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Paul Klenk wrote in message ...
> I've seen a few -- but very few -- LEGO builders offering their own original
> creations on eBay and elsewhere, and I wonder whether there is a decent
> market for such things? What do you think?
>
> By decent market, I mean, the ability to actually make a profit based on the
> price of acquiring the bricks (purchase/shipping) compared to the final
> sales price of your creation. (I imagine it wouldn't be worth it without
> marking it up 100% or more. If I did it, I would set a high reserve price.)
>
> Probably the items that would sell the best would contain a modest amount of
> pieces, a relatively low number of special (i.e., expensive) pieces and high
> number of cheap pieces, and ones that use a lot of colors and are
> well-photographed. Also ones that reflect the most popular themes (Town,
> Vehicles, Robots, etc.).
Like Will, I'm speaking for myself, not the Guild of Bricksmiths as a whole.
I sold several of my Town building kits on eBay just before Xmas - some went
for more than the regular price, some less. eBay is generally rather risky
for selling things where you have a substantial investment to cover
(reserves and high starting bids are counterproductive since they cost you
more in listing fees and put off bidders).
I've found that more complex kits definitely sell better. Kerry hit the nail
on the head when he pointed out that a fairly simple kit with few special
pieces is not worthwhile for most people to buy - if you can use your own
collection to build it from the photos, why buy it?
However, producing a complex kit is non-trivial, to say the least. Take a
look at my Factory at nearly 2000 pieces...
http://www.lionsgatemodels.com/cat-fact.htm
the instruction book is 72 pages long and took weeks to put together, not to
mention the cost of color printing. Sorting 20,000 pieces for 10 kits isn't
done in a few hours either :-)
Kevin
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