By Dave Tallon, Tallon Custom Collectables
With
the National Farm Toy Show and the Holiday’s coming up, more than a
few of us could use a little extra cash, and will likely be needing to
make some room on our display shelves. One way to solve this dilemma
is to sell off a few pieces of our collections. We all have
at least a couple of pieces in our collections that we loved when we
bought or built them, but they have since lost their appeal. As
shelf or display space becomes limited, these pieces are destined to be
boxed up and put away. Rather than send these pieces off to gather
dust in the basement or the back of the closet, it might be better to
sell them. 
There
are multiple ways that you can sell pieces of your collection.
Auctions, classified ads and toy shows are among the traditional
options. Another option, the one that is my method of choice, is
online auction. Auction sites like Ebay offer a relatively cheap
way to reach a wide audience of collectors. The downside is that
you don’t necessarily set the price for your item. It depends
what the bidders at that particular time are willing to pay for it.
However, sometimes what others are willing to pay is more that what you
thought it was worth. Ebay does a good job explaining how to get
your item listed, but there are a few things they don’t tell you in
their tutorials. In the following article, I will give you some
extra tips and tricks I have learned along the way to help you get the
most out of your auctions. 
The
first hurdle to clear is determining if your item is worth selling, i.e.
if will be worth more to someone else than it is to you. To figure
this out, you need to do a little homework. On Ebay, if you do a
regular search, you will only find items listed for that week.
However, if you do an advanced search you can look for completed
auctions on items that have sold within the last three months. These
completed auctions should give you a good idea of what the market value
is of your item. Then it is up to you to decide if what others are
willing to pay for an item like yours is worth selling it for. The
value of rare or custom pieces can be a little tougher to determine,
since they are more unique. There might not be any listings for an
item exactly like yours. In these cases, it might be better to set
a higher starting price or reserve price to help make sure you get what
you think is a fair price for it. Another early decision to make is how you want to list your item. Do you want to list each piece individually, or as a group. Which of these is better depends entirely on you and what item or items you are selling.
Most
of the time, you will get more money if you sell pieces individually,
but your listing and shipping fees also will be more because you will
have to pay those for each item. The general rule of thumb I use
is if I think the sale price will at least match the shipping cost, I
will list it separately. If not, I will group it with something
else. Another thing to consider is how much work you are willing
to put into selling your items. It is easy to take for granted the
amount of time it takes to create a listing, answer questions, send an
invoice and ship your item. Selling your items in a group can
minimize the amount of time you have to put into it. Once you have decided what to sell and how to sell it, you need to work on getting your listing ready for the auction. I prefer to create my listings offline ahead of time. This allows me all the time I need to revise my description, and also lets me save it in case I want to reference it if I sell a similar item later. Ebay does a fairly good job explaining how to do a simple listing, so I won’t go through the basics here. However, I will give you some tips on some things to make sure you include.
- The first
thing you need is a title. Obviously you want your title to be
as descriptive as possible in the space allowed. Remember that
the title is how most people search for items. Be sure to
include the brand, make, model, and any other keywords related to
your item that you think will attract bidders.
- A good description is also a key element of a good auction listing. Include the basic information that you had in the title, as well as anything else you think might help sell your item. Things like the year of manufacture, condition, stock number, and anything that makes your particular item special are good details to list.
- A photograph is not required, but will greatly improve the results of your auction. I recommend you include at least one good photograph of the piece you are wanting to sell. If you need help taking good pictures, check out my article from September 2003 on photographing models. Ebay will host one picture for free, but if you want to use more than one you will either have to pay extra, or find somewhere else to host them. Many internet service providers include a small amount of server space with an account, so you might already have space on a server available. You can upload your pictures to that server and link to them into your auction listing.
- Another
thing you should include in your listing is shipping costs.
You can look at other auctions for items similar to yours to see
what it costs to ship them. You can also put your item in a
box and take it to the post office or other shipping outlet and they
can give you a good idea of what it is going to cost to ship it.
