Guess the market is quite good after all 2 2

[RCheli]

1 hour ago, toro said:

The thing that totally amazes me are the small Facebook live auctions.  They will put up books that sell for multiples of the same book on ebay.  Sometimes one guy will have purchased a book on ebay for $45, he then starts the auction at $100 and it will sell for around $150. 

Because in one case, you have to search for a book and in the other case, it is being sold to you. For example, I had a DMZ #1 in my $5 bin for about 6 months. I noticed it when I was adding a book, pulled it out of the box, repriced it at $15 and put it on my wall and it sold in 30 minutes. And that's the most minor of selling. If I put it up on a Facebook live auction, I could talk about the HBO show starting production, how it has great story and art, how it's yet another worthwhile Vertigo #1... blah, blah, blah... I'm sure it would sell for $25.

[Logan510]

4 hours ago, 1Cool said:

Great news.  What do you contribute to your success year?  Finding a plethora of keys - modern books - great year for finding dirt cheap books on e-bay for a quick flip?

I just checked and my sales were down 40% in 2019 compared to 2018.  2018 was my best year by far so that is a tough bar to shoot for but I was kind of shocked by the 40% drop off.  Bigger keys have been tougher to come by and people seem to be a LOT cheaper when it comes to buying books on e-bay and the Canadian buyers have pretty well dried up due to shipping cost and drop in their dollar which I contribute to the large decline.  2020 has started out well and hopefully it will be a bumper year.

That's odd, my sales were up 37% from 2018-2019 

[Aweandlorder]

36 minutes ago, Robot Man said:

I have found that consigning stuff to the smaller local auctions work well for me. Mix a few decent books into a box full of lower grade 10 & 12 cent lessor titles really brings out the “speculators” who have heard all the comic book hype. These lots almost always go for way more than taking them to shows.

That strategy always works. I do that with my fb listings, take a few pics of 2-300 random books, ones that Im struggling with moving and some low grade SA, I always list them as readers so no surprise when you get them. I used to think that i was committing a crime when i started doing that years ago (on craigslist back then) but when I had repeated buyers I realized that theres a market for everything

[Bookery]

Good news for Heritage, but without lots of other information, it tells us nothing about the comic market itself.  It could mean the market is booming, and sales (like for Heritage) are up 35%.  Or the market could be tanking (for example, HA sales were up, but they might have received twice as many consignments due to lots of big collectors bailing out... i.e., a 100% increase in material, but only a 35% increase in sales, which could mean per-item prices were down considerably).  I doubt this is the case... just using an extreme example to illustrate how a single isolated number can be interpreted different ways.  My new-release comic sales continue to decline every year as they have for a decade or more.  But collectibles is harder to get a handle on because sales are dependent upon what I'm able to purchase in a given year, how much I have to pay for it, etc.  HA might be doing better against its competition, and getting more consignments as well (they seem to be getting lots of high-end OA, and are picking up more pulp collections which are generally sold via the comics auctions).  So many variables.

[1Cool]

39 minutes ago, Logan510 said:

That's odd, my sales were up 37% from 2018-2019 

You stole all my customers

But like Bookery eloquently just said - there is really a ton of variables to this equation.  Did you get in some great collections in 2019 which did great compared to the stuff you had in 2018?  Did you start grading a bunch more books in 2019 that where home runs?  2018 was just a phenomenal year for me so maybe the 2019 number was more indicative of the effort I'm putting in.  I do know 2019 feels like a different market compared to 2018 where the speed of everything seems to be speeding up.  We will see how 2020 goes but so far its looking good.

Edited January 13, 2020 by 1Cool

[1Cool]

1 hour ago, RCheli said:

Because in one case, you have to search for a book and in the other case, it is being sold to you. For example, I had a DMZ #1 in my $5 bin for about 6 months. I noticed it when I was adding a book, pulled it out of the box, repriced it at $15 and put it on my wall and it sold in 30 minutes. And that's the most minor of selling. If I put it up on a Facebook live auction, I could talk about the HBO show starting production, how it has great story and art, how it's yet another worthwhile Vertigo #1... blah, blah, blah... I'm sure it would sell for $25.

That is a good point but how many times has a Con buyer . . or a guy on E-Bay . . or even on here said they would buy the book if they got a 10% discount since the book was cheaper elsewhere.  Maybe there is a gold rush going on in FB auction sites where people have tons of cash but it seems like people are price checking basically everything and the concept of someone paying 2x what they can easily buy after a quick e-bay check is just strange to me. 

Edited January 13, 2020 by 1Cool

[miraclemet]

4 hours ago, valiantman said:

Heritage in 2019: $79.3M in comic and comic art sales (a new record)

Heritage in 2018: $58.4M in comic and comic art sales (a new record, broken in 2019)

Heritage says the bidder base is expanding beyond their more optimistic expectations (that is, new buyers in the market). 

I assume that's due to bigger auctions? More items auctions thus more total sales. I'd love to know if their per lot average increases as well, or if they just diplaced some auctions from ebay and brought them over to HA....

[Logan510]

39 minutes ago, 1Cool said:

You stole all my customers

But like Bookery eloquently just said - there is really a ton of variables to this equation.  Did you get in some great collections in 2019 which did great compared to the stuff you had in 2018?  Did you start grading a bunch more books in 2019 that where home runs?  2018 was just a phenomenal year for me so maybe the 2019 number was more indicative of the effort I'm putting in.  I do know 2019 feels like a different market compared to 2018 where the speed of everything seems to be speeding up.  We will see how 2020 goes but so far its looking good.

