eBay

houseofblair · ‎12-14-2023

Due to health reasons, I am wanting to liquidate my entire ebay store. The retail value is over $230,000.00. I made a listing and started it at $19,000 and now I have lowered it to $10,000. There are over 16,000 items and I will continue to add more each day until it sells. Has anyone had any success at selling their entire inventory here on ebay? Due to the size of my inventory, it will not be available to ship as the cost would be too cost prohibitive. I have about 30 file cabinets organized that contain the bulk of my inventory. Does anyone have any suggestions for trying to sell such a large volume? I have contacted local auction services but the fees hover around 40%. I have tried Craigslist in the past but get nothing but people trying to pull scams. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

rosszonebricks · ‎12-14-2023

No easy answer there, but for a quarter million $ in inventory, even the 30-40% for auction houses might get you a better overall return than letting it go on the cheap.

tinsoldierunderground · ‎12-14-2023

Absolutely agree.

houseofblair · ‎12-14-2023

Thank you so much for everyone's helpful advice.

tobaccocardyahoo · ‎12-14-2023

I doubt any auctioneer would charge 40% to offer your items as a single lot.

I would assume that they would lot like items, so the idea that you might get more from their auction is likely.

I have sympathy for your situation, not just your health, but the problem you have in disposing of your inventory.

I have close to 5,000 listings on Ebay which have a total asking price of over 100k. I have been asking myself how much would I be happy selling them for, and discovered I cannot answer that question.

I have concluded that no sane person would want to buy them all. They do not represent a coherent selection of inventory to anyone but ME. They do not all appeal to the same buyers, nor even similar buyers. I am afraid that applies to your inventory as well.

When buying large lots, I look for items within the lot which would generate fast payback of the costs, and a willing to wait for profits. Your inventory, and mine do not yield fast payback for more than an insulting portion of their value. I do not see fast payback of 10k or even 5k in your inventory.

That auctioneer might be your best deal, because the alternatives could be providing it for free to someone who will haul it away, or actually paying someone.

There is value there, but redeeming that value is going to be hard.

My children have made it clear, that if I do not deal with my inventory, their solution is one or more construction dumpsters.

hartungcards · ‎12-14-2023

When liquidating an entire inventory of any kind, online or brick-and-mortar, you will be lucky to get 10% of the total retail value.

deltilogical · ‎12-14-2023

If you can find an auction house that will deal with all that stuff you should. You might call a local antique mall/flea market to see if they know any lot buyers.

Whoever buys the lot will need to reimage and relist everything again.

Have you considered just having a fire sale? 50% or even 75% and see how much you can move along quickly? I've found in my own experience a need to emotionally detach from the value I think I have imposed on something and accept its actual value and get it sold.

houseofblair · ‎12-14-2023

With the auction houses that I have talked with, they would do my inventory in lots. Majority of auction houses start their bidding $2.00. I could end up losing far more money after they take their percentage based on the uniqueness of the buyer who would want the inventory. My kids have said the same thing to me...do not pass on your inventory to us as inheritance...LOL!

houseofblair · ‎12-14-2023

Thanks for such helpful advice. I have over time had the so called "fire sale" and with magazines, it has to be the right buyer looking for the right magazine. A few years back I even did a $1.00 sale and it netted me a total of nothing in sales. I also could try just selling the magazines in individual lots (for example, full year of a certain magazine). It would take time to do that but it is an option. I'm in my 60's and health has required more of my attention as I age. Body parts just don't understand I have the will to keep going but they are putting the brakes on my physical activity.

retro_entertainment_collectibles · ‎12-14-2023

@houseofblair wrote:
Due to health reasons, I am wanting to liquidate my entire ebay store. The retail value is over $230,000.00. I made a listing and started it at $19,000 and now I have lowered it to $10,000. There are over 16,000 items and I will continue to add more each day until it sells. Has anyone had any success at selling their entire inventory here on ebay? Due to the size of my inventory, it will not be available to ship as the cost would be too cost prohibitive. I have about 30 file cabinets organized that contain the bulk of my inventory. Does anyone have any suggestions for trying to sell such a large volume? I have contacted local auction services but the fees hover around 40%. I have tried Craigslist in the past but get nothing but people trying to pull scams. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

You set a price, that simple. Accept nothing less than certified check drawn on a national bank. In as far as freighting goes, you've options. You can use sturdy file boxes via FedEx or UPS, commercial freighting companies.

tinsoldierunderground · ‎12-14-2023

The local auction house I've used is at a flat 30% for one piece or a hundred.

dbfolks166mt · ‎12-14-2023

You may be better off breaking this up into a few smaller lots as opposed to one big one. Include some pictures of the file cabinets and some of the items. As it is currently listed there is not a lot of information for a potential buyer to go on or work with and I am not sure what the "retail" value you quoted is based on. This has a high probability for now working out well should you happen to sell it.

The auction house may not be such a bad deal if you are looking to quickly liquidate. I suspect you are not going to get anywhere near the $231K in your quoted retail value.

tobaccocardyahoo · ‎12-14-2023

I think that you folks in Missouri have different auctioneers than we do in New England.

I haven't seen an auctioneer open a lot at $2 for at least 35 years. I can see why they have a 40% commission.

@hartungcards

As for the estimate of 10% of retail, that is probably correct for mass market products, but I have never done that poorly with in person auctions. We may have more people who are looking for old paper here.

onefootflippers · ‎12-14-2023

You are probably going to have a hard time finding a buyer because you are incredibly overvaluing most of your items. Every book I price checked was available at half the price from other sellers. You have a Time Magazine for $70 that is a slow seller at the $10 other sellers have it at.

It looks like you have nearly 1000 of your own abstract paintings listed but according to Terapeak only 5 of them have sold ever. Are those painting counted as $16,000 worth of value?

Your store overall has an almost 10 year sell through rate and most of those things like cut out magazine ads and old $2 catalogs are not worth the time it takes to list them because they sell so slowly and infrequently.

I am actually in Missouri and wouldn't mind buying someone out but after looking over your store I am not sure if I could actually recoup the $10,000 you are asking within any reasonable time frame.

I would suggest pulling down entire categories. Take down all the magazine ads and auction them all in one lot, and so on. Then take down all the magazines, auction that lot. And so on.