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 Replies: 10 / Views: 1,904 |
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Rest in Peace
United States
5375 Posts |
Hi guys,
Could some people tell me their experiences with setting up a simple website or a complex website for coin selling? With a high number of items, what is the general sale rate? I've been here for awhile and sold quite a bit of coins...some rarer high value ones but it seems mostly low-mid end type coins more since that is what is affordable to most people. I've also traded a lot for silver, which has been a pretty good success.
For those who do not already know, I am essentially a college student with a well paying job and few expenses, thus my spending power is pretty high for someone my age and that is how I buy so many coins. In fact, I've got way more than I know what to do with. So basically, I've been able to sell some, but it just simply has not been able to keep up with my appetite for buying basically everything in sight (yes, I admit, I am addicted to the hobby more or less : D). I also do this as a way to invest my money now, as I figure if I can get good deals this nets me a bigger return on my money than just simply throwing my money in the bank, at least in the long run.
I've kind of learned over the years how to effectively buy bulk lots, and I've been able to turn over pretty good returns while offering coins significantly below retail, sometimes way below, but I would like to start to try to start an actual business...meaning somewhere where I can sell at a somewhat faster pace. My aim isn't really to get rich off this and I do always plan to keep coins as a hobby I greatly enjoy, but I do think if I could get a business going now (especially when I am young) it could provide a nice secondary source of income and a very effective buffer against financial ruin if I run into that when I am older.
So...
1. Would having a simple ecrater site allow me to this if I keep my prices competitive and have a large inventory? Or do these sites tend to get minimal sales?
2. Would setting up a complex ecommerce site net me some pretty large sales? Significantly greater than a simple site?
3. What steps should I take to make the above successful?
4. What would an ecommerce site cost, what effort required, etc?
5. Potential problems with either?
6. Your own experiences with either, particularly an ecommerce site because I have been really contemplating the idea for awhile and its about time I got this into gear some way or another...
7. If you had someone else build your site, what service would you recommend, and what are the prices generally? I am asking this because I do not know if it will be feasible for me (someone who knows little to nothing about programming) to design a site from the ground up, or even with a template.
8. Any suggestions or recommendations are welcome.
Thanks! Edited by coinguybrian
02/13/2010 6:41 pm
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1523 Posts |
I can't help you on the site but will say congrats on having the extra cash for coins. When I was in school I was lucky to have enough extra for beer. haha
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Rest in Peace
 United States
5375 Posts |
For now, I kinda want the extra cash to buy more coins! I have however got some bids on nice teletrade coins for my type set, which I have been focusing much more on. I'm a big music guy too....have thousands of songs but never been to a concert. Its kind of funny, similar to how I have hundreds of barber and Seated Liberty coins but haven't even filled out my basic type set yet = ( |
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Pillar of the Community
 United States
5953 Posts |
I built my site myself; but removed the sale section after a couple of years. I just was not around enough to keep it current and I still have not figured out the shopping cart thingy. Site building is easy. Getting customers is not. You have to be visible by all the search engines and this requires a lot of work. I have some coins on e-crater but I know my prices are high. It seems I get about 30 hits a week on the coins. Pretty low volume if you are hoping to sell you probably need to up that by a factor of 10.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
2373 Posts |
I started an ecrater site in June last year. So far there are 51 closed order sales and probably a couple dozen from CCF members that I will pull and transact. The prices are reasonable for the most part. Hits are acceptible but confusing sometimes. How could a coin get so many hits and not be purchased. I reevaluated the prices on high exposure items and they are in line. S/H is perplexing because PP and postage is .75 minimum for a low end item. S/H has a cumulative sticker shock for visitors if they don't take the time to read the header and take advantage of the free shipping parameters. Ecrater's invoice is not a living document that a credit can be applied so subsequent invoicing must take place or a PP refund. For mail in payments its easy. Just send the buyer the total to be remitted. Fees are zero so that part is sweet. Hits will increase if you sign up for google checkout, even though no one has paid for an invoice in that manner yet. They do have a weight averaged shipping matrix that might work better than the method I chose to use. I couldn't figure out how to make it work for me at the time and now there is about 900 items on there that I'm not about to adjust. Hope that helps. nlp
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Pillar of the Community
United States
588 Posts |
Yeah NLP COINS got a great website prices are very low, fast shipping, all you can wish for.
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Bedrock of the Community
United States
20753 Posts |
Coin web sites are becoming as common as the internet could possibly handle. You may try but I think your just jumping on the bandwagon a little late. Maybe not, but if you go to Google and type in coin websites this is what you get:
Results 1 - 10 of about 4,460,000 for coin websites.
Yours might be the lucky one but a coin web site today is like what happens to almost anything that becomes popular. At one time those VHS tapes poped up and stores all over the place also appeared to sell or rent them. Way to many and then the big stores started and then all replaced with DVD's. Those stores just faded away.
With so many coin related web sites, yours would really have to be something special or it too will just fade away.
Sorry for the pessimistic outlook, but just becoming to much of a popular hobby lately.
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Rest in Peace
United States
5375 Posts |
I agree with you just carl, I think for now I am going to just try to get some stuff up on ecrater to make it easier for people on the forums to see what I've got. I actually had not realized that I had a site all ready...I had thought I just barely started it. I imagine I would probably need a full feature separate website, so are there any things you could recommend to make it at least have a better chance of standing out? Thanks
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Rest in Peace
United States
5375 Posts |
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Valued Member
United States
220 Posts |
Best wishes! I might order some coins for my 7070 in the future.  |
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Valued Member
United States
292 Posts |
Ecrater is a decent place to start as the setup is pretty easy and no fees for listing is a plus. You might try looking into an ebay store front with a few of your higher end coins highlighted. ebay at this point simply has much greater exposure than just about any site and using their services to get your coins more exposure (bold listings, top listing, highlighted listing etc.) may be more cost effective than some others. Again for higher end coins this approach might work for you. As for different sites to use...Ecrater, Coinbug, etc. can be useful. When using these-try to use keywords or phrases that will be different than everyone else. This can be very difficult at times, after all you can only say "coins" so many ways...good luck! Edited by dreamstones
02/17/2010 08:44 am
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Replies: 10 / Views: 1,904 |
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Posted 02/13/2010 6:50 pm
