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You need to get some polybags or mixels to get hits and raise your search results. If your auctions are getting ignored you are not getting good enough placement. Ebay's search placement relies heavily on amount of items sold, % of sell through, pricing, feedback & scores etc. Even if you have good feedback and scores but your items move slowly due to price or whatever the reason is you will not place higher in the search standings. While you're in this position you need to be cheaper by a decent amount to get any hits. If an item sells for $150 for everyone else it might be $135-140 for you. I know people will get that random sale that goes high and think it does not matter what you price at but for building up higher search placement it is very important to have a high sell through %. In future buy 10-20 of something that sells instantly like RR , Snowman Poly, Series 2 mixels , anything that will get more transactional sales for you and raise your search standings. Your purpose is not making money on those items so just put them at whatever the fastest selling rate is. Those are easy items that don't take any time to pack. If limits are an issue you need to be hitting them each month anyways so you can call each month and have them raised. So if your limits are 100 per month (just using that as an example) and you are only selling 30-40 items you need to sell 60 things to hit that number. Once you hit you call and they will usually go to 250 or so. Now you will have the extra listings to do these type of listings to keep raising your search status without taking away from your valuable listings. That will increase your sales each month. You'll eventually hit TRS just off the amount of transactions which will also increase your search tremendously. Free shipping also raises your search a lot. If you are doing fixed price anyways theres no point not to do free shipping. If you are selling an item at $90 and $10 free shipping you are way better off doing $100 with free shipping. You will sell more guaranteed in the long run. Ebay wants fast free shipping and ads that offer it will receive greater exposure. Now you may not have time or even want to do this but if you are planning on getting more hits and selling more product that is what needs to be done.

You'll definitely be wanting to offload your Lego by the time you hit college. After all you won't be getting your LEGOver with a room full of bricks.

great deals just today at walmart.ca on star-wars sets and few other

Yeah buying is the easiest process (not just LEGO but reselling in general). Selling and dealing with customers and keeping up scores is a whole other level. Then growing to the volume to make it a full time job (if that's your goal). Especially nowadays. There isn't much margin for error / human mistakes. You literally have to be close to perfect which is stressful in its own right. Even after 15 years I'm constantly adapting and changing every few months. Something is always changing on ebay and it will continue to. Preparation to handle volume sales is a topic a lot don't really put much thinking into. Box sizes, shipping supply quantities (if you have 100 of something you can possibly sell it in 1 day and not having enough supplies on hand for all the items in your store could crush your scores), the amount of time to pack to get the items out that day to keep your scores up and customers happy. There's so much more that goes into it in the big picture. Its a process and even to this day I am constantly changing and learning more. Just the set up of your packing station can save an hour or 2 a day. Having all your boxes lined up properly. Packing materials all in one place etc. When you start talking 200 packages a day 10-30 seconds per package of time saved ads up. The supplies you use can change your shipping rates. Just using one over the other can make an item go from from a different class or weight causing you $1-2 more in shipping costs. Add that up over 500 packages and you could be overspending $500-1000 a week. Maybe one day if I get the time I'll write something in depth. After the holidays LOL Anyways sorry for being off topic. Feel free to move to Ebay thread if need be.

Quinjets were avail AT LEGO.com through most of last holiday season, and avail in some retail stores in early 2014. There are a LOT of these out there (170 sellers on Amazon), this is a set people should be looking at selling holiday season 2016. I am not sure how folks have gotten so spoiled that they expect doubling their money on a set that hasn't been retired a year yet!

Way too early to be dumping Quinjets IMO. Happy with my sales overall. Only learning - don't book a vacation the first week of December. Vacation was great, but that was a whole week of not listing anything. :-) We just moved after being downsized in an apartment for 7 months, so next year I'm expecting a bigger year with a better plan.

If you are competing with dumpers, you are buying the wrong things or selling at the wrong time.

Cornering the market on concentrated orange juice?

Series 2 looks to be pushing $80 as a complete set on the last few sold listings. Even saw a flurr on there sold for +$17.

Well we can fix that too if we all get together and buys hundreds or even thousands of the same dolls and action figures and then list them all at the same time.

They don't want to go for the investor's jugular because LEGO enjoys having the LEGO secondary market strong and the values high. One affects the other, regardless of the bans. As I stated to another member recently, if LEGO destroys the secondary market, the perceived value of new sets will suffer greatly. The secondary market LEGO prices are the main reason LEGO can charge(and get it) $400.00 for a box of ABS plastic and Mega Bloks and Kreo-O cannot. The rise of LEGO to #1 stature in the world of toy making and profits walked hand in hand with eBay and the explosion of secondary market sales. As eBay became more popular, LEGO followed suit. Don't let anyone tell you different. Sure, there was a change to a more adult oriented style of set(UCS...Modular...Advanced Models), but did anyone ever really think why LEGO went that route? LEGO likes to ban certain VIP members because they want to make a point of not being excessive and to stop competing with them with currently available sets. As for a new Falcon, I guess the rumor is of a large Falcon playset that will replace the 10188. Even if it's a new 10179, could you blame LEGO for redoing the set? People have had plenty of time to make a profit from that set. Time for another generation of resellers to take advantage of a new version.

