Selling Magazines on Ebay

Luvplacebo

Does anyone do this regularly? My boyfriend is moving and has over 3 boxes of lad's mags that he needs to get rid of. They're a mix of FHM, Nuts, Zoo and Front; looking at completed ebay auctions the front magazines seem to either not sell at all or to sell for between 99p and £16.99 (I've yet to look at the other two). I've never sold on ebay before as I use it as a buyer. Is it worth trying to sell them? We could both do with making a bit of extra cash, but will the ebay and paypal fees stop this working? I was planning to sell them at £2.50 each plus postage.

Crowqueen

eBay and Paypal take a percentage of the price in fees - eBay take 10% of auction closing price (in your case about 25p), and Paypal take 3.4% + 20p - unless you have a micropayments account, where the percentage is slightly higher but the 20p flat fee is not charged. If you have a lot to sell, a micropayments account would be OK.

However, don't overvalue them - starting at £2.50 auction will cost you; a £2.50 buy-it-now will cost 40p per listing. Since as a private seller you have 100 free listings every month, I would be starting at 99p per item plus postage so you don't pay to list and letting them find their own value. I'm not sure if I would pay an awful lot for an old magazine unless there was an article I really wanted in it or it was a hobbyist publication such as the role-playing magazine Dragon (for Dungeons and Dragons players) which had game material in it but is now online-only.

Luvplacebo

Thanks, I've just worked it out and it would cost 69p if they sold at 2.50 as I'd be doing it as an auction rather than a buy it now. If it sold at 2.50 it would make £1.81 profit, if it sold at 99p it would make 65p profit so I may just do one to see if it goes well. Front is like a kind of cult men's magazine, classier than the normal ones, its in line with magazines like Bizarre which would hopefully increase the likelihood of it selling. My other question is would I be likely to get any bids, ignoring the fact its a magazine, I have 60 feedback but obviously only as a buyer. Would this put off potential buyers?

Crowqueen

Not necessarily. If you have 100% people are less likely to look at your feedback in detail. For items like magazines, I don't think I would look too closely. The good thing is you have feedback so people can see you know the system, which is sometimes important.

heretolearn_2

I've put a couple of mags up after seeing them for sale there.

I don't know how much appeal general mags (mens or womens) will have for people unless there is an interview with a specific celebrity people are interested in, etc, someone might as well just go buy a new one as let's face it they don't change much from month to month and the bits that do change, fashion, reviews etc, get out of date.

The mags that seem to sell are the more niche/hobby ones, where people will collect them and the information stays current for a lot longer, and isn't repeated so much. I've got a couple of watchers for mine so far.

Worth a try though, I'd go for the low start so free listing, as I'm not sure how well general mags will sell.

Enfieldian

This thread got me thinking, I just dug out an old box that I have had in my cupboard for the last 10 years to find a copy of the first issue of "Front" Magazine.

Shame it was ruined by a water leak about 6 months ago though.

Noselfdiscipline

I used to sell mags on Ebay, they would mainly be bought by people in other countries where those mags werent available. How they sold depended mainly on who was on the cover - I got £16 for an old copy of Sky Mag (the mens mag, not a tv listings mag) with Keanu on the cover that i bought for 50p in a second hand bookshop. I sold quite a few FHM's, but they are really heavy (the old ones were anyway) so postage was quite high. I would list all the articles and interviews in the description, so they would come up in searches, you never know what obscure things people are fans of - I had a GQ that somebody bought because there was an interview with some band called Goo Goo Dolls - I'd never heard of them!. I also sold a GQ with Sienna Guillory on the cover, a texan bought it because his surname was Guillory and he typed that into the search on a whim!

I doubt if Nuts and Zoo would sell though, they are pretty throw-away mags.