keeping this Group Alive

[richardi415]

I haven't been active in this group in a long time.  But, I did get an email today saying this group would close due to no activity in the last 60 days.  I don't have much to say, but would like to keep the group alive.  If nothing else, looking back at a lot of the posts is still useful and interesting to me.  Thank you to all present and former group members.

--Richard--

[oldtownview]

how can you make any money selling for 50 cents?

[ragbutter]

I was wondering the same thing - and wanted to help keep the group alive.

I think they must be talking about large lots of leftovers. You can't make money selling cards for 50¢. You can hardly make money selling cards for $5.00.

[no_more_room5]

Ditto for me! When I research card prices, I'm always stunned to see sellers whose pricepoint is .99 or less. With eBay and Paypal fees it seems to me they could possibly end up with a loss when you consider the .35 transaction fee on Paypal before the FVF's . 

Could it simply be a Loss Leader to attract customers? But some sellers have sooooo many cards under $1.  Just the time consumed packing and shipping for no gain seems counterproductive.

I wish some sellers with cards under $1 would explain their strategy to us.  I've always been curious about this.

[ragbutter]

I know that there are lots of people that list cards for hardly nothing just to attract buyers. I can't do that. I ship all my cards in hard rigid toploaders inside of stay flat mailers. It makes for a nice little package that my customers really seem to appreciate. I think postcard deserve to be treated well. They've been around a long time. That being said, I have lots of cards that are either not in perfect condition, or they just don't sell for whatever reason. I will probably put those in a lot of a hundred or so, and then ask .50¢ a piece. I guess that must be what they are talking about. I'm sure the same people that sell cards for .01¢ to .99¢ also sell cards for $100 a piece. Otherwise, they couldn't do it.

[mdes162nj]

I agree! Cards should be respected. I don't use rigid top loaders for inexpensive cards, instead I use individual archival sleeves. But, I too, ship in a rigid cardboard stay-flat and I agree that buyers express their appreciation for the protection their cards receive.  

Nowadays a stayflat requires First class package rate instead of letter rate which also raises the bar.  I've spoken with a few postal employees and two postmasters and they agree that in reality it only requires the letter rate and the rigid surcharge, but three times I had cards returned for postage due to a few overzealous postal workers in various cities so I no longer take the chance. 

I've looked at some of the stores of sellers with very low priced cards and I haven't seen too many high end cards to balance out the sales, that's why I'm always curious about the strategy.

I don't understand how you put the cards in a lot of 100 or so and then charge .50 a piece.  In one listing? How do you work the listing? Do you photograph each card? How do buyers know what the choices are?   Is there an example on eBay that I could look at?

[ragbutter]

I haven't sold any lots yet. But I will be soon. However I have seen tons of box lots of cards that start the bidding at around 30¢ a card. The lots I buy usually end up costing me between 67¢ and 87¢ a card. Just search for postcard lot or postcard box and you will get quite a few results. As for the pictures - I'm crazy about good pictures. When I do start selling lots I will make sure to include lots of great pictures. We get 12 for free and you can put as many as you want in your Item Description, so why not take advantage of it. Just make sure they are optimized to load fast. Most of the cards I buy in lots have pictures that are so small you can hardly see them. Either that or they only have one or two really bad pictures. If I am serious about bidding on the lot, I usually email and ask for more pics and most people send them. I seems almost as though some sellers don't want you to see the conditon of the cards. I recently bought an album of cards that hard very small pictures and the cards were in awful condition ( as in around 50% not sellable or collectible ). I like to be upfront and make sure people can see exactly what they are getting.

I do wish someone that sells really inexpensive cards would chime in and tell us what the deal is - but I won't hold my breath.

[mdes162nj]

Ah!  I see what you're saying.  Sometimes I swear my senior brain is just plain weird!  You're going to think I'm crazy but I thought you meant buyers could select individual cards from a lot and purchase them individually for .50!   I wasn't getting the picture at all (no pun intended)!  Sometimes I scare myself

I've never bought a Lot online.  I attend estate sales and auctions in my area.  I can see where condition would be a big concern when buying sight unseen.

I won't hold my breathe either but if any $1 and under sellers are listening out there, we'd love to hear from you.

[4166mcdonnell]

Hi, this is my first time checking out the eBay Community section specifically for postcard groups and I just found this group today and noticed this thread has long been pleading to hear from sellers of $1.00 cards as to how they do it and never yet received an answer.  Some years ago I stopped selling stamps on eBay and swtiched to other collectibles before settling on postcards and beer coasters a few years after having had surprising luck on some initial offerings. Last month I finally bit the bullet and got a basic store subscription here on eBay.

