Subject:
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Re: tips wanted: Selling Custom Kits
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.market.theory
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Date:
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Wed, 13 Jun 2001 01:58:34 GMT
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Viewed:
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954 times
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In lugnet.market.theory, Wayne R. Hussey writes:
> In lugnet.market.buy-sell-trade, Ray Sanders writes:
> > In lugnet.market.buy-sell-trade, James Brown writes:
> > > In lugnet.market.buy-sell-trade, Matt Penney writes:
> > > > Why are the Prices so low at Ebay right now? A friend asked if I would help
> > > > him out by helping him sell off his collection. Ebay isn't bringing the
> > > > results I have commonly seen in the past. *shrug* Any gueses? Should I wait
> > > > before posting more of his collection?
> > >
> > > At a guess, I'd say that it's a combination of eBay finally reaching a
> > > market saturation, and the blah economy starting to trickle down to
> > > secondhand markets.
> >
> > Yep, I think so too. Seems like sales (at least on BB) started to trail off
> > about mid-April. They are just now showing renewed signs of life. I think this
> > is somewhat cyclical. I saw something similar happen (although now quite as
> > intense) about the same time last year (on eBay). Maybe this explains why the
> > big boys (WM, KM, Target, et al) were so motivated about getting rid of stuff
> > during the Jan-Mar time frame.
> >
> > > By market saturation, I mean that enough people are aware of and using eBay
> > > that the general trend is shifting towards deal-finding, and away from "just
> > > saw it, gotta have it, might not see it again" buying.
> >
> > Ahhh, theres the word I've been waiting for someone to use... 'saturation'.
> > Here are a few datapoints to consider ...
> >
> > Parts listed on BrickBay about the time I joined (10/2000): 250K-300K
> >
> > Parts listed on BrickBay today (6/6/2001): 1,690K
> >
> > Parts sold thus far on BrickBay (thru 6/6/2001): 1,610K
> >
> > Sets listed on BrickBay today (6/6/2001): 9,876
> >
> > Sets sold thus far on BrickBay (thru 6/6/2001): 8,667
> >
> > So, in summary, about 50% of the listed parts have been sold and about 47% of
> > the listed sets have moved. This does not take into account any sets that people
> > are sitting on waiting to decide if they should list or part-out (disclaimer: I
> > have a few). In the large picture, this is not all that much product (vis-a-vis
> > TLCs production capacity), but it does appear to be a relatively large chunk of
> > what this market niche can absorb. Is also suggests (although not a direct
> > correlation) that BrickBay has a 1-year supply of parts currently listed (seeing
> > as how BrickBay is now approaching its 1-year birthday).
> >
> > Comments anyone ?
> >
> > > 'Course, I'm not an economist or anything like, so I'm probably out to lunch.
> >
> > Ray
> >
> > (fut to .market.theory)
>
> I think that your data, while being sound by numerical standards, is flawed
> by interpretation. I agree that there are as many (way more in fact) parts
> available today on BB as have been sold throughout the life of the site. But
> look at what 70% of the stuff is. Leftovers. Fluff. Bits too common or too
> unusable to give away, let alone charge a price for.
>
> If you are able to find a particular building component (while trying to get
> past the fluff), it is very difficult to find the quantities you want. I
> look for a piece I want 50 of and find sellers with one or two. Rarely do I
> find people who have 10, 15 or even 25 of a really useful part. It has
> happened, just not too often. This means that I either have to make several
> deals or wait to find a single dealer with what I need.
Which goes to something I have said several times already.... BrickBay gives
you a mechanism to show 'general level of interest', but no ability to say 'I
need XX of this piece in this color and I'm willing to pay $YY/ea for them'.
Individuals have their own wanted lists, but there is nothing centralized. We
have something approaching that for sets (via Lugnet), but it shows person
counts and copies desired, but does nothing about price.
If I had a centralized repository of this 'needs' information, a master BOMP-
style list of set inventories, and the appropriate software, I could walk into a
store, scribble down the list of sets available (at clearance of course), then
walk back out to the truck and run that against the desired parts to see if I
can make a match while still not loosing my shirt cash-flow wise. Its called
automation. Its called having those with needs take one step closer to the plate
(vis-a-vis making their needs slightly more of an 'outstanding order to
purchase').
The sellers are the ones taking a risk (or sorts) here. We are attempting to
rely on the limited price history information available thru the BrickBay Guide
and the limited desire information from the BrickBay Wanted's (none of which is
downloadable for field use). The definition of which part is fluff varies from
one person to another. One person's fluff is anothers treasure (which probably
explains the wide disparity in BrickBay prices for the exact same piece).
