Tips for selling cartridges

[reinheitsrobot]

I’m divesting my cart collection and plan to do it primarily over EBay, unless somebody can suggest a better idea (?) Mostly if not all commons.  Very few collectibles/rares.  Timeline - Im open to divest slowly over time and would like to net $2 avg per common cart.  Open to all thoughts, suggestions and ideas.  Thanks

[kennybrooks]

As a seller on ebay for many years, I would say this is not worth it.  $2 for the hassle of dealing with buyers and ebay fees per cartridge is a waste of time.  If you could sell them in one lot that would be better, buyers tend to expect less from items in a lot sold as is.

[Tanooki]

I'll back up what he said, but give better and more detail on things.  I've been doing somewhat what you're planning to do for years now, slowly to drip feed some money for me to use since I can't afford a hobby budget.

 

Never, EVER sell anything on ebay for under $5.  They take this final value fee scam where they roll a fee into the total cost of whatever you 'win' from someone including the shipping, ebay charges you a fee on your shipping you use to pay to mail out stuff.  Once you cross under the $5 mark you might be making a dollar or two at best on the item, at that rate, might as well find a half price books, or do a garage sale and put a card up saying 'all games in this box $2/ea' as that'll be far less obnoxious.

 

Here's an example.  Say you have a $5 Gameboy game that sells right? And you want to mail it first class in a bubble mailer across country that now uses first class shipping zone rates.  For starters I'd use FLAT rate shipping prices when you use ebay because their calculated one often screws up and can cost you money and they've never fixed it.  $5 for the game, $3.50 for a 3-4oz package and you're at 8.50.  Rounding up you're at 1.30 in fees, then remove that 3.50 to ship it and you're left with $3.70 (out of a $8.50 charge the buyer issues.)  You'll find that the more expensive an item is, the cut percentage drops, so you selling cheapos are going to lose the most per game.  The worst of the worst would be a sub $10 item that weighs over a pound into parcel or priority mail rates.  When you figure that, you'll make even less than that one GB game I made up did which is sickening because of the FVF charge eating into shipping.

 

**One thing I didn't include in that $3.70 remaining on a $8.50 shipped game, material costs.  A bundle of bubble bags bought online you can get them down to like 25-50 cents a piece depending on how many, and you also have costs of tape rolls which in recent years gone up quite a bit, and also printer paper and inks for labels (and we'll pretend your time and gas to the post office doesn't exist.)  Your $3.70 will drop around or just below $3 into the high $2s.

 

 

 

If you have a system to said games you don't want, a spare perhaps... take anything worth already like $1-3 before shipping and bundle it into one big package, then take 1-2 $10-15 games and throw them in as playable bait.  If you don't have the system, do the same, just adjust lower since someone will have to get themselves that system from another or already have.

 

Any game worth $10+ definitely sell on its own, unless research shows if you have a game series maybe 2-3 total (like Super Mario Bros 1-3 for instance) it may make more sense to stuff them together, no need to really lower the price, the fact someone can get them all shipped for like $5 vs $4/cart shipping, people like that savings, they'll buy from you first.

Edited June 6, 2021 by Tanooki

[reinheitsrobot]

On 6/6/2021 at 1:19 AM, kennybrooks said:

As a seller on ebay for many years, I would say this is not worth it.  $2 for the hassle of dealing with buyers and ebay fees per cartridge is a waste of time.  If you could sell them in one lot that would be better, buyers tend to expect less from items in a lot sold as is.

Thx.  Appreciate the comments

[reinheitsrobot]

Thx all for the comments. $2 average is the goal.  I have many games that are worth 10+.  But your points are well taken.  Perhaps sell the higher worth ones individually and put the rest into lots.  Any tips for the lots?  I thought about having separate lots for lettered carts vs pictured cards (mostly Atari commons).