Not much selling!

Most of my model railroad related stuff and books came from brick and mortar businesses and the occasional show. When a number of them went out of business I mostly dealt with that large, been in business a long time company, up west of Baltimore. They were a mail order business, beside a brick and mortar store, before N scale was even around. They even had a presence at some of the shows I went to. So for my first internet orders they were the first. I tired of the shows about the same time as some vendors stopped their presence at the shows and besides it mostly was the same old stuff as last time just with more dirt and grime on it and marked up even higher.

There was always a large presence of large scale parts and equipment dealers and always a big crown at their tables. So their is either a large amount of Lionel on shelves in homes, or on basement layouts. And large scale narrow gauge seems to be increasing in popularity mostly themed in the late 1800s to early 1900s. You have to admit it is easier to re-rail and work on the larger stuff than on N scale.

As far as Ebay goes when I became aware of it and looked at I did not like it then, as it was mostly a marked up market for a lot of what I considered junk. I did not purchase anything then and have not ever purchased anything there, nor do I ever intend to.

 

eBay is last resort. A year or so ago I decided to obtain a set of locomotives I had passed on when they were released ten years ago. That is always a challenge, especially when you want mint condition. I found three of the four in Japan. The final one was tough. I set up an eBay notification, and a legit mint unit showed up a few months later. There was some junk in the interim. I bid $125 for a $70 loco, and won it for around $95. There hasn’t been another one since, so the price was what it was. It’s a free market folks. We can complain all we want, but it is what it is; and I’m okay with that.

 

Haven't sold on ebay for ages...buy circa a dozen times a month. I had a bunch of really nice Great Northern models but sold them to my club mates. Wasn't going to get me as much money, but got what i'd labored to collect appreciative homes.

 

There are lots of custom built, detailed buildings that are going for huge prices lately.

Also, any LBF Railbox cars are going really high, too.

 

From my experience on the 'bay, they take 10% of how much you sell in a particular month, so when I list things on there, I tend not to do too much at once since it comes back on me when it comes time to pay fees. There are plenty of model railroad forums (and FB pages) out there offering stuff. I'm sure if there's something you want that you don't see, asking about it might get you somewhere.

 

I just bought an auctioned coal hopper on EBay. Most of my browsing isn't serious so I put what I am willing to pay and if I get outbid oh well, it wasn't meant to be. I would really like to pick up a group of hoppers but I'm not serious enough to pay the going market price right now. I would rather spend my money on a DCC decoder.

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I would imagine the original poster's comment has to do with a lack of sales for items listed on eBay.

I have been avoiding eBay for several months now.
When I was more actively 'looking' for items, I found that there were few 'deals' to be found.
Since I'm 'overstocked' with N scale stuff... I would more likely be a seller than a buyer at this time.

Actually... many items were being 'offered' at a premium over stock available at online retailers.
There were few real 'value' buys available.

So unless you were really looking for a specific item you 'needed' and was out of stock... most items would be considered overpriced.

Unfortunately... selling 'for profit' above the purchase price is very unlikely.
Right now... I don't see anyone 'dumping' a lot of stuff at deep discounts.