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It looks like the LEGO gods have once again shown me favor and blessed me with fulfillment of the 2 x 75060 that I was able to squeeze in early cyber Monday (using the $20 off mastercard deal no less). Someone called it the flip of the year on the cyber Monday thread but I need your guys collective wisdom to help this amateur make this pay off. Was hoping I could get some recommendations on how I should set this listing up on ebay... buy it now or auction...length, starting price etc. I usually just see what other auctions for the same item are doing and use the brickpicker database to decide on how to sell but seeing how this will be the only in hand 75060 on ebay I could use some expert advice Thanks in advance.

I think what some people may not realize is that sets could be retiring faster and stock running lower simply because more people are on this site and hoping to make money. In a round about way that helps those who already buy an sell because the stock is lower for the regular retail customer and more quickly drives the aftermarket and retirement prices higher. A couple of tips for sellers The most important tip I could give anyone would be to sell on Craigslist and maybe Bricklink if possible before any other site, especially Craigslist. Simply bypassing all the ridiculous fees and shipping and even possibly boxing up the set will save you a ton of time and effort. Ebay also isn't very seller friendly in general, this will probably change in the future though. There are some other offshoot Ebay like sites but I haven't used them yet(eCrater). I've only sold 1 or 2 very large sets on Amazon and I'm always wary because their A-Z guarantee can really hurt the seller if the buyer claims anything. The buyer literally can provide no evidence and get a refund. 1. Unless you're at PowerSeller status, you usually won't be able to charge as much as those who are, nor will you get some of the benefits. 2. If you are planning to sell thousands of dollars worth of sets, you probably want to start an Ebay Store rather than just be a regular seller. I believe this runs anywhere from $30-50 more per month but it lowers the fees and gives you other benefits. You are usually held to a higher selling standard though which may be difficult to meet. 3. You probably want to open a Fedex/UPS account on each website and when shipping items compare all the rates. If you know someone who will let you ship out items from their business at their business rate you can save a good amount of money, but that's not possible for most people. 4. Use gift cards and coupons and promos to purchase boxes through Staples/Uline. Or like some people have said, if possible find a local store that throws lots of boxes and paper away such as a Vitamin Supplement store (GNC, Vitamin Shop) and see if you can get some of their throwaway boxes. Even if it's just for padding, it could be useful. 5. Package up your sets more securely than you think you need. Add extra padding because even when you pay for "premium" type shipping such as priority those FEDEX and UPS drivers will still may toss the boxes around or place heavier boxes on top of them when they shouldn't. 6. I've found that the insurance in some cases isn't worth buying. Unless your buyer agrees to file the insurance claim if you go through FEDEX you won't have an easy time filing the claim. 7. Never use FEDEX smartpost for anything valuable.. ever and Ebay will give you a shipping discount if you purchase through their website which uses either FEDEX or USPS. If you have a business account with a deal you will save more all the time but the EBAY discount is still better than nothing. 8. Reuse padding envelopes from stuff you buy and just reseal them with tape and put the label on top of the old one etc. 9. Use an excel spreadsheet to track differen't costs so you know how much money you're really making. You may also want to track how much time your spending to see if doing this investing and selling is even worth it because in many cases it won't be worth the stress and time for a couple hundred or even a few thousand extra dollars for anyone with a regular job or family.

If the general concept here is to help Lego investors, it's an interesting philosophy to help them acquire, and tell them to go F themselves and "figure it out" when they want to sell. Why bother telling your acquisition secrets then? You haven't helped them at all in that case, just stuck them with a pile of $hit they can't figure out what to do with. Well done. Maybe a second Brickpicker could be started, where people can go "F" themselves on how to acquire sets, but an incredible amount of information is given on how to sell them. Or, maybe, this Brickpicker forum could remain what it is- both.

sorry to cause a major thread derailment. When I replied to mscheaf's post was just trying to put out there what needed to be done to get more exposure and why his items may or may not being ignored. Didn't know it would turn into a "not to help or help" debate. I'll always help with whatever advice I can in the fields I have a ton of expertise in. 15 years on ebay and 250,000+ feedbacks over that time period has taught me quite a few lessons and if I can share some of that advice with newer users than I am more than happy to (time permitting). All sorts of users on here give out plenty of info that helps us all out in there fields (stock levels, store inventories, coupons codes, script alerts etc etc). So for some to say giving out strategies to get higher search results and better sales is helping to much I don't buy into that. There is more than enough room for this business online. This site's success is based on help and information and that shows in its member growth. Just in the last week I've had multiple users help out in various ways through forums or pm's of which if they didn't post that or contact I would never have that info in the first place. So if I can help in my fields than that is my way of contributing to the community.

