Consignment services vs selling yourself question?

[livealoha]

Hey guys,
I would love to tap into the Wealth of knowledge and experience here for this question. When it comes to selling cards what are the pros and cons of submitting cards to a consigner like Dc Sports vs just selling them yourself on eBay? Would love to hear your thoughts and opinions on the pros and cons of both. Thanks

[Bosoxfan5990]

There are plenty of preexisting threads that cover this topic. Just search "consignor" or "consignment."

[livealoha]

There are plenty of preexisting threads that cover this topic. Just search "consignor" or "consignment."

As I stated in my previous threads for some reason the search function here does not work on my account. (Otherwise I would have used search first!) but thank you anyway.

[DynaEtch]

I am generally anti-consignment, mostly because Im very annoyed with it as a buyer and all the shadiness that comes with it. However, more and more people these days wont sell their own cards, and it's beginning to dominate the auction landscape on ebay.

*If* no shadiness going on, and that's a big if...

pros for consignment: dont have to do the work yourself (listing, answering messages about item, shipping); consignment fees are often less than ebay selling fees (which are generally what, 13%) and this is because big volume consignment companies must get better deals from ebay; you reap the benefits of larger visibility being part of consignment auction vs a random seller's auction.

pros for selling yourself: you can set the prices more easily, some consigment arrangements you have to start with $.99 auction and let it ride (whereas selling yourself, you can do a $400 starting bid, or a buy it now, and then adjust that BIN easily like make it lower if no interest). You can also write your own descriptions- in short, you have more control over your item; it can be quicker to pop something up on ebay, have it sell in a day and ship it on out and get paid....vs sending to consigment, waiting for to be listed, waiting for them to pay you, etc; some sellers build up a good reputation, good feedback and customer bases who follow them; also sellers who sell themselves might attract buyers like me who are very wary of consignment auctions and try to avoid them.

The unfortunate thing is shadiness is oh-so-common in consignment, and if you include that, I have no doubt there are people out there who include these as pros of it- ease of shilling and bidding up their own items, selling anonymously (shady things like cards with hidden defects or trimmed), tax avoidance, etc.

[shrevecity]

Before ebay authenticated any card I listed I expected to go over 300 I consigned. Main reason for me is let's say tgere is a cc chargeback on a 300 dollar card a seller like me who's average item is around 20.00 that chargeback even if I am going to win could lockdown my account for a few days while ebay holds 300.00 worth of payments. Until they get that all income goes to that hold so cannot use it to ship or anything.

With authentication it seems to be lessening that potentional. I do know they will hold the money if it happens on a shoe transaction but I think authentication will shrink the risk of it even happening.

Now in other categories I still consign if over 200.