ProSellers

Our fee policy states, “If you require that your auction be started at a minimum price or reserve price, ProSellers will require a non-refundable $50 listing fee/item. If the item sells, the $50 fee is waived. If it does not sell, at your option, we’ll re-list the item at a mutually agreeable starting bid.” We have this policy to protect our interests, as we can not work for free. However, there are instances where WE will recommend that an item be listed with a minimum or reserve price because we don’t expect many bids and we want to protect the seller’s interests. But what if it doesn’t sell? We might recommend re-listing it at the same price or a considerably lower one, depending on what we learn during the course of the auction. Understand that we will research the possible value of the item in advance of the auction and advise the seller as best we can, but we are not always right or able to give an accurate estimate. Bottom line, the possibility exists that the seller will not be happy with the price we can get, and will end up owing us $50. Therefore, our best advise to a seller is to not give us an item unless you really want it sold or we sound very confident in what we can get for it. Of course, there is always the possibility that the seller is willing to risk $50 to see what the market will bear, but we don’t condone this approach.

We sold a Sachtler Video 20 Tripod for $3500 to a production company in Florida. Upon receipt the buyer told us that it was not working properly and he thought it had bad fluid modules. We asked him to return it to us right away, which he did. After contacting a Sachtler service facility, we discovered the buyer was correct and it would cost $1700 to repair, but the tripod would then be as good as new. The seller was brought up to speed and given the option to pay to repair the unit or have it returned to him. He chose to have it repaired. Meanwhile we gave the buyer the option of refunding his money or accepting the repaired unit. He wanted a refund and we quickly complied. So the tripod was re-listed with documentation of its valuable repair and it sold for $4500 this time, yielding a net sale price of $2800. We turned an unfortunate circumstance into an acceptable solution for all the parties involved and maintained our excellent reputation as an eBay seller.

We recently sold over $30,000 of valuable Nippon porcelain figurines. We knew there was a stronger market in Japan for them, and knew the buyers were extremely concerned with their exact condition. So we prepared detailed descriptions of each item along with many macro photos to show every characteristic, like the detailed moriage decorative painting exhibited on most of the figurines. Then we presented the auctions to our client for approval, as she had much experience selling these pieces through other channels. Next we scheduled the auctions to finish during daytime hours in Tokyo and timed them 15 minutes apart. Putting the auctions up together made us look like a significant dealer, while the 15 minute spacing gave buyers time to bid on more than one item. The strategy worked perfectly as every piece sold for more than the seller expected. Each item was meticulously packaged and shipped. All the buyers were happy and no returns were requested. Overall, this was a well planned, successful auction.