Selling Lego - eBay VS Vinted?

[xsquared]

I have experience of both. Been on eBay longer than Vinted, but eBay is slow these days and many buyers are flocking to Vinted to find a real bargain.

ds is saving up to go to uni and is selling his vast collection of Lego sets, via my eBay or Vinted account. Of course, he would like to get the best price possible and not just get rid of it asap for a fiver.

If you've had experience of selling Lego on both sites, which one did you have more success in? I think people are still willing to pay a little bit extra on eBay if it is a limited edition, but will it be worth it with the fees?

I have only sold items of clothing on Vinted, and most of the time, people still want to knock off 50% of the asking price. Most of my items on Vinted were sold for £5 or less.

That's impressive @dig135 . Has he ever had problems on eBay with people trying to claim that sets are not complete?

I agree on the time and labour intensive bit, having spent hours at a time over the last few holidays to make sure we have all the pieces before we sell them.

No, he hasn't. But I've often thought that. I suppose you could offer a refund provided they return the set and you can replace the pieces.

It's quite a lucrative market. Think he sold an old astronaut helmet for £20. Not wishing to generalise but nearly all his buyers are male (and I suspect, also single!).

@dig135 there are a lot of female AFOLs (Adult Fans of Lego) out there. Some are even married to male AFOLs.
🙂🙂🙂🙂🙂🙂

Just to be clear, my comment was tongue in cheek.

@dig135 🙂
To be fair there is a bit of a stereotype 😂

From the names, I imagine a kindly man in his 70s closeted in the garden shed building his lifetime's work in the medium of Lego.

I have to confess I feel a little guilty at the thought of them spending their precious pension on my son's overpriced Lego.

Are you in the FB Lego groups then @Needmorelego .

Dare I ask whether you've bought the full set of Disney minifigures already?

I have fond memories of DS around 6 at the time spending his pocket money on these mystery bags, to get his Lego fix.

@xsquared I look on the Facebook groups every so often but I've never bought anything from them. I do go to some of the various Lego shows and sometimes buy stuff there. Unfortunately my budget doesn't usually allow for much of the big sets 😕
I only want Robin Hood and Prince John from the new minifigs 🏹 😂

@xsquared I rarely buy the minifigs when they are new in the packets because my fondling skills are rubbish.
I treated myself to a couple recently - first time in absolutely ages. I had a good feel and fondle of the packets - and ended up with two the same 😂😂

Ah! Yes, trying to find that Ultra Rare one!

I never did get Kermit the frog 😕

DH sold a couple of Lego sets (Harry Potter) on eBay and one buyer claimed bits were missing. They most definitely weren't as he made it up to check. She was quite rude about it. DH said she could pack it up and send it back for a refund and once he'd checked it carefully, he'd refund her. She wanted a partial refund which he refused to do. eBay did actually side with him surprisingly and advised the full refund on return route. He did think she might send it back with missing parts but in the end she gave up and he didn't hear from her again which of course reinforced his view that she was pulling a fast one. He hasn't bothered selling any more since.

I've bought Lego from eBay and it genuinely did have parts missing including the minifigs. If you do have parts missing please put it in the advert.

I'd prefer to buy from eBay rather than marketplace due to the above.

This is what worries me with the bigger and rarer sets.

Just the other day on the FB page, someone had sold a very expensive Technic set on eBay, and the buyer claimed there were bits missing, so seller sent spares. They still claimed bits were missing and wanted a refund.

I've had a few people asking whether I'd just sell the minifigures on their own.

It is surprising how the lack of minifigures with a set can bring the price right down to from say £50 to £10.

I agree that on market place, people don't tend to take many photos to show whether it's complete. In fact, I usually find the descriptions very minimal!

Were you able to claim a refund?

@Lds1 yes it's probably better to say something like "95% Complete" even when you know it's all there. That way buyers can't suddenly claim it's missing parts - because you basically said there is.
However I can build a set. Take it apart and pack it away. 6 months later get it out to rebuild and there will be a piece missing. It's like washing machine socks. Complete mystery.

I'd list the LEGO sets on eBay as Buy It Now listings. Re-listing if necessary. Obviously that depends on the number of other sellers selling the same set and the level of demand. One thing I like about eBay is being able to use previous sold listings as a guide price. Could you give the set number of a couple of the biggest sets?

Yes full refund and sent the set back to the seller. The seller tried to offer me a part refund at first, but the minifigs would have cost the same as what I'd paid for the supposedly complete set, so I declined that.

It's one set I should have just bought when it was available!

This thread is exactly what I need! My son has so much Lego, its insane, I need to sell some. But I don't have any boxes or instruction books - I have all the instructions downloaded on my laptop. Would this be a problem? Is it possible to sell the sets without box and, for example, with a print out of the instruction? It was very stupid of me to get rid of instruction books but I have limited space to keep all this stuff....

Having seen the sold listing on eBay, popular sets still sell.
You will need to mention this in your listing of course, and be prepared to accept a much lower value than one that comes with the original box.

I have seen a post from the groups saying "To a collector, the original box is everything. Otherwise its just loose Lego".

I think I need to get out more!

Thanks really annoying!! I have so many expensive huge sets but no boxes. I guess I should have treated Lego more like an investment, less like a toy! ))

What is considered the best place to sell loose Lego (excluding mini figs)?
I'm terrible at estimating but maybe 50kg???

Adult DS buys sets to build for fun, and would be happy to buy without a box or a booklet. I believed that all kit instructions are online anyway.

@lljkk, does your ds list complete sets of Lego as 99% complete to prevent buyers claiming that pieces are missing?

I've seen sellers who say this to cover themselves, but does it mean anything, and does it really stop a scammer from buying a set amd taking what they want before sending it back?

99% complete or whatever... as buyers:

I guess ideally seller would show pictures of exactly which pieces were incomplete and then the buyer can check they have it in their collections of loose lego. Lego has a big thing about not creating new pieces, most sets are built from existing pieces, so DSs have spares. Missing bits that hinder functionality (don't let a Star Wars vehicle fire a missile, for instance) would be the most important kind of missing pieces.

For us as sellers, No buyer has ever complained & sent something back for being incomplete. I presume their buyers have been similar, happy to put up with a bit missing & rummaging in own vast store of spare bits to find anything missing. Collector sets are most valuable when unopened in boxes, different tolerance threshold for missingness.