The first year I made a lot of mistakes such as selling cards that were not moving after a long time for lower and lower prices until they sold in worst case scenarios for as little as 10 cents. Then I quickly realised I was forgetting the reality of the fees. Thankfully these were cards from my own personal collection of multiple decades, many of which had been given to me by others for free so the initials losses were kept to a minimum. At the time I was doing eBay as a sideline. Since then I became more serious and have been working to actually build my own self-employed business in conjunction with my wife that eBay is one element of, in addition to other online stores and a Friday/Saturday/Sunday flea market kiosk.

How I have since approached postcards is by buying them in lots but never at auctions or estate sales or anywhere online. The vast majority have been bought at garage sales, church bazaars and flea markets. Almost always I have only bought the lots when the individual pricing worked out to anywhere from 1 to 10 cents each. Consequently most postcards received dated anywhere from the 1940's to current with occasional rare ones included that went further back. I went about listing them on auction at eBay for 99 cents each. After a long period if they did not sell I would reduce to 75 cents each. Those that continued not to sell were moved to 2 other sites where I would try for $1 at one site for auction and finally try to settle for 50 cents at the third site as b-i-n. If all else failed they went to the flea market and were offered anywhere from 25 cents to $1. The ones that sold successfully on eBay have sold from as low as 75 cents to as much as 18 dollars each on heavily bid-on items.

Last summer I finally got the break I had long been looking for. Another dealer at the flea market I work at on the week-ends advised she had received a collection of postcards, used and unused, that were from the early to mid-1900's, mostly from France, French-speaking North Africa with a handful from Swtizerland, Germany, Canada and the US. We looked over the cards together and over 90% of them were in absolutely fantastic shape, having been kept snug and clean in just the right size tin. The vast majority were clean with no damages and some had very interesting stamps and postmarks. There were many location cards but also cartoons, military subjects, vintage vehicles, greetings, churches/cathedrals and a number of other subjects. The other vendor was selling them on consignment and wanted me to pay her $1 each but I insisted they were for resale and that the size of the lot was such that it will take a long time to sell them and previous experience has shown that all cards in any lot ever sell. After 3 days of haggling and her going back to the consignor we finally settled on a lot price that amounted to 25 cents each. Needless to say that the vast majority of those cards are NOT being listed by me for just $1.00. I have started all of those at $2 each on auction at eBay and of the ones that have sold so far I have received anywhere from $2 to over $8 each. Those that are not selling on auction on eBay are going into my store as b-i-n for 30 days and then off to the other 2 sites, at $2 on auction at one site or $2 b-i-n at the third site. A small minority of the cards stretch into the early 1950's and those are being listed at 99 cents and I do not intend to go lower.

As far as shipping supplies go, I have the good fortune of having a fair supply of cardboard supplies still left over from the stamp days as well having had the fortune being able to get other cardboard packing materials and even some proper envelopes from others who had no use for them that either straight out gave them to me or charged me prices that amounted to less than 1 cent each.

I hope this helps shed some light on at least how one person manages to offer postcard listings at 99 cents each.  I really believe that garage sales, church bazaars and flea markets and similar other venues have been a long neglected source of items such as postcards and beer coasters simply because the sellers in those venues put so little value on these items, don't bother looking through what they have and are so focused on selling other items they feel has better income potential. Another dealer at our flea market shocked me when he showed me an album he had bought from the adult daughter of a deceased diplomat . This diplomat had been assigned to London, England in the early 1900's and he had collected postcards of all the places he found interesting that he had visited both in England and, when on vacation, in France during those years. The adult daughter was having a garage sale and the dealer spotted the album and looked at it. He asked her how much she wanted she answered in an obviously disinterested voice, "Oh, I don't know. How about $10?" He gave her the $10, brought it home, looked at it more closely and discovered there were more than 300 postcards, all inserted in slits to avoid corner damage and in fantastsic condition. The album book itself looked very expensive, with the deceased diplomat's name inscribed on the cover. He felt bad and went back to the woman and gave her and additional $15. He showed it to me and made it clear he would not sell it to me because he knew how I bargained on postcards. He mentioned the possiblity of having me do it on consignment for him and I suggested I list it for $300 on auction and advised him of my fee. He said he would email the photos to me and that he wanted me to list it for $500. Instead he tried to list it for $1500 by himself and I never heard back from him.

So finally you got a response, sorry it was so long. Hope it was helpful.

[lbstamps]

I would like to see more contributors to this forum as well.

In a nut shell, as for what I have been doing is very similar.  I sell U.S. stamps that are duplicates or over-runs of collections that I have purchased. Just recently started with post cards and currently in the process of building up my inventory and finalizing my primary selling channel beyond ebay.

