- This topic has 27 replies, 21 voices, and was last updated 7 years, 7 months ago by .
-
Posts
-
I SOLD MY Red Lavender Autumn Leaf old warrior last year for 600 and that was after listing it for a long time. I started out asking 1000 and 600 is where it ended up. Right now the market really doesnt seem that great but like someone already said it gets better around the holidays. I wish you luck but just make sure 100% that you really want to sell it.
About when do people think holiday shopping begins in earnest on eBay? I think that may be my best bet for selling my Black Rainbow Mother Coiled. I’m not expecting to get what I paid at this point, but I don’t want to bother with putting/keeping something up for auction at a time not very many people are even looking. Any advice is appreciated.
My keyboard is broken. I keep pressing "Escape", but I'm still here.
Around Thanksgiving is the best time for selling sterling flatware, though that could be because people are thinking of holiday entertaining. However, “around Thanksgiving” also would be my answer for your question.
I’ll second the end of November. I usually do my holiday shopping then, and when the fiance sells stuff online sales usually pick up then.
Seeking Test Paints & GBs ! Please get in touch if you'd trade/sell. I'll remove pieces from list by owner request
ANY Red Eyed Unis
ANY Test Paint Bat
UNIS:
The Purple/Yellow Baby Uni of Awesome
Male- Snow Leopard TP
White Lighting Male, Pony, Colt and Grand - I have Mom, Baby, & Young
Ponycorns: Golden Zebra and/or Spotted Skunk
Mother: Okapi
Gothic - Mahogany
PEGS: Male Midnight Calico, Male Bloodstone, Mother Starlight Rain
DRAGONS: Male CoyoteWow! Thank you everyone for the insight. I’ve noticed with My Little Ponies (my first collecting obsession) summer was slow because everyone was outside, enjoying life and in the winter, sales were better because it was cold outside so everyone was inside in front of their computers. It seems this way with the housing market too. We intentionally waited until mid August to even begin the process because everyone with kids wants to get moved before school starts. My fiance and I don’t have kids, so it’s all the same to us! 🙂 I recently went back and looked at all the pieces Windstone has sold recently just to see what I’ve missed. OMG! You’re not kidding…that “new growth” griffin family looks an aweful lot like the “Emerald Tabby Tiger” male griffin I have…and paid over $500 for. I don’t think I could even sell him, emotionally, but when I saw how low the members of that family were going for, that cemented it lol In Houston the economy sucks because we are driven by oil and gas and the oil and gas industry has had MASSIVE lay offs and firings in the last year. My fiance is a welder at an oil company and he has taken a 50% pay cut X_X His company is a big one and they have gotten so strict on the rules, hoping someone will trip, fall, and they will have a legit excuse to fire them. “Oh, you clocked in 1 minute late. That’s a write up.” I’m not even kidding. Gas is $2.69 for premium (that’s what I use, I don’t pay attention to regular gas prices) but regular gas is probably around $1.90 or $2.10/gallon and it’s fantastic to fill up for less than $50 BUT everyone is suffering because of it. :-\ Well, there are some things I can take a hit on but I couldn’t let a $400 piece go for less than $200 so I’ve been trying to find more pieces from my collection to sell; in a way “well if no one likes THAT one, maybe THIS one” sort of thing. I’ve been packing up my collection lately, but if I can find my Crake male griffin and silver mother dragon, they’re next on the chopping block…or mayybe my Kiwi lap dragon 🙁
Anyway, let’s all hope this recession picks up!In Alberta it’s the same thing with the oil industry crashing. Our province has had thousands of lay offs in the last couple years. Most of my friends in the oil industry were laid off and had to find lower paying jobs just to make ends meet. One guy I know who worked for an oil company now works in a retail store. A couple friends have been without work now for several months or a year. We had a job fair here last month for a new airport terminal where they need to hire 300 new people and over 4000 people showed up. They were lined up around the hotel for hours just to get into the job fair. It was crazy! So yeah it would be nice if oil prices picked up again and people got their jobs back and the economy picked up soon!
Looking for rainbow or pink & teal grab bags!
