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Selling my Apple 2 collection on eBay, advice wanted!


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Hi all,

 

I've finally cleared a mental hurdle and have started to sell my Apple 2 collection on eBay. My main usage with eBay up until now has been buying, not selling, so there's a lot I don't know. I've decided to start out easy and only list some EA folio games that I've got dupes of, both in case things go south and also to limit the chaos of figuring the logistics on the fly! As such, I have questions!

 

1) I've marked the games as having the option of both media mail shipping and USPS Priority. I'm already stressing about how I'm going to actually package these things up as I don't exactly know yet how to manage "arbitrary" box sizes, and I don't want to stick EA folio games into a large envelope. ;) I suppose the way to go is to package the games in an envelope with some cardboard fittings around them. Do most people stick with prepaid priority mail boxes, or just rig up any old package they can which is suitably protective?

 

2) Not more than a few hours into one of my auctions, 2 people bid on Hard Hat Mack. The second bidder bid $201 then cancelled it, then re-bid and is now *not* the winning bidder. Doing so likely exposed the high bid of the first bidder, which makes me a bit queasy. Are these shorts of shenanigans common? Is there anything I can or should do?

 

3) Many of the games I listed have no comparable listings in recent memory, so I didn't know how to price them. I crossed my fingers and just put a starting bid of $0.01 on them. I envision something like EA's Movie Maker going for $0.01 + shipping, which is fine by me but I'm not sure if I'm doing something stupid here. I don't have any Buy-it-now on any of them because I don't have a clue what's reasonable.

 

4) How likely am I to have to deal with winning bidders who don't pay?

 

5) It looks like I'm limited to 100 listings and $5000/month right now. I suppose that's not a problem in practice but I wonder what happens if a game or two goes absolutely nuts and I bump into the cash value limit. Does eBay kill the auction or...?

 

Any other unsolicited advice is welcome.

2) This bidder seems to retract bids a lot, 74 in the last month and odd that he then bids the exact same amount as the original bidder. Definitely was intentional, but I'm not so sure it will make much difference in the end.

 

https://offer.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewBidderProfile&mode=1&item=293123129663&bidtid=1696555217019&_trksid=p2471758.m4792

43 minutes ago, taxman said:

2) This bidder seems to retract bids a lot, 74 in the last month and odd that he then bids the exact same amount as the original bidder. Definitely was intentional, but I'm not so sure it will make much difference in the end.

 

https://offer.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewBidderProfile&mode=1&item=293123129663&bidtid=1696555217019&_trksid=p2471758.m4792

Damn, that's the guy. 74 retractions! Bold.

 

Edit to ask: would it be OK if I outed his eBay profile name here? (I'm dumb and didn't realize that the link above didn't show his name.)

Oops I meant to say 74 retractions in the last 6 months, not the last 1 month, but still abnormal.

 

To everyone else we can't see his name, only you as the seller. I don't see why you wouldn't be able to state his name here especially considering the tactics he chooses to employ.

8 minutes ago, taxman said:

To everyone else we can't see his name, only you as the seller. I don't see why you wouldn't be able to state his name here especially considering the tactics he chooses to employ.

OK, this is the guy: ibmps28530

 

Looks like he's changed his profile name twice before, and I wouldn't be surprised if it changes again in the future.

I thought it over some more, and decided to cancel the serial retractor's bid and blocked him as a buyer. It feels like the right thing to do, but I am wondering if I should have just left him at blocked and not interfered any further than that.

  • Thanks 1
11 hours ago, hoserama99 said:

Hi all,

 

I've finally cleared a mental hurdle and have started to sell my Apple 2 collection on eBay. My main usage with eBay up until now has been buying, not selling, so there's a lot I don't know. I've decided to start out easy and only list some EA folio games that I've got dupes of, both in case things go south and also to limit the chaos of figuring the logistics on the fly! As such, I have questions!

 

1) I've marked the games as having the option of both media mail shipping and USPS Priority. I'm already stressing about how I'm going to actually package these things up as I don't exactly know yet how to manage "arbitrary" box sizes, and I don't want to stick EA folio games into a large envelope. ;) I suppose the way to go is to package the games in an envelope with some cardboard fittings around them. Do most people stick with prepaid priority mail boxes, or just rig up any old package they can which is suitably protective?

