Advice for comic book sellers who are oblivious when it comes to grading and pricing their comics
This is just a quick rant; and I'm sure there has to be others out there that would agree with me on this...
1) I want to know where some of these people 'learn' how to grade? I love it when I see a title for any random book and it says things like: NM-MT Highest Possible Grade! Rare! and then I see pics of a book like Spectacular Spider-Man #101 and obviously not in MT condition - more like a 7.0 and that's me being generous!
2) I also want to know how these same people decide on a price for their listed comics. As I've seen a lot of listings lately for books that normally can be found for $5 to $10, and all of a sudden people are listing them for $50, $100, and more! As with my example above of that Spectacular Spider-Man, they had it listed for $150! On a good day, in 9.4 cond. that's maybe a $25 book. And get ready for it....
3) WHO in their RIGHT mind would purchase that book for $150?? (plus $7.99 shipping besides?) OMG!
It literally makes me ill to my stomach to see how these sellers are able to make these sales! Well, then I noticed that since 2017, this same seller only had 96 sales (no wonder! No one is going to buy a copy of The Punisher #3 (which is another one I saw) for $50...
Meanwhile, since 2020, I've already racked up over 1000 sales - people just don't understand one of the most basic concepts of business... In the long run, sales VOLUME far outweighs Per Item Profit....
Sure I might get lucky one day after having my comic being re-listed over and over by eBay for 5+ years (because I've priced it ridiculously high, like 5 to 10 times FMV) and then by some stroke of luck, after 5 years that book sells and I make a whopping $125+ profit, yay! Meanwhile, I'd rather make $5 to $10 profit per item (or even less, as long as I don't take a loss) and sell 100 items a week and keep the sales coming in... because not only does that volume reflect in your account details that are visible for all to see (like feedback and number of sales, etc.) and these high volume sales can only positively reinforce a seller's ebay store by the sheer fact that prospective buyers (from my own observations and practices) are much more likely to buy an item from the seller with more sales, higher feedback rating etc. even if two sellers are selling the same item and at approx. the same price.. I'm going with the one who's done more business - because that equates to experience and a level of trust and integrity that these noobs with 27 'star' points just haven't earned yet! Look up item #389511948039 Punisher #2 1987 (ongoing series) $100? Are you F-ing serious?
1786davycrockett
·5 months ago@mattys_virtual_variety_shop
Back in the mid-1980s, when I was the store manager for a comic book store, I frequently had interactions with "mom 'n' pop" types, who did their own grading, without having clue one about the various grades of comic book conditions.
And each time I asked them upon what circumstances did they base their prices (this was during the period when most comic book collectors used the Overstreet guiding scale for comics.)
Nine times out of ten, these "know-nothing" sellers had admitted that they weren't pricing according to condition, but by the highest price suggested in the Overstreet guide: The "sellers" did not understand the significance of the abbreviations ("G," "VG," "NM" etc) at the top of the pricing columns, and thought that the price ranges below those columns were suggested price ranges -- so, of course, nearly all these "sellers" chose the "NM" prices, not understanding the meaning of "NM" condition.
When I pointed out the numerous flaws in their "NM" comics, these folks became quite irritated, and argued that I was trying to cheat them, since I was a competitor.
To which I paged through the Overstreet guide to the pages outlining the definitions and instructions for comic book grading; but these folks were now no longer interested -- they just couldn't be bothered with any facts that might upset their understanding of how comic books were graded.
And they're probably still hanging on to their overpriced comic book collections -- or trying to sell them on eBay.
christworks
·5 months agoWhy are you so worked up about what others do? When I started reading your post, I thought you were a buyer. Then I read that you are a seller. It doesn't matter what others do. I'm with you on the grading stuff. The "rare" in the title super annoys me as well when I am a buyer. Do you know how I handle it? I move on. I don't buy from that person. Same way if their price is too high. They have their reasons, one of which is because people will buy it. I sell stuff that came from Amazon and sometimes charge 30%-40% more than the Amazon price. Why? Because people will buy it. If it takes 8 months, I'm happy to wait because I have the room to store it.
That brings me to the quote of yours I cited above. Sales volume does not always outpace per-item profit. Volume will kill a business if you have ultra-thin margins. If you have healthy margins and consistent sales (which means you have access to a lot of in-demand inventory), then yes, volume will win out. I call it the Walmart model. A lot of sellers have a higher cost of goods and don't have access to the best inventory. They have to work within the limits of what they are able to source. There is a time element involved, too. Some sellers do not want to have to list every day or every week or even every month. If they are doing volume on 1000 different unique SKUs, that is a lot of work they have to put in. Instead, they run a low-key, low-effort business and they are happy when that surprise beer money comes in. I see nothing wrong with that.