Selling Toys - Horror Stories & "Happy" Customers

SalemCrow said:
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.
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Damn, I've never considered that percentile drop as a clean starting point. Good shout. I usually average the last three months and expect to be bartered down.
 
I unfortunately did a version of that recently. I had a listing at a good price but when Ebay took their percentage and the final, cheapest shipping option came in (of course it was someone across the country) I was going to lose money on items I could still return to the store for full price. I cancelled the sale, told the buyer why and apologized. I really felt bad about doing it but losing money is just stupid. I would have been livid if this was done to me (versions of which have happened). They asked what price would work and I told them and they seemed okay with it but then didn't buy it (completely fair) and now it sold for a heck of a lot more.

I am absolutely the bad guy in this situation and I should have done better research - and if it was only a few dollars I would have taken the hit, as I've done plenty of times. But this was going to be a lot more than that and I just couldn't. Not right now.
 
I feel that. My process is to set my price in a way that I don't lose money - harder than it used to be with ebay fees at like 25% and the increased cost of shipping - and canceling an auction when money hasn't been exchanged and offering an explanation isn't as egregious...

The good news with selling items for less than you paid for them is that you can then show that loss to avoid paying taxes on your "income" eBay now reports to the government I keep a spreadsheet with retail purchase price, sold price, shipping costs and fees - so I can show I'm not running a profit making business that I owe taxes on.
 
I do track stuff like that. I asked my tax guy how much I should charge friends for selling their stuff since I will pay the capital gains tax in my taxes and he said without even thinking "20%." That's why I killed the original sale - paying even close to 20% capital gains tax on a triple-digit sale I was already losing money on was too much. Literally.
 
My local toy show came and went on Saturday. Lots of fun. I mentioned previously that there was a guy who shows up every time, looks my items over, pulls out his phone and walks away. And he'll come back several times to keep doing it, never buys anything. He was back at this show, but this time I had something he couldn't pass up and he finally after 6 shows purchased something. It was a random DC figure out of a cheap bin, but hey - baby steps!

At the last show in November, I had a 3rd party oversized version of Devastator that stood about 18" tall and he sold within minutes. I bought a few more from Ali Express, priced them at $100 each and made a nice $50 profit on each of them. All in all, I was shocked - it was my largest sale day of any of the shows I've done. It's a smaller show, I don't know what most vendors average, but I made almost $1500 for 7 hours of my time. I usually average closer to 1K, and I only made $700 at my last show. I heard lots of complaining about the economy, but people came to spend. Maybe they had tax returns ready.

I had a used DX9 Tyrant, which is a Masterpiece scale Galvatron, and he was complete except for his tank treads - they had disintegrated long ago. I put $50 on him because he's immaculate except for the treads. A guy came by and just about jizzed himself when he saw it, apparently he had been looking for one for a long time. He eagerly handed over the $50. He asked me if it was complete, and I told him yes but the treads were missing. He immediately frowned and said "I'd like my money back. I don't want it if the treads are gone." Meanwhile, I'm holding the $50 in my hand lol I gave it back to him, because on the one hand I do get it. But on the other, I couldn't help but think that if he had just taken a second to look it over then he'd have noticed the treads in the first place.

All in all, pretty good show. Had an interesting encounter with a female security guard, but that's probably for a different thread lol
 
I bought a PR Lightning Collection figure on Ebay a few weeks ago quickly - it was what I wanted at a pretty good price, missing alt hands which I would never use, and I was already running out the door! Bought it now. One minute later I realized wait - did I see the alt head? Had to run back and - NOPE.

The listing did not say "Incomplete" in the title nor did the description mention what all was missing. I asked to cancel the order two minutes after I made it. Again, I despise when people do this to me and I should have looked more closely but also it should have been labeled as such. Instead of cancelling, the seller refused the cancellation and bought the shipping label instead. I sent many messages asking to cancel and they never responded until much later in the day saying "oh, I never saw any of these!" Bullshit. They then said they'd already dropped off the package - oops.

Liar - that package was not in USPS' possession until f'ing Tuesday. This was Saturday.

I get that I should have double-checked that the unhelmeted head I really needed was included but like - this asshole absolutely knew I wanted to cancel and just ignored it and then claimed ignorance. So fucking annoying.
 
TheRealSmallville said:
..I had a used DX9 Tyrant, which is a Masterpiece scale Galvatron, and he was complete except for his tank treads - they had disintegrated long ago...
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I had that one and DX9 Carry (Rodimus). Sold them a few years back. I've been there a number of times, holding onto something too long before the materials degrade.
 
mrboshek said:
I had that one and DX9 Carry (Rodimus). Sold them a few years back. I've been there a number of times, holding onto something too long before the materials degrade.
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I still have my Carry, still really enjoy him a lot. It's black magic how they managed to hide his trailer on his person. Alt mode is a little stubby, like the G1 version was, but the robot mode is pretty great still.

