I have decided to dabble in selling Lego. I've decided that I will do exclusively sealed box sets and may part out a minifig or two if I feel like it could do well, and then sell the rest of the set. My question is, for what I want to do is eBay or bricklink better? I have looked into both and can't decide. eBay has the advantage of having a larger customer base and easier shipping while Bricklink charges much smaller fees and has a smaller but more dedicated buyer list. Advice?

If eBay is the winner should I try to stick with auction or a buy it now?

Last question-How do I determine the shipping cost? This wouldn't be as much of a problem on Bricklink since I would know the address before giving the final price. On eBay; however, how do I give an accurate shipping cost without knowing the address first? I don't want to charge way to much or get hosed finding out it was much more than I imagined. 

Thank you in advance for your response!  

I have decided to dabble in selling Lego. I've decided that I will do exclusively sealed box sets and may part out a minifig or two if I feel like it could do well, and then sell the rest of the set. My question is, for what I want to do is eBay or bricklink better? I have looked into both and can't decide. eBay has the advantage of having a larger customer base and easier shipping while Bricklink charges much smaller fees and has a smaller but more dedicated buyer list. Advice?

If eBay is the winner should I try to stick with auction or a buy it now?

Last question-How do I determine the shipping cost? This wouldn't be as much of a problem on Bricklink since I would know the address before giving the final price. On eBay; however, how do I give an accurate shipping cost without knowing the address first? I don't want to charge way to much or get hosed finding out it was much more than I imagined. 

Thank you in advance for your response!  

I started with Bricklink so I could get comfortable with packing and shipping sets. Sales were somewhat slow so I switched over to eBay. Almost all of my listings are free shipping and buy it now. I've only used auctions a few times around Christmas to move desirable sets in a fixed amount of time. That was hit or miss.

Free shipping averages out for the most part. Sometimes you get burned if you are shipping to a customer cross-country.

2 minutes ago, BrickLegacy said:

 

I started with Bricklink so I could get comfortable with packing and shipping sets. Sales were somewhat slow so I switched over to eBay. Almost all of my listings are free shipping and buy it now. I've only used auctions a few times around Christmas to move desirable sets in a fixed amount of time. That was hit or miss.

Free shipping averages out for the most part. Sometimes you get burned if you are shipping to a customer cross-country.

 

Thank you for your response!

4 hours ago, PickSomeBricks said:

How do I determine the shipping cost?

 

1 hour ago, BrickLegacy said:

shipping averages out for the most part

That's if you choose to use a fixed or free shipping cost. Since I started in August last year, I've primarily been using calculated shipping as a method to avoid getting burned. This requires you to have a shipping box in mind for the set you're selling already, and the packing materials on hand to put it all together and weigh it. Once you have box dimensions and final weight, you plug that info into the Calculated Shipping fields.... then using your own postal/zip code, ebay Calculates for the buyer based off their location in relation to yours, and the service that's been selected. 

I find this typically results in fairly accurate shipping quotes for the buyer, but often it's a little bit higher than what you actually pay if you use the at-home label printing through paypal, as you save a little percentage there. This usually ends up covering the shipping portion of your ebay fees, which is nice. 

 

4 hours ago, PickSomeBricks said:

If eBay is the winner should I try to stick with auction or a buy it now?

Highly recommend BIN perhaps with Best Offer attached. That's usually how I sell all my used sets. Check BP, check BL, check ebay sold listings.... come up with a price that's about 10% above the average rate, add Best Offer, and negotiate with buyers up to 15-20% off my asking price. This usually lands right around my target profit margin. Pick a system and try to stick with it. 

IF you have an incredibly hot and popular item, put it on auction and hope for the best, but generally speaking in my experience, auctions will end lower than you hoped for, and there's nothing you can do about it once it's done. At least with a low Best Offer you can outright decline, or choose to haggle. Once you're sitting on a healthy profit margin it might be less of a risk to list more as auctions, but when you're starting out it's a sure fire way to put yourself into the negative I think. 

22 minutes ago, Zelgazra said:

 

 

IF you have an incredibly hot and popular item, put it on auction and hope for the best, but generally speaking in my experience, auctions will end lower than you hoped for, and there's nothing you can do about it once it's done. At least with a low Best Offer you can outright decline, or choose to haggle. Once you're sitting on a healthy profit margin it might be less of a risk to list more as auctions, but when you're starting out it's a sure fire way to put yourself into the negative I think. 

Another thing with auctions is that once someone has placed a bid, there's nothing you can do with your listing anymore (i.e. cancelling). So if by stroke of faith you don't get as many bidders as expected, you might end up selling for way below your target price. Of course you can avoid this by chosing a suitable minimum starting bid, but by then you're doing about the same kind of effort as you'd do when you list BIN.

Auctions also open you up to non paying buyers. This can burn you bad around Christmas time when you are trying to dump a set. Happened to me with my last I-Rex. Sold for $190. Buyer never paid. It's still sitting on my shelf.

Another thing with auctions is that once someone has placed a bid, there's nothing you can do with your listing anymore (i.e. cancelling). So if by stroke of faith you don't get as many bidders as expected, you might end up selling for way below your target price. Of course you can avoid this by chosing a suitable minimum starting bid, but by then you're doing about the same kind of effort as you'd do when you list BIN.

You can cancel. It's a sellers option.

2 minutes ago, jaylay said:

 

You can cancel. It's a sellers option.

 

But it'll affect your rating, no?

But it'll affect your rating, no?

No

Thanks for setting me straight there, @jaylay. It's been a while since I've done an auction, and I never needed to cancel one, but did look into it at one point. Here are the "cancel an auction" rules from EBay's policy:

 

Quote

 

Requirements

Your ability to end a listing early depends on the amount of time remaining in the listing and whether the listing has received any bids.

 

Timing	Number of bids	Can the listing be ended early?	Fee for ending a listing early
12 or more hours left in the listing	No bids	Yes	No
	1 or more bids and you want to sell to the high bidder	Yes	No
	1 or more bids and you want to cancel bids	Yes	Yes
Fewer than 12 hours left in the listing	No bids, including no canceled bids	Yes	No
	No bids, because you've canceled them	No	No
	1 or more bids	Yes, but you must sell the item to the high bidder.	No
	1 or more bids, but the item's reserve price wasn't met	No	No