Selling Comics Tips

Comic Market Place is the place to buy or sell your comics but if you're a seller how can you make the most of selling comics? I'm hoping this article can help you in the quest of doing just that.

I guess the first place everyone thinks of to sell their comics is eBay. Selling comics on eBay is great purely because of the sheer volume of people that visit the site, but if you use eBay you have to stand out from the rest of the sellers. There's currently 64,413 comics listed on eBay's UK site so that's a lot of competition, so how do you stand out? You'll probably notice that the prices for the same comics go at varying prices and the reason for that is the way they are listed. The following article should give the guidance to help you get the highest price possible for your comics.

The first thing to do is select the most relevant category. There's no point of putting a comic under Spider-Man just because it's a popular category. If the comic you're selling has it's own category use it, otherwise list the comic under "Other Modern US Comics".

Title

The item title is the next thing, you have 55 characters so use them! Put as much detail as possible and don't waste time using L@@K.
As an example say we have Spider-Man #1. What do we know about the comic? Well, it's published by Marvel Comics, it was written and pencilled by Todd McFarlane and it stars the villain Lizard. So the title could have something like:

"Spider-Man #1 Marvel Comics McFarlane Lizard Spiderman"

This title uses 54 characters and has all the possible key words that a buyer may search for. It has both ways Spider-Man is spelt, it has McFarlane who is probably the most famous comic artist who created Spawn and has his own range of toys. It also tells us who the publisher is and the villain. Having a focused title like this will help the buyer find the comic that they want.

Description

Ok, we have the title that we want now it's time for the description. This is the place to detail the condition of the comic. It is also a good place to add extra keywords. For instance, going back to our example of Spider-Man #1. We know that Todd McFarlane created Spawn and that he has his own Toy range so we can add this information to the description:

"Spiderman #1 published by Marvel Comics written and pencilled by Todd McFarlane who started as an artist for Marvel on the Incredible Hulk before moving onto The Amazing Spiderman where he also helped create Venom before taking on Spiderman with this very issue where he was the artist and writer. He went on to found Image Comics and create the best selling independant comic book Spawn and created his own line of toys, McFarlane Toys."

This type of description has it all and gives the comic more chance of being found via searches. Don't forget to add the condition of the comic and remember to point out any obvious faults with the comic. It's best to be honest. The description is also a good place to add some of your own pictures of the comic. Use a website like photobucket.com to upload your pictures and then add them to your description. It's always good to scan your comics, that way you get the most detail. Using a digital camera is ok but it's difficult for the buyer to see the quality of the comic and there's always the white from the flash coming up on the comic.

Pricing a Comic

This part is really up to you but it helps to start as low as possible as it saves on listing costs and encourages more people to bid. If you want the comic to be sold for a minimum amount use the reserve or buy it now facility then you know the comic won't be sold for less than you want.

The duration of the auction is again down to you, but you must also think about when the best time it would be to have the auction end. You don't want the auction to end when it's six in the morning but it's probably good to end during lunch time or in the evenings after people eat their dinner and on the weekends when there will be more people searching for comics.

Gallery

Adding a picture is essential so add it to the Add pictures & Gallery part as well as in the description. I almost always use the Gallery option mainly because it makes your comic stand out a little more and remember you need to fight off as much competition as possible. Another thing to do is not to limit your market. Remember that ebay is a worldwide marketplace so provide shipping worldwide and accurate shipping costs. Don't go and rip off buyers by having shipping costs at £5 for one comic it's only going to cost something like £1.50 for one comic including packaging. Buyers are more likely to avoid comics that have high shipping cost. What I tend to do is pack up the comic weigh it then use the royal mail website to check the postage costs you can then provide the cost for 1stand 2nd class, registered, surface and airmail in one go. If you're selling more than one comic then provide discounts on shipping for purchases of more than one comic.

Payment

Finally, you must decide on what payments you will accept. If you are providing worldwide shipping it is essential to have PayPal as an accepted payment. If you haven't got a PayPal account you can signup on their website, it's free and quick to sign up so you may as well. Using PayPal makes it easy to accept international payments in your own currency, the worst thing would be to have cheques received from other countries that you cannot pay into your own account without paying high fees.

So, that's all the tips I have for selling your comics on eBay but you can also avoid using auction sites where they charge you for the privaliage of listing the items for sell. Why not list your comics right here on the Comic Market Place? It's free to register and you can list up to 100 comics to sell for free through an easy to add facility, you have nothing to lose so go ahead. I hope you have found these tips useful, below are some links to help you on the way to selling comics.