- Your listing is essentially an advertisement for your item, so it doesn't hurt to dress it up a little bit. If you know how to create webpages, you can make your listing stand out by adding a little html in with the description to add colors and formats.
So now you’ve got your listing all ready to go and you are ready to get the auction started. There is one more important thing to consider. As the saying goes, “timing is everything”. This is definitely applicable to online auctions. The time of day, day of the week and even time of year of your auction can have a dramatic affect on your results.
- Since most people that are interested in farm toys often have something to do with the farming industry, they are less likely to have time for online shopping during spring, summer and fall. This, coupled with holiday gift giving, makes late fall to early spring the prime time of year to sell your farm collectibles.
- The day of the week your auction ends on can also have a big bearing on how well it does. The majority of auction bidding occurs hours or even minutes before the action ends. You want to make sure it ends on a night when people are likely to be at home. For this reason, I have found it best to avoid ending auctions on weekends when people tend to be busy or out of the house.
- As I said, most of the bidding in auctions occurs as the end of the auction period is approaching. Because of this, it is a good idea to make your auction end at a time that is convenient for the greatest number of potential bidders. I like to have my auctions end in the middle of the evening, before bidders on the East coast go to bed but after bidders on the West coast are home from work.
- As if that wasn’t enough to keep in mind, it is also a good idea to keep an eye on the competition. If there are several other items like yours up for auction at the same time you are wanting to list yours, it might be better to wait until those auctions have ended.
Getting your auction started is the hard part, but your work is still not done. Most of the remaining work will come after the auction has ended, but it is important to keep up to date on your email in case any potential bidders need to ask questions. Other than that, all you need to do is sit back and watch your auction run it’s course. When your auction ends, the first thing you need to do is contact the buyer. Ebay has made this very easy to do. When you log in and check out your completed auction, it will give you the option to send an invoice. Fill out the form with the appropriate costs and payment instructions. Then wait for your payment to arrive.
After
you receive payment for your item, you need to ship it to the buyer.
Carefully pack your item in the box so that it doesn’t get damaged.
If your item is fragile but does not have a box, like a custom detailed
piece for instance, use wire ties to attach it to a small box or a piece
of cardboard, and then pack it in a larger box surrounded by packing
material. For packing material, Styrofoam peanuts, shreaded paper,
or even wadded up plastic shopping bags work well. The best method
for shipping will depend on what it is you are selling. For 1/64
scale items, I like to use Priority Mail at the Post Office.
Priority Mail generally gets the item to the buyer within a few days.
It also gives me the option of adding delivery confirmation, which
provides a way to prove you shipped an item if a fraudulent buyer tries
to claim you never sent it. Most items will ship for under $5, and
the Post Office will even provide the boxes. All of this might sound like a lot of work, but once you do it a few times it becomes fairly painless. And, with any luck, you will have a few extra bucks to help fill those new empty spaces on your display shelves.
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Tallon Tips Article Index
03/2003 - Removing Tampos 04/2003 - Detailing AGCO MFWD Tractors 05/2003 - Making Your Own Decals 06/2003 - Making 1/64 Pullers Pt. 1 07/2003 - Making 1/64 Pullers Pt. 2 08/2003 - Making a McCormick MTX 09/2003 - Photographing Scale Models 10/2003 - Making Custom Grain Trucks 11/2003 - Detailing a White 4-270 12/2003 - Making a John Deere 6030 01/2004 - Getting Started in Customizing 02/2004 - Dave Tallon's Custom Collection 03/2004 - Building a C&D Steiger Wildcat Kit 04/2004 - Building a Chevy Crew Cab Dually 05/2004 - Tire Customizing Basics 06/2004 - Making 4WD Pulling Trucks 07/2004 - Making Articulated 4WD Tractors 08/2004 - Making 1/64 Service Trucks 09/2004 - Detailing a Challenger MT765 |
