So You Want To Sell Action Figures? Toys and action figures are your hobby, so why not sell them and make money off of doing what you like? Sounds like a good idea right? Not so fast.
Selling action figures isn’t as easy as it may sound. You may have a ton of knowledge about action figures, but selling them is a whole different ball park. Sure, to sell something like toys and action figures you need to have a vast knowledge of the product so that you can answer any questions that your buyers may have. What you also need to consider is the actual works of the business behind selling action figures.
Ebay And Amazon
When you first start selling you are probably going to want to start of selling on eBay or Amazon because you can instantly reach more than 100 million buyers in the same place. You just list your products, forget about them, and a few days later you made a few dollars. It sounds easy, and really, it is easy.
What many people don’t consider when they are selling on these third-party market places is the fact that there are fees associated with it. EBay charges you about 10% of the final sale value of your item, while Amazon charges you about 15% of the final sale value of the item (in the toys category).
A little tool that you can use to help you find your break even point when selling on third-party platforms is this Salecalc.
Forget About The Thrid-Partys
If you can, it would be ideal to forget about the third-party websites and launch your own website. This is much harder to do because you don’t have the exposure of the 100’s of millions of people that eBay and Amazon can give you. There are massive benefits to this though.
You don’t have to pay fees when your items sell on your own site (except for the credit card processing fees). Credit card fees can be as low as 1 or 2 %, which is fantastic if you look at the 10 – 15 % that eBay and Amazon take away from you when you sell an item. Probably the best thing about selling on your own site is setting your own price. Obviously you aren’t going to be charging outrageous prices for your toys, but you can at least charge retail price. When you are selling on eBay and Amazon you are constantly engaging in a price war with the other sellers to have the lowest prices, thus lowering your margins even more.
Having your own store means that you are going to have to spend a few bucks on advertising if you want to have any sales. This is normal, and needs to be done if you want to have success.
Find Your Suppliers
In order to sell action figures you are going to have to buy action figures. You have a couple choices for this. You can buy from a distributor like Entertainment Earth, or you can but directly from the manufacturer.
Whenever possible you want to buy directly from the manufacturer. This will ensure that you get the best possible price offered on the action figures. In order to open wholesale accounts with the manufacture you just need to contact them either via phone or email and they will get you started with an application.
Some manufactures have minimum order amounts and some don’t. The bigger ones like Hasbro and Mattel even require you to purchase a minimum amount throughout the year or your account will be closed.
Entertainment Earth carries just about every brand that you could imagine, but they are acting as what is known as the middleman. When you are buying from them you are paying increased prices then you would if you are buying directly from the manufacturer. If you are a small seller then you will have no choice but to buy from a distributor for some of the bigger brands.
Go Big Or Go Home
In today’s market you pretty much need to go big or go home. If you are a small time seller selling on eBay or Amazon you aren’t going to be making but $1 or $2 on each figure because of the price wars and the fees. Some of the manufactures don’t want their products on third-party sites anymore either and they are charging buyers that intend to sell them there higher prices (or not selling to them at all).
The real money is being made by the big time sellers selling on their own websites. If you don’t have the capital to go big, you may just need to go home.
