jeffbase34

Recently, I've been going through my vast dvd collection and pricing it according to the lowest sale price on Amazon marketplace. I recently lost my job, and I may have to start selling my collection.


I was shocked to find that several of my movie dvds are now worth 0.01!
These are not crap dvds. Sideways is one example. Minority Report, Final Destination 3 and Dawn of the Dead are other examples.

WHy are idiots selling these dvds so low? You are practically giving them away. I rather keep them for enjoyment than let them go for nothing.

Thankfully, I do have several valuable sets in my collection. I valued my entire collection at $8200 dollars.

atari2600

$20 shipping?

Flicker

I'd like to know also. I don't see how, with shipping, they aren't going in the hole.

big whoppa

I'd like to know the answer to that. Better to sell than toss it? They make a buck or less after shipping?

Alan Smithee

I got Sideways brand new at Best Buy for $3.99, and I've seen Minority Report for about that much too- not much point to buy them used when you can get them new for that little.

jeffbase34

Well on Amazon, you are only given $2.98 to cover shipping costs, but they also charge like a dollar variable fee so it is more like $2 for shipping. Now, a 5 oz dvd will cost around $1.80 1st class to ship. THen you have the cost of packing material. There is just no way to come out ahead at $0.01.


I think it really stinks for Amazon to give sellers the shaft on shipping. They will charge the buyer $3.98 for shipping. So even at 0.01, the buyer still has to pay over four bucks when you add in sales tax. Penny dvds are a bad deal for everyone.

bsmith

How did you come up with a value of $8200? Most of the places I've seen for selling used will give anywhere from $0.25 to $3.00 when buying a DVD that they resell.

Sean O'Hara

You just answered your question -- these are popular DVDs, which means there's a huge supply out there. And they're several years old, so most stores have them marked down to $5 or less, which lowers the demand for used copies.

Is that how much it would cost to replace it? Because that has no connection to the resale value of your collection, any more than how much it would cost to replace your car is related to how much you can sell it for.

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Now playing: Adam Curry & John Dvorak - NA-044-2008-08-23
via FoxyTunes

Josh-da-man

What's happening is that MSRPs are dropping, and you can frequently find DVDs on sale in stores for less than five dollars. There's not a lot of incentive there for the consumer to buy a used DVD from the Amazon marketplace for the same price or more (once shipping is factored in).

I think there's also an oversaturation. We've seen people buying DVDs up like crazy for a decade and a lot are probably thinning out their collections now, so you're seeing a lot of used copies of movies showing up on Amazon Marketplace and eBay. Which, when combined with the decreased demand, is going to send the used prices down to rock bottom.

Josh-da-man

What's happening is that MSRPs are dropping, and you can frequently find DVDs on sale in stores for less than five dollars. There's not a lot of incentive there for the consumer to buy a used DVD from the Amazon marketplace for the same price or more (once shipping is factored in).

I think there's also an oversaturation. We've seen people buying DVDs up like crazy for a decade and a lot are probably thinning out their collections now, so you're seeing a lot of used copies of movies showing up on Amazon Marketplace and eBay. Which, when combined with the decreased demand, is going to send the used prices down to rock bottom.

Josh-da-man

That said, I can remember when DVD was still young and you would see DVDs going for crazy prices on eBay.

I can remember buying a Toshiba DVD player back in late '98/early '99 and getting five free DVDs in the mail -- Lost in Space, Sphere, Perfect Murder, US Marshalls, and City of Angels -- and ended up selling them on eBay for over $100. Dear, God, someone actually paid $22 plus shipping for "Lost in Space."

calhoun07

I don't know why that made me laugh. I am guilty of coughing up good money for DVDs back in "the day" that go for crazy cheap prices now.

I think these things go in cycles. Like when CD became the dominant force in the music industry and people unloaded their record collections for dirt cheap prices and now a lot of that original vinyl commands a higher price than the equivalent on CD.

I'm not saying your copy of Minority Report may not be worth hundreds of dollars 20 years from now when DVD has faded away into VHS land. But some stuff won't be replaced on new formats that come in the future, and maybe even titles that get replaced on new formats in the future won't have the same bonus features as the DVDs of the past. Things like that could make your dirt cheap DVDs today suddenly rise in value some day. And when people buy something for 3.99 brand new, they are less likely to value it, and consider it more disposable. Which could actually drive up the value of it later on.

And, yes, there are some VHS titles I see out there that are not on DVD yet that actually command a high dollar amount to this day, even though it's on a crappy format.