Sold one for $150 already

Just scored 3 at target. Heading to another target now

I enjoy turning others on to deals and such and genuily helping each other out. But a how to sell thread? Figure it out. I don't want to tell people my secrets etc etc. Why would we do that to what benefit?

We are in the wrong business........the CAGR on mayo seems to be amazing.

PM me your zip and I will get you stock numbers in your area. No guarantees that I can do it for everyone, I have a life, kind of.

Literally.

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.

Found a big Gathering of these Unexpectedly at Meijer ...worked out to be $36/ea after tax.

creative tower for $93 someone offered me $120 for a 6166 blue box waiting to see if they accept counter offer.

Here is a polybag possibly planned for the start of next year that has already been spotted at a Target here in the US. Source

And, just sold the Arctic Ice Breaker I picked up 3 hours ago for $185.

Sold 150+ polybags last month I'll hit top rated on the 20th My feedback was around 30 when I started selling them Helps w other auctions getting noticed Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-N910A using Brickpicker mobile app

Another food cart?? Oh Olivia, just STOP already. Whatever happened to the old days when you were into robotics and stuff?

I'll check more tomorrow, but at this point only three states seam to have them. ***, NC, SC. Other states in that area may have them but further north or west every store seems to be at 0

Whoa, you know JJ? That's awesome. I love that guy. Too bad to hear he has had to pursue a career in landscaping. I guess its been tough getting work after Good Times?

This one is for Trekgate:

I'd prefer buy it now vs an auction so the buyer has to pay immediately. The winner of the auction may take their time paying, or worse yet, get buyer's remorse and not pay at all.

You might want to spend a little extra for a BOLD listing and large picture too.

Elsa'a Sparkling Ice Castle for $150. Was hoping the other sellers would follow suit but it's down to $109 already. Thinking these will vanish fast so I'm going to hold that price for now although these could flood ebay if all the targets follow suit.

Why are people rushing out to buy this set? I miss something?

I got lucky and found a lone family house at my target and got it for $34 plus tax after the 20% off coupon.

I would love the idea if using brickpicker cost say 20 bucks a year. More then worth it for the knowledge and use of brickfolio.

1 down, 1000+ QFLLs to go

There are a few of us that pay absolute zero attention to what the prophet says. Besides his teachings are from the book of Captain Obvious.....the King common sense version.

I use snapswap to fund and rippletrade to acquire. sauromosis helped me get set up, took about an hour the first time as I was learning the sites and how it worked and proceeded very carefully. On rippletrade you do not have to put up a buy order, just do an exchange and it swaps usd for xrp (I assume at current market rate). It was instant. My second purchase took about 3 minutes start to finish, from funding snapswap to buying xrp. I will probably start up new accounts once I hit a certain value in an account. I am still looking at the backup / offline storage options.

Here we go, I found the next best thing -- a transcript: == Jack Donaghy: As you know, we've sunk a lot of money into developing this new microwave start button. It's been four years and $10 million. I think it's time we pull the trigger. What do you think? Liz Lemon: I kind of like the old button. Jack: Button classic. I love it. -Button classic? It's hip and homey. -Oh, my god, guys. We're crushing it! Jack: Your first executive decision and you've already saved this company $2 million in future R and D. == On a side note, this is also the episode where we get a lovely explanation of the "uncanny valley".

how about we start paying a yearly subscription fee for the "members only" sections? that'll help weed out the "quickies"

My day job is education. Even if we share the "roadmap," plenty won't follow it. Work is work, and some people are lazy.

I don't see why that's necessary. The attentive reader of this forum finds all the information they need about stocking, packaging,placing and selling that he needs to. It would be the same as making a "Buy this set now" thread. In the end, you won't do this community a favor with it. I find this to be a reward for the people that are willing to put some time in investing by reading alot and posing questions, not those that just keep an eye on 1 thread and use the value-checker the founding fathers of BP have provided. On the other hand, a second forum for selling in general can be acceptable, but it will unnecessary fragment BP and make things more complex in the end. So I think leaving BP as you stated, as it is, the best solution.

