We all know what happened the first time I tried to sell something on Ebay (see Zeppelin Tickets for Sale), but I have decided to test the waters again.
A few weeks ago I was over at Mike G’s house and he was talking about how he had a crate of old video games that he wanted to try and sell. I have always wondered how selling on Ebay would work, so I took the games off his hands and went about selling them.
First step: Try and get them working! This was more of a pain than I thought. A lot of the games simply didn’t work anymore within the Nintendo console so I had to tear apart the NES console (which was a teenage boy’s dream come true) and cleaned it up. I then used a lot of rubbing alcohol on the contact points of the game…over 20 years of oxidation has happened so we had to get rid of it somehow. In some cases I even used some fine grit sandpaper to get rid of the oxidation!
In the end, some of the games are working, so I decided to take one of the rarest and see what I could get for it.
Second step: Do some research. Dragon Warrior 3 was an excellent RPG back in the day and it still holds its value over time. The cartridge itself has averaged between $40-$60 on Ebay, and that’s what it sold for, not what people were offering as a price to sell. I was lucky in that I also had the box, the user manual (albeit in bad shape!) and the dust jacket.
Third step: Take some photos and post online. I took my handy dandy iPad and snapped a few photos and created a listing. The listing took me awhile to figure out…especially the shipping portion. In the end I decided to ship it worldwide…who am I to deny the German who wants my old Nintendo game? But the shipping was a little difficult to understand and I didn’t want to get screwed on the shipping charges so I added a little note in my entry indicating that I may have messed up and I’ll figure out the true shipping cost at the end of the bids.
Fourth step: Wait. I waited a week and slowly saw the listing creep up. During that time I managed to unpack a box for my office and lo and behold, I found a monster map for the game as well that I had thought had gone missing! I decided to spend the 15 cents to add another picture to the listing (so far the listing cost me nothing) and updated the information. The map alone had sold for $15 in a previous listing so I was sure to make some cash!
Fifth step: The end. On the last day, the game had leaped from a hovering point of around $20 to $61! Success! I was happy with that amount. But by the end of the listing, I cried victory when I saw that I made $88USD on the thing! Incredible! I believe I may have actually spent $90CAD on it when it came out twenty years ago!
Sixth step: Shipping. Ebay offers the ability to print your own shipping label. I had already weighed the package and measured it, so I figured what would be the harm? In the end, the winning bidder sent me my money along with $6USD for shipping before I had sent him the quote. I told him to wait for my quote of how much it would cost to ship, but in the end, it was only $2 extra so I said I would absorb the cost. Ebay karma is with me! (hopefully!).
So I would have to say that my first real adventure in selling things on Ebay was a success. Granted, I had a rare item up for grabs which doesn’t hurt. I doubt I will get more than $5-$10 for each of the other video games…but I have a box of my own and a box of Mike’s to sell (hopefully he can put the money to good use towards some camera gear!). But it was really fun to see something that I treasured go for $88. It’s a shame that I never held onto the boxes of all my old video games. They were at home but I’m sure I just told Mom and Dad they could throw it out.