Sell your Wacky Packages
Perhaps you just found your shoebox of Wacky Packages or you picked up a stack at a flea market, and you want to raise a bit of extra spending cash from them. You have a couple of choices, depending on how much time you have to put into it, and how soon you need the money. Basically the harder you work the more you can make.
If you don't have a lot of time (and a scanner) and just want to get rid of them easily and let someone else do the work to retail them, then you should write me (greg@wackypacks.com) for a fair offer (I pay top dollar!). We are always buying odd lots and collections. We like to do the work because Wackys are our thing. Generally the difference between what I can pay and what you can get on ebay (with a lot of work) will amount to less than minimum wage for your time. It may sound easy to list a bunch of auctions, but it really takes hours upon hours, scanning, filling out the endless forms, answering the emails, getting payent, running to the bank, packing, shipping, dealing with deadbeats or unhappy buyers, leaving feedback, etc.. it's actually enormously time-consuing to run auctions...
BUT, if you do have a lot of time and energy for this (you might even find it fun), then you can run ebay auctions. To run successful auctions you have to do several things.
- Try to assemble full sets, partial sets almost always get ignored because buyers don't want to have to fill in the holes. And selling as singles is just not economical, it takes an hour at least to run an auction, and most singles will end at about $1-$3. Plus you pay a fee for each auction. So it's hardly worth the time unless you are really bored.
- Grade accurately and use official grading terminology. Also since nobody believes sellers can grade accurately (a sad but true fact about most non-pro ebay sellers), few people will bid in auctions without high-res scans. Providing high-res scans (front and back) will dramatically increase bidding.
- Sell from an account with significant feedback (and hopefully no negatives). People take feedback seriously, and will rarely want to buy from someone with a feedback rating under 10.
- Stand behind your product. Offer guarantees. If you are being honest then nobody is going to return stuff anyway, and if they do then you probably made an honest mistake and should be happy to make good on it.
- Be flexible on payment methods and shipping methods. There is no reason to demand a money order or FedEx shipping, as many do. Make it easy for your customers to pay and you will have more customers.
There is another way to make the best money for your wackys. That is to exaggerate, overgrade, lie, use fine print, give misleading info, and don't stand behind your product. You will not get any repeat customers, but maybe you can rip a few off and run. This of course is pure sarcasm and not advocated, I write this to point out that nearly 50% of wacky sellers on eBay seem to prefer this strategy. This is why buyers on ebay are generally very wary and will shy away from your auctions unless you can do everything possible to convince them you are being honest (which is why high-res scans are great, words lie much easier than pictures).