PWCC - need collector feedback on auction format

[glchen]

As a consignor to the most recent PWCC auction, I am somewhat disgruntled with the prices realized for my consignments. Obviously, some of this is due to the luck involved with 7 day ebay auctions that start at 99 cents and hoping that the right people are looking at your auctions during that time period. However, my worst performing consignments ended before 5pm PST on a Sunday, while the one that ended after 5pm PST did okay.

My opinion is that PWCC should try to stick within the 5pm PST to 8pm PST window for auction close times Sunday - Thursday. I really like the auction format by era and sport. As a buyer I typically look through most of the auctions for PWCC as opposed to another large consignment house like Probstein which auctions a general mishmash of stuff all of the time. Since PWCC is gaining more and more consignments, I don't know the best strategy for this, especially if they want to try to keep the 1 minute interval between auction endings. Perhaps they can spread the auction over more days (e.g., instead of 1-1/2 weeks, go to 2-1/2 weeks). Or perhaps they can create another ebay id, such as prewarcardcollector2, where one id is baseball, and the other id is other sports. Then for one day like Monday, one id can list baseball from 5-8pm PST and the other id can list football at the same time.

Given what happened to me at the last PWCC auction, I would pause before consigning again. For an auction house like Heritage or Goodwin, my items are usually available for bidding 30+ days, and there is also a nice catalog too. Granted the BP for those places is 20%, but with ebay fees continuing to rise, PWCC's consignment fees have also been affected. The distinct advantage PWCC has is lightning fast payout. From the time that I drop my consignment off at PWCC to when I receive my payout is around a month. For most of the larger auction houses, there is a consignment deadline usually a month before the auction opens, and then payout is not until 30 days after the auction ends. Therefore, there can be a nearly 3 months period between when your cards leave your hand to when you get paid.