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Current backdrop for Anime DVD pictures in auctions ;-)
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Mt Fuji Sunrise and way down.
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Cost of Selling Single DVD's on eBay.
In case you are thinking of selling your Anime DVD's on eBay here is my cost analysis of selling them.....
One DVD sold :
eBay Listing Fee as a buy it now at 3.95$ : 0.25$
eBay Final Value fee for 3.95$ (0.875%) : 0.35$
Pay-Pal Transaction Fee : 0.30$
Pay-Pal 3% Fee (3.50 + 3.95$ =7.45$) : 0.23$
Bubble Envelope (Office Max Box 25) : 0.60$
1 st Class Postage : 1.85$ (Cheapest way to send a single DVD)
Wear and Tear on Car, Gas, Oil for trip : ?.??
Total Costs of selling and shipping item : 3.58$ + car money.
Two DVD sold to same buyer :
eBay Fee's (See above for breakdown) : + 0.60$
Pay-Pal 3% fee : + 0.23$
Bubble envelope can hold two so no change : + 0.00$
1st Class Postage (I do first class till 3.00$) : + 0.65$.
Gas money is not going to change. : + 0.00$
Extra cost's for second DVD sold : +1.48$
Cost of Sales for Two DVD's : 5.06$ + car money.
Third DVD sold to same buyer :
eBay Fee's (See above for breakdown) : + 0.60$
Pay-Pal 3% fee : + 0.23$
Bubble envelope Size 2 (Can hold 5 or so) : + 0.40$
Small amount of bubble wrap : + 0.25$
Media Mail (I do first class till 3.00$) : - 0.35$.
Gas money is not going to change. : + 0.00$
Extra cost's for third DVD sold : + 1.13$
Cost of sales for Three DVD's : 6.19$ + car money.
Each DVD past this point can be assumed to cost : ~0.90$ in additional money. Different sellers handle these costs differently... Some sellers charge 5.00$ for the first and only 3.00$ for each additional. Some sellers start at 0.01$ and do not combine shipping. I think what I do is fair. In the case of a really large orders I issue refunds of shipping since the 1.00$ per additional DVD is actually higher then my costs of selling and shipping that DVD for large numbers (Basicly 6 or move single DVD's to a single customer... The Shipping and Handling I do for Sets maps very well to actual costs so I don't need to do refunds when only sets are bought.)
Imports Discussion (Bootleg Anime) :
I think I will say a little about imports (some of which are copyright violations and some which are not) I have no problem with sellers when they list imports as imports, I'm bothered by sellers who say it is a R-1 US Release (or nothing about the nature of the release) when it is really from Hong Kong and it is an "All Region" (Region 0) DVD Set. I don't like getting these in the mail since I don't want to sell things I know may(or may not) be copyright violations. I can't understand how people who do this (sell R0's as R1's) get 3 or more stars in the "as described" area in their feedback, an R0 is not a R1, the item really is not as described.... do sellers not know the difference between a R0 and a R1 release?
I like this guide on this issue : http://reviews.ebay.com/How-to-spot-bootleg-anime_W0QQugidZ10000000000969242
Note : Most (all?) "U.S. Manga" and "Manga" are not encoded (They are region 0) so being R0 does not necessary mean the disk is an import there are some unencoded disks that are US market releases. Look at the back of the DVD case for a US Manga Title there really is no region encoding info (No small globe with a 1 in it). I would call this trivia but in the eBay market it is important to know this.
Why does all the bidding happen in the last 10 seconds of a auction :
eBay is not a normal auction it is a fixed time auction in which it is not possible at the end of an auction to respond to another bidders bid. Bidding before the last 10 seconds only drives up the price you will pay if you do win the auction. In the last 10 seconds of an auction you bid the most you are willing to pay for an item... You are more likely to win and win for less.
Detailed example :
Dan's fine dog food : (Auction with competive bidding, starts at 9.95$ (We will use George and Doug as our bidders.))
George starts with an inital bid of 9.95$ : bid shows as 9.95$
Doug finds the auction and thinks I want this so he bids 12.50$ : bid shows as 10.45$.
George finds out he has been outbid and wants this so he bids 15.00$ : bid shows as 13.00$
Doug decides that he will bid the most he is willing to pay now and bids 17.50$ : bid shows as 15.50$
George in rage decides that there is no way Doug is going to win and bids 25.00$ : bid shows as 18.00$
Auction ends with George winning Dan's fine Dog food at 18.00$ + S&H.
Auction in which Doug snipes, starts at 9.95$.
George starts with an inital bid of 9.95$.
------ no one else bids on the item -----
Doug snipes with a 17.50$ bid in the last 5 seconds of auction... George can't respond... Doug wins
Final Cost to Doug 10.45$ + S&H
Reverse Auction :
I run all my Anime DVD auctions as reverse auctions till the item hits my store. During the first week I list the item at the most I think it can sell for. Things that I like I tend to list for more... I don't think anyone will fault me on that because I think they are worth more since I like them. The things that I have decided not to like I start for less (sometimes too much less). The next week I relist items that don't sell for 10 to 20% less (Reduction in price of at least 1$). I do that for 1, 2 or 3 weeks (this is pretty random) before putting them into the store. Once they are in the store I more of less forget about them, I think at periods of three months or so I will look at stuff in the store and reduce the prices then by 10 to 20% but I don't really need to worry about that right now. If you notice in my Anime auctions I write down why snipping is such an effective method for buyers when they want something.... using a reverse auction is my response to it. I consider it to be the best response possible for a seller on eBay. For other areas (Heathkit) I list the items for the least I am willing to sell it for.... I probably could do reverse auctions in those areas too but the level of last minute snipping in the Heathkit area is no were near the level seen in the Anime area.
