Advice on private sales

[GSCUprising]

Hi all,

 

Well, I am looking at a potential move back to Denmark from the UK, a place I miss a lot. If you've never been, I cannot recommend it highly enough though I admit I have a bias.

 

Anyhow, I am presently divesting myself of various bits in order to reduce the amount of stuff I will cart over there in the event I actually do it. 

 

I have a tonne of miniatures, many of which I've never touched since I bought them, so I thought I might as well sell them off to go to the moving fund. Stuff like a FW Phantom Titan, Scorpion and Cobra tanks, DE Reaper, Tantalus,  etc.

 

I won't be posting links to sales here as I imagine that'll go against B&C's TOS. Instead, what I am looking for is advice both generally and from personal experience using services like eBay, for example. What are the pitfalls? How might I possibly get scammed? What should I avoid? Which payment systems are better? I am already well-versed in distance selling regs with work, so got that covered. The other bits, though, I would welcome advice. 

 

Thank you. 

[Lord Marshal]

The pitfalls with Ebay are that the company will nearly always take the side of the customer over a sell in cases of them claiming the item never arrived, it was not as you described, etc. This can be mitigated somewhat by having a tracking service (which you should always do to cover your arse) but it's not full proof. Since you're still in the UK, you'll be forced to use their Simple Delivery service which I've heard everything from 'it's great' to 'it's the devil' but I can't speak to having used it yet.

 

Ultimately selling anything is always going to have a little bit of risk attatched to it but if it was 'that' deadly of a trap then so many people wouldn't be selling their Warhammer I suppose. If somebody wants to scram you badly enough, they'll try and pull a fast one. The best way to mitigate that is to not sell things in bulk, even if it takes you longer to individually shift things. It also means you'll rack up more 'positive feedback' on your Ebay account, since people are less likely to trust somebody with lower rep (or just try and pull a fast one).

 

UK now forces Payments to go via Ebay, but prior to that I used PayPal without any issues.

 

For Forge World items, due to the proliferation of people trying to pawn off recasts as full-priced Forge World items, I would suggest having some sort of 'proof of purchase' alongside any photos of it, or even just the 'white boxes' they come in with the name and order number across it. That way people can see that it's probably the real deal (obviously somebody could still fake it but chances are most aren't going to go to all that effort). 

 

Speaking of photos, I take one of most angles. It won't necessarily protect you from people trying to return it via 'Not As Described' but it does help put genuine potential-buyers at ease and potentially stops people claiming there was damage at the back of a box you didn't take a photo of.

 

If you don't want to bother with Ebay, there's certain Facebook groups for the slightly more personal touch. The big 40k Discord also has a Buy And Sell section though it's mostly Yanks active in there I've found.

 

 

Edited May 17 by Lord Marshal

[GSCUprising]

14 minutes ago, Lord Marshal said:

The pitfalls with Ebay are that the company will nearly always take the side of the customer over a sell in cases of them claiming the item never arrived, it was not as you described, etc. This can be mitigated somewhat by having a tracking service (which you should always do to cover your arse) but it's not full proof. Since you're still in the UK, you'll be forced to use their Simple Delivery service which I've heard everything from 'it's great' to 'it's the devil' but I can't speak to having used it yet.

 

Ultimately selling anything is always going to have a little bit of risk attatched to it but if it was 'that' deadly of a trap then so many people wouldn't be selling their Warhammer I suppose. If somebody wants to scram you badly enough, they'll try and pull a fast one. The best way to mitigate that is to not sell things in bulk, even if it takes you longer to individually shift things. It also means you'll rack up more 'positive feedback' on your Ebay account, since people are less likely to trust somebody with lower rep (or just try and pull a fast one).

 

UK now forces Payments to go via Ebay, but prior to that I used PayPal without any issues.

 

For Forge World items, due to the proliferation of people trying to pawn off recasts as full-priced Forge World items, I would suggest having some sort of 'proof of purchase' alongside any photos of it, or even just the 'white boxes' they come in with the name and order number across it. That way people can see that it's probably the real deal (obviously somebody could still fake it but chances are most aren't going to go to all that effort). 

 

Speaking of photos, I take one of most angles. It won't necessarily protect you from people trying to return it via 'Not As Described' but it does help put genuine potential-buyers at ease and potentially stops people claiming there was damage at the back of a box you didn't take a photo of.

 

If you don't want to bother with Ebay, there's certain Facebook groups for the slightly more personal touch. The big 40k Discord also has a Buy And Sell section though it's mostly Yanks active in there I've found.

