Wondering if online selling is worth it

jcaliff · Post by **jcaliff** » Tue Mar 03, 2009 4:38 pm

I'm trying to decide what to do. I recently bought a house. I have a ton of stuff I want to sell, and I'm planning to have a garage sale in a few months when I finish unpacking and clearing out my stuff from my storage shed and parents house. If I advertise my garage sale on craig's list and in the paper, I'm sure I can get people there to buy stuff. I sold a crap ton of manga and dvds at my sister's garage sale a couple of years ago.

Some of the stuff I want to sell is going to be anime stuff that I need to get rid of (trading cards, shitajiki, toys, manga, DVDs, artbooks, etc.) Not planning to sell any cels at the moment, so those of you eyeing my collection can forget that.

This isn't a great purge or anything, just mostly getting rid of dupes and manga/anime that I didn't enjoy all that much.

I'd probably have much better luck getting rid of some of the stuff if I try selling it online first. But, I'm not messing with ebay, period. I don't really want to upgrade my paypal to receive credit cards. I'm also not sure I have the energy to deal with packing and shipping stuff, especially with how impatient the online world has become, with people expecting their packages to arrive the day after they order them. But, I could make some people in the various online communities I'm a part of happy if I sell online.

So for those of you who do and don't sell stuff online, is it worth it these days? If I just offer stuff through Beta, my livejournal, and maybe a couple other anime-dedicated forums with sale sections, is there a chance of worthwhile sales without having paypal involved?

If I do have to accept paypal payments, how bad is the ding for accepting credit cards? Do I have to have a merchants account or a DBA? I just don't really want to start messing with that kind of stuff.

But I know some of you guys deal with it all the time. Is it as big a pain in the butt as I'm thinking it is?

Not sure where to put this post since I'm not actually selling anything yet, but mods feel free to move it if it belongs somewhere else.

Thanks!

edit: ooh, look. 5 years on Beta today! Yay!

zerospace · Post by **zerospace** » Tue Mar 03, 2009 5:26 pm

Hmm... well it's been a little while since I sold stuff online, but upgrading your PayPal account is pretty simple. The fees suck though -- my last sales showed me how bad they ding you when you start accepting higher payment amounts (especially on international payments). I suppose its the price you pay for convenience.

I don't know about selling manga, but I have sold some extra DVDs pretty cheaply online, and I have to say this... for the amount of work it takes to pack and ship, unless you're making a good amount, selling online might be more hassle than its worth. I guess it depends on how badly you want to sell the stuff, and how much work you're willing to do. From the sounds of it, you may just be better off with a garage sale.

I've been contemplating something similar... how to unload some computer parts, since I'm in the process of upgrading my primary desktop computer ... and I hate feeBay.

It's awfully tempting to go with craigslist.

ReiTheJelly · Post by **ReiTheJelly** » Tue Mar 03, 2009 5:52 pm

Sell online before a garage sale. At a garage sale people expect to pay pennies on the dollar for really nice items. Try listing them for sale on various collection or interest group forums. Also try listing them for sale in various LiveJournal communities geared toward that particular interest. There used to be a community called japangaragesale, or something like that, which was for japanese/anime-related items...

MidniteKitten · Post by **MidniteKitten** » Tue Mar 03, 2009 6:13 pm

The LJ community is garagesalejapan ^w^ I would love to see some stuff there

syan · Post by **syan** » Tue Mar 03, 2009 7:21 pm

I sometimes throw my dvds and books on amazon and sell them that way if I'm not in a rush, and the resale price isn't ridiculously low. Amazon only charges a fee if the item sells, and gives you some money to ship via media mail.

pixie_princess · Post by **pixie_princess** » Tue Mar 03, 2009 10:54 pm

Its real simple to upgrade your paypal account, but they like to take back a small amount in fees. Though, you can make it up if you get their debit card. Not the credit card mind you, but the mastercard linked debit card. You get back X% every time you use the credit feature -and since it only takes out money from your online balance its ok. Or, if you don't want to go that way, you can always accept e-checks, and wait till they clear before sending things out. I second trying to sell on garagesalejapan and anime4sale on Livejournal. Also, on a small side note, I'd love to see what artbooks you have available. You wouldn't by any chance have any of the Slayers Try artbooks, would you?

Amazon.com is a pretty good way of selling off manga slowly. They charge a small fee, and give you X amount for shipping. Usually their shipping compensation is decent, but if you ship something large and heavy like a scanner, the seller ends out having to pay a bit out of pocket even for the cheapest method (example: It recently cost me $11-13 to ship out a scanner that I received only a bit over $6 in shipping compensation.)

Most people don't like sending money orders out now a days because they feel less secure with things like paypal around.

Killua · Post by **Killua** » Wed Mar 04, 2009 12:12 am

Aw man you got my hopes up!

I've had success with Craigslist. It's pretty simple to set up, and no Ebay or Paypal fees. But somethings you really need Ebay to sell for a good price. And of course there's always posting sales threads on forums you frequent.

iwakuralain16 · Post by **iwakuralain16** » Wed Mar 04, 2009 1:38 am

MidniteKitten wrote:The LJ community is garagesalejapan ^w^ I would love to see some stuff there

I agree here. Also certain anime series have thier own selling communities. I know Sm has one for sure. I would create a seperate e-mail to use to accept credit card payments. That is what my deputy does and I have many others doing it as well.

Mappi · Post by **Mappi** » Wed Mar 04, 2009 7:01 am

I don't really sell stuff online. I think it's too much of a hassle and the things I throw out are not really worth that much anyway. I tried selling online once but it didn't generate much response so, I don't bother trying now. Paypal isn't very popular where I live so, I don't have experience dealing with that. People here mostly use bank transfers because it's more secure, it's instant and there's no fees involved. Is there something like that in the US? If there is, maybe you can give it a try?

pixie_princess · Post by **pixie_princess** » Wed Mar 04, 2009 7:55 am

Bank transfers cost money in the US, at least they did a few years back last time I checked.

zerospace · Post by **zerospace** » Wed Mar 04, 2009 9:20 am

pixie_princess wrote:Bank transfers cost money in the US, at least they did a few years back last time I checked.

Yep, last I checked, bank transfers are pretty pricey in the US. You really need to be transferring a good amount to make it worthwhile.

On a side note: I'm curious about those who say they do better online with selling stuff like DVDs... I always see DVDs going on eBay for so much less than the original prices -- are there some that do well and perhaps its just the more obscure stuff that doesn't generate much?

pixie_princess · Post by **pixie_princess** » Wed Mar 04, 2009 1:47 pm

zerospace wrote:
pixie_princess wrote:Bank transfers cost money in the US, at least they did a few years back last time I checked.
Yep, last I checked, bank transfers are pretty pricey in the US. You really need to be transferring a good amount to make it worthwhile.

On a side note: I'm curious about those who say they do better online with selling stuff like DVDs... I always see DVDs going on eBay for so much less than the original prices -- are there some that do well and perhaps its just the more obscure stuff that doesn't generate much?

Depends on what you have. OOP stuff like CCS or SM can generate a pretty penny.