Peter,
Perhaps I was a little excessive with the hyperbole and, thus, unfair, so you have my apologies. However, I used to follow the prices rather closely and in my view your prices are higher than warranted or than would take place in the secondary market, ebay or otherwise. For example, I see you're listing the glossy Clark Gable at approximately $600 and some individual Napoleonics at around $200 per figure. In my opinion, the price is high. On the other hand, as I mentioned earlier in this thread, if someone will pay that, more power to you. As a contrast, I saw that you had sold one of those rare RAF wooden ambulances ahwile ago. Although the price was expensive, the item is so rare that I couldn't say the price was crazy, particularly as I don't recall having seen that on ebay previously.
I did purchase a Seaforth from you so I know you treat customers well. I actually tried to contact you once about misidentification in some of your Trophy ACW items but the people running the store (or whoever responded to me) said they couldn't help and that I would have to contact you, which I forgot to do.
At any rate, we disagree about how things should be priced but you are a seller and I'm principally a buyer and differences is what makes the world go around :smile2:
Brad
Brad
Like any other business, and I am running a full-time business, what looks to you that I purchased a Clark Gable figure for $200 (I believe the actual total was about 215.00 with shipping) is not actually true. My formula for calculating my cost is no different than most other businesses like mine do to a varying degree. I have a set formula (%) that is applied to ALL my inventory as it pertains to cost & sell price. All new inventory is entered into a spreadsheet and the total cost is applied to ALL items.
I don't think it is any different than what most other dealers do to varying degrees. I have over 13,000 items in stock, and all of those items are UNIQUE to my inventory. I often buy rather large deals (quantity of items) that most times make it near impossible to determine a specific item cost. I would go blind adding in "actual cost" or more importantly, trying to figure out actual cost for each unique item that I have in stock. When I buy a deal, I am quoted prices for different items by the seller. When I purchase those items, I do not use those asking prices from the seller as the basis for my cost. He might think he sold me something for 100.00, but my actual book cost might be 75.00 or it might be 125.00. This happens on most every deal that I do.
Any dealer who sells moderns toy soldiers, or for that matter, any trinket, does the same. And in some cases, it is already done for them by the producer of the toys. I assume that K&C (I am not a K&C dealer) has that same magic formula. I assume that they charge 50-60% of retail at the wholesale level for their product that they sell to dealers. The difference in that exchange of money for goods the end seller, the seller/dealer is locked into a specific price, which is a very common scenario.
Price ranges have been quoted for what items should sell for in the retail market or have sold. I am pretty sure that I can safely say that nature of this hobby, or any collectibles hobby, the line between what is a retail price and what is a wholesale price is often blurred in the secondary market. This is a very thinly traded market. I don't think there is a collector in this world who is going to sell me or anyone a Beatles set for 400-600 so that it can be resold for 800-1000. No one is going to sell me any of the early WSS glossy pieces for 50-60% of what are historic prices. I will gladly pay 20% above any historic prices for these types of items, and that offer would be for the high-end of the range. If someone wants to sell me a top grade Beatles set for $1000.00, I will gladly fork it over in a heartbeat.
In the end, it really does not matter what I ask for an item. It is what it actually sells for. And most importantly in this equation is, what I pay for the items. One a good day, I pay those prices or close to those prices that are quoted here. Some days, I pay more.
Peter
