Crippling amount of games to sell...advice?

[Late]

facebook groups

Yup, I never had hundreds of games to sell/get rid of but this was the fastest way.

 

[oliverclaude]

If you don't want to spent too much time and effort selling your stuff, you may consider selling it to a gaming shop in your area. You won't reach top prices, but you will be able sell the whole lot quick in one blow. That's what I do: first offer good titles to friends, the rest goes to a retail shop called retrospiel.

 

[norton9478]

If you don't want to spent too much time and effort selling your stuff, you may consider selling it to a gaming shop in your area. You won't reach top prices, but you will be able sell the whole lot quick in one blow. That's what I do: first offer good titles to friends, the rest goes to a retail shop called retrospiel.

You are way better off floating it on CL/Facebook.

Game shops are used to crackheads coming in and taking whatever they offer and will low ball the shit out of you.

Let the dealers come to you and know that they have to make a best offer.

 

[smokehouse]

I know I'm late to this conversation, but I do have something to add.

You need to apply a value to your time. I was in the exact same situation, I had a very large collection that I wanted to sell but piece by piece just wasn't going to happen, I don't have the time to screw around with every piece sale by sale, it consumes a massive amount of time.

I found a dealer that owns a store and we went back and forth over some lot deals. In the end, I definitely took a hit over what I could have moved each individual piece at, but I sold it all off in just a few massive lots and I was done with it.

...BTW...by "hit" I'm talking a good 40%...so clinch those butt cheeks. I have to quantify my time and in the end, it was worth the ding.

 

[JoeAwesome]

Rough values in my limited experience from best case scenarios:

Full market value (baseline): eBay
85-90% of fmv: conventions
80%: forums
65%: online classifieds
10-50%: game store

 

[daskrabs]

If you have a local retrogaming store that sells on consignment, that would be a great option for minimal hassle.

 

[roker]

If you have a local retrogaming store that sells on consignment, that would be a great option for minimal hassle.

that's always good, I had a good friend who was super active on ebay just take my precious Dreamcast collection and sell it all. It was heartbreaking to see it all vanish, but I needed the money to move to NYC. In hindsight, best decision I ever made (even if my old games are now worth from 3 to 4x what I paid.

 

[lithy]

I know I'm late to this conversation, but I do have something to add.

You need to apply a value to your time. I was in the exact same situation, I had a very large collection that I wanted to sell but piece by piece just wasn't going to happen, I don't have the time to screw around with every piece sale by sale, it consumes a massive amount of time.

I found a dealer that owns a store and we went back and forth over some lot deals. In the end, I definitely took a hit over what I could have moved each individual piece at, but I sold it all off in just a few massive lots and I was done with it.

...BTW...by "hit" I'm talking a good 40%...so clinch those butt cheeks. I have to quantify my time and in the end, it was worth the ding.

Yup.

My recommendations:

First, learn to buy and pay for postage on Paypal. This will save you a bit of money and significant time at the post office. Alternately you could stick to just flat rate boxes but you're paying a premium for not sending by size and weight unless you're mailing something across the country.

Then prioritize, pick out the top 10% of the stuff and sell it yourself. You want in demand stuff that will sell reasonably quickly for $40 or more.
eBay will get you the best price (of course factor in 10% fee), but appropriate forums or Facebook can work too.

Sell the middle value stuff in lots at 50% or so of 'market' value. The goal here is to sell it quicker but in groups to minimize your shipping effort. Like smokehouse mentioned, it can become a huge time suck and you'll quickly give up $50 or so for a couple hours of your time to not ship 6 separate packages. Plus you can bundle to put a couple less desirable things in with some that might be a bit more in demand to help move them.

Last don't be afraid to give the last of the chaff away, donate it to a goodwill, post to free porch pickups on craigslist or facebook. It will hurt, but honestly something worth under $10 (and maybe more like $15-20) just is not worth the effort unless you really need the cash (as in, you don't have a job and selling your stuff becomes your job).

 

[StevenK]

2 thoughts

Why not try it on here and help revive the market?
or
Everyone seems to have a friend who's 'the ebay guy'. Offer him 20% to sell it for you piece by piece.

 

[oliverclaude]

...BTW...by "hit" I'm talking a good 40%...so clinch those butt cheeks. I have to quantify my time and in the end, it was worth the ding.

Let's not forget that current market value is probably not what one paid anyway. If compared to actual expenses back then, 40% off current value can still amount to 10-20% profit at the end for a seasoned buyer.

 

[smokehouse]

Let's not forget that current market value is probably not what one paid anyway. If compared to actual expenses back then, 40% off current value can still amount to 10-20% profit at the end for a seasoned buyer.

I agree completely. I'll be honest that I can't recall what I spent on many of the games I recently sold, I've had them for years, sometimes decades.

In the end, it really comes down to you, and the buyer, and if you both feel properly compensated. Selling off the bulk of my collection was a very difficult thing to do, games collecting was a massive part of my life years ago. It took me some time to get to a mental place where I could part with them. In the end, I'm glad I did.

 

[Liquid Snake]

Why is everyone selling their games these days?

The vilification of collectards is getting out of hand.

retirement is coming up and that's why

 

[mjmjr25]

No new wheel here. List it on forums. Offer bundles, or bundle discounts to encourage volume sales. As Smokehouse said - what is the value of your time?

Every package takes time and supplies. Ever transaction has potential for shenanigans.

I've bought and sold a lot of stuff the last 12 years or so. I learned pretty early on to take a little less for the convenience of forum sales and bulk sales (less time, very few hassles, no fees).

To ASID's point - the market here may be dead, a handful of reasons for that, but...when stuff is priced at forum prices, it still moves quickly. The only stuff in the market here that doesn't move is the stuff people price at ebay prices. They don't get harassed as much as they did 2-3 years ago, but they do get ignored. The few things i've listed here recently moved quickly and hassle-free.

 

[JoeAwesome]

Big Mike! ��������

 

[bubba966]

No new wheel here. List it on forums. Offer bundles, or bundle discounts to encourage volume sales. As Smokehouse said - what is the value of your time?

Every package takes time and supplies. Ever transaction has potential for shenanigans.

I've bought and sold a lot of stuff the last 12 years or so. I learned pretty early on to take a little less for the convenience of forum sales and bulk sales (less time, very few hassles, no fees)

Mostly this. List up lots on forums. Will save you time and hassle at a slight expense of top dollar returns.

Gohung mentions the sales he ran last year and how it was damn near a PT jerb. He had a bunch of NES stuff I wanted so just told him to give me a lot price on the whole fuckin NES list so I could maybe same my homie some time/hassle of sellin em individually. He gave me a solid deal and I just hooked up my local buddies with the few dupes I ended up with by buyin em all.

Mainly just comes down to time and effort. The more time and effort you put into it the more $ you'll get. How much time do you have and how much do you value that time?

Seems to me that the best time/effort vs return would be to list em on a forum/fb. List the big $ ones individually. Make some themed lots on the mid-priced stuff. And then do a bigger lot/lots on the low end shit just to be done with it.

The cons I've been to only seem to sell import stuff if it's priced low. People that have stuff closer to or at market price down't sell their imports very well. Generally if it's Nintendo it sells at market price, otherwise it's gotta be a solid deal to sell. Doubly so for imports, especially the more uncommon they are (like PCE stuff is less common than DC/Fami/N64/SFami/etc)