Regarding XRP, to me this is exactly the choice people has in the late 90s when cloud technology was first being discovered. And like cloud tech in the 90s, people were scared of it, didn't understand it, and it was on sale for pennies on the millions. I have been heavily researching XRP and I understand what they are trying to do with it. If they succeed it will revolutionize liquidity world wide. The people who today control liquidity are scared to death of what is coming, be it XRP or some other similar technology. Think of this scenario. You can sell an HH and drop your gross sale amount into XRP. Write it off as a total loss and forget about it. If it misses, you are out a few dinners eating out with family and friends. If it hits, well, you decide what that means to you. Do the math and see if the risk/reward makes sense for you. I have so much to say on this topic but I don't want to look like I am trying to influence people, so please just go out and do the research. See you on the flip side.

Nacho libre?

Profiling is more accurate. You may or may not have kids one day. Enjoy your free time and energy for the gym, diet, etc. because once kids entire the picture ALL that time and energy are completely gone. Completely. They will be replaced by the overwhelming desire for sleep, and the need to be left the F alone on occasion. Thank me later for this free lesson and accurate advice.

Now i have i lift things up and put them down in my head. Thanks

The only fast food i eat (gave the rest up). Good old chik fil a. Something about hearing my pleasure after every order. I can peg any ex employee. That saying sticks around with them into there next jobs

lol enjoying this thread greatly. My employer allows a hundred bucks a day for food allowance when travelling... on a four-day trip I spend maybe two of them getting a steak or such at the hotel bar, and the other two just grabbing BK or MCD's and a 7-Eleven six-pack to take back to the hotel. I don't care if a Whopper value meal only costs six bucks... pair it with a six-pack of original Budweiser, and that fourteen dolllars goes a very long way.

My high-school job was Chick-fil-a... and regardless of "how we are doing", when my kids are teenagers, I want them to have the same experience I had- grinding out a 36-hour work week in fast food and receiving a $114 paycheck in the process. It really, truly is a great way to teach them the value of a hard-earned buck.

So I am in (horrible) Des Moines, IA on business today and I swing by McDonald's to get a couple of cheeseburgers. As usual, I ask for no onions- and kindly, please, add mayonnaise. I notice on the screen that this adds THIRTY CENTS PER SANDWICH to my cost. Am I to believe they can produce an entire cheeseburger- bun, patty, cheese, pickles, ketchup, etc.- for just one dollar, but a dollop of mayo costs THIRTY CENTS more? I do not work in the mayonnaise industry, or know anything about it really, but I have to believe they increase their profit margin on that mayonnaise by 900% by charging me thirty cents more. As an MCD's regular, I have never seen this. Plus... Is there no trade-in value for the onions I am NOT requesting? Wouldn't the onions off-set the price of the mayo by something- even fifteen cents? Rarely am I disappointed in McDonald's. But I have to say, I left that drive-through with a heavy heart today.

Raven's post continues to build the case for a dedicated- and pinned- "how to sell" thread. New investors need to understand the full scope of the buying, storing, and selling process.

I would open a store and do what others suggested for the first. You should get 2-3x retail. You can always buy a new one on the first. For the second I would do the same except donate 100% to charity. You should see a TON of traffic, you may even get a visit from some celebs or something. Yes, you lose some cash but your store should get a tremendous amount of traffic and get bookmarked by a lot of people with a lot of money. This is good when you start listing stuff to sell from your stash. And it's a cool way to give back.

My daughter (five yrs. old) is going to love this. She and The Misses have had lots of special moments building Lego friends.

Like marcandre said, do a high buy it now with best offer. You will get a ton of offers, look through them and choose a buyer with a long history and exceptional feedback. May or may not be the highest offer, but you will be better off with an experienced buyer. Also hit the immediate pay option, makes no difference with best offer, but you never know when someone will bite on a high BIN. You want to avoid a non paying buyer situation as you are running out of time to go through that process and still make top dollar on this.

.... Amen to Brother Pickle, who has one of my FAVORITE BP-quotes of all-time.. " I treat the big-box retailers the same way I hope my customers would treat me".

New / sealed 10229 winter village cottage for $75. Craigslist. Merry Christmas to me.

The sticker issue can play a major role with this set later in the production runs and early retirement when people start to rail on the set if it is indeed an issue. I look at my UCS Rebel Blockade Runner everyday and hate how the older version stickers are peeling off. Will these new stickers peel off after 4-5 years as well? I look at the UCS Slave I and admire it for its accuracy, yet I have to wonder if LEGO could have used bricks in place of some stickers and a fewer printed bricks in important locations. These higher end sets should get higher end bricks. Charge me an extra $10 a set to permanently print bricks.

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.

Sleep, where the hell are you???