As someone who did consignment selling for 6-8yrs, all of Maxine*j's stated issues are resolvable, but not by a casual eBay seller. When I started accepting consignments, I'd already been selling for a number of years, with feedback approaching 1000 positives.
Rather than trying to find a Trading Assistant (I registered when eBay started the program and generated maybe 6 leads during the entire time, none of which panned out), I would look for eBay sellers within say 1hrs drive of your location. Then it gets tougher - you're going to want to find someone who sells similar to what you are wanting to unload, and who does enough sales that they would be able, and interested, in a private bulk purchase. Making it even more difficult is eBay's monitoring of member-to-member communications. And now that eBay supplies buyers/sellers with 'intermediary' email addresses (addresses that go thru eBay), all messaging from anywhere on the site will be scanned for those communications "violations".
And then there is the issue of will the seller be trusting enough to actually show up, review your goods, and give you a fair price. "Fair" becomes the tricky term there - my consignment clients generally received 70% of the NET proceeds from the sale. Total collected less total expense = net proceeds. With a bulk sale, you may be looking at a smaller percentage rate, but the trade-off for both you and the seller whose buying is the elimination of a lot of the issues noted about. And then there's also the benefit of getting a single payment for large collections of things, rather than a much smaller amount month after month after month.
I'm almost to the point of selling off a number of my collectibles, with some of the collections numbering in the thousands of pieces. I've been selling on eBay since '95 ('97 on this ID), and I have excellent automation to make a lot of things easier. But there is something quite attractive in being able to empty multiple dozens of square feet of rental storage space in a single purchase. Line up several of those purchase over the course of a month or two and I could have half or better of my storage space emptied, and my bank account in a much better place. The only thing holding me back is genetic in nature... hoard...er...collecting runs all thru my family tree... it's something generations of folks before me have had to deal with. 🙂 I can joke about it now... but rental storage is getting more expensive almost on a monthly basis lately...
It is definitely easier to accumulate than to reduce. At least for me. 🙂
-Bob.
@soh.maryl wrote:And, when you find the perfect one, please do not try to tell them how to price your items.
Most people have an exaggerated idea of the value of their possessions. The people you hire to reduce your accumulation for you will have a much more realistic grip on prices than you do.
That's why my consignment clients were all businesses - they understood buying/selling and the costs involved in each. Mostly they just wanted things gone and a decent cash return for new/more marketable inventory.
-Bob.
