Best platform for selling items?
 

I know RCU doesn't want for sale items on the regular forums and that's not what this thread is.

My question is which is the best most cost effective platform on which to sell items these days?

I want to sell off quite a few 1/16 and even a few 1/10 scale things that I know I'll never get around to building.
Hooben, Asiatam, Metal Origin, Tamiya among them. Between 1/10 scale projects that are active and 1/6 scale Armortek I have to be practical both time and space wise. So 1/16 scale is going to be thinned out substantially. - if I lived to twice my age I'll never finish what I've got...
I even have a NIB Imai Elefant I might sell as well as an nib Aeromate Tiger I. My days of just 'gathering' stuff is done- just gathers dust.

I don't mind people asking what I have for sale- just don't plug up this thread with those questions because I won't answer them ( and don't expect rock bottom 'deals') as well as private messages because I likely won't read them.

Jerry

Try sites like RCTankWarfare which do have a fairly international member base. They do have For Sale sections which look quite active.

There are a few tank for sale groups on Facebook, but not sure if you use Facebook.

Please keep in mind that you must have a minimum of 50 posts on the RCtank Warfare Forum for at least 1 month before you are allowed to use the "For Sale" section.

Whether it is the "BEST" place to sell your items is debatable but the most widely read is almost certainly "E-BAY".But as already mentioned if you are an existing member of RCTANKWARFARE that is a site which unlike this Forum has a very active "Sale" and "Wanted" section and with many North American members would seem to fit your needs exactly and it is easy to join and FREE.

The tank classified section here used to be pretty good until they did a software "Improvement" and pretty much wiped it out. I'm in pretty much the same spot you are, Jerry, way too much stuff Gathering dust on the shelves but I can't find a good place to sell it. Rctw is out for me so I guess I'll have to try eBay or facebook. I actually do have a Facebook account, even though I've never used it for anything. You guys might remember about 6 years ago I opened a GoFundMe page to raise money for a biopsy for one of my pets, and when I opened the GoFundMe page they told me I had to have a Facebook account. I still don't understand that, but I opened an account and even though I've never used it I never bothered to delete it either. I guess it's either that or learn how to sell stuff on eBay, eh? And I'll keep watching this thread to see if anyone has any good ideas. Good luck with your sale, Jerry. If you have any old IBUs that you KNOW to be good I would be interested in those. Weren't you going to make some kind of deal with Rich Johnson to bench test all your remaining boards? And just so you know, I'm still bummed out that the IBU thing didn't work out for you. For a minute there it was pretty damn cool having a vendor that was an actual, active forum member.

Facebook groups or forums have the advantage that you don't pay a ridiculous markup to ebay.

Yep. Plus, you don't have to give those other forums direct access to your bank account, like everyone now has to do on ebay (they now require that you go direct, instead of through Paypal). Some people refuse to do that. I used to sell a bunch of misc. stuff on fleabay, just to get spending money, but I won't give an organization like them direct access, as that is a good way to instantly become extremely poor.

However, ebay is still the biggest market and easiest way to sell anything.

Yes, it was quite an unpleasant experience in the end. I vowed never to sell any more of my remaining stock; it's such an onerous
situation I just can't be bothered. What I found troubling is the way I had to deal with defective units; if I remember correctly the best I could hope for was some form of credit on my next order.. Plug and play is terrific until it's not... I don't know how many units I have left perhaps as many as 35+ IBU2 mostly Base units and a whole pile of TPAs...If I sell my 1/16 scale stuff off I may include a unit gratis for as long as they last.

Jerry

If I were you I'd try selling those units inside of the USA. If you remember I am one of those who ordered several boards from you in your sale and my IBU 3 arrived damaged. It was an easy and fast fix that I could have done myself, according to what Ivano told me it was just one transistor or mosfet that somehow died. But it seemed all those defective units had something in common and it was the trip USA-Europe. God knows where was the problem, if there was something in customs there, or here, or maybe the parcels came next to a full container of magnets. I guess we shall never know, lol. But if I were you I'd certainly try to sell the stock you have. I am sure forum members are people that undestand that things can go wrong and won't blame you.

Selling in evilbay is another story.

I appreciate the sentiment but I don't think it's worth the effort. I found despite the best initial intentions of some buyers spending their hard earned money on something
that in the worst case doesn't work especially when there's no support for it just leaves a bad taste in their mouth and I don't blame them. What can I do, sell them as new
but possibly defective, as used but ....? While I don't have a huge sum hung up in those remaining units there is some money there so there's the natural desire to want to reclaim
that and something for having them sit around so long. Sure there's always 'something is better than nothing' which might be ok if the units were all perfect and a certainty to work
perfectly as intended but clearly I can't rely on that. It's that uncertainty that's not worth the ill will selling these can create and the last thing I want is to send out defective units and
either have to exchange them until one is found that does work or make someone PO'd. All of this was compounded by the knowledge, straight from Ivano, that many of the 3 wire
cables supplied were defective. He never offered to replace those either. So diagnosing issues wasn't fun. I (foolishly) wanted a more or less turn key business to supply fellow modelers
at the lowest prices I could muster. The turnkey part went out the window as soon as issues began to surface, email support between Ivano and I was good for quite some time but I soon realized I was wearing out the welcome mat. To have to extensively test every unit was not a possibility to me- I still had my day job as a developer in a very active application so I couldn't do that and maintain my price point as it was only me behind the curtain. I realized only too late why other sellers sold the units bundled up with a radio system; the cost was high but they were insured a functional system was delivered. My approach wasn't viable owing to the damage my shipment seemed to have suffered. I was stuck, alone with a quite large questionable investment and that taught me never ever do that again!

