Selling Toys - Horror Stories & "Happy" Customers

Everything I list on eBay is already boxed up and ready to go, weighed so that shipping is already known to the buyer. I try to not list things that are too similar at the same time to avoid people buying more than one thing from me at the same time. A large part of what/when I decide to sell something is when I have the boxes/packing materials on-hand, so repacking is not really something I'm looking to do or necessarily have the materials for. Once sold, I print the label at the self-service kiosk at my local post office and drop it off, no waiting.
 
TheRealSmallville said:
I hope my response to you wasn't taken as a negative or a critique, I was laughing at myself for having not thought of being better organized. It might not have come off appropriately in text, my apologies if so. I certainly wasn't trying to say anything negative about it.
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No offense taken.

I am surrounded by a bit of a mess right now after the move was complete, so I'm trying to reclaim SOME sense of control where I can.

I've got that pile photographed with 1 image each and have it all in a Google sheet.
I went through eBay sold listings, only in the US, and threw in a price under what the average eBay price was (in person will never be eBay, so I'll be more realistic). My surprise was that regular Mezco Magneto doesn't seem to be going for a whole lot. On average, if I sold all 23 Mezco figures at the show, I could easily get 3 to 4 bookcases, and pay off a few bills, not even factoring in all the other stuff I'm likely bringing.
 
SalemCrow said:
No offense taken.

I am surrounded by a bit of a mess right now after the move was complete, so I'm trying to reclaim SOME sense of control where I can.

I've got that pile photographed with 1 image each and have it all in a Google sheet.
I went through eBay sold listings, only in the US, and threw in a price under what the average eBay price was (in person will never be eBay, so I'll be more realistic). My surprise was that regular Mezco Magneto doesn't seem to be going for a whole lot. On average, if I sold all 23 Mezco figures at the show, I could easily get 3 to 4 bookcases, and pay off a few bills, not even factoring in all the other stuff I'm likely bringing.
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l do the same thing with pricing, I check ebay sold listings and then go under. I have a buddy who actually goes under by a specific percentage, but I just sort of wing it based on nothing more than my can-do attitude. If I sell a Hot Toy and ebay has it for $400, I'll usually go closer to $300-$310 because that's about what the value seems to be after ebay takes their cut. But if it's a McFarlane figure, since the fee is much less I don't have as drastic a drop. If it's on ebay for $50, then I'd probably go $40-$45 depending on what character it was.

I guess I missed it, when is your show? Tomorrow? Mine is tomorrow...you'll have to let us know how customer flow and business was, I'm hoping for a rebound after the last show I did but we'll see. I only do 2 a year, and in November it was pretty dead, sales-wise. Lots of traffic, but very little buying. I made about half of my average, which I'm hoping was because Christmas was around the corner. I'm curious to see how the current state of things affects the show.
 
The show I'm doing in June 13th, so I have more time.

I went to Walmart to grab some groceries, and stopped in the yard sale area to grab some price stickers and 2 packs of plain colored stickers to easily tag the items I'm going to put in the $5 & $10 bins.
 
Guess this counts as a "horror" story - my garage was broken into right at the start of the new year. Guy broke the lock on the garage door and I assume slept in my car, because the way the seats seats were moved around. But nothing was missing and nothing was damaged. In fact, he left his bag of tools behind.

Called the cops to make an incident report and asked them to take "the evidence" away. Never had another problem, never heard anything from the police, landlord fixed the garage. Not a big deal.

I have a few things stored in the garage right now (furniture, an expensive Transformer Table that I hated the minute it arrived, lots of empty, giant HasLab boxes and my two Cantinas, Jabba's Palace and some Mondo figs I was selling. Today I went looking for a DC Multiverse figure I had listed as part of a lot but it never sold and I saw someone else use it as the base for a good custom - can't find the box. I have so many boxes down there - boxes of boxes tetris'd together. Can't find this box. I'm pulling everything out, making sure all the boxes of boxes aren't hiding stuff - and then I realize I also haven't seen another item I had boxed up down here ready to ship.

That guy stole two of my boxes.

But I thought I checked for this stuff when this all happened and everything was accounted for. But maybe I didn't? I didn't take pictures when it happened for some stupid reason so I can't confirm - but these boxes are definitely gone, and I didn't hide them in my apartment just in case - I already looked (I grabbed the expensive TVC items).

What a waste of money. Thankfully, it's a total of four McF DC Multiverse figs and an incomplete Buffy Library Playset. Could have been way worse. But this sucks.
 
Saw this in a few LEGO groups, thought it'd be a fun discussion for our sellers.

