ebay multi listings
 

Do you look at the multi listings, pick a card, etc when searching ebay? If not, why?

I was thinking about moving to that model so I could list more, my fee's are getting ridiculous.

Sorry, but I don't understand the question. Are you asking if I look at the seller's other items if I see something I'm interested in?

when you do a search say 1939 playball or any year, player, for that matter; and it comes one of those pick a card, choose any card, types of listings, etc. Do you actually click and look?

Like one of these type; the below is not mine just an example.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/2018-Topps-...mEZdL3aQvdflBw

You can have 1 eBay listing that, as an example you can sell an entire set in. With in the listing there is a drop down with each card priced separately.

I rarely buy from them because most sellers do not have pics of each card listed.

This is an example. https://www.ebay.com/itm/1974-Topps-...AooqPpt6gZfC4A

I have experimented with both types of listings....individual listings for single cards and multi item listing for a group of single cards(all cards pictured front and back). I listed multiple cards as singles and some of the same cards within a multi item listing, and the singles seem to sell much quicker for me than the items listed in multi item listings. Possibly over time as more sellers adopt this method, buyers will be more inclined to scroll through up to 250 cards on a single listings rather than the traditional method of item by item.

I spoke to an ebay CSR and he questioned me about listing different cards in this method and said it could be construed as trying to avoid listing fees. Some larger sellers, such as Burbank and COMC use the multi item listing method for listing multiple copies of a single card. Most sellers use the multi item listings for set breaks, not to list multiple copies of the same card.


IMO, the multi item listings are great for inexpensive commons, but not likely for cards worth much more than a few dollars.

Ahh, I understand now. As a set builder, I like those types of listings. I've seen it done 3 ways:

1) One listing, pick any 10 (or 20, 50, etc) cards from the same set (a list to choose from) for one set price.

2) One listing, pick individual cards from the same set with each card priced individually (as in Ben's example).

3) One listing, same year/player lots, several of the same card to choose from. May be priced differently based on condition. Dean's does this a lot. I can search by a year, player and condition and usually have several of the same card to choose from within the same listing. Dean's scans each individual card so I can pick the best one from the listing.

If I was a set builder that type listing would be enticing.

I have been using them lately for the duplicate T51s and 1952 Topps that I had PSA graded. People are looking at them and buying from them. What is surprising to me is that they only allow you to use "variations" in some item classifications, but not others. I wish the guys in the Tobacco Card section of eBay were allowed to use variations for individual cards in a set. Openbinders (sponsor on the nonsports side) would probably be able to have it much easier when he lists thousands of cards on eBay in a day and I have to wade through them all over again.
I wish eBay would let every category use variations. One of the other things it allows you to do is get more words into the title field for generic (non "Advanced") searches. eBay is now charging crazy prices to get another 50 words in the title, whereas in a variation listing, you can use your first 80 (or whatever) character count explaining the set, and the variations to get specific on individual cards.
Here's an example of mine:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/19246314713...84.m1555.l2649
Out of the five cards in the main photo, I have already sold three. I also try to crop all the pictures in the variations so you see exactly the card you're getting when you select it in the dropdown, and it's oriented properly. I'm not sure what this does when PSA or VCP try to scrape the data for their auction prices realized. PSA tries to read the certification number using Optimal Character Recognition (OCR), but I'm not sure if they just use the top picture or dig into the individual photos.
I have sold $10 cards and $100 cards this way. I'm sure if you list your item and people find it in the keyword search and it's what they want, they won't ignore it because it's part of a variation listing.

I hate those things cuz the seller typically loads em up with tons of cards... drop down box is long and any selection that isn't near the top takes forever to load... I gave it a try several times but have now just avoided them... just my .02

Just something I noticed now that I've been using these for a little while: If you relist the multiple listings without removing the variation for specific cards, eBay doesn't keep track of which of your cards have sold.
I relisted mine after coming back from vacation (no store means no "I'm on vacation" for some reason) and noticed that a bunch of my 1952s and T51s that had sold previously were now listed as in stock. Had to manually delete the variations for them to disappear from the listing permanently.

I like the multi-listings to buy groups of commons. It's much easier to buy 20 cards this way than with individual listings. I've picked out groups of cards from multiple sellers and added them all to my cart to make one single payment. Saves a lot of hassle.

I am now experiencing something similar. However, my problem occurs while the listing is active. Items that have previously sold (within the same 30 days) are now showing up as available to be purchased again in the drop down. I have all of my multi item listings set to a single item so I am not sure why once something sells it is not showing up as unavailable on the dropdown. What's worse is that this is random....nothing is consistent about when this scenario happens.

Haven't had that happen to me yet; are you sure they're not auto-renewing listings once they hit the 30 day mark?
I normally try to trim out the photos of the cards I've sold, so you only see the remaining items in the picture. That's if it's reasonable to do so.

I love these kind of listings and just finished up two sets in the last month using them. It was great to get the couple cards I needed from the same seller. If it saves you money it should work out great provided you have more than just a few cards from the set.

I’m working on a 52 Topps set and just bought a bunch of cards off a listing like that. I really liked it because it allowed me to buy multiple cards from one seller and save on shipping.

This most recent problem is occurring during the 30 day listing. For example, the most recent issue occurred 14 days into a new listing. All of the quantities are set to ONE before listing. I wonder if I have too many items per listing...currently I have between 100-240 in each of the listings.

I rarely use them as they are more of a pain to navigate and the (opinion) grades for the bunch are typically all over the spectrum. Comc seems to like them a lot - me not so much so typically I just skip over them.

I usually have very specific requirements in mind regarding centering and grade so I tend to scan thru a list of cards well defined by a search parameter and then add to cart in order to keep in the "On Deck" circle until such time as I pull the "BUY" trigger.

COMC does because they have 20 million cards for sale on their main site and can cram more cards into a dropdown for the same cost as a single eBay listing. Only about 3 million are listed on eBay at any given time. If you're buying from comc_consignments on eBay, you're wasting a bunch of money. Sure is cheaper and easier buying straight from COMC itself.
Like right now, all of my cards are half off on COMC. However, the ones that are cross-posted to eBay and Amazon are all listed full price, because sale prices don't cross over from COMC to their partners. So for a card I have listed at $100, you could pay COMC through eBay $110 (COMC adds $10 to give you "free shipping") and I would get $80. Whereas the same card right now on COMC would only cost you $50 plus $4 shipping.
But with COMC, you could store the card there for years waiting until you have a thousand cards to ship and they'd send them all to you for the initial $4 shipping, rather than spending $4 each time to mail a few cards.