I started with buying pc collections on ebay but have been very disappointed in both the quality of what I get.  Pretty much due to the reason you described yourself in doing.  These are leftovers that didn't sell or have been cherry-picked out.  So I stay away collections being offered on ebay from sellers that sell individual postcards and/or from their other sites.  I focus instead, those collections from sellers selling pc as a one-off event.  This has be much better.  Other than that, I have been buying pc from estates. Currently finalizing on the inventory of an estate a dealer.  Roughly 52k that I can cherry-pick from at $0.10 each.

If I get any interest here, I will lend my thoughts on selling and what I'm working on and why I feel ebay is not the channel of choice for selling of postcards.  Again, if anyone is interested.  Please post here.

[ragbutter]

Sadly it goes beyond being " cherry-picked out ". I have actually bought lots on eBay that looked as though the seller had bought an old empty postcard album and put their old cards that would not sell in the album and listed them as estate finds or belonging to their dearly departed great-grandmother or something of the sort. I know because you wouldn't have an estate album with all of the cards being sent to different people from all over the country. If they can sleep at night - more power to them. I know I couldn't live with myself if I did such a thing. When purchasing lots for resell on eBay you have to be REALLY careful. It is probably best to stay away from them really. Sad - but people do all sorts of things to try to sell the cards that didn't sell indidivdually. As for looking to see if they sell cards individually - who knows - they have multiple accounts set up.

If we want really good cards to sell - I guess we need to go to actual estate sales.

[lbstamps]

To research if an ebay seller has multiple accounts selling the same or similar product is not too overly difficult. It does take a bit of work though and knowing the ebay interface is key.  Without going into detail with my dirty little secret, I'll give you a of couple tips.  Seller location and their laziness is a factor in finding them.  The rest is knowledge.

I've been doing this close to 2 years now and have used it only for purchasing postcards.  Less now due to either the declining number of postcard sellers or truly no collections worthwhile pursuing.  I've since compiled a list of a little more than couple dozen of sellers and their other accounts.  Some using 4-5 accounts to peddle the same garbage. (what are they thinking?).

It's not fool-proof, but it has saved me in getting into situations of buying "garbage" or leftovers.  Thank goodness for the ebay buyer protection policy.  I only wished I could exclude them from my searches.  It would make buying much less time consuming and more enjoyable.

Larry

www.PulpDaddy.com

[ragbutter]

Thanks Larry. I'm slowly figuring it all out. It is just such a shame that people can't be honest. I am going to start selling lots myself soon and I can promise you that when I do - I will be honest. If you've tried to sell something already - tell people. If the cards are damaged - tell people. You never know, someone might want the cards to created digital collage sheets or they might want them as fillers until something better comes along. Personally, I get more more pleasure from being able to sleep at night than I would from knowing that I was slick enough to deceive someone. But - that's just me.

Just be careful friends - if the pictures are hard to see ( or there are none ) there is probably a reason why. If you've got nothing to hide - you hide nothing.

[4166mcdonnell]

Thanks for your reply and insights. Based on what you said I may have to re-think estate sales which I had previously shunned, seeing as you have had some success with those. I will continue however to stay away from buying lots online because I am of the old school, when it comes to lots, that I want to be able to physically see and judge the cards myself and then to be able to immediately decide whether or not to take some or all of them, pay for them on the spot and bring them with me immediately (also saves shipping costs). My experiences on the garage sale/church bazaar/ flea market circuit have been mostly favourable where the potential sellers allow all the time I need to carefully go over and evaluate what is being offered. I have even declined entire lots on occasion and the vendor was usually quite understanding.

Should I ever get to the point of wanting to get rid of some of my constantly growing inventory I believe I would NOT offer them in lots here or anywhere else online out of fairness to potential buyers and to avoid negative comebacks over any of the cards within the lots. I would instead offer the lots at my flea market kiosk where potential customers could have the same freedom as I did earlier to take the time to evaluate them right there and then.

One comment you made that really floored me was that you did not think eBay was the best avenue for some kinds of postcard sales. The reason that surprised me is that for the last few years I have sold postcards on an auction basis on eBay without a store and at 3 other sites where I have online stores (1 charges for the store and the other 2 don't), using auction style on one of the sites and b-i-n on the other two. With the more limited capacity I had on eBay (i.e. only 50 free listings and wishing for and going crazy with the promotions allowing more free listings for brief spurts) eBay continued to way outperform the other 3 sites combined where I don't have to worry about such limits. I simply got more business consistently on  eBay. This year I finally decided I want to put significantly more effort into eBay, opened my own basic store subscription just a few weeks ago, am in the processing of shutting down the online store on the other site that charges me for their store (I will only use their free auction listings on a limited basis starting in March) and will be in the near future very busy putting many new postcard listings in my eBay store as well as switching many listings from the non-performing store into my new eBay store. Could you explain in which way eBay might not be the best venue for some postcard sales and what you do consider better for those? I would really appreciate your input as postcards is the one of major pushes I will be engaging in for 2014. Depending on what better alternative is working for you I might consider adding that alternative to my eBay store efforts as well although I am very determined in the upcoming months to build my inventory primarily in the eBay store. Thanks in advance for any helpful advice you can provide from your own experience. John