Seller listed a rare Geonosis Padme minifig for $50 USD. OP paid.

Seller was notified Padme is worth twice that. Lamented this to OP. OP acknowledged,.but thanked him for the deal.

Two days later, seller told OP someone else paid a higher amount, and seller refunded OP the 50.

So now the op is going around posting this story in multiple Lego groups that this guy is in, to try and burn his rep.

I only looked at one comment section in the group I'm in, and it's a battlefield between:

- Seller should have done his research, deal is a deal
- Once you send the money the sale is locked in
- It's unethical to entertain other offers

Or

- it sucks, but at least you got refunded
- nothing is final until its shipped
- OP is a scumbag for knowing the real value and not telling the seller in the first place

I'm of the opinion that he's lucky he got a refund in the first place, and that the seller can also do what he wants if he's getting offers. Does it hurt your reputation in some circles? I could see that. I guess it depends on how much you care

On the reputation front, unless someone is a known scammer, so much of reputation doesn't matter if the guy is selling some sort of rarity that is in demand.

I also just love collector drama.

Discuss.
 
I think any seller who doesn't do rrsearch before listing a 'buy it now' price deserves ro get hosed. If you accept an offered price and even receive the funds only to backtrack and sell to someone else for more, you are definitely norally wrong. Saying he's lucky the guy didn't also steal the his money is laughable.

If what you advocate is the way all online commerce worked it would be entirely untenable. No one forced him to accept the first price. He did that. Changing his mind after money changed hands is absolutely garbage behavior and the guy should be called out. I'm honestly stunned you are on the side of the seller here.

Here's the thing - if you don't know the market value of your item, list it as an auction and let the market set the price. If you list a set price, you should honor it
 
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PantherCult said:
I think any seller who doesn't do rrsearch before listing a 'buy it now' price deserves ro get hosed. If you accept an offered price and even receive the funds only to backtrack and sell to someone else for more, you are definitely norally wrong. Saying he's lucky the guy didn't also steal the his money is laughable.
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Agreed.

I think everything is fair game up until money changes hands. I mean, CAN the seller do it? Of course. As long as the product is still in his possession he can basically do whatever he wants - including not send it at all and keep the money. That doesn't make it ethical. Is the buyer lucky the money was returned? As I said... the seller could just not and keep the item, so yeah in that sense he's lucky he got his money back. But the entire thing is still shitty and unethical, in my opinion.
 
PantherCult said:
I think any seller who doesn't do rrsearch before listing a 'buy it now' price deserves ro get hosed. If you accept an offered price and even receive the funds only to backtrack and sell to someone else for more, you are definitely norally wrong. Saying he's lucky the guy didn't also steal the his money is laughable.

If what you advocate is the way all online commerce worked it would be entirely untenable. No one forced him to accept the first price. He did that. Changing his mind after money changed hands is absolutely garbage behavior and the guy should be called out. I'm honestly stunned you are on the side of the seller here.

Here's the thing - if you don't know the market value of your item, list it as an auction and let the market set the price. If you list a set price, you should honor it
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I think he is lucky he got the money back, because historically people just do the thievery. In Canada with e-transfer, you have no recourse. Many a toy group burns people out for that.

I don't advocate for all e-commerce to work like that. Or even aftermarket.

What I do think is both parties behaved poorly, but for me, going around to every single group and burning the sellers reputation with one side of a story is far worse. There's a difference for me with airing grievances here, and going around someone's digital footprint and throwing up alarms when, at worse, you got refunded and the seller had poor etiquette.

At best, that's flaky, but not theft or a scam.

I agree with you on the transactional ethics. On social ethics, I find a burn campaign worse, given the refund: it's not in one group, where it happened. He's hitting it up across multiple.
 
Among my growing pile of figures I'm going to be bringing to the toy show is SWB slave Leia.

eBay prices are wild for her. I have her loose, but I'm going to charge more for her than other SWB figures I'm selling because there aren't better versions of her out there.

I've been doing that for most of things I'm bringing, with about 10-15% off eBay sale prices due to no shipping and no eBay fees.
 
Fair enough... I read it as defense of the seller. And the original buyer did get his money back so the extended complaint campaign was a bit much.
 
PantherCult said:
Fair enough... I read it as defense of the seller. And the original buyer did get his money back so the extended complaint campaign was a bit much.
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Ah, no. I hate to say "both sides" here, but both sides do suck, but like... in different Acts of the whole story. But I found the discourse LEGO-side defending the ability to pivot before shipping interesting. Like could cases be made? Hypothetically?
 
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