Or I just think that way because they haven't made a modern MP scaled version of him lol With Galvatron, I really enjoyed the figure but I prefer Sovereign just a bit more (I have the 1.0). The treads on Tyrant snapped at some point while he was standing on the shelf, I went to move him one day and they just fell right off. Nothing particularly interesting about the room, temperature controlled and all that, they just snapped. Might have sat in a shipping container too long.
 
Alt said:
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.
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I think it also just depends on what the 'burn campaign' actually consists of. If he's just telling people an uneditorialized version of exactly what happened.. well... it IS what happened and if that's a 'burn campaign' then it's the seller that should have behaved better. Everyone has the right to tell anyone else something that was done to them. That's literally why the various feedback systems exist. Now, if it was a very one-sided version of what happened, you can argue that's different and the buyer is intentionally obfuscating facts.

But even just 'I paid him for something, he complained that he could sell it for more and just refunded my money' is just a statement of fact and other potential buyers absolutely have the right to know that the seller is, bare minimum, a bit of a dickhead. -I- certainly wouldn't want to deal with someone like that, as I'm not in the habit of giving out loans.
 
Damien said:
I think it also just depends on what the 'burn campaign' actually consists of. If he's just telling people an uneditorialized version of exactly what happened.. well... it IS what happened and if that's a 'burn campaign' then it's the seller that should have behaved better. Everyone has the right to tell anyone else something that was done to them. That's literally why the various feedback systems exist. Now, if it was a very one-sided version of what happened, you can argue that's different and the buyer is intentionally obfuscating facts.

But even just 'I paid him for something, he complained that he could sell it for more and just refunded my money' is just a statement of fact and other potential buyers absolutely have the right to know that the seller is, bare minimum, a bit of a dickhead. -I- certainly wouldn't want to deal with someone like that, as I'm not in the habit of giving out loans.
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One sided, no screen shots, and for me, across every single LEGO group by my own subscriptions and his own admission.

Edit: there are also people who consider him entirely the villain, which is strange to me, but as you say. now we have a public record of that thinking too if you want to avoid dealing with people like that.
 
For the Columbo of it all, based on my selling, there's also so much we don't know about either side to make a proper call.

By the account it was 50 even for a minifig. Was there shipping or a meetup? In the time between, was there dicking around on arranging either?

Was a buyer in the seller ear offering the money, or did the seller cast his line out again? The net result is the same, but I do weigh it differently if someone told him it was worth more and they wanted to pay it to get it, versus learning it and reshopping it around.

Are you trying to make a quick buck, are you trying to pay a bill? Again transactionally that shouldn't matter, but I understand why someone might take a better offer after the fact if they felt they had some other gun to their head.

I suppose my bias is that he did get his refund with an explanation. That explanation is transactionally unethical by the code of deals, but, as someone who was out a thousand something dollars over a legit theft, refunding the 50 and owning up to it does a lot for me, in a Facebook group setting.
 
@Alt I was definitely operating under the assumption, because of the 'sent money' thing that this was an online 'I send you money, you mail me a toy' transaction. Otherwise, why the fuck you giving anyone money without also getting an item in your hand immediately. That makes no sense to me.
I don't even disagree that giving the guy back his money and saying 'I want more for this' isn't a better outcome than other possibilities. But it's still not someone I would really want to deal with JUST for the sake of the headache. If I send him money.. is he going to send me a toy? Call me later and want more money? Call me later and send the money back? How long does he think he has to make that decision? Am I basically just loaning this guy money until he decides IF he wants to sell the thing I'm trying to buy?
 
Just for context: I have had people give me full E-Transfers for future pick ups. Like, "I'm buying it, but I'll see you in a month". I don't enjoy it. When I sold my AEW, the guy paid in full, said a friend would come. Month goes by. No friend. Another month, finally he sends more money to flatrate ship it.

As a buyer, I would never. I'm very much showing up ASAP with cash.

But I do align with your overall argument. Like PC said, there is just an expectation with commerce. That's why I brought it here, I just found the whole thing strange.
 
Alt said:
I just found the whole thing strange.
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That is something it definitely is.


Alt said:
Just for context: I have had people give me full E-Transfers for future pick ups. Like, "I'm buying it, but I'll see you in a month". I don't enjoy it. When I sold my AEW, the guy paid in full, said a friend would come. Month goes by. No friend. Another month, finally he sends more money to flatrate ship it.
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Just reading that gave me anxiety. No fucking way I'm sending a dude money and then expecting he'll open the door for me in a month.
 
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