I am nearly sold out of my investments this year, and while I can't brag and boast about rificulous through the roof profits, I'd say my profits were decent. Havent tallied them up yet, but not bad for a working mom. Probably would have made a lot more if I could devote more time to it, but between work and the rest of my life, time is a premium right now.

I can't speak for non-US markets. I have no idea how they're performing. I do believe, though, that they are still readily available in southeast Asia and the Pacific (which makes sense for TheDarkness). I mentioned this in a different thread late last night. 9 sets of Series 1 Mixels @ RRP cost $404. 1 SSD cost $399.95. Both retired this past summer. Selling on eBay right now, $120 for Mixels. Sell all 9, get $1,080 for your $400 investment. Your SSD is going to get you between $600 and $700.

LEGO should make stickers available in high-res format so we can print them on sticker paper if they don't want to give us printed bricks. Actually that's what I will do if I open one of my sets with stickers, scan them and only apply the copies.

You guys should try Santa's Workshop on CL if you haven't already. and MC. I NEVER get any action on CL (or from my wife) involving lego but getting a lot of bites on SW and MC through craigs list as of late. Very nice not paying all those fees and shipping!

Ok I'll bite...can you share what this is?

I have 12 sets and was planning to list them when I thought I could restock after Christmas, but I won't take anything less than $250 now. Since eBay isn't close to this, I haven't bothered listing them. With these all retiring (almost for sure) and The End maybe only having a 6 month run (it's "sold out" in the UK), the sky is the limit. I figure retail is at $140 US, and they should easily hit double retail once they are gone for a year. I wouldn't be surprised if a set went over $300 by next Christmas. The minifigure sized sets will only help these, not hurt them. I will be watching both lines closely for signs of weakness, but have we seen any yet? The original 21102 has been out for 2 1/2 years, is still available at Amazon and Walmart for $33, and eBay listings are selling for $45. I wouldn't underestimate these.

Wouldn't call it a mess up. Hard to pass up a retired Train set at 20% off that has been performing well into early retirement.

I sold a set of 4 for $190 today. I've bumped up my listing to $275 and that might even be too low.

Sorry about that Frog!! Sometimes I get a little out of control with the exclamation points!! You must forgive me!!!

I think the set caught many off guard for some reason. I listened and bought as many using profits from about 20 HH. Many of the secondary retailers were done but it was "available now" at Lego. Then it poofed to "Sold Out" just like that. Now to stock up on MF, unexpected gathering (which I think is close to done) and Batcaves. UG is my sleeper of sorts. I know some have bought it but it's a must for me.

I agree and did follow up my statement with something similar: "....just money, space and a decent work ethic if you want to have some success." Again, my point is more that any Joe Shmoe can buy these products from the comfort of their home and join as competition. It's not a specialized growth industry like shale or something that takes training, specialized equipment plus lots of capital, time and work. Now that's not to say that those of us who study the hobby, PLUS have capital, time, space and are self motivated won't be more successful than the average Joe Investor, but just that unsuccessful (and successful) new competition will keep profits lower than they were in the past and to take solace in the fact that for every sale you make with lower profits, you are probably preventing future competition from deciding to join the ranks. Isn't that a nice consolation prize? Eh, maybe not.

10x 9464 vampire hearse for $385 shipped. Brick link sale. Same buyer. These were acquired during the big zoo / vampire hearse bonanza, so a nice little profit indeed. Sadly, I'm down to only nine left.

There will always be "new blood" in any endeavor involving money (or fame). In my former "hobby" life, I was a writer. I guess I "am" a writer because one never really quits and I have several stories forthcoming. I wrote for nearly a year before being paid for a story, and only $.01 a word at that--"semi-pro" rates. It took three years of 2-4 hours a day in the writing game, every day, to publish my first book with a small press... one which actually paid me for my work. After six years, I sold my third professional rate story and qualified as an active member of the Horror Writers Association, a long-time goal. What's my point? What does this have to do with LEGO? Everything takes time. The game often goes to the resilient--those willing to keep working even when everything looks bleak. I know this: I've made more in LEGO the last six months than the first six years of writing AND I'm having more fun doing it.

We generally sort our order sheets by part name, and then generally bag like parts together in the order they appear on the sheet. If you're looking at your order sheet in color order (I think that's the default BL will show you), try changing your settings to by name or by category and see if that makes more sense for what the seller has given you. So, if I have an order for 100 blue 1x1 bricks, those are all going to be in the one bag. An order for 3 each of blue, black, LBG, and green 1x1 bricks, all of those will be mixed in one bag. You shouldn't see the same part in more than one bag unless a) you bought a bunch of them and they won't all fit in the seller's largest sized bag or you bought over a certain number that the seller pre-packs in shipping bags of 50 or 100 or whatever or c) you had more than one batch to your order (i.e, you added to the order after you initially checked out, and repeated some additional parts that were already in there). It shouldn't be too difficult to compare the parts to your order sheet (if the seller didn't provide a detailed packing list you can view it under your orders tab). I can generally inventory what I order pretty quickly.