I think if Ivano had developed a test 'harness' of some sort that we sellers could have purchased that would have allowed fast testing and even initial basic functional testing that would
have made a world of difference. As a software developer of many decades I came to appreciate that a little effort spent in developing solid, reliable test tools made for some pretty robust
code and made my life so much easier and pleasant. These tools gave me confidence in my code AND afforded a built- in verification that my product performed as expected. I would have been willing to pay a pretty price to have had a similar tool for testing the IBU boards that didn't require a radio system and tank.

I'd love to know what actually was the cause of the failure of so many of my units. Was it really a byproduct of some scanning process or were they defective from their creation.
I wish there was someone who could properly analyze one of them. To this date Ivano has never said a word which I must admit I found troubling. I'm sure some of my units have made it back to him and except for owner connection or polarity damage I'd hope that he or someone who works for him could determine the root cause of failure. The other possibility is that
it's possible that there is some combination of settings or damaged firmware that essentially 'bricks' the unit but that could be resolved with a re-initialization. Again a test harness that could
perform diagnostics and resolve firmware issues could have avoided all this.

So there it is; they'll remain in my garage for now.

Jerry

I believe it’s firmware related Jerry. The last batch I got from you per our purchase agreement was a bad gamble on my end. With good INI files they fail to do certain things and function properly so I suspect firmware corruption. Its random, and undetectable until you bench test every board.

after much correspondence with yourself, Ian at RCTankelecteoncis, and Ivano, I hold a low opinion of Ivano as a reputable business man.

Well all I can say is regarding Ivano is that he was pleasant to deal with in the beginning if a bit hard nosed with regarding to some aspects. Ongoing support for me as a seller wasn't what I would have expected for a representative here in the US who could have cemented his standing. And there was not the anti-competition agreements or at least they weren't enforced; other sellers could sell to anyone anywhere regardless of 'turf' so if another seller wanted to undercut me there wasn't anything I could do except to try and beat their price; mine were among the lowest anyway and I never sold to anyone outside my area. And Ivano never said it but I felt I was expected to support IBU products no matter where they came from... But in my mind the worst failing was the lack of followup with me- ongoing significant support and a viable way to test the boards and address firmware issues. If the boards could be re-flashed or re-initialized, that in my book isn't a wise design. No electronic device should be able to be bricked with no means to wipe it clean and re-install the low level software by a factory representative. You might end up having to charge a person to do this but it should be possible.

jerry

I still think the administration should give us a sticky thread where we can post items we would like to sell. They would pretty much only be seen by other tankers, but that's who we want to see them. You could put your items for sale in the sticky thread and then anyone who is interested could send you a PM. What do you guys think? I think it would be better than what we have right now, which is basically nothing. I have a whole bunch of stuff I would like to sell off but I don't have a place to sell it. Maybe one of the moderators will see this post and chime in about the possibility of a sticky thread.

There is one tank listed in the tank classified section.
Try posting an ad and see how it goes

Hi, I lost interest in my WWII 1/16 scale rc tanks a few years ago, but kept my 1/16 Leopard 1, Leo 2 and Abrams. I had posted build threads on “rc tank warfare”, while pretty popular in terms of views, that activity did not translate into model sales when posting in their “for sale section”. eBay worked, I sold a few nice tanks, but the transaction fees charged made using that platform not profitable.

The platform that worked best for me to sell 1/16 rc tanks with a “reasonable profit” was Facebook. Facebook is supported by many rc tank clubs and their members became the demographics I marketed too. Succes followed and all my 1/16 rc tanks are now sold on! The build list below includes all the Armor sold off except for the 3 rc tanks mentioned above and 2 MRAPS. John

I will also say the Ebay fees have gotten completely ridiculous. I still sell a few things there, but mostly off the wall or vintage stuff that has a small market.

I'm going to throw up a test for sale post in the RCU for sale section and see what happens...

Jerry

That is an impressive collection of unicorns and out of production tanks and it’s a pity it will likely get broken up, because it’s unlikely someone could buy it whole, it would cost so much at fair value.

Thanks. There's some very nice things there if I do say so myself. It's taken a while to assemble that group of kits. I don't expect that any one person would buy them all just due all of them wouldn't appeal to the same person. I just never met a WW II_ish vintage vehicle model I didn't like. I didn't count what I listed but I'm too lazy to make xx separate listings; also explains the stupid price since price was a mandatory field - it was either 0 or some ridiculous price. Knowing how silly some people are I could just see some guy arguing 'you said that kit was $00!'. So there it is.

Jerry

It seems at least the ads now show up in RC Tank Classifieds, the last time I tried it posted the ad in the main classifieds but not the rc tank section. Have you had many PMs from the ad? I might be interested in one or both of the Famo kits, Should I send you a PM?

A PM is best. Jerry