Selling things

🦄 A little bit of positivity for everyone :D

Selling Basics

Perhaps you own something now that you don’t want anymore and you think it’d be better off with another collector.

efore doing anything, consult your post office or courier service to find out their pricing models, and registration/insurance options. Make sure you know if dimensional/volumetric weight applies to your packages beforehand. The packing material itself is usually not free, but you can do some ghetto substituting of plastic wrap and crumpled/shredded paper in the place of bubble wrap and packing peanuts, respectively. If you’re broke, shred old newspapers and free padded envelopes from USPS for padding and reuse packing material that came to you from past orders. Make sure you pack the box/envelope securely; if it can’t survive being tossed a few feet or crushed under another box, it’s NOT ready to be shipped.

In the US, USPS generally has the cheapest rates and even cheaper if you use eBay or PayPal to pay for and print the shipping label. A First-class package starts at $1.93 online, including free tracking. Media Mail becomes cheaper than First-class starting at 11oz, but it is only for printed matter. Consider using Priority Flat Rate boxes (which you can order for free from USPS/eBay or pick up at the post office) if the item you’re shipping doesn’t qualify for Media Mail and is heavier than 2 lbs.

If you want to sell a lot, consider investing in a small digital kitchen/post scale ($10-25). They are accurate to 0.1oz/1g and generally can handle up to 6lbs. It will take the shipping guesswork out of the process and speed up your ability to pack and affix shipping labels at home. With this method, once the package is ready, you can simply hand it off to the mailman when he/she drops by or drop the package off at your local USPS office without waiting in line. Even better: if at least one of your packages is Priority, Express, or International, you can schedule for USPS to come to your house and pick up packages, saving you the trip’s gas.

Capitalism, HO!

                                                                        Figure 6: What the picture says.

For people who are a little more serious about selling & trying to make a few bucks off the art: In a nutshell, buy low, sell high. Even AmiAmi is too pricy for turning a profit unless it’s some rare, in-demand item.

• “But I should preorder this super-popular figure! Preorders will be sold out everywhere! Even if I don’t want it anymore later, I’m sure I can scalp it!”

Very rarely will a figure appreciate in value post-release. Whatever you’re looking at is very unlikely to increase dramatically in value down the road, because the initial hype will have worn off, the market will be saturated, and the popularity will fall once the anime/game had its run.

As for scalping, it will be difficult in most cases unless you really know what you’re doing (in which case, you should be contributing to this section of the guide). For example:

• You purchase a figure for 6000 yen on AmiAmi. You want to be the fastest to offer it for sale, so you pick EMS shipping, 2000 yen.

• You want to scalp it for double, so you price it at $120 for sale, plus shipping (let’s say $10 domestic).

• When the figure sells, PayPal takes a 2.9% + $0.30 fee if domestic. If it was through eBay, eBay takes a 10% fee out of both selling price and shipping.

• You need some packing materials, tape, and a box. $5. You spend time securely packing up everything and gas getting to the post office.

• In the end: $120 (selling price) + $10 (shipping) - 6000 yen (purchase price) - 2000 yen (shipping) - $4 (PayPal fee) - $13 (eBay fee) - $5 (packing materials) - $10 (shipping) = $18 (profit)