I’ve been selling off excessive MRR inventory, a result of excessive exuberance in purchasing when I was working and had money. Now that I am retired and actually have more time to start building a railroad, I reduced the future projects by selling a bunch of stuff on eBay. Most of my buyers use PayPal for their purchases. For the seller there are fees for using both.
Up 'til now, I have not kept any records as to what this was costing me. For this most recent auction, I developed an Excel spreadsheet that kept track of the sale price, the postage and all the fees. Here is what I found out:
eBay fees for listing and final value = 13.72% on sale price only
PayPal fees on sale plus postage = 4.72%
There were 46 items, with an average sale price of $10.50
So, for those of you considering using eBay/PayPal, plan on it costing you around 20%.
I wonder, has anybody used Yahoo Auction? I haven’t looked into it at all.
I too spent a lot of money on MR stuff that I just had to have during the late 90s thru 2006 when I retired. In 2003, I started having an annual Ebay train (and other stuff) sale during the winter Holidays. The purpose was to thin out, and funds were used to upgrade stuff (i.e., selling off Athearn and buying BLI locos, etc., etc). Ha, at my high point I was pushing 600 cars (over half kits) and over 60 locos.
I’m a retired business analyst and started with the Xcel spreadsheet the first year of my sales. The current version works out great, and includes costs for packing/shipping supplies, Ebay fees, Paypal fees, monies received for postage and monies spent for postage. My auctions for the last three years have all been sent out via priority mail or media mail. I ordered all the boxes for priority from the PO (free), and have a large and varied supply. Media stuff needs special envelopes I got from Walmart, as well as bubble wrap. Peanuts came from the Container Store.
Anyway, last year I had 100 auctions and when all was said and done, 92 sold. My net realization (after all costs) was 83 percent of the total sales. This is a fair rule of thumb, as the year before was 84 percent, and this year so far is running in the low 80s.
This year I have 72 auctions, and run 18 a week for 4 weeks, and on the 5th week I’ll relist anything that didn’t sell. Of my first 18 auctions, 17 sold.
The “trick” to auction selling is to start at the minimum price you would accept if you were selling to an individual. In doing this, one can’t justify being upset that I ended “giving something away”. Also, I typically put up two or three on each auction auction.
One other point to make is that selling in quantity on Ebay is a JOB. I pride myself on doing it right, and maintaini
I’m glad you brought this subject up. I’ve recently been thinking of diving heavily into Ebay auctions to sell off some extra RR stuff and Harley parts I have just sitting around. I started reading the tutorials and hadn’t really taken the time to figure out the REAL Costs. I’ll be interested in hearing what others have to say. Is it really worth it. Would either one of you guys be willing to share your spread sheets?
The other way to look at it is the cost of doing business. You basically have no overhead such as a building, employees, etc. Additionally, eBay is doing all of the marketing for you by brining potential customers to you. You may want to see about getting a merchant account through your bank and start accepting credit/debit cards. That may eliminate some of the costs. Good luck.
Yes, it costs money to make money, so costs are incurred. Selling models at local train shows costs money too - our local show tables are $15.00 each, then there’s getting to the show, staying there all day to do the selling, etc.
Now that eBay is only accepting PayPal for payments, you do in effect accept credit cards or debit cards, because that’s the way your buyers have to pay.
eBay is really the only game in town; I’ve heard of others mentioning a Yahoo site and others, but there are so few sellers and lookers that they really can be a waste of time. And selling items with low value can make the small payments and costs too high. Instead of offering items with $10.00 values, try grouping several together in one auction. The postage won’t be much more, so your costs will be less.
Craig’s List is free. It isn’t an auction, but more like a flea market. It also tends to be more local, so a lot of the buyers come over to your house to pick their stuff up. You set a selling price in the ad. The potential buyers respond via anonymous e-mail.
I’m not sure how the market is. We’re trying to sell an air hockey table right now - a few inquiries, one offer for half the asking price, but it’s only been a week. It’s my first time doing this.
I own my own business - with ebay, you don’t have to offer workers comp to any employees or health insurance! And yes, Craig’s list is a great free option. Be weary of scams though. . .