So over the years I’ve acquired some stuff* - and I see adverts for ways to sell it.
Now I’ve not done this before, but a friend of mine has.
So I was going to ask him to sell it for me.
Obviously I pay all expenses (postage costs), but after that what is a fair % of the profit?
I was thinking 50%, since I provide the goods but he does the work.
What do you think?
*books, roleplaying materials, unused clothing etc
I think 50% is fair. I 'spect he’d be very happy with that !
50% sounds high. I would start lower, I’m thinking 20-25%.
I know you’re paying the costs but is he doing the packing and shipping?
The RPG stuff might prove very easy to sell on ebay, but then you’re dealing with other headaches.
Buyers have to pay for postage and shipping. 50% makes sense because you are doing nothing and your friend needs an incentive to move the stuff and to tell you how much he really got for it.
50% is the traditional take of a wholesaler. They sell to a retailer for (say) $1 and the retailer sells it for $2. It’s called keystonimg. Even though expenses and risk may be less for your “retailer” 50% is fair since he has to market one-off items which is a lot of work for single sales.
We recently did an estate sale for my in-laws’ house. The seller took 50% of the haul, and we thought that was fair. They did all the work of setting up for the sale, handled all the financial transactions, etc. We even paid a bit more to ensure the house was completely empty at the end. Worth every penny, considering how much we value our own time.
For what you’re discussing here, 50% seems about right.
Piling on to agree, with a semantic refinement. You all should split the * profits * 50/50.
This is a key understanding, because the best way to get a good price for these things is to use an online auction site. The site will take a percentage, and there may be other costs involved. (Agree that buyer should pay shipping.) Neither of you should be taking on those costs. (It’s fine to front him the shipping charges if money is tight for him.)
When all is said and done, reimburse yourselves for costs and then split the profits.
Impossible to answer without knowing the value of the goods to be sold.
Spending 10 hours of work to sell $20 worth of goods is probably not worth it, no matter what the split. Spending 10 hours of work to sell $200,000 worth of goods probably does not require a 50/50 split (in my opinion).
Although I see what you mean, the goods are probably worth no more than a few hundred dollars.
I wouldn’t expect it to take many hours to sell them.
This is why it’s a percentage split. It’s a gamble for both the OP and their agent. Whether the agent sells $200,000 worth of goods in 10 hours, 10 minutes, or 10 weeks doesn’t matter, without their effort the OP still has the stuff they don’t want or need, and no more money than before. 50% is very common for sales that require a salesman. Retail stores work on lower margins because of the ‘self serve’ model that depends on low pay employees instead of salesmen. Exceptions are products like cars and houses. If the OP has some of those to sell they can get it done by a pro for lower percentages if the items have such high inherent value.
This is also a case where the sales agent will make the decision on the actual sale price. If they’re only getting a small percentage their incentive is to spend the least time for their return, not to get the highest price for the OP.