Well, I can only offer my own perspective here, but I *have* noticed the slowing of the secondhand market – I’ve been watching several pieces in the Classifieds for months and months (not to mention my own). I’m thinking along the same lines as a lot of you seem to be thinking – it’s a combination of things. 🙂
Here are my hypotheses:
1. The focus is WAY more on test paints and grab bags now! Used to be, there was a pretty brisk market in secondhand pieces, especially in retired colors (two of my three Peacock Orientals came to me this way), but once Ebay editions became a regular feature, people’s interest shifted to them, and later to grab bags: one-of-a-kind pieces. Nobody wants to trade a production piece for a OOAK, so trading for them is almost impossible even if you’re willing to trade at a loss (I’ve been looking to trade a color shift cougar for a GB Sitting Fox for a year or so, I think, without success!). And with so many new OOAKs to choose from, I think there’s less interest in production pieces overall – everybody’s too busy focusing on what the next Cosmic Shift Ebay release or fancy grab bag will be. So many people in the various threads have said things like, “I’m saving up, don’t release the grab bag ponies yet!” etc – I get the feeling that interest has withdrawn from production pieces, because it’s a slower process with less variation (and less temptation to justify your expense as an investment or once-in-a-lifetime opportunity).
2. Economic slump is the nationwide reality for USians. :/ I’ve been very fortunate the past few years, because, while I make a poverty-line income, life circumstances positioned me so that most of my income was disposable. (This is only VERY RECENTLY no longer the case for me: I bought a house last week! I’m still not used to looking at things and thinking, <i>there’s no way I can afford to spend $100 on that!</i>.) Most people, in the last few years, are tightening their belts and closing their wallets; they probably still WANT to buy Windstones, but just can’t manage anything except maybe a one-time splurge on a birthday or for a significant other’s holiday gift. (And see above, re: focus being on OOAK items. If you’re going to splurge, would you want to feel, “I’ll never have the chance to buy this again!” or “One of these comes up on Ebay or the Classifieds every three months; I could wait”?)
3. Sheer numbers are also a thing! Windstone used to do mainly production pieces, with the occasional test paint; it made test paints rare and special. When the number of test paints (and artist editions, and limited productions, and…) started growing by leaps and bounds, it became overwhelming. Back in 2000-mumble, I spent about $650 on a test paint OW, because I completely fell in love with the color, and he was one of just fifteen made. (A thing to note, here: this was made clear upfront! Each one sold was listed as “number __ of 15” so the buyer knew just how rare they were going to be! Though of course the standard disclaimer about test colors becoming production was in there, and in fact his color did, with minor changes, become a limited production color down the line!)
When I look back at that time of my life, compared to now… That was the start of the flood! There’s no way that I, or <i>anyone</i>, could keep up with the number of special pieces being produced now. Time has given us more sculpts, more new color schemes, more painters with name recognition. It’s also given us more uncertainty: when that pretty test paint or grab bag pops up now and you don’t know if you should drop $250 on it, it’s hard not to think, <i>but what if next month they do my *favorite* sculpt?</i> or <i>odds are that if I buy this piece, I won’t be able to afford the Cosmic Shift mama to match my baby</i>. With so many choices out there, people are more hesitant to commit to any one choice. (And that’s just from-the-factory pieces! Add in the secondhand market, and you can see why people might hesitate even longer to buy something secondhand when any minute their favorite artist might put out a new piece/the mate to their favorite piece might come up. Especially since, if it’s more than few year old, the secondhand sellers probably paid more for the piece than a new one is going for on Ebay or in the next grab bag edition.)
4. Secondhand marketing is more difficult. Guys, I browse the Classifieds a LOT, and I see some difficult to follow, difficult to view ads. Tiny pictures, blurry pictures, upside-down or sideways pictures, no pictures, one picture of a shelf crammed with items, broken HTML links. Run-on sentences, zero punctuation, angry- or defensive-sounding text, unclear wording, complicated instructions or no instructions at all. It’s like watching people shoot themselves in the foot; sometimes I wince. (I definitely winced, the time I realized that I had borked my own HTML in an ad! So I’m aiming this at myself, too, guys. I have agonized over the text of every ad I’ve ever posted, and edited and re-edited and tweaked and rearranged endlessly. It’s tough!)