Why are sellers whinning about the Star thing ? :
For power sellers (I will turn on my power seller Icon when I have this section live on the auction side of eBay) the power seller discount depends on the average number of stars you have gotten during the last 30 days. There are currently 3 levels of discount. 5%, 15% and 20% in order to get a given discount level your 30 day DSR average is determined on the 25th of the month (actually this is determined sometime between the 25th and the end of the month... but all of mine have happened on the 25th). So :
4.6 stars in all areas 30 day average equals 5%. (You have to be a pretty bad seller not to get this one.)
4.8 stars in all areas 30 day average equals 15% discount. (This can be hard since normal varriance could put you below this on the day it is checked.)
4.9 stars in all areas 30 day average equals 20% discount. (Only people who do shipping for what the postage is (no materials or handling charges) or free shipping can get this level, I have had 4.9 stars in this area for a day or two during some month's but my normal average is 4.8.)
As you can see power sellers have an small money incetive to treat customers nicer. In my case last month I had ~270$ in eBay fee's with a 15% discount for a saving of about 40.50$... I am going to party hard tonight. I really don't know if this is going to have a big effect on small scale sellers since it is really only a small saving in the overall cost of selling on eBay, but it does seem to be having a positive effect on some sellers since they are asking to be given 5 stars and want to know why people are not giving them 5 stars.
Hopefully that has been somewhat informative. I'll be including this in my auctions for the month of August and my whinning about Imports has been put on my me page, along with the current backdrop I am using for the pictures I take of my items (No.... the single disks are still going to be stock pictures, I am still using a 28K Modem and pictures do take a long time to upload.)
Breakdown of the quality of R0's that I have watched : (about 80 sets)
Excellent : None.
Good : 12 ---> All of these have had english dialog tracks, 3 disk "perfect sets". Can we say "FX" ;-)
Okay : 20 ---> This is not good but it isn't bad either.
Bad : 38 ---> Yes!!!! the bigest catagory for quality on R0's is bad plain and simple.
Horrible : 10 ---> I have one where the subtext falls behind the dialog by 2 minutes!!!
It is still doing the music score of the opening a good way into the Anime, who is in charge of quality control.
Subtexting on R0's is normally bad... bad... bad unless there is an English dialog track and then it is only good. Exellent just doesn't normally happen even in R1 releases. Actually I was watching "Your under Arrest" a R0 I just got and I was thinking this subtexting is okay... then I watched the subtexting carefully while I listened and started thinking God this isn't okay... All the names were wrong, but they were consistent in their wrongness. The word choice was bad.... but there was not a loss of sync.. okay or bad probalby bad but if I didn't decide to watch the actual subtexting carefully I would of called this one "okay"... May need to be more careful in the future when I list R0's I may be saying things are actually better then they really are.
MY FEEDBACK POLICES:
As seller :
Positive left : When payment received.
As buyer :
Positive left : when item received in good condition and seller has left feedback.
Negative left : item not received or received in damaged condition and seller is non-responsive to emails. Just like for buyers shit does happen and the postal system is not perfect. Depending on how the emails go this can end up being positive, neutral, negative or none also. (These tend to end on a positive note).
How I do email :
1 : Invoice on Sunday if you haven’t paid by then. The shipping costs are automatically calculated so if you hit the pay now button all the items you won from me show up with the correct S&H figured out. No point in nagging people about this, since they know they should pay in a reasonable amount of time.
2 : An email from me saying more or less thanks for the payment your item will be shipped normally tomorrow (Except on Saturday when it will get shipped Monday). This is sent to the email address you use for pay-pal since I am replying to the seller "payment has been made email". If you block on this address there is a chance you will not see this email since it is coming from me and not eBay or pay-pal. I also reply to emails you send through the eBay HTML system through evolution, so once again if you block on your eBay email address you will not see these too.
If you want to talk to me about something, reply to one of the emails I send you please. I have had many interesting discussions about different aspects of Anime with assorted buyers, it is one of the reasons I sell on eBay is to talk to other people who share some of my interests. Through my time is a little more limited then I like, since I do have a day job L .
Automated seller emails :
A : You have won : eBay sends this one.
1 : Congratulations on winning : Automated off a eBay Trigger. *
2 : Immediate Invoice : Automated off a eBay Trigger. *
3 : Haven’t paid yet, Invoice : Automated off a eBay Trigger. *
B : Pay-pal you have paid : pay-pal sends this one.
4 : Thanks for your payment : Automated off a pay-pal trigger. *
5 : Your item is getting ready : Automated off a pay-pal trigger.*
6 : Your item has been shipped : Automated off a pay-pal trigger… seller has paid for postage through pay-pal. *
*Some of these may be andover seller tools, or some other brand of seller toolsets doing the mailing.
Personally these are all more or less a waste of my inbox space, I know when I have won and I really do know when I have paid. They convey little or no new information, except maybe number 6 since now you know the shipping label has been printed at least.
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