Pookymeister

Unless you are paying amazon $40 a month to sell your stuff, they will take $1 per transaction + the 80 cents fee for Dvds - plus 15% (which is moot for a penny).
Personally, ive never sold anything for a penny - but with the extra $1 - you are most likely losing money on selling something for a penny.

Amazon charges the buyer the same amount they give to the sellers.
Go look at a used dvd - you will see to buy it you pay 2.98 shipping. (again, unless the merchant is a pro and uses their own shipping fees)

jeffbase34

I own a lot of boxsets and tv series. I own all three seasons of Doctor Who and Young Indiana Jones which are still pretty high in value.

fitlissa76

On the Amazon seller forums they explain it like this. These cheapo DVDs, like Minority Report for example, are bought at Walmart & the like for $4 or $5. Folks keep them for a little while, then eventually sell them at garage sales or to used book/DVD/CD stores for pennies. Those stores or garage sales sell them sometimes for 50¢ to $1.

Sometimes they can be gotten for free if they are sold during a B1G1 sale, so maybe 25¢ per DVD.

If a seller has a constant source to be able to get the DVDs for that cheap & they sell in really large quanitites that they easily come out ahead even after paying the $40 a month or so to Amazon so they can wave the other fees Amazon charges, then even with the .01 price, with shipping they actually come out ahead 35¢ to 50¢ per DVD, so long as they ship Media Mail & no extras such as delivery confirmation.

Trevor

But the time involved in processing and mailing that DVD, even if you have a streamlined bulk operation has to be at least a few minutes. That works out to less than $10 an hour even if you are moving in bulk.

I guess I'm missing something, maybe I'll check out those forums.

Personally, anything less than $5 profit per DVD would not be worth my time. I understand a professional seller being happy with much less. But I imagine most of us here are just DVD collectors who would never sell more than 10-20 DVDs per month max. If I'm only going to make a couple bucks or less per DVD, I'd rather just give them away.

jeffbase34

Well if they can make money, that's their prerogative. I just hate to see my dvd collection of movies become worthless. I have many titles that are not Walmart bin, and they are bad as well. Several of my two disc sets are now worth under 5 bucks such as The Departed and Sling Blade.

If I could have only seen in the future and bought tons of the Batman Anthology dvds.

Lastdaysofrain

Large business make money because of the scope and scale of their operation. If they were losing money they wouldn't sell things for a penny.

What it does do is when a guy like the OP wants to sell stuff on a much smaller scale, their discs value is much less, but that's how it goes.

amd555

try joining s_w_a_p_a_d_v_d

you can trade your dvd for credits for which you can turn around and sell for about $4.

remove the underscores and add .com

Travis McClain

How is this different than buying a new release and seeing it a few months later priced for less? I understand that instant pang of, "I could've paid less if I'd just waited" or the reciprocal, "I could've made more if I'd have sold it earlier." But valuing your DVD collection based on its secondary market value is not only problematic, it's bad economics. You're overlooking the value of your ownership of the DVD to you; how many times did you watch it, how much did you enjoy it, etc.? Don't confuse what you paid for something with what it is currently worth, but also don't forget the time between buying and selling.

Also, to address another point; what a used DVD retailer will pay you for your DVD is also not a fair indicator of what your DVD is worth. If Coconuts/FYE will pay you $2, you can be certain that they will, in turn, set a price of $4 or more on it the moment they process it. Ergo, the actual current value of your DVD is $4, not the $2 you can get from them. The trick is to bypass such places and get as much of the $4 value as you can.

My suggestion to the OP and anyone else in such a situation is twofold. First, buy DVD's entirely because you expect to enjoy them, not for speculation. Secondly, when you find yourself in a tight spot financially, 1) realize that cashing in your stuff is rarely helpful and 2) if you decide to go that route, choose between holding on to something because you think it shoudl be worth more or take the available offer and tell yourself that you need that smaller amount of money now more. If nothing else, unemployment benefits should pay more than cashing in your DVDs until you find a new job. Best of luck to the OP, and anyone else in such a mess.

jeffbase34

I think you are comparing apples to oranges. You are talking about personal value vs market value. Personally, yes my movie dvds are worth a lot more to me. The entertainment factor of watching the dvds multiple times is worth more than selling it for pennies on the dollar.

Basically, I am keeping any dvd that I can't sell for over $5 bucks. But I am in a situation where I chose to invest a lot of money into expensive dvd sets. The reward is I literally have enough viewing material to keep me busy for several years. I don't want to sell my collection, but if I need the money, I will. I am currently collecting unemployment so I'm not in too bad