Dalsgaard's PfP Challenge

[S_Dalsgaard]

I can see it has been a while since anyone has done one of these, but that shall not deter me from doing one (and maybe letting it die a slow death).

Before 2014 I had never bought or sold anything on eBay (although I had checked it out on occasion), but I thought it was about time to try it out and maybe make a few bucks off my hobby. I read some tutorials and tips on using eBay to sell miniatures (Darklord's excellent tutorial included) and took the leap. I wasn't sure it would end well as I didn't have much of a rating, but with a few extra tips from DL I made a listing on my IG Commissar.

I must say it is going well beyond expectations. So far it is at $18.50 with 3 days left and there have been over a thousand views and 18 people has it on their watchlist (I assume that is good), so I'm hoping for a boost to the final bid. I'm hopefully optimistic, that it will make $25 or more.

I figured I would start out with £10 (as per tradition) and go for how much I can make before I forget about this thread or tank completely in an auction, so the current tally looks like this:

Starting funds: £10
GW Commissar: -£8.20

Current Funds: £1.80
Current Profit/Loss: -£8.20

I've already decided on my next mini for the challenge, which is the new Dwarf Lord from GW, Belegar Ironhammer. I figure that a brand new model has a bigger chance of bringing in the dough, than an older one. I will probably keep mostly to GW models as they seem to be easiest to sell and with a few years away from the hobby, there are plenty of minis in the range I want to paint.

[Darklord]

good stuff mate, I will probably restart mine at some point after real life stopped me painting for a year.

Ebay can be quite thrilling at time (or disappointing!!)

I wouldn't read too much into watchers I have had auctions with 30-50 of them watching and not sold.

What I found was after a while 75% of my painted stuff got bought by the same 2 or 3 people so if you can keep listing reguarly then better as it keeps them active. ideally always having something on auction is best (so a mini a week!)

will keep following this and see how you get on

[S_Dalsgaard]

That pesky real life can really put a dent in one's brush-licking.

Good to know that watchers doesn't mean much.

I hope that by concentrating on GW stuff I might sell to people who needs stuff for their armies, as my level isn't quite good enough to hope, that people would actually buy my stuff for display yet. It would of course be nice to get some regulars, but one step at a time.

I hope you get your PfP thread started up again soon DL, so I wont feel so alone :-)

By the way, I was wondering about buyers' habits as to when they bid on something. Do people generally wait till the last day of an auction, or aren't there much of a pattern to how auctions goes?

[Darklord]

GW is deffo your best bet and the best of those are Space Marines and then the most common chapters, ultramarines,etc

What some painters do is study a new codex and look for characters in there that there are no miniatures produced for, then create such a mini through conversion. bit more laborious but will gain you some extra coin

[S_Dalsgaard]

That's a good idea, but as far as I know GW aren't really doing many rules without minis anymore (something about lawsuits and stuff).

My biggest concern about doing the dwarf next is, that Fantasy doesn't seem to be as popular as 40k, but it is a really cool mini, so I will take the chance. I was thinking starting it at a bit more than the price of the mini and do free shipping. That way I at least don't lose money and have a cool mini for my cabinet if it doesn't sell.

[Brambleten]

I wouldn't go free postage, just make it clear as to what postage you are using so people know that you aren't just trying to make money on it (seen that quite a few times, bugs me to hell.)

Also be careful with new releases as they can sometimes flood the market with people trying to get a piece of it so it might be worth looking at the release before etc. Plus if you are painting models that you like then if they don't sell there is no harm in you keeping them :)

[S_Dalsgaard]

The thing is, the eBay fee is $1 less when you offer free postage so it only costs me around $7 in "lost" income (I still have it set too high on my current listing). I hope that the big green "free postage" mark at my listing will bring more buyers and give me those $7 in higher bids. It might not work, but it is worth the experiment.

Good point though on the flooded market. I will have to keep that in mind.

[Brambleten]

Oh yeah, fees. Shouldn't have forgotten those. It's all a case of finding the right point on the scales but still not putting people off. That said, if people want something bad enough, they'll pay for it.

[S_Dalsgaard]

That's what I'm counting on :-)

And the more finished minis I sell, the less I have to argue with the wife about filling our cabinets with them.

[NeatPete]

I hear ya. I'm on a current "sell to buy" plan for minis and my fish tank. Sold $20 worth of corals last night, so I got that going for me! Woot.

I'll be painting some minis and selling them soon as well. I find it tough to make money though. Not expecting huge dollars but it sure is a kick in the pants when you paint a $8 mini on a $2 base and it sells for $14 and after fees you earn $2. /Awesome!

To answer one of your earlier questions, I see most activity in the last day, especially the last hour. Always end on Sunday nights if possible. Also I find CMON credits for adds really help as well, 2x to 3x as many views. (has been about a year since I sold minis on ebay though) ...but what do it I know? I make a 50 cents an hour wage painting :fret

[S_Dalsgaard]

I've learned NEVER to begin calculating what I make per hour when painting minis. Two years ago I got £100 for painting the Bloodthirster pictured in my avatar (commission) and I probably used something like 30-40 hours on it :-/

On the other hand, I know a guy who makes a living off painting crappy tabletop minis on commission...

Anyway, good to know that there might be a last-day rush. I would have started the auction so it ended on a Sunday, but I didn't have the patience to wait starting it and didn't want to pay extra for a 10-day auction.

I would have thought the CMoN adds wouldn't help much as I thought most people on that site actually did their own painting.

[Brambleten]

Aye, a lot of the members might do their own painting but a lot of people look over there without signing up to look at the pretty pretties.

[S_Dalsgaard]

That makes sense I guess.

[Darklord]

though dont waste credits on rushed TT jobs, save em for your better pieces

[swoods]

Good luck with this! I'm in a slight state of flux with mine. I really resent silver paint at the moment!

I reckon you'd be better of with 40k stuff if you're selling to the mass gaming market. Also, depending on your feedback, you may want to increase that by purchasing some small items and getting a better score...

SW