Tonight I am searching for opinions on selling a collection of Japanese cards.* I started selling the majority of my collection on eBay in early 2016 at fairly competitive prices. However, only about 35% of the cards have sold over a period of 8 months, and many of those sales were to friends and prior customers. What worries me is that I can’t pin down the reason the cards aren’t selling. Did I list too high? Did I describe the item poorly? Is the demand too low? Or could it be something else.
Ideally I would list the cards at auction and be done with it, but I don’t know a thing about listing collections successfully. And as far as I can tell, online stores (or consignment) don’t really care for the Japanese print of a non-sports children’s trading card. It could be that my expectations are too high, but I’d be happy to hear anyone’s thoughts.
*Disclaimer: This thread is not meant to be a sale thread. Please do not PM me with purchase inquiries.
You are limiting your sales at least internationally as your shipping prices are too high - a flat $35US on everything including one PSA card, I have received PSA cards from US sellers who pay $5USD sending to me in Australia with tracking. Even though you say in your description that international buyers please contact me for exact quote not a lot of people read descriptions plus they might just skip past your ad anyway. I can’t speak on the complete sets at $35USD shipping but maybe there is an option to send for cheaper maybe not?
If the sets haven’t sold since Jan then the prices are too high possibly in combination with international shipping, you can wait for the perfect retail buyer but as you have seen this takes months.
I also use this for International sales. Noticed though, the USPS site will not update once its out of US territory (very rarely to EU or AUS). Normally if the countries post website has a tracking option, the tracking number can be input there and about 85% of the time should show up. Also, the market is fairly competitive if you want to get “rid” of most of your collection, also always make sure you know how much you are getting per transaction as with PayPal and eBay fees you are roughly paying 13%. It does take time, but if your eager to just load it all of, might I suggest a couple of bulk lots with a card that’s really wanted? It could rake in interest just for said card and you get rid of excess at the same time.
I’ve read this as well (the part about tracking not updating outside of the US), but have never had a problem when shipping like this (mainly for Canada, Australia and the UK). Maybe I’ve been lucky, but the tracking has always updated to “Delivered” once the package makes it to its destination. The issue is that USPS doesn’t offer full tracking to most countries through First Class International… I think there are only 13 or so countries for which they offer full tracking internationally
Have sold many items and the defect rate of First Class is very Minimal. Honestly the only time I recall anything getting lost is when I sent it to Argentina. Sometimes they do take time to get there, but always tell the buyer to give their local post office a push. This happened to me once sending to Germany, item was “lost” for nearly 2 months and well the little push helped lol.
