Fire Sale/Gallery Offers

Kata · Post by **Kata** » Sun Jan 17, 2010 11:27 am

jenn-b wrote:Decide exactly what you are willing to part with and put a price-tag on it. In the past, I thought that it would be too much of a hassle to price everything out that I was willing to let go of. My last offer period here taught me that the rage involved with give you a headache for at least a week. So, taking a day to price things out now seems like just a very small fraction of my time.

I agree with you there. I've had offer periods and it seems people don't like to make offers. Which as long as I can remember been always that way.
When I have an offer period I usually get ask for a price (only very few people ever made an actual offer without asking me for price first in over 12 years of collecting), and I'm always open to that and willing to give a price out to the person interested.
That's pretty much what comes with a offer period and unless there is a price given from the beginning it's an option that has to be kept in mind as I became to learn over many years. Some people are afraid to make offers due to making the offer to low and don't want to insult the person that is taking offers, so they ask for a price instead of making an offer.

It's time consuming to make pages with cels/sketches and prices, but it seems to be easier and it seems to be even more easier to just sell on eBay since even sales and offers don't seem to go well these days for a lot of people.

dark-water-dragon · Post by **dark-water-dragon** » Sun Jan 17, 2010 2:45 pm

Kata wrote:When I have an offer period I usually get ask for a price (only very few people ever made an actual offer without asking me for price first in over 12 years of collecting), and I'm always open to that and willing to give a price out to the person interested.
That's pretty much what comes with a offer period and unless there is a price given from the beginning it's an option that has to be kept in mind as I became to learn over many years. Some people are afraid to make offers due to making the offer to low and don't want to insult the person that is taking offers, so they ask for a price instead of making an offer

Selling items without being a so called dealer is not always easy. I have to agree with Kata and jenn-b on this topic. Personally I dont think there is anything wrong with people asking for how much you are willing to part with your items for. The reason for that is just like what Kata said about insulting the seller with a low ball offer. Asking for a price allows sellers to have a more reasonable starting point for a sale like $250 rather than $50. However I think putting prices on items is much more effective. It lets everyone know where they stand and one could also add "prices are reasonable negotiable". I also think it is easier with pricing to make better deals on both ends. Now with that said, this does not mean this will prevent all or most of the problems. It is just effective with those with half a brain.

zerospace · Post by **zerospace** » Sun Jan 17, 2010 3:47 pm

dark-water-dragon wrote: Personally I dont think there is anything wrong with people asking for how much you are willing to part with your items for.

I don't believe anyone insinuated that asking for a price during an offer period is necessarily wrong. Doing it out in the open like was done here, IMO, isn't right. However, I will say this: when I've done offers in the past, I have said I am willing to provide a starting-point number, and not necessarily a price tag. The reason: if I'd wanted to put a price tag on everything in my gallery, I'd do it, rather than take offers.

It's actually not difficult to ask a seller politely for some idea of what they might want for a cel, rather than outright ask "hey, what's the price on this?" in a public setting. It just takes some consideration for the seller, which seems to be the issue here.

iceman57 · Post by **iceman57** » Sun Jan 17, 2010 4:06 pm

Apologies for my non native english, and the apparent rude way that occur due to this lack of language mastering.
As e-mail was not working I simply asked directly on the board if the non RK OVA was open to a price quotation due to a personal strong interest for it.

graymouser · Post by **graymouser** » Sun Jan 17, 2010 5:20 pm

I just wanted to say I am sorry that things turned out to be so frustrating for you. I hope you will be able to get your wish list item.

Kata · Post by **Kata** » Sun Jan 17, 2010 5:24 pm

graymouser wrote:I just wanted to say I am sorry that things turned out to be so frustrating for you. I hope you will be able to get your wish list item.

Same here. I Hope you can get your wishlist item Maiko!

Belldandy16 · Post by **Belldandy16** » Sun Jan 17, 2010 5:32 pm

same here!

and my advice would beâ€¦â€¦
ebay.

every offer ive ever made (without knowing what the person paid for it in the past, mind you) has been taken the wrong way. I seriously dont mean to offend someone but when you say "pull a number out of the sky" and im still relatively new to collecting (only been at it 2 years and have barely even 40 cels)â€¦ im going to say what i seriously think is reasonable (or what i can afford). I dont know what you paid for it, i dont know what the going rate is now, and i dont mean to offend.
*sorry, having flashbacks here*

anyways, id just pay the ebay fee rather than have headaches (and more people will be exposed to it so you can possibly get what you want or more

).

good luck with whatever you decide!

Maiko · Post by **Maiko** » Sun Jan 17, 2010 7:47 pm

jenn-b wrote:*sighs* *stands up* I am one of the people that cannot properly read. And for that I am truly sorry. Honestly, I was thinking JK...not 12K. But that is still a pretty pathetic excuse for not properly reading and computing the post the whole way through.

After opening, and the very promptly closing my gallery for offers, I have this tidbit of advice to give:

Decide exactly what you are willing to part with and put a price-tag on it. In the past, I thought that it would be too much of a hassle to price everything out that I was willing to let go of. My last offer period here taught me that the rage involved with give you a headache for at least a week. So, taking a day to price things out now seems like just a very small fraction of my time.

