What price is sane?

[zillahb]

Hello all,
Due to a sudden need for finances (!) I am considering ebaying my turntable. It is a Nottingham Analogue Spacedeck with the heavy platter upgrade and a matching Paragon3 linear tracking tonearm. The only problem is I'm a bit stumped as to what would be a sane price to expect for it, it was obviously expensive kit to buy but I don't want to price it so high it doesn't get a look...
Your thoughts would be appreciated,
Ed (zillahb)

[Paul Barker]

I remember when I had some items to liquidate I had the fortunate opportunity to talk to a successful millionaire about what to do. His advice was take it all to auction, it will find it's market value, then you get your money to reinvest.

He learned this lesson during the fuel crisis of the '70s, when our speed limit was capped at 55 mph. He had a fleet of Rolls Royces, took them all to auction and made money out of the money they realised, even though it was apitance compared to what he payed, he couldn't make money with the Rolls Royces.

A very hard lesson but absolutely how it is.

The moral is put it on eBay and see what it fetches, if you aren't happy pull the plug towards the end, as long as you put a disclaimer in the text stating you have the item for sale elsewhere, also state that to prevent the abuse of the auction with snipe engines, if bids do not reach sensible levels within a safe time of the end of the auction you will withdraw the item. Then you are able to test the market at a small fee, and if price is sufficient you can sell. If price isn't sufficient re-read the Rolls Royce story and think how is the item going to finance anything in it's unsold status.

I didn't follow the advice and I was wrong, with hindsight.

[hifienthusiast]

Just a small tip, there will be a 5p Listing Day on Thursday 12th January 2006 on ebay. Good luck in selling your turntable.

Hi Ed,
Those occasional 5p listing days on Thursdays can be very useful! Submit your listing in the evening and make it a 10 day auction and it will end on a Sunday giving everyone two whole weekends to find the item.

Do be aware that prices achieved on eBay just after Christmas relatively low as everyone copes with the Credit Card bills and a 6 week month.
Also with Snipe Bidding, sometimes an item can sit for days and only receive a couple of bids, but in the last two minutes the serious bids will roll in.
This is a gamble you must accept as a seller, you have to wait until the end to discover what the value of your item really is to the buyers at the time. The only way to protect your item from selling to cheaply is with a reserve amount, but don't be too optimistic or it won't sell at all!

As to values, expect to receive 40% of the new price and treat anything extra as a bonus! A current specification Spacedeck sells for £890 new, the Heavy Kit sells for £360 new. The last Paragon I saw on the web sold for somewhere in the region of £180-£250 used.

Regarding your Spacedeck, can the Heavy Kit be separated letting it revert to a normal Spacedeck? If so, sell them separately! I'd also be tempted to sell the arm separately, but opinions will differ on this tactic. All I can say is that when I sold my Linn LP12 very similar 'complete' decks achieved under £1000, but by stripping it and selling it as 'bits' I got over £1400.
This made a lot more buyers happy by offering them just what they needed and not a complete package, the same may apply to your deck if it can be split into 'NAS Spacedeck', 'NAS Heavy Kit' and 'NAS Linear Tracking Arm'.

Include a couple of good photographs and more than a few words description. Keep the starting price very low (saves listing fees and attracts interest!). Set any reserve reasonably low (35% of new value). Offer to let the buyer collect. Offer to sell anywhere in the world where the item will work. Include UK and International postal quotes. Smell a rat if anyone offers to give you a cheque for more than the sale value.

Good luck!

[Shane]

Don't forget the enormous importance of presentation. A load of good detailed photos and a detailed, accurate and honest description make a huge difference. For example, note the difference in selling price between this:
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.d...841365072&rd=1

and this:

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Garrard-301-Tu...QQcmdZViewItem

The same turntable, two weeks later.

Indeed Shane,
The first of those Garrard 301s went for £185, and the second for £459.

BUT, they are exactly the same turntable! The seller in the second auction was the buyer in the first auction and made a £274 profit...

The £185 one went so cheaply because it had a 'Buy It Now' price which was set too low.
Someone snapped it up within hours of it appearing, relisted it without a 'Buy It Now' (but with a reserve of probably £185!) and let the market set the true value £459.

The moral - don't undervalue your item if you are going to use a 'Buy It Now' option.

[zillahb]

Thanks for the input on this everyone. I'm used to using ebay so am a dab hand at presentation, the deck is so impressive anyway that it'd be almost impossible to take bad photos of it! I'm tempted to split the 'heavy' kit out of it and sell that separately, that'd give me a bit of cash and I can make a final decision about the deck and tonearm... I really don't want to have to sell them if I can avoid it..