eBay is not a very nice choice
you may try local furniture mall or post your sell offer on second-hand furniture forum
http://www.cuteofficefurniture.com
the reason you don't see your item on ebay
One reason you may not see your item in the ebay completed listings is that they recently reduced the time window of completed listings down to only 30 days. I think it used to be 90 days. If you want to see more time you have to pay for it now. It's one of their new schemes to raise money.
craigslist is the answer
Forget the consignment shops, they will take up to half your money. Craigslist, can and does work but may take awhile to reach the right buyer, and it is mostly local buyers. Also, dont forget to top-post on craigslist every couple of days to keep the item fresh. The only problem with ebay is the shipping, which is a major hassle and very expensive. Buyers factor the shipping into their purchase decisions. All tolled, in my opinion, I would say craigslist.
It's pretty simple (at least in the USA).
For holy-grail type items: Use auction houses like Wright or LAMA.
For items that are too large or heavy to ship via Greyhound or UPS, inexpensive items that you just want to get rid of, or items that buyers must preview in person for some reason: Use Craigslist (and reduce your pricing expectation somewhat).
For everything else: Use Ebay. There's no other marketplace that'll expose your item to anywhere near as many potential buyers.
There's no harm in trying Craigslist for ALL items -- it's free -- but don't expect to sell your items for what they're worth unless you live in New York, Los Angeles, or San Francisco.
Hi End User. I think your...
Hi End User. I think your best bet would be to sell them in groups of maybe 4 or 6 via ebay so they are attractive as a dining set... and then maybe stagger the auctions across a period of say 6-12 months. It all depends if your want quick short-term cash-flow or are happy to be wait and achive higher prices with potentionally better profits long term. If you flood ebay with all the chairs at one time, the risk you take is that the prices per unit will fall. Its all about demand.
I have had some high end items-like a set of Sibast dressers in perfect condition. They are items that Wright 20 sells and has sold since I contacted them. They wouldn't touch it. I've had a 5000 dollar David Cressey lamp in perfect condition, huge, that they wouldn't touch. I contacted several auction houses with my family's Molesworth furniture which was a huge collection worth over 200k if you go by auction prices. The club chairs alone would go for 50k for the set. They've been sitting in our family lake house unused most of the time. Couldn't get an auction house to even return an email.
I've got a friend that is a curator at a museum and Wright 20 took her stuff which wasn't all that remarkable. I know another lady that had a set of Pace chairs she found at a thrift store and Wright 20 took them. She said she knows Richard Wright personally. So... I think you have to have connections to get anything sold at auction houses, Wright 20 in particular. After I contacted Wright 20 about my Sibast pieces and they said no, within a year they had the same dresser (just one, not a set) in okay condition on the auction block. So the fact they've sold your item or are continuing to sell it in the future is no indication that they want things from you.
People on CL only want garbage and only want to pay garbage prices. I'm afraid eBay is the only solution for us plebs.
But lesson learned...wouldn't buy from Wright 20 as I know they'd never sell anything I had purchased!
It is correct that there are more variables for Wright accepting a piece for their auctions than simply the quality of said piece. I don't know their exact policies, but they do certainly give better treatment to sellers that will (have been) repeat customers, over one-timers. But some sellers/dealers also get preferential treatment over others.
Case in point. I know a local dealer who regularly sells (and occasionally buys) through Wright. Even he could not get a set of PS Heggen waste baskets entered into one of their Modern or Scandinavian auctions. Anyone unfamiliar with the mysterious Wright/Heggen golden goose combination, check the archives to see how this combo goes for multiples of what any other auction house can get. His theory is that a single seller with a huge inventory made a deal with Wright to not accept collections from other dealers. Who knows what the true story is, or why certain buyers bid these lots up so high for Wright auctions only. The moral of the story is: don't take it personally.
And to reiterate ff's last point, CL can be perfectly fine for selling nice stuff depending on where you live. I've been able to get similar prices from Chicago CL that I can from my Etsy store, which is mostly domestic US. You can't expect the same from CL in the middle of Montana. eBay is always a selling last resort for me due to high fees. It's great for buying though.
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