Jenn- you are not the person or persons I am talking about. I know you especially since I know you go thru a lot of crap when you have your own offers period. My main problem was with a handful of people who even after being gently reminded the item they wanted was writ as "no no", they come back at me with stuff like, "guess you don't want your wishlist cel bad enough". As far as making offers, I agree, we don't know what was paid and may feel uncomfortable about making offers- I'm one of them, I'm always afraid if offending because the value and cost will differ between people. But low-balling $30 for an ENTIRE SECTION when there are 20 or more cels in there, some I paid at least $200 each for, is the lowest of the lowball.

I was actually gonna pm you Jenn, and I had no problem with your particular text. I'm afraid I got here too late.
Just my thoughts....and thoughts I may very likely not even stick to the next time I want to sell something.

Maiko · Post by **Maiko** » Sun Jan 17, 2010 7:57 pm

Sorry guys- I'm working a 14 hr shift and doing this from my iPhone so posts like the above are gonna be a mess. I'll try to fix it later. I'm just in a rush to clear the air and tell Jenn she does not have to fall on the sword for this. She is not the perp and I have no qualms over her PM to me.

ReiTheJelly · Post by **ReiTheJelly** » Sun Jan 17, 2010 8:13 pm

I hope you got enough decent offers to cover the wishlist cel you are after. If I weren't so abjectly poor, I'd PM you myself.

jenn-b · Post by **jenn-b** » Sun Jan 17, 2010 8:15 pm

I would completely understand if I had ruffled your feathers. I really need to take more time and read things more carefully - one of my biggest problems!

It's absolutely amazing what some of the people in this community think they can get away with. By the way, you may consider a blacklist of said individuals. I'm currently composing my "list of people I hate" and will be posting to my site soon. I really feel that it is necessary to get the word out there to fellow collectors that may consider dealing with these people.

Belldandy16 · Post by **Belldandy16** » Sun Jan 17, 2010 9:40 pm

Maiko wrote: My main problem was with a handful of people who even after being gently reminded the item they wanted was writ as "no no", they come back at me with stuff like, "guess you don't want your wishlist cel bad enough".
low-balling $30 for an ENTIRE SECTION when there are 20 or more cels in there, some I paid at least $200 each for, is the lowest of the lowball.

whoa, now thats just harassment plain and simpleâ€¦:wack dang, why dont they just ask you to GIVE them the celsâ€¦ that would be more tasteful.

and just to clarify, i wasnt defending people like this. Just saying that not even dealing with offers would save you loads of headache.
im sorry youre going thru all this!

Sylia · Post by **Sylia** » Mon Jan 18, 2010 10:07 am

Yeah, $30 for 20 cels... unless they're all definitely 'D-grade' pieces from a low priced series or something, that's a pretty atrocious offer x.x.

I think that if you only get really bad offers like that, the answer is to stick the piece on eBay; either for close to what you payed or for what you think it's worth, and see what it goes for.

I agree with Belldandy that for the first few years of collecting it's really hard to know what things are worth, or what things might have went for before you began paying attention to them. There are people who take advantage of that probably, or people who assume that the highest dealer price going on a "rare" character is the market price. As the buyer, trying to engage in an offer period for the first time ever is tricky- like you said, you don't know if you're insulting someone by making a poor offer, but you also don't want to end up severely overpaying either only to find later that actually, similar cels from the series can be bought for a fraction of the price. If you're polite about it I think it can be helpful to find out what kind of price range the seller has in mind- at the least, if someone will say that certain pieces are definitely over $100, $200 etc as sometimes those things genuinely aren't obvious if you're new to offer making.

I agree though that it would be annoying if someone came back and said, "No really, you should take my $30 for your *whole collection* if you're that desperate".

I think I'd politely decline and tell them the reasons why it's not serious offer to me if they kept persisting.

zerospace · Post by **zerospace** » Mon Jan 18, 2010 10:41 am

Maiko wrote: low-balling $30 for an ENTIRE SECTION when there are 20 or more cels in there, some I paid at least $200 each for, is the lowest of the lowball.

I totally agree with everyone else here -- it's really sad to hear that this happened to you, Maiko. I hope you manage to make the money you had hoped so you can buy your wishlist item

.

The super-rude lowballing is nothing new, sadly. At least not to me. I had someone lowball me like this once, quite a few years ago, and the person got very belligerent that I should sell my cel to them for the price they felt was fair, even though I had paid 3-5 times that for it. They basically told me I overpaid or was lying *sigh*. I do agree that for new folks, figuring out how much things are worth is tough, but when you're new, you shouldn't be insisting that anyone sell you anything for the price you think they should. I just would really like to know: what happened to being polite? When I first started collecting, I practically tripped over myself trying to be polite so not to piss off the people I was trying to buy from ...

Captain Haddock · Post by **Captain Haddock** » Mon Jan 18, 2010 12:29 pm

Here here, Zerospace politeness never hurts. Whenever I deal with individuals and dealers I always start from a basis of politeness. Even when I am asking for a discount from a dealer it's always asking not demanding. I also just find it plain odd that some people just can't seem to grasp basic human curtosy. And it pays really from a collecting point of view, because would you ever want to deal again with people who were just plain rude to you?