[4166mcdonnell]

Ragbutter, sorry to hear of your bad experiences in buying lots online. What an absolutely frustrating situation that must be to eagerly look forward to something you believe to be worthwhile just to be crushed with what arrives on your door step. I agree with you that I have a hard time understanding how sellers like sleep comfortably at night. Does it also not cross their minds that really happy customers are more likely to be loyal repeat customers who may even make recommendations to other potential customers? I just don't get it. As I already mentioned to Larry below, this is why I much prefer to buy lots from places I can get to myself and phyically be able to see and evaluate what is being offered and, if satisfied, to be able to immediately pay for what I want and immediately have it in my possession.

I enjoyed your cynical observation of somebody's sweet old grandmother's collection having many cards from completely different addresses. (Yes, I have seen such eye-raising situations in person too.) That's one of the beauties of buying collections from genuine garage sales. One of the first lots I bought was at a garage sale of a remaining family member selling off unwanted family stuff. That postcard collection had postcards addressed to only two or three parties who were obviously related to each other and the postally used ones stretched from the late 1950's to the early 1980's when they stopped. Many unused postcards in the same collection were from the same places as the postally used ones and looked like they had been brought to the same relatives by loved ones who had done an extensive amount of travelling both in the US and overseas.

I agree with your points about honesty in listing. I am very slow to list damaged cards online unless I suspect there might be an audience for a specific card despite its damages. In those cases where I list a damaged card I take great care to clearly declare everything I see wrong with the card so the potential buyer knows upfront what it is they will be paying for and can expect. Usually I prefer to just simply display the damaged cards in my flea market kiosk so that buyers will immediately know what they are dealing with. One time I actually listed on eBay a very badly damaged Winnie The Pooh book from the 1960's I happened to pick up at a garage sale for free (you could take books for free if you bought other stuff) just to see if the interest I heard existed for Winnie The Pooh would extend to something damaged like that. I listed all the damages in the listing and showed photos of the damages as well. I was dumbstruck when 2 equally determined bidders drove the price from 99 cents to a several dollars. The winning bidder explained that her daughter had always loved Winnie The Pooh and had lost that same book (amongst many other items) in a tornado that had hit their home in the US South when she was a child and had never been able to find that edition since. That daughter was now an adult and still collected Winnie The Pooh collectibles and thus the mother decided to buy this one from me on eBay. Just goes to show that even some items considered junk have a market none-the-less. Who would have thought.

[lbstamps]

Thank you for your reply.  Just a clarification. The estate that I'm working in purchasing the postcards from, came to me through a referral from someone I did consignment work for. Not from an estate sale, although I'm sure that avenue should work out as well.

In response to my thoughts as to a better or more suitable alternative than selling on ebay, I need a bit more time to answer that question in detail.

But without leaving you hanging, let me say this first.

ebay on the whole is a solid selling channel, however not for the selling of postcards.  In my opinion, one factor to be profitable and successful in any retail/resale business is that you have to have the majority, if not all of your inventory available to your buyers. It's just basic business sense.

As you may know, promotional listings aside, ebay charges the seller for listing an item.  If the item doesn't sell, the seller gets charged again for relisting the item. Of course, the seller will get a credit back if the relisted items sells, but that hardly happens (the sale part).

In other words, in simple business terms, what that means, that in every listing cycle (3,5,7,10,30 days) for those things that don't sell, a seller will pay ebay to reshelf their inventory.  That wouldn't bad if only there was a constant stream of buyers.  Which there are not and it has been steadily declining every year.

So why do I say that relisting of an item that hasn't sold generally will not sell and that there are not a steady stream of buyers for postcards? Let look at postcard market facts on ebay and you decide for yourself.

As I speak, there are currently 1,988,313 postcard listings domiciled in the U.S. (I look at this because this the market I live in).  I've seen this number bounce about 200k over the 2 million mark and down as low at 1.6 million.  I don't check it exactly the same time every month. Just a point of reference.  So if I give ebay the benefit of the doubt that on average, there are 1.5 million postcard listings every month, that means that over the course of the year, there would have been 18,000,000 postcard listings on ebay. EIGHTEEN MILLION.

How many listings actually have sold...........

On average 124,646 a year. LESS THAN 1% (0.007 to be exact).

Since November of 2009, ebay has recorded 529,746 postcard listing that have actually sold.

Think about that success rate the next time you make that next ebay listing.

I'll have more later as to why I feel the deck is stacked even greater against the seller of postcards on ebay.

Larry

www.PulpDaddy.com