eMoviePoster.com

Our new bi-weekly auctions start in just a few days, on January 7th!

WHY AM I MAKING THIS CHANGE? Several reasons!

1) I have run weekly auctions for just shy of 20 full years (and we had online auctions for a year before we went to regular weekly auctions, and before that we had Major Auctions and semi-annual Sales catalogs for another full ten years), and after 30 years of this (and over 1,654,000 auctions!) I am tired of the non-stop weekly grind (where as soon as one auction is ready, it is time to prepare the next one)!

2) Of those more than 1,654,000 auctions, over half of them were for items that ended up selling for under $20, and around one quarter were for items that ended up selling for under $10 each. We usually lose money on most of these items (we spend more in labor preparing the auction and packing and shipping the item than we take in on commission from that item). I am tired of working so hard at auctioning items that we lose money on!

3) I suspect many of the bidders are getting worn out from having to check 999 auctions three times every WEEK (every couple of days), and I suspect they would not mind if they could have more of a break between auctions.

SO THAT IS HOW I ARRIVED AT THE NEW BI-WEEKLY AUCTIONS! Here are the pluses:

1) They allow me to take off every other week, all year round if I want, because we have half as many auctions (since all run for two weeks, instead of one), and every other week is an "off week" for us (but the auctions continue to run during that time).

2) They allow me to catch up on many projects that I have never had time to do, both at work and at home. That is a big plus for me!

3) They give bidders some "breathing room" between auctions. Every other week we won't have ANY auctions closing. Imagine how happy your spouses will be to learn that they can once again do something with you on (every other) Tuesday, Thursday, and Sunday!

Is there a downside to this? I don't think there will be any, other than that everyone will need a little time to get used to the new schedule, but I really feel that once everyone adjusts, they will all say, "I wished you had done this years ago"!

But here is the biggest change. With half as many auctions, we will no longer have the time to auction low value items individually. So starting in January, any items we are consigned that realistically sell for under $20 each will be placed in bulk lots. And each bulk lot has to realistically sell for $20 each. So if someone consigns ten $2 items to us, we will make a single bulk lot out of them, even if they are all different kinds of items. And if they send twenty $5 items, we would at most make them into five bulk lots, but more likely just one or two.  But of course we will also offer to return the items to that person. BUT ALL ITEMS THAT ARE SENT TO US THAT REALISTICALLY SELL FOR $20 OR MORE WILL CONTINUE TO BE AUCTIONED INDIVIDUALLY!

And because we are trying to stop auctioning items with little value, even in bulk lots, know that if consignors send items that are virtually worthless (like newer "rolled" one-sheets from lesser movies, much lesser 8x10 stills, old People magazines, etc!), we will either return them to the consignors at their expense, or more reasonably, throw them out. THEREFORE, CONSIGNMENTS NEED TO EITHER SOLELY CONTAIN ITEMS WITH REALISTIC RETAILS OF $20 OR MORE EACH, OR A TOTAL REALISTIC RETAIL VALUE OF $200, so do not send consignments with a value of under $200 unless all the items are over $20 each

And by eliminating most of the low priced individual auctions, we can actually auction more $20+ items a year than we did when we had twice as many auctions! And we WON'T be stopping auctioning low priced items! It is just that we will be auctioning them ONLY in bulk lots, and NOT in single item auctions. And since I am hoping to do 999 bulk lots every month (instead of our current 500-600), we can also actually auction more sub-$20 items a year than we did when we had twice as many auctions, except they will be in bulk lots.