Looking at one example... Dark Grey Brick 2 x 6 (p/n 2456) as of several days
ago, I saw 23 lots available for a total of 369 pcs. Prices varied from $0.10 to
$0.40 with a weighted average of $0.217. BrickBay guide reports 23 sales, low
$0.13 (higher than the lowest offer), avg $0.23 (close to the weighted average)
and high $0.25 (quite a bit below the highest offer). After consideration, I set
my price to $0.22. My conclusion, there are a few sellers not doing the proper
homework *or* they have an inflated opinion of what their product is worth.
> Considering that the average piece costs between $.10 and $.15 - based on
> retail price of a set divided by number of pieces contained, it seems odd
> that the prices are so high. But then I go back to the "so many pieces that
> are not very useful" statement. If you set all those aside, you end up with
> the prices we see.
Average piece cost is really best described as 'what is it going to cost me to
put a meaningful quantity of those into stock ?'. As you said above, "I think
that your data, while being sound by numerical standards, is flawed by
interpretation". The actual cost of a particular piece is more nominally
determined by proto-pricing (the pieces from) a set to be broken up, then
distributing the purchase price of said set against the potential return from
those pieces on a pro-rata basis (and then cross your fingers for good luck).
You wind up with a multiplier between the estimated piece cost and the estimated
piece return. That multiplier will be the same for ever piece in the set, but
may be (almost guaranteed to be) different for an identical piece from a
different set (or source).
As an example, I went back and looked at a price breakdown I did for 3052 Ninja
Fire Fortress a while back (about 7 months). I find that I allocated basis cost
for: 1x3 Black Brick at $0.0195, 1x16 Black Technic with Holes $0.2245, and Blue
1x14 Brick, Modified with Groove $1.1711 (becuase of its rarity). If I were to
reprice that set today, most assuridly those numbers would change. Because
today, I have to look at past sales history *and* current stock levels/prices in
other shops (seeing as how there is so much stock sitting around).
> The thing I find humorous is that there are so many people trying to support
> their buying of sets by selling ONLY the fluff - which everyone else also
> has too much of. I have a huge collection. I have bins of stuff I'll
> probably never use. I am reasonably certain that those same bins could not
> be sold off, even at give away prices, because they are filled with the same
> parts nobody else uses either.
>
> I think that BB ought to bring back the display of information about how
> long an item has been listed - it was there for a month or so, and was
> really useful. Then BB ought to send reminders to sellers that an element
> has been listed for more than so many (say 30 - 90) days without a sale and
> suggest that the item be removed or reduced in price. This would help remove
> the clutter currently on BB and make buying easier.
It would be useful to the seller to be able to tell what parts have been listed
the longest and how long since the last sale. This is somewhat mitigated by the
inability to do record updates from Bulk Uploads. One thing I noticed while
reviewing some prices, is that a few sellers have a multitude of redundant
entries for the same part (I won't name any names here). I seem to recall one
seller who had 7 entries for the same piece (same color). Yes, it takes a little
work to keep your shop clean, but it make it easier for the buyers.
> As for sets, I think the same statements apply - there are really
> useful/desired sets - and there are tons of fluff - stuff nobody wants at
> any price.
The only set that I have ever seen little interest in (as far as store's are
concerned) was the 7111 Droid Fighter. I still think that can be somewhat
attributable to the lack of any minigif in the set. Other than brick buckets/
tubs, that is the only one I can recall that had no figs.
> Of course there are many people who want what I generically call "the
> fluff", but there are not enough of them to take care of the oversupply. So,
> IMHO the market looks saturated because there is a lot of stuff listed. But
> in reality, there are a lot of people out there looking for the truly hard
> to find stuff (I'm in this group) and can't find it. So, I cannot subscribe
> to the idea of the market being saturated - no matter how much stuff gets
> listed.
I'm sorta of the opinion that a given seller known what is moving from his/her
shop and what does not. A novel solution would be to design a MOC to consume
your particular combination of flu^H^H^H 'excess inventory'. Turning lemons into
lemonaide such as it is :)
Ray
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Message is in Reply To:
 | | Re: tips wanted: Selling Custom Kits
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| (...) I think that your data, while being sound by numerical standards, is flawed by interpretation. I agree that there are as many (way more in fact) parts available today on BB as have been sold throughout the life of the site. But look at what (...) (23 years ago, 12-Jun-01, to lugnet.market.theory)
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