I killed it on the movie hype, I had the right books graded and ready to go when the announcements hit at SDCC.

[the blob]

3 hours ago, toro said:

The thing that totally amazes me are the small Facebook live auctions.  They will put up books that sell for multiples of the same book on ebay.  Sometimes one guy will have purchased a book on ebay for $45, he then starts the auction at $100 and it will sell for around $150. 

And how many people actually complete the deal and send money?

But yeah, I see a lot of silly pricing on facebook. I didn't think sales at those silly prices were actually being completed.

[1Cool]

3 minutes ago, Logan510 said:

I killed it on the movie hype, I had the right books graded and ready to go when the announcements hit at SDCC.

That was me at the end of 2018.  I had 15 graded copies of FF Annual 6 horded away and ended selling them for something crazy like $10K.  It's all about having the right books graded and getting lucky with your timing.  Glad you had a great year!

[the blob]

4 hours ago, Aweandlorder said:

My sales were up 10-15% from ‘18 so not really THAT much better but if there’s anything I did different last year it was going heavier on listing lower ticket items starting with $5 books than previous years. It worked extremely well on slower periods I found, as people spent more money on those books as opposed to big books

The problem with doing $5 auctions is when those books sell for $5 and you have to ship them.

 

[Aweandlorder]

6 minutes ago, the blob said:

The problem with doing $5 auctions is when those books sell for $5 and you have to ship them.

 

no problem at all 

and just as a note. I mean $5 profit books (shipping and ebay+paypal commissions are factored in the shipping price which is usually 5.00

[the blob]

1 hour ago, 1Cool said:

That was me at the end of 2018.  I had 15 graded copies of FF Annual 6 horded away and ended selling them for something crazy like $10K.  It's all about having the right books graded and getting lucky with your timing.  Glad you had a great year!

I don't think you can really make such broad generalizations about 2018 vs. 2019 when you may have had much better stuff to sell in 2018? If your bread and butter was selling $1-$5 books on ebay and shows, yeah, I think you can compare, but when you hit the jackpot on a few books like that, not so much.

 

[the blob]

1 hour ago, Aweandlorder said:

no problem at all 

and just as a note. I mean $5 profit books (shipping and ebay+paypal commissions are factored in the shipping price which is usually 5.00

I just feel like the 10-20 minutes of time each sale probably consumes (between the time to list it, pack it, and waddle to the post office truck parked in front of my office (in my case)) ought to factor in there somewhere.

[Aweandlorder]

23 minutes ago, the blob said:

I just feel like the 10-20 minutes of time each sale probably consumes (between the time to list it, pack it, and waddle to the post office truck parked in front of my office (in my case)) ought to factor in there somewhere.

It isn’t 10 minutes. And u can’t look at things from an “each sale = x amount of time spent” perspective. 
when you’re moving 5-10-20 books a day it gets very profitable and packaged very quickly 

[the blob]

18 minutes ago, Aweandlorder said:

It isn’t 10 minutes. And u can’t look at things from an “each sale = x amount of time spent” perspective. 
when you’re moving 5-10-20 books a day it gets very profitable and packaged very quickly 

I suppose. I'm just so dang sleepy.

 

[KEY ISSUES Comics]

7 hours ago, 1Cool said:

But if store owners are having to liquidate run books then they really can't buy anything except keys (unless they are paying pennies on the dollar).  I'm running into more and more flippers trying to sell me their run books or guys who have a nice collection but want top dollar for everything and not just the keys.  For example - I helped a local guy sell off his bronze age collection a few years ago.  I consigned some and bought him out when he got down to 10 long boxes or so.  He called me right before the holidays and said he had unearthed another 8 long boxes of "mags and odds and ends in his basement".  I ran over there lightning quick but it turned out the left overs where mostly late 80s books with some little demand magazines.  He was really disappointed when I made him a lower offer then he was hoping for (compared to the last purchase I made with him).  I had to explain the current market and how cheap non keys are going for right now.  He ended up declining and is just going to put them back in the basement.  I see this interaction be indicative of the current non key / hot modern market.

And it really varies from one market to another. I only set up at shows (with the occasional online sale & warehouse visit), and the folks who come out to the shows in my area are mostly looking for keys. I have a hard time selling run books of any era unless discounted, and I think my regular pricing is more than fair. I WISH they sold better, because I love selling runs to folks who enjoy reading them.

[KEY ISSUES Comics]

4 hours ago, 1Cool said:

That was me at the end of 2018.  I had 15 graded copies of FF Annual 6 horded away and ended selling them for something crazy like $10K.  It's all about having the right books graded and getting lucky with your timing.  Glad you had a great year!

Yep. I'm going to try and do the same with my ASM #101 CGC 9.2 now that the trailer has dropped.

[october]

15 hours ago, Aweandlorder said:

And u can’t look at things from an “each sale = x amount of time spent” perspective. 
 

But that's exactly how you should be looking at it. It's what you are making per hour of work. Below a certain threshold it's not worth the time spent, unless someone considers it fun.  

[1Cool]

15 hours ago, Aweandlorder said:

It isn’t 10 minutes. And u can’t look at things from an “each sale = x amount of time spent” perspective. 
when you’re moving 5-10-20 books a day it gets very profitable and packaged very quickly 

After looking over a ongoing sales thread which is selling $5 books - do you let me know a few books you bought for basically nothing and were able to sell for $5 plus $5 shipping.  I sell some of those type of books abut I'm wondering what type of books you get people to bite on.  Perfectly ok if you don't want to - I'm just curious.