Hi everyone,

I'm very new to all this. I was thinking the other day as I bought my second investment set (Grand Emporium) When I'm ready to sell something and I've never sold on Ebay before, how do I set it up so people won't shy away from me the minute they realize I don't have a rating.

I started an Instagram page to show people how much I love this stuff. Also that I'm just your average family man. @brickcrazy

Also, whats stopping someone from claiming I sent them an open product or something? And scamming me?!?!

Any advice would be appreciated.

Thank you.

My recommendation is so sell smaller items to start to build up feedback ($10-$20 items). Once you have a few successful transactions under your belt then start selling the larger items.

First off, welcome to Brickpicker!

 

My advice is start off slow, like wilanirene suggested, with smaller items. That`ll give you a feel for selling merchandise online. Work your way up. It`s like starting in the shallow end of the pool before diving into the deep end. You`ve got to build up and be smart about it. 

 

If you`re asking what`s stopping someone from lying about you, the simple answer is nothing. Generally speaking though people aren`t going to do that, people are good in general. 

Everyone started from zero so don't let it stop you from starting.  

You can also buy some stuff to get a few ratings.  Not everyone looks closely to see if it's positive feedback from buying or selling.  

I am going to start by selling poly bags and smaller sets until I had enough good feedback to list the big ones.

Be honest in your listings and do whatever you can to make customers happy. I'm sitting at 1090 Feedback, all positive, and have only had one or two instances of scams in 12+ years. Most buyers on eBay are honest as are most sellers.

yeah, start slow ... buy some stuff to build feedback also that way ... but eventually people will buy from you no matter what your feedback is ... everyone on ebay started with 0 feedback ... dont use stock photos ... take the time to take your own photos ... be specific in your descriptions ... offer free shipping but of course factor that price in with your starting bid price ... good luck ... 

Gotta start small and build some momentum - sell poly bags, part out some sets, or even stuff lying around your house to get at least 20-25 feedback before moving up to small sets. Then, when the time is right, mix in some big sets. Doesn't hurt to buy things to get feedback too!

Find some great eBay lego sellers and copy their descriptions - don't actually copy them but mimic their detail, policies, and style.

There's also plenty of info on this site, and others, on how to be a good seller. Just takes some time and a browser to read it all....the trick is to actually follow through.

Remember, it does take work - there's good money to be made, but if it was a walk in the park, then everyone would do it. (See other msg board threads on speculation of the golden age of reselling....)

Good luck!

I agree to all what the members adviced above. What you can do as well is to sell one or two small items at a low price. For example cost price. This way you will probably be the cheapest so people buy from you. So you already have some sales. See it as an investment in your reputation.  

If you got competitive price ppl buy from you no matter what your score...

Some people buy really cheap stuff (like those 50 cent DVDs) en masse and resell them for 1$.

(Or they even buy for 1$ and resell for 1$).

 

You should understand this period of time as "investment" as well (since you spend money (-->by spending time working for free)).

 

But it's not too difficult to sell lots of stuff for 1$ so that's one way to start and get a good status fast.

 

If you don't like that way you still can start slow with small sets as already suggested.

Those will add up to a nice status after quite some time as well, so if you're not in a hurry it might be the more lucrative way.

 

In the end ebay offers pretty good safeties for buyers and if the price is nice somebody will eventually buy it ^.^

I would also advice you to be honest with your customers but not in a hazy way. (sorry I don't even know if you can say that ^^)

For example: Don't say something like "The set is 99% complete! I only write 99% because I'm not totally sure if it really is complete though it should be. So there might be 1 or 2 very small insignificant missing parts".

Or "Set should be complete but no guarantee".

 

Sometimes you just can overdo it with honesty and discourage potential buyers. Be concrete about it, post pictures and answer questions.

And the most important thing might be following:

Be cheaper than the others ^.^ Of course I would prefer buying a brand new death star from LEGO with 10% VIP-Points and a goodie but if someone were to offer it for 10$ I'd take it ^.^ (though I would be careful, so maybe a higher price would work better haha :-) )

Whoa!!! Can I just say that I've got into the right hobby!!!

This network is amazing! Thank you everyone for the help. I posted this yesterday less than 12 hours ago and already 10 of you have offered advice and expertise on the subject. Knowing that this group is here to help on my journey only makes me more excited to continue!!!

