Just reduce your maximum bid to take the BP into account. That way the seller takes the hit, not you.
Maybe he meant that from a consignor's perspective - we all know that the consignor is ultimately the one who pays the "buyer's fee" in the form of a reduced hammer price. If this is the case, with the right coins and significant enough value, in many cases the consignor can get part of the buyer's fee (e.g. 102% or 105% or so of hammer).
Yup. That's what everyone does. When you sell, if you have a large enough quantity, you can negotiate better seller's fees. Anything purchased over $1k also comes with a coupon for zero sellers fees upon resell. I've even heard tell, if you have a large enough, significant enough, or important enough consignment, that you can get up to 105% (maybe more?) of the hammer price. This is rare, though.
It is also possible to have a bulk consignment and piggyback with someone else to get enough volume and value to have this done in some cases. I have seen dealers mention that they have done this for their clients.
That BP can be a killer if you don't figure it into your bid.........guess who took one on the chin a few months ago?
David Lawrence has buyer fee-free auctions every Sunday night. Only bought one coin from Great Collections but I recollect their fee is lower. Someone correct me if I'm wrong.
Keep this in mind when using auction results to determine fair value for coins. They all do it, but Heritage is becoming usurious.
It's becoming more of the norm, the Heritage fee when you combine the buyers and sellers fee is absolutely insane. More consignors are smartening up and telling them if they want the sale they want a reduced fee. Someone has to be a bit crazy to sell with Heritage at their full fees. Great Collections is much lower on both sides of it. For buyers its a flat 10 percent fee. For sellers it's 5 percent for sales under 1k and 0 percent for sales 1k or over with a very small listing fee depending on the starting price.
The BP is there because Heritage (and the other top tier auction sites) can command it. Second tier charges less because they have to. Realistically it's not that different from eBay, except it's added to the bid instead of fees subtracted from the proceeds. Either way, the total out of the buyer's pocket is X and the amount received by the seller is X minus something.
GC's buyers premium is a flat 10% but if you live in California there is state sales tax too if the invoice amount is under $1500 Their consignment fee is 10% for hammer prices $999 or less and either 0% or 5% for coins that hammer at $1000+
I think you're right, I knew it was ridiculously low. I haven't consigned with them before but I was talking to Ian a few months ago about it. They don't have the big buyers and world audience of heritage but they do have large enough wallets and enough buyers looking to make their sellers fees (or lack there of lol) quite attractive
I use them all the time. For 99 percent of coins you will end up with more money in your pocket from them than from Heritage especially if you accept Heritages fees for some reason without getting a discount. Heritage may get higher prices on somethings but people forget 32.5% of the sale price is going to Heritage which is absolutely insane. For instance if you sell a coin for 10k on Heritage they're keeping $3,250 dollars of the sale. You get $6,750 in your pocket. Now that same coin on Great Collections could sell for 8k and they will take $800 of the sale putting $7,200 in your pocket. The fees are so insane at Heritage things can sell significantly lower at other venues (GC) and you still end up with more money in your pocket. Plus you can just set whatever minimum bid you want anyway for the auctions with GC.
Wouldn't you get the whole 8k from GC in your hypothetical? ie 0% over 1k. But I get your point as I've already thought along those lines.
If 8k was the hammer yes you would get it all, in mine I just used it as the total price paid by the buyer. My math was actually a little off since 10 percent on top of 7200 is only 7920. You would actually get a little more if 8k was the total the buyer paid. Yea I just have a hard time understanding how a lot of the coins end up with Heritage without a significant fee discount to the seller. Their price difference doesn't come close to making up the fee differences