Here's a New Low for Me, Couldn't Even Sell a Brand New Dvd Starting at $0.01 Lol

[lrdave35]

Ebay has always been my platform for pruning down my physical media collection for many years.   2023 has been my hardest year ever for trying to get sales on my dvds and blu-rays.  I'm not even getting offers for rare collectable items like steelbooks anymore.  I'm quite aware that huge factors for this are the economy and streaming just wrecking the consumer desire to own physical media.  Even Best Buy announced recently that they were completely getting rid of physical media in 2024 which was a gut punch to collectors like me.

Even with low expectations, I was stunned that I couldn't even muster a lousy penny for my brand new and sealed dvd.  At this point, I am better off just throwing it in the trash or giving to Goodwill and maybe get a tax writeoff.

[chapeau-noir]

Quite a few people in fact, do like to watch a movie more than once.  For example, I've watched Seven Samurai several times, and in fact any Kurasawa movie is worth multiple viewings. Quite a few movies fall into that realm - new and old. It's just that the market is so much smaller and can be very hard to pin down because of variable tastes and genre. We have a fairly big DVD library at home and periodically clean it out - I wait until I have several DVDs and will list them here or on Mercari, and they almost always sell for decent money.

I would never, though, just buy DVDs to sell them - unless someone really has a good grasp of what is hard to find I think one would end up with a lot of dead product. You can get just about any mainstream movie at a decently stocked thrift, anyway.

When VHS was giving way to DVDs, I was selling out our (very large) collection of VHS and made thousands because none of my films had been released on DVD and they were all in demand. Once they began to be re-released on DVD, that market went away.

[onefootflipper]

DVDs and media are getting worse and worse every year. 

Not only is interest drying up, the charity media specialists have a break even point on those items almost $2 less than normal ebay users.

I get into it in the middle of this video.

https://youtu.be/hnOGeuWTU4s

[inhawaii]

Hold on the them until DVDs come back like vinyl records did.    😉

[a_c_green]

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@yuzuha wrote:

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@tobaccocardyahoo wrote:

A few articles which are trying to feel nostalgic, just seem hollow. How many people want to view a movie more than once? How many are inconvenienced by having to view their vintage TV reruns on a free streaming channel.

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This is honestly why I stopped buying DVDs once streaming became a thing-- I rarely want to watch a movie or TV show more than once, so buying a DVD was a total waste of both physical shelf space and money unless it was something I knew I was going to watch multiple times.

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That is the primary reason why I buy any DVDs these days: multiple viewings. I don't have a huge number of titles, just a variety that I will occasionally pop into the Blu-ray and watch a bit. I generally don't watch them from start to finish each time, but might watch the best scenes of each. I think my collection is pretty wide-ranging; I can list a few here as they occur to me, and I know a few are pretty obscure while the majority are not:

• Titanic
• Ratatouille
• The Grand Budapest Hotel
• The Hunt for Red October
• Dinner Rush
• Apollo 13
• La-La Land
• De-Lovely
• To Live and Die in L.A.
• Gold Through the Fire*

TV Series:

• Foyle's War
• Pushing Daisies
• Frasier

Something I don't think anyone has mentioned yet is that the Blu-rays and DVDs usually come with extras, sometimes hours and hours of them, and not all the streaming download services will include those alongside the title feature.

*I was in that one. 😁

[onefootflipper]

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@inhawaii wrote:

Hold on the them until DVDs come back like vinyl records did.    😉

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I am not sure that they will. The CRT TV purist crowd seems to like VHS even though DVD looks better on CRT. 

Of course it could come back and still be worthless. The sheer amount of video discs out there is insane, compared to what the demand could ever be.

[the-hook-and-the-loop]

Have you tried listing it for $10 with free shipping and promote it at 15%-20%? I'd bet you would have more action.

[toomuchstuffagain35]

I usually buy the boxed sets of tv series I know I will watch a few times, and yes they have a LOT of "extras" on those.

[kabilab]

Dave,

I began selling DVDs on eBay in 2003; all were titles that were not desirable to my store customers. Last week, I sold nine DVDs at an average of $8.44 gross and $2.55 net. In 2016, I paid e-Bay 10%; now it is 12%. I could ship a movie from Ohio to Calif. then for $1.98 first class; now it is almost $4 for media mail. My mailers, toner, tape and paper have increased in price. Finally, sales tax, which did not exist then, has affected my competitiveness. Were I not age-81, with my time not an issue, I would donate my stock.

[ittybitnot]

I'm not even getting offers for rare collectable items like....

@lrdave35 

Just so you know, your "best offers" require buyers use the new improved checkout system (aka Auto Pay, Default Funding, etc)....which is not improved at all from their perspective.  It reduces their payment choices, and does not allow for combined shipping for one cost when multiple items from the same seller are involved.  

You can check yours here:

https://www.ebay.com/bmgt/buyerrequirements

Buyer Payment Requirements

*Require buyers to provide a payment method before they place a bid.