It’s not fair, exactly, but consider that Windstone has gorgeous professional photographs, professionally polished descriptions, and is a legitimate, trusted company… They have an advantage over “BobLovesDraguns” when it comes to selling a Windstone product! Secondhand sellers (and buyers, and traders) have a bit of an uphill struggle if they want to do business with Windstone’s customer base, especially since we’ve effectively set up shop right next door. You want $300 for a grab bag unicorn, when I can go to the WE Store and see that they were sold for $200? Your ad had better make a good case for that price increase. The same goes for everything, really: the ultimate question is, <I>How can I convince Forum members to take a risk on me, when the alternative is a sure thing?</I> Anyone wanting to build a collection can order brand-new, quality-checked, safely shipped pieces from Windstone; to go with a secondhand seller instead, that seller has to be offering something that outweighs all the advantages that are naturally on Windstone’s side. Some of this you can’t control: if they don’t collect unicorns, you are never going to make them buy your unicorn! But some of it you can control, so leverage those things as hard as you can.
And know that I’m probably wistfully yearning for your piece but can’t afford it!(Apropos this thread: I am trying to sell a Standing Baby Ki-Rin in Blue-Eyed Albino! He’s the original, first-run “small footed” version, in mint condition. I’m also interested in trading a Color Shift Cougar for a Grab Bag Sitting Red Fox in a grey/white or black color scheme! There’s also a spare Ruby Lap Dragon on my shelves; she was repaired after minor damage, and I’d love to trade her for another production Lap in a color I don’t have yet… or maybe for something else: what’ve you got?)
Interested in buying or trading for: GB Pebble Sitting Red Fox in dark grey, Lap Dragon Test Paints (Water Sprite, Glacial Pearl, Opulence, Pastel Rainbow, and many others - see my Classifieds ad), Blue Morpho OW, GB Pebble Loaf dragons in blue/aqua/teal, and Griffin Test Paints (Black Rainbow or Frosted Jade).
Unfortunately, this is the case in most industry right now, including manufacturing, not just oil. My dad was fired over such a tiny infraction, after 34 years of loyalty. All of the manufacturing shops around here are closing up. My dad was a master machinist. Also, the local tile company (Dal tile– the original factory for dal/american tile) closed after over a hundred years in business. If you have tile in your home older than 2012, there’s a good chance that it came from my little hometown. This is the sad story repeating itself all over the country.
Volunteer mod- I'm here to help! Email me for the best response: nambroth at gmail.com
My art: featherdust.comAnother thing I have observed about selling things on ebay, when people offer something as a “BUY IT NOW” for a set amount, it seems people are more hesitant to drop a lump of cash for a sure thing.
I think it is a psychological thing; bidding involves the joy of the chase, the competitive spirit, the adrenaline pumping, you know … the FUN of bidding! Buying stuff for a “buy it now” price is easier, (and dang, you can still get some screaming deals!) but it lacks the emotional investment of a bidding war.
We have always set our starting Ebay price at 99 cents, letting the selling price of the piece “float” according to the genuine demand for it, with the likelihood that someone will actually win a unique piece at a “real”, not inflated price-I mean, if they win a piece, they know that at least one other person valued it enough to pay nearly as much for it ( or even more).
Yes, a bidding war is something that gets the items going and potentially up high! Like that $1000+ GB Baby Uni – Lucky Lucky Ducky!
However I doubt I’ll start any of my items at 99 cents, but at what I believe is a realistic minimum – only because I’d hate to have an really nice item, which I paid a sizable amount for, go for less than a dollar if only one person bids at the end.IN SEARCH OF MY NEXT GRAILS:
Black Peacock & Butternut Adult Poads
Kickstarter 'Rainbow Tiger' Bantam Dragon*~*~*~* Ela_Hara: The DragonKeeper *~*~*~*
*** Come visit me on deviantArt at http://ela-hara.deviantart.comThank you! Like I mentioned, I have been around this hobby for a long time, relatively speaking! So I’m glad that my observations are ringing true with others, not just the inside of my head. 🙂
Interested in buying or trading for: GB Pebble Sitting Red Fox in dark grey, Lap Dragon Test Paints (Water Sprite, Glacial Pearl, Opulence, Pastel Rainbow, and many others - see my Classifieds ad), Blue Morpho OW, GB Pebble Loaf dragons in blue/aqua/teal, and Griffin Test Paints (Black Rainbow or Frosted Jade).
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.
Recent Comments