Today's haul Really good price for the Village Bakery, especially for being in one of the more expensive Lego counties (Sweden) at around $65, same price for the Ninjago 9450. Plus 2 hours of my time on buses and trains. Yes I should get a car. The Lego Serious play is not for investment, but I am really interested in the concept and using Lego in business. 10244 Mixer and 10235 Winter scene is from LEGO Shop at Home so bought during 5% Black friday weekend, plus 15% off all toy stores promo from my credit card, and the free 40107's of course.

I just contributed a blog entry to the site on Mixel investing, in case you haven't seen it yet. LEGO Mixels

I got this status for my order on Dec 2. My MF had this status too before it got cancelled.

Yep bravo to all who invested a substantial amount in these for the Christmas flip. I've just listed all my crafting boxes and mines for stupidly high prices and will most likely all sell out by the weekend, side note so glad I didn't invest hard in the dragon it's the only one not sold out on UK Lego shop. Long live Lego minecraft!

I go back and forth between assuming that the guys undercutting me must be losing money like crazy and assuming they must have gotten way better deals than I did. Just something to keep in mind, you can never be sure exactly what the other guy paid for his inventory. I bought at least 1, maybe 2 or 3 (can't remember) Quinjets for $25 off a clearance rack at Wal-Mart last winter. I think I flipped 1 or 2 at $60 or $70, something like that, and parted out the other one (IIRC it was a pretty badly damaged box). It was a pretty killer return and because I didn't hold on to them I now have things like GE that I wouldn't otherwise have been able to purchase. Anyway, just food for thought. As for the question from the original post, I sell very little on eBay so can't speak for that market - but Amazon sales seem to be doing fine for me. I'm moving less volume this year (which is according to plan - have been able to build inventory of larger sets through reinvestment after lots of work as a QFLL last year) but revenues are about the same and Amazon has picked up a *lot* this week. No question, competition is stiffer this year and if this was my first year I'd be pretty discouraged. BrickLink has been good to me lately as well and is generally strong through Feb-Mar. I also expect Amazon to continue to be strong through late winter for the reasons others have listed above.

Exactly. People posts the deals they find online or out shopping. Works OK, the Lego deals however always attract a load of bitchin from grown men who should be working but aren't. I think most are government employees and also Tabby Boy. It can be funny at times, just like here.

I can imagine the conversation over this set. "Hey buddy, whatca building?" "Yo momma."

Charge actual shipping cost. There you go...

Sounds familiar, except I play the role of the kids in this. And usually, I do give in.

Anyone gotten a whiff of this set out early anywhere yet? still hoping to stumble across an early shipment in an unknowing store hehe.

Bought AA on Amazon for MSRP I did not know this was at all possible these days... with all them damn scripts... that are faster than mine

nanny nanny boo boo. (teasing) I'll lurk and bid at the end!

R2-D2

Too much.... - 2507 Ninjago Fire Temple - 9467 Ghost Train - 10233 HE - 9446 Ninjago Destiny's Bounty - 8 x 9445 Ninjago Fangpyre Truck Ambush - 2 x 76000 Batman Mr. Freeze - 3185 Friends Summer Riding Camp - 9443 Ninjago Rattlecopter - 2 x 620-3 blue baseplate I am tired. Time to go to sleep.

Great memories on the nineties comics. Loved Batman, and Spiderman when Todd Mcfarlane had his run illustrating. And of course, Gen 13, or anything else Image was producing at the time. VERY exciting artwork to assist in the transition between boyhood, adolescence, etc. Comics became football as the years ground out. Now it's Direct TV (Sunday ticket/Red Zone), and a beer drinking habit which I like to consider a "hobby", but is probably better classified as a "problem".

I have been selling the heck out of Heavy Duty Helicopters. Who would have thought?

We should start a new thread in January for all the Amazon sellers titled "What set did someone return to your store today?"

It is safe to say that if you have taken the time to read various threads on this site, that you will not lose any money. In fact, it will be very difficult to make less money then having it stored on a bank account. The amount of money you will gain will be dependant on your cashflow for this investment and the chosen sets of course. Don't overspend yourself. It is easy to get caught up in the 'hunt' and have patience, good ROI takes time to achieve.

Can we get this in a flowchart please? Thanks.

Tape on the screen works well.

This is true. The May time frame is popular for retirements as well.

woo woo woo just relax, I understand your point but all the information is out in the wild for any new investor if they actually do some research themselves. Fairly new set been out approx 1 year, massive and popular set which means Lego will produce it for several years, going off examples of previous size Star Wars sets and third it's Christmas which means a lot of sets nowhere near EOL will flash in and out of 'unavailable, sold out, etc etc during the festive season. I am sorry that I've somehow struck a cord I did not mean to but the thread's title is just 'Ewok Village' Not is it EOL or is it done etc, so I was just voicing my opinion.

That house from The Golden girls, complete with matching mini-figs.

Poor man's Rancor Pit...