*Require buyers to provide a payment method before they make an offer.

Same goes for auctions.  Buyers can't use Google Pay, Apple Pay, Spendable Funds, many buyer coupons or promotions,  PayPal credit, PayPal Pay in 4, etc. and all accepted offers or auction wins are paid for separately with full shipping attached.  My 90+ year old stepfather still watches DVDs.  I buy them for him, but alas, yours are not an option.  I do like being able to combine items for one shipping price, and will move to a seller who does not require I fork over a default payment source for being auto-billed and paid for. 

Though I do understand if non-payers are a serious problem for you that it may be a good thing to keep those defaults eBay placed for you. Understand that it discourages PAYING buyers as well. Buyers that make use of a seller's make offer feature, or bid on auctions are not necessarily slow or NPBs.  

[a_c_green]

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@the-hook-and-the-loop wrote:

Have you tried listing it for $10 with free shipping and promote it at 15%-20%? I'd bet you would have more action.

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That's a good point. These days if someone is looking for a title that you have, they'll buy the best example they see, not necessarily the cheapest. Get your price up to something justifying the quality of the item you're selling, and I think you'll get more attention than something priced at one penny.

Buyers will believe that your price reflects what you think of your item, and if you've got only one cent on it, that suggests that you don't think very much of it at all.

[atlasesattic]

I know your pain I ended up putting my 23 popular romance movies into a lot...15.00 and 7.00 shipping and still can't get rid of them....its a shame nobody has any interest, I could probably put 1.00 free shipping and they still wouldn't sell.

[onefootflippers]

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@a_c_green wrote:

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@the-hook-and-the-loop wrote:

Have you tried listing it for $10 with free shipping and promote it at 15%-20%? I'd bet you would have more action.

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That's a good point. These days if someone is looking for a title that you have, they'll buy the best example they see, not necessarily the cheapest. Get your price up to something justifying the quality of the item you're selling, and I think you'll get more attention than something priced at one penny.

Buyers will believe that your price reflects what you think of your item, and if you've got only one cent on it, that suggests that you don't think very much of it at all.

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I could not disagree more with DVDs. I have researched this market extensively for various videos and the solds on DVD cluster around or below the currently listed low, which is often below what a non-charity seller can even mail the thing out at. The customer looking for a PREMIUM DVD used DVD buying experience does not exist, particularly since the new ones generally start showing up about 80 cents cheaper than the used ones.

[onefootflippers]

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@atlasesattic wrote:

I know your pain I ended up putting my 23 popular romance movies into a lot...15.00 and 7.00 shipping and still can't get rid of them....its a shame nobody has any interest, I could probably put 1.00 free shipping and they still wouldn't sell.

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Before I finally took all my DVDs out of my store I lotted them up by genre at about 70 cents per movie with exact media mail shipping and I sold 2 lots out of 50 that I made. I sold the rest to a friend of mine for a quarter each.

[chapeau-noir]

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@atlasesattic wrote:

I know your pain I ended up putting my 23 popular romance movies into a lot...15.00 and 7.00 shipping and still can't get rid of them....its a shame nobody has any interest, I could probably put 1.00 free shipping and they still wouldn't sell.

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It's because they were so plentifully produced.

ETA: They're probably popularly streamed, too, not because no one has interest.

[a_c_green]

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@onefootflippers wrote:

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@a_c_green wrote:

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@the-hook-and-the-loop wrote:

Have you tried listing it for $10 with free shipping and promote it at 15%-20%? I'd bet you would have more action.

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That's a good point. These days if someone is looking for a title that you have, they'll buy the best example they see, not necessarily the cheapest. Get your price up to something justifying the quality of the item you're selling, and I think you'll get more attention than something priced at one penny.

Buyers will believe that your price reflects what you think of your item, and if you've got only one cent on it, that suggests that you don't think very much of it at all.

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I could not disagree more with DVDs.

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Well, I always seek out a Blu-ray version instead of DVD for a given title, so, yeah...

But still: if you're asking one cent for the thing, you have nowhere lower to go, so if you're going to spend your time actually listing it, then price it like a real item.

If I'm actually looking to buy a title, I know I'm going to see 87 listings for it, but I am not going to start with the 1¢ listings: those just give me a bad vibe. I'm not looking to pay a ton of money for a popular title, but I'm willing to cough up a few bucks for a listing with a good presentation (including, especially, photos of the actual item I will receive) and a realistic price.

P.S. I have to add a meta footnote here: There's no way in Hades that I would try to sell Blu-rays or DVDs here unless they're titles that are (1) wildly obscure and (2) heavily sought after, simply because it's like trying to sell used clothing or phone covers. The market is just glutted. Nevertheless, I'll respect whoever wants to put forth the effort and offer the best advice I can think of, since we're already past the point of saying, "Maybe you should try something else?"