 

2) Not more than a few hours into one of my auctions, 2 people bid on Hard Hat Mack. The second bidder bid $201 then cancelled it, then re-bid and is now *not* the winning bidder. Doing so likely exposed the high bid of the first bidder, which makes me a bit queasy. Are these shorts of shenanigans common? Is there anything I can or should do?

 

3) Many of the games I listed have no comparable listings in recent memory, so I didn't know how to price them. I crossed my fingers and just put a starting bid of $0.01 on them. I envision something like EA's Movie Maker going for $0.01 + shipping, which is fine by me but I'm not sure if I'm doing something stupid here. I don't have any Buy-it-now on any of them because I don't have a clue what's reasonable.

 

4) How likely am I to have to deal with winning bidders who don't pay?

 

5) It looks like I'm limited to 100 listings and $5000/month right now. I suppose that's not a problem in practice but I wonder what happens if a game or two goes absolutely nuts and I bump into the cash value limit. Does eBay kill the auction or...?

 

Any other unsolicited advice is welcome.

I sell a lot of things on ebay, time to time....

 

1. I like the Priority mail boxes. They come in good amount of sizes and the biggest complaint people give about a seller is how long it takes for them to get their package. Priority mail, 1-3 days through out the US 48. So it's fairly quick.  For the odd ball size devices. Take your pictures, FIND a box, pack it, weigh and measure it, THEN list it.  You will be able to find out EXACTLY how much it will cost to ship, saves a lot of headaches...

 

2. Bidding games like that happen time to time, I would not worry too much about it. 

 

3.  Did you do a search of sold listings ? This can give you an idea what things have sold in the past.  There is always the option to put up a FAIR price, what you feel it's worth, then put "or best offer"  So someone can just make you an offer if they are interested but, not for what your asking. I avoid $0.99 auctions because its normally those where I lose money on.  Do your homework on each item to get an idea on what it is worth... You could always start something at XXX amount so, you think it could be worth $100 but, you want to get some people interested, start the auction at like $40... 

 

4. These happen time to time... It's a hassle and you cant leave a buyer negative feedback for not paying (but, they can to a seller). If you get a non paying seller, You need to open a case with ebay, then they tell you that you need to wait 4 days, after that you can open a case, and get a final value refund.  You need to do this, or your paying fees for something you didn't sell.   I normally block (you can set buyer preferences on your auction), the max that I can for non-paying buyers in their history, after doing this, it's kind of rare to get them.

 

5. This I am not sure on, I started on ebay long before those types of limits so kind of grandfathered in .

 

Good luck !

Edited by TheCoolDave
  • Thanks 1
2 hours ago, taxman said:

Well, looks like you got them bid up anyways. At least I won two of them :)

My very first surprise is that even though I explicitly didn't add international shipping (because I didn't want to deal with that right out of the gate), some other guy bid and won 2 items -- and his shipping address is in South Korea. I'm hoping that goes smoothly, but it wouldn't shock me if that falls apart either.

 

I also realized (too late!) that I'd listed these as shipping via Media Mail but that's expressly not allowed for video games and software. I fixed that for my second batch of auctions - now up. :)

 

Anyway, thanks all for the help, and thanks to those of you who bid. This first batch was a bit stressful and time consuming, so I hope I can get into a better (and faster) rhythm as I clear out more stuff.

FYI, my latest batch of sealed Apple II games ends tomorrow at 11am MST: [ebayseller]bradman2[/ebayseller]

 

Edit: welp, that BBcode link didn't work, but my items are here. Feel free to edit in any Atari Age affiliate tag magic.

 

I've scheduled a new set of sealed Apple II and IIgs games to go up in the afternoon (2pm MST).

 

I'll probably continue doing this every Saturday for some time as I clear everything out. There won't be too many sealed games after tomorrow's batch. It'll go back to boxed-but-open game batches for several weeks, I think.

 

If anyone has any interest in a (mostly?) complete run of Nibble magazine, I may list those too. They're kind of a pain due to size and weight, but I do want to get rid of them.

56 minutes ago, taxman said:

Did you receive any messages from the bidder that you blocked? I imagine he tried to bid on others and was pissed.

No, haven't heard a peep. I'm a little fuzzy on if he could even contact me once blocked. It's possible he bid under another account name, but there were no more retraction shenanigans.

 

If you look at his bidding history thing above again, you'll note that he now has 76 retractions in the past 6 months, up from 74. He must have very slippery fingers.

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