No way would I have gotten that amount in ANY record shop....just like cash convertors, they would always pay a pittance and generally screw you over - (I don't miss them). I sold very few records but made a great price overall. I'd recommend eBay above all else. I sold a mix of collectable vinyl and shit I thought I'd never budge....both sold well. Collectors that shell out big bucks are few and far between and some are overseas and don't read English language forums - it's worth bearing that in mind I think. Anyway...good luck. You are about to buy a house and on monday my wife and I going to court to lose ours. I honestly wish you luck for the future....I don't think selling your collection will make much difference though; A steady income is all that's required - and some careful money management (we had neither...). The money you'd get would probably buy you a top of the line plasma telly today...and in a few years that telly will cost a quarter of what it does now. Your collection on the other hand may well be worth a lot more.
+1: NEVER sell something that you know might increase in value for something that you are sure will decrease in value.
I almost always look up previous buy it now prices for what I'm selling and see what people have bought at. Then if I think it's a good price, I'll do a BIN for that price. Works 90% of the time. I second the good images helping a sale.
also a short and precise description will attract more buyers than just listing the tech specs. everyone can google for those. im especially put off if the seller has one of those annoying java picture cycle templates and neon colors all over the auction.
If you are selling BIN, look up sales of other sellers and list it 2$/€/GBP cheaper. Buyers tend to go for the cheaper, if the quality is the same. This is illegal when applies to physical shops in some places but there are no rules in the internet.
