Ebay

[Matt Gwinn]

I was wondering how many of you sell your games on ebay.  
If so, how have your sales been through that option?

I've been thinking about selling Kayfabe through ebay once my next print run is done.

,Matt G.

[Arashi]

Hey Matt-]

I have a freind who sells original art on ebay and he makes his living that way.

If youhave a run of books, you may as well sell some on ebay. Selling is selling right? It sure as heck can't hurt and it may actually help get more exposure.

 C!

[Paul Czege]

Hey Matt,

This is a good topic. I wonder whether eBay can be good for the indie guy who's selling new product.

The typical eBay shopper is someone who already knows what they want. It's either a collectible that they're having trouble finding, or it's something they're trying to find for a low price. In either case, it's a product they already know by name. In my opinion, neither of these customers are worth a shit to the indie guy who's selling new product.

With eBay it's pretty much a given that you have to sell below cover price. What the indie guy must want in return for selling below cover, and paying auction fees on top of that, is exposure. The problem is that the eBay search engine is really good at helping people find things they already know about, and not as good at helping users create a customized browsing and shopping experience of products they might never have heard of before.

Now I've found and purchased some very cool games on eBay over the past twenty months...but it hasn't been easy. As I write this, there are over 10,300 active auctions in eBay's Toys & Hobbies>Games>Role Playing subdirectory. There is so much product for sale that initially it was difficult and painstaking to find games I might find interesting among all the stuff I knew I wouldn't care about. Who can browse over 10,000 auctions...or even 1000 auctions?

The turning point for me was learning how to write elaborate search strings. It's when you learn how to write complex search strings that you can create a personally meaningful subset of current auctions. That was how I discovered and purchased two indie games I'd otherwise never have heard of, EPICS, by J. Scott Pittman, and Heroic Do-Gooders & Dastardly Deed-Doers, by Matthew and Wesley Van Dinter.

And both of those auctions were non-used copies of games being sold by their designers, just what we're talking about here, but with an exception: the designers had moved on from those projects. In the case of J. Scott Pittman, the print copies he was selling on eBay are an old incarnation of the game. He has a subsequent CD version, and an even newer pdf version. In the case of Matthew Van Dinter, the copies he was selling are the last remnants of a print run that was otherwise entirely sold into distribution.

Their use of eBay makes sense to me. They were creating cash from inventory that wasn't otherwise doing anything for them, and maybe creating a bit of cascade exposure for their current projects.

I can't see any benefit from selling new copies of Kayfabe at a loss on eBay to bargain hunters who already know about the game. Do you think you can write your auction listing so that the game shows up among fewer than sixty items in searches that potential customers are already performing on eBay? If so, then that's your strategy. Though I'd use it sparingly, since even then you're still selling below regular price. It's not like you'd be growing your customer base for pdf supplements or future games, because you don't have any pdf supplements or planned future games. All you'd be doing is maybe creating a little exposure for Kayfabe.

My recommendation would be to wait until your sales of copies of Kayfabe from your next print run hits a big lull, and sell four or five copies on eBay over the course of seven or eight months. Space them out so people can't anticipate another copy might come up for auction.

Paul

[Matt Gwinn]

Hey Paul,
I'm not really thinking about those people that already know about Kayfabe.  Anyone who knows about it, should know where to get it by now.  type in Kayfabe on google and my game comes up in the top 3 posts.

I'm thinking more along the lines of someone that is looking for a wrestling game or that is simply interested in seeing what kind of wrestling stuff is available.  Sure, there are 10,000 RPG auctions, but if I put in "Wrestling RPG"  that considerably cuts down the list.  The same goes for "Supers RPG" or "Horror RPG".

I also don't think you need to sell your game for less than list value, especially if the buyer has no other place to buy it.  EBAY's rules only require that you don't sell the item for less somewhere else, but selling for the same price is ok.

,Matt G.

[Paul Czege]

Matt,

Kayfabe is also found via hits three and four if someone types "wrestling RPG" into Google. When you already have that level of exposure, what do you gain by being on eBay and paying auction listing fees?

Paul

[Matt Gwinn]

Kayfabe is also found via hits three and four if someone types "wrestling RPG" into Google. When you already have that level of exposure, what do you gain by being on eBay and paying auction listing fees?

Good point Paul.

I'd still like to hear from anyone who has tried to sell their game on Ebay.

,Matt G.

[quozl]

Ebay might be helpful in figuring out what to price your game at.

[szilard]

Well...

Every once in a while, I will search on Ebay for RPGs, hoping to find something that I want selling at a price I can afford on my budget. I don't stick to any particular search. I also tend to look at things that look interesting.

I don't know if this is common behavior, but if it is then it might be worthwhile as a sort of advertising.

Stuart

[Chris Passeno]

If I remember correctly, Deathstalkers by Cutters Guild was selling via their website and ebay at the same time.

[Treves]

If I were looking for an indie game to buy, I'd search for the homepage on Yahoo or Google; it wouldn't even occur to me to check Ebay.  That's just me, but I presume most web-savvy surfers would do the same.

However, it seems one potential use for Ebay is "crossover" sales - ie, appealing to people who are looking for a game about XYZ, but not necessarily a role-playing game.  Kayfabe seems like an especially good candidate because many, many people are interested wrestling (a search for "wrestling" gives me 6,685 hits).  Maybe using "wrestling," "game," and "RPG" together in your description would hook some fish.

For example, a search for "wrestling game" gives me 168 hits.  That's a lot, but not too many - it seems that if you include a good hook in your item description you could catch people's attention ("Kayfabe - You And Your Friends Can Run Your Own League!") (or something less lame)

Incidentally, "Wrestling RPG" gives me one hit  - it seems to be a computer game.  You could always e-mail this guy and ask him if he moves any units (and bribe him with a free pdf if need be!)