I recently sat through a claim sale by a brick and mortar comic store. Quite addicting actually. Some good deals (I missed a Superboy 9 newsstand for $10) while others were pretty close to market (eBay) prices. So I got to thinking I might join a couple of the Buy/Sell FB groups and make my own Claim/Sale posts and save on some eBay fees (I saw today that Mercari is upping their fees to sort of match eBay’s upcoming fee change). Was curious anyone’s thoughts on the do’s/don’ts of setting one of these up. Here were my initial thoughts:
I’d post pics of the books with prices in the comments.
I’d link to my eBay seller page so they can see extra pics for condition if someone would like.
No offers. PayPal payment only and not using Family&Friends
Thinking shipping would be 1st class $5 for 1-5 books and then $1 for each additional book.
Anything I’m missing or other suggestions? Thanks!
I may even try it out here in the forums first. Not sure I have anything that isn’t already on everyone’s radar nor likely to be at enticing prices for our savvy members, but I’d be happy to give this fine group of scamps first crack.
It’s more of a headache you’re going to get a lot of well this one sold for this 2 months ago even though your already offering the best deal to be found anywhere. Lots of messages and time. In the right place I guess you could make a killing I use to sell digital cards in WhatsApp chat rooms for $1000s of dollars but that’s more of a niche market where all the buyers for a particular game are part of that chat room. You can move to hip comic they do I think $50 a year Premium account and then 8% or 6% can’t remember. Your listing will show up in google searches so it’s got its own perks.
I have a hard time shipping any more than about 3 books first class because of the weight limit, but I do like to protect them with enough cardboard to keep them from getting bent by the postal service. How do you ship 5 comics first class and keep them under the weight limit. I was just curious as I thought I might try it to save from upgrading to priority mail or shipping economy media mail. I like first class best and wish they would raise the weight limit just a little. I don’t like that 1.00 plus jump in price when you go past 12 ounces up to the 16 that Ebay allows. I find myself trimming the protecting cardboard to narrower strips to try and keep it under the 12 ounce weight at times.
Thanks for the comments so far! I definitely subscribe to not skimping on packaging. I normally use Gemini with an extra layer of cardboard. I did think 5 books might be a bit much for $5 and I was forgetting the ebay discounts on postage that I wouldn’t get here. But my thought was to sort of cut people some breaks on shipping since I’m ultimately avoiding ebay fees. Drogio - the scale looks good so I will probably steal some version of that idea. Thanks!
As long as eBay gives the option of media mail, I go that route but I normally give the buyer the option between media mail and flat rate envelope. I rarely ever do first class cause it normally costs as much as priority because almost all my packages at 1 book is 13-16oz, since I don’t skimp out on packaging (cardboard sandwiching is key, with buffer and the book cannot slide around).
I might be saving $1-$2 for the customer but they’re paying, but what I do lose is time spending the extra 5 minutes to pack the comics right. I’ve shipped probably 90-95% of my sales via Media Mail and I’ve never had a book damaged in transit.