Ebay vs Auction houses

[markf31]

With the close of last night's Legendary auction, I successfully won my first house auction. The process is still quite new to me and it go me thinking. Since I imagine most bidders account for and figure the Buyers Premium, shipping and (since I live in PA) sales tax with auction houses into their bids, what is the real advantage to using an auction house as a seller/consignor?

So for instance a bidder who would pay $600 out of pocket for an item, will bid up to $500 on the item, with the Buyers Premium and assocaites fees bringing him to around his $600 mark. Now the seller takes home $500 minus a 15% consignment fee...and walks away with $425.

I understand that for someone who isn't involved in the hobby/business of sports collectibles and wants to sell items that going through an auction house might make a little sense and maybe it makes sense as well for very high valued and rare collectibles, but for common collectibles and memorabilia I just don't see how it makes sense. Especially now with Ebay consignment companies becoming more popular.

Or am I just missing something??

[Vegas-guy]

Originally Posted by markf31

With the close of last night's Legendary auction, I successfully won my first house auction. The process is still quite new to me and it go me thinking. Since I imagine most bidders account for and figure the Buyers Premium, shipping and (since I live in PA) sales tax with auction houses into their bids, what is the real advantage to using an auction house as a seller/consignor?

So for instance a bidder who would pay $600 out of pocket for an item, will bid up to $500 on the item, with the Buyers Premium and assocaites fees bringing him to around his $600 mark. Now the seller takes home $500 minus a 15% consignment fee...and walks away with $425.

I understand that for someone who isn't involved in the hobby/business of sports collectibles and wants to sell items that going through an auction house might make a little sense and maybe it makes sense as well for very high valued and rare collectibles, but for common collectibles and memorabilia I just don't see how it makes sense. Especially now with Ebay consignment companies becoming more popular.

Or am I just missing something??

A few things off the top of my head:

1. Some auction houses don't have a seller fee (Goodwin) and have a bigger following due to marketing.

2. Some people just do want to deal with ebay? You only have at most 10 days time and for the most part, and people have to keep checking ebay or they could miss an item. Some people just don't have time to keep checking every few days.

Just my .02 cents..

[rainier2004]

Originally Posted by markf31

Or am I just missing something??

Mark - I think You're missing something. When REA and some of these bigger AH can get 125%-200% of what they realize on ebay, its the way to go. When that same $600 item sells at the AH for $750 or more, the fees seem a little more bearable. Expensive items tend to garner much more attention at the AH as well. It seems like eventually AH will monoplize the vintage card selling niche IMO. N54 b/s/t is still the best place.

[jimross]

Surprise no one mention there are tons of non-payers on eBay and they can still BS and leave u negative feedbacks.

[sycks22]

It is kind of funny that people won't buy a card on ebay for $3500, but will play $4300+ in an auction house. There's nothing like getting a catalogue in the mail and leafing through it.

[cubsfan-budman]

I know this has been talked about in other threads, but another advantage of the AH is that there is some assurance that the items are authentic. At least if it isn't, there's an entity that you can hold responsible.

[turtleguy64]

in the past I've sent thousands of dollars worth of stuff to Mastro,and then Legendary.The conclusion: if you are consigning to auction houses,then you will probably make some good bucks.But if you are buying from such auctions,then you will probably NOT make money.For example,selling the auction stuff you won later on ebay,you will in all probability not break even.Unless it is some rarity which a collector somewhere MUST have.I'm just going by my experiences.