Saturday, September 3, 2011

Putting on a Video Game Sale Online


As I mentioned in my previous post last week, I decided to put on a little sale of some of my extra Famicom stuff.  Its gone quite well so far and I'd really like to thank everyone who purchased some stuff and the friendly folks at Famicom World for hosting my little sales thread!

The sale has led to some changes in my collection.  I've said goodbye to a few pieces that were the subjects of posts on here, including my very first square button Famicom and my turbo Twin Famicom (I gave up on the idea of owning one of every Twin Famicom ever made - I just don't have the space to keep all of them)!

I've also moved over 100 carts on to new homes, which is good as they were all doubles that I wasn't getting any use out of except perhaps as back-ups.  Now they are on their way to people who will, I hope, have some fun with them. 


Anyway, its been fun and a learning experience.  There is actually a surprisingly large amount of work that goes into something like this.  Sorting the games, testing them, photographing them, keeping track of who bought what, figuring out how to calculate postage correctly, buying bubble wrap, etc etc.  It is a labor of love. 

A few tips I would offer to anyone thinking of doing something similar based on rookie mistakes I've made:

1. Keep accurate records of everything and keep them updated.  At one point I accidentally promised the same cart to two people, both of whom went through with their purchase.  I resolved the situation by selling my original copy of the game to one of them, meaning I accidentally shrank my collection by 1 cart!

2. Be careful not to mislabel games.  I was a bit lazy in listing mine and made a couple of mistakes that confused everyone, including me.

3. Make friends at the post office.  They have a ton of options for shipping stuff.  The folks at mine have been great since I started showing up almost everyday with packages to send.  They informed me of a few things (ie packages sent via surface mail come with tracking and free insurance - who knew?)  I now know pretty much all the options they have and can almost quote the exact amount it will cost to ship a Famicom cart almost anywhere in the world!

4. Be friendly.  Since I've been getting paid via paypal I've been using some of the funds raised from this sale to make a few (non-Famicom) purchases on Ebay, which I've never done before.  I've been surprised by how much difference there is between sellers.  Some have been really great - answering questions quickly and being quite friendly.  Others have been much less so - ignoring questions and barely communicating at all.  I much prefer the former and have added those ones to my favorites.  The latter I am much less inclined to deal with again.


Anyway, just a few thoughts there.  Thanks again, everyone!

8 comments:

  1. I Have a love hate relationship with selling games on ebay. Mainly bad because I had to liquidate some great collections of mine. Here are a few:

    Mega Man (US) 1-6 all with boxes and instructions (except for 1 and 5) sold for over $300 a few years back, wish I still had them.

    A Nintendo collection of 187 games +++ I sold for $600 so I could buy a car when I moved to LA.

    The Sad sad sad partial liquidation of my Virtual boy collection which was almost complete (I even had a link Cable), I was only missing SD Gundamn Dimension wars and Virtual Bowling (and the Floor display). Now I'm missing many more, But I WILL rebuild some day.

    Why did I start this post? I'm sad now. You have a lovely collection and I'm glad its helping maintain itself (that's what a good collection should do).

    be careful though ebay (or Yahoo Japan) can be addictive (both buying and selling).

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  2. Thanks Ecto-glow. Too bad about having to liquidate those sets, that must have been hard to do - especially the Virtual Boy collection!

    And yes, it is nice that my collection is finally starting to pay its way:) You are totally right about Ebay too, it is becoming a time-suck of massive proportions for me!

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  3. Back in high school when ebay first started, around 97 I was a HUGE Ghostbusters fan. I started collecting in the wild at Flea markets in NYC and on the yet untamed ebay site. When it came to "The REAL Ghostbusters" action figures I paid for my nearly complete collection by selling off extra pieces i got in lot auctions on both ebay and my own website (R.I.P. GBAF), Its almost more rewarding that way.

    Speaking of which. Was the HAL labs "Ghostbusters 2" game released on Famicom? It was almost the same as the Gameboy version (which for some reason I own a complete in box Japanese version of). Its top down and we never got a NES version of it in the states.

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  4. LOL, I can related. I've been using some of the proceeds of this sale to fulfill my lifelong dream of re-purchasing all the Star Wars action figures I had as a kid (but lost long ago):

    http://theempirestrikesbackblog.blogspot.com/2011/09/box-o-action-figures.html

    And yes, Ghostbusters 2 was released on the Famicom. It is actually one of the games that I don't have yet, though it figures high on my want list. I have the Game Boy game, it is just a million times better than the first Ghostbusters on the Famicom.

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  5. Glad it's going well :) I gave up selling my collection half way through as I kept getting ripped off on eBay (including by the site itself) but I need to finish the sale one day!

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  6. Yeah, I've heard nothing but bad things about Ebay from sellers, the fees sound outrageous. I am massively thankful that Famicom World has that buy/sell/trade forum, it allows me (and everyone else) to sell stuff for a lot cheaper than I'd have to charge on Ebay just to break even.

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