Thanks again! (Keep advice coming if you have some personal experiences I should know about!)

@brickcrazy

Cheers!

Yes I'd also suggest starting with simple items. Meaning low cost, easy to package up and easy to ship.

As mentioned before we ALL started from scratch.

 

Also experiment with combos of legos. Other BPers have given me that advice when selling smaller sets on eBay. (polys, 9.99 sets etc.)

 

ebay user ID?

I found the easiest way to start was to sell small items, like video game cartridges or Lego polybags that could be easily shipped in small padded envelopes. And don't be afraid to lose money on some of your first transactions. You're essentially buying feedback. Honestly when I first started I only got feedback on 1 in 5 sales. So it may take some time. I found that a very polite message to the buyer after the tracking showed that the package had been delivered, requesting they leave feedback if they were pleased got me a handful of responses. I wouldn't suggest requesting they leave GOOD feedback, just that they leave it if they were pleased with the transaction.

Edit: Also, feedback as a buyer counts toward your overall feedback and most buyers don't dig deeply into your history to find out if you were the buyer or the seller. Starting as a buyer is a legitimate way to build good feedback.

 

Cheers!

Edited September 18, 201411 yr by hollingsworthless

Sell stuff that is really hard to find at a really good price to start off. That's what I did years ago with a bunch of Master Replicas lightsabers that were extremely popular and extremely difficult to find. If you have the lowest prices for a popular item, someone will bite.

Edited September 18, 201411 yr by mscheaf

Sell stuff that is really hard to find at a really good price to start off. That's what I did years ago with a bunch of Master Replicas lightsabers that were extremely popular and extremely difficult to find. If you have the lowest prices for a popular item, someone will bite.

Nice edit. Saw the typo in my email.

Nice edit. Saw the typo in my email.

 

Yeah my firefox spell checker doesn't always work in the reply boxes for some reason.

I have bought from people with 0-1 feedback, everyone starts somewhere.  I won't copy other people's suggestions but when you are ready to sell, CHECK SHIPPING COSTS first.  You don't want to list something as $200 with free shipping and realize that to ship across the country is $35 instead of $15.

 

Shipping in Canada sucks and as an example, I have found it cheaper to ship from Washington State to Ontario than it is to ship BC to Ontario depending on the cheap item (cheap enough so customs is not an issue).

 

Good luck with your sales.

I respectfully disagree about losing money on your first transactions.  But seeing as you're from Canada, get yourself familiar with the shipping rates and weight/size cutoffs so you can price shipping costs more accurately and compete against other sellers.  Compare items that other sellers sell and the final price including shipping.  Then decide if it's worth it for you to sell at the same price including your shipping. 

 

Polybags are the best way (if they're not bulky and can slip through the mail slot dimensions) since shipping is less than $2 for Canada and $4ish for US. 

I would consider looking for a used lot at a reasonable price and sell the minifigures or other sets.  If you do this right, you can get a good number of transactions, make a little money, and not use a ton of time.  This can be a huge time and money sink if you aren't careful.  There are some good articles on Brickpicker that I have read that help you with this process.  This allows you to build up a transaction history for a low investment cost.  Good luck!

As others have said, everyone starts somewhere. Lots of good advice here. Start small and work your pay up. I think I saw this mentioned by a previous poster but read fast so can't be certain but some people will buy several small cheap items just to gain feedback. This helps some because some people only look at the feedback total thus not realizing there all buyer feedback. We all went through the same thing, just got to pay our dues so to speak. Just realized this is a really old post oh well.I'm sure by now you've been able to build up your feedback. 

I just went through this on eBay  a ebayer newbie had listed two new VW busses for sale for 109 a piece with free shipping I took a chance and the deal went through great gave him his first feed back he had joined in March  it's a gamble but like you said you have to start some where 

 

 

 

Everyone starts somewhere, and eBay/PayPal protects buyers, so I don't worry. It's also very unlikely people will try to scam you because you have no ratings. I would only choose the no rating guy if he was the only seller or it was ~10%+ cheaper though. First of all most people won't want to bother doing something like that or getting caught doing that. Second, they probably have ratings too, and they got those ratings because they weren't scamming people. Last thing, you can get ratings by BUYING things, so you can get a good rating before you SELL things.