 

 

That's great. Just the sort of insight I was looking for. Thank you. Just to be clear and so I understand this correctly, were I want to post something via, say, Recorded Delivery, I would not be able to, instead being confined to their method of of postage? Were I to sell the Phantom Titan, for example, I would definitely be look at a secure postal method, given it's a £1000+ piece.

 

Thank you.

[Lord Marshal]

38 minutes ago, GSCUprising said:

That's great. Just the sort of insight I was looking for. Thank you. Just to be clear and so I understand this correctly, were I want to post something via, say, Recorded Delivery, I would not be able to, instead being confined to their method of of postage? Were I to sell the Phantom Titan, for example, I would definitely be look at a secure postal method, given it's a £1000+ piece.

 

Thank you.

 

As I understand it, Ebay Simple Delivery has tracking included by default unless it's a <£20 item - then you get the option to just not use SD at all and use your own courier of choice. But, unfortunately, Ebay no longer appears to give a choice in the matter about using SD. You'd have to investigate other marketplaces like Facebook or Vinted at that point. I've read people have been able to shirk SD but it very much seems to be purely down to luck whether Ebay lets you or not. It's a very weird system.

 

Actually that reminds me, if you do use Ebay then you'll have to go into your settings and disable certain couriers yourself. For example, with Evri being notorious unreliable and prone to losing a lot of items, most people I know disallow them by default. So in theory you could choose to disable all but Royal Mail, for example. 

[Zoatibix]

I use the phone app for eBay. It’s very straightforward. 
 

Start a listing, use phone to take the photos.

 

When it comes to couriers I only use Royal Mail. 
 

You can toggle off the other couriers from the spot shown below on the postage page when making a listing.

 

When your item sells you can click a couple of buttons to get a QR code that you can save to your phone.

 

I number each parcel and the QR code image on my phone to keep them from getting mixed up.

 

Take your packages to the Post Office. They will scan each QR code and print out a label.

 

I find it bit easier than having to hand write the labels, pay at the post office but that that’s just me.

 

I haven’t had any issues for about a year when I stopped using Evri. The last straw was them shoving the parcel under the hedge at the end of the buyer’s drive way.

Evri were so unreliable at that point that eBay were sometimes closing the missing item cases the same day they were opened.

 

The problem you might run into if you have a lot of stuff is that as a private seller you can only sell £1000 per year before you might be liable for tax. I always stop before that point.

 

Pack stuff carefully. Put a separate Return address sticker on the box.

Note that the buyer has to pay a little extra on top of the sale price to cover ‘buyer protection’ which I believe is them covering the cost of insurance/ cost of arguing with courier if lost.

 

A friend uses Vinted a lot. He seems very happy with that, but does seem to get a lot of ‘cheeky offers’ for items.

 

Happy selling.

Edited May 17 by Zoatibix
Spelling and extra information

[RWJP]

Having sold a bunch of stuff via eBay Simple Delivery recently (including one that sold only a few hours ago): I have had exactly zero problems with it. It has worked perfectly for me every time. 

To make things as smooth as possible: Take plenty of clear pictures of the item from as many angles as reasonably possible. If there are any faults, take pictures of those and mention them clearly in the description. For high value items I would also recommend taking pictures of how you package the item so if there is any damage, you have evidence to submit to eBay. 

In terms of concerns about the "It never arrived" scam... You don't have to worry about it too much. I had to research this as Royal Mail messed around with one of my shipments, but the long and the short of it is that if an item sent via Simple Delivery is reported as lost/undelivered, you don't lose out. eBay refunds the buyer and you keep the proceeds of the sale. Basically eBay handles claiming compensation back from the Courier. With that said, there is one key thing to remember: If a buyer reaches out to you to say they haven't received an item that you sent via Simple Delivery, you must NOT refund them yourself. Tell the buyer to report it hasn't arrived via the order on eBay so the claim gets raised through eBay's systems. That gets the protection from Simple Delivery.

I would check that eBay's available postal services offer insurance up to enough for a Titan (as nothing I have sold has come close to that!)

[Lord_Ikka]

In the USA, so probably slightly different here, but in general I advise people who want to sell stuff to look first to local groups (via FB, Discord, etc...) and then try out eBay. This can save on shipping hassles, as a lot of times people are willing to travel to get a decent deal.

 

There are also some, in the US at least, bigger game stores that buy used models as part of their normal business. You won't be getting the same price as you probably could get with a direct buyer, but it can be a lot easier and simpler to go through than trying to piece everything out yourself.