Is it me, or does stuff sells less well on ebay?

[Turanil]

Two years ago I sold many, many games I had in my basement, on ebay. And it sold very well. Many people were bidding, and much stuff was for sale.

However, these last months, I seem to see much less stuff for sale, and many products that don't sell, while those that sell usually do it at minimum price with only one or two bidders. Sure, it's a great time to buy: I am gonna have a AD&D 1e Fiend Folio for 15.5 euros (18 $), while two or three years ago it would have sold in the 100$ range... However, I am trying to sell some 3.0 books, and I am wondering if they will get one bid at all.

I don't know in other countries, but truly sales are currently weak on ebay.fr. Maybe it has to do with all the scams that used false ebay as a bait?

 

[IronWolf]

I think in many cases the older D&D stuff has saturated eBay. Not sure what the exact reason is... I tend to attribute to more and more people using eBay and with this comes more and more people digging out old books that have been in boxes for years and selling them.

 

[Crothian]

its a buyers market. There are a lot of people selling of these books especially old 3.0 books.

 

[CarlZog]

Yeah, I think IronWolf's right. In a lot of cases the market is saturated.

There's a limited market for this stuff, and I don't think that market is growing at the moment. So once everybody who wants a copy of XYZ book has gotten one, the price of that book drops. If, at the same time, more people are finding old copies to sell, the price will drop quicker.

The other aspect of this is that antiques and collectibles in general go through cycles of waxing and waning interest. The gaming hobby, at least as far as collecting goes, is still too young to have experienced this yet, but other types of antiques and collectibles experience cycles of 20 years or more as new generations of collectors discover the stuff; buy it up, then eventually lose interest and move on to something else.

Carl

 

[Turanil]

Seems I will have a hard time selling my 3.0 bundle.

On the other hand, it seems to me that everything is selling less well than before.

 

[IronWolf]

On the other hand, it seems to me that everything is selling less well than before.

I think another portion of it goes to how hard you are willing to work. Lady IronWolf sells a fair amount of stuff on eBay. She's not getting rich, but she has noticed she is making more now that she puts even more care and attention into her auctions. But I agree, with the plethora of sellers on eBay now, it is certainly harder to make the easy money.

 

[Hijinks]

That's not good news, that stuff isn't selling as well. I'm going to be putting an old engagement ring from 2000 on Ebay soon (since the jerks here at work keep ripping the for sale sign down from the bulletin board - wth is up with that?!?) and I was hoping to get some nice money from it.

 

[WayneLigon]

I think that the eBay Stores are the main reason that prices are down. They generally offer (1) a steady stream of stuff at (2) a pretty reasonable price, so people aren't getting into as many bidding wars. Because of point 1, many things you're looking for will be coming around again. People don't bid up an item if they know it might be available again very soon. Point 2 means that if they see an item is being bid up, they just go to one of the online stores and pick it up rather than risk losing the bid.

 

[jcfiala]

It depends. I just sold a bunch of netrunner cards on ebay, and my jaw positively dropped at how high things got bid to.

IMHO, it's really the D&D 3.0 and earlier stuff that's been oversold.

 

[caudor]

I used to shop for D&D stuff all the time on eBay. Now days, I can find the items as cheap (and most of the time--cheaper) as a used book from a reseller offering through Amazon.com's third party market.

Since I don't mind buying used books, the advantage is I get a low price without having to wonder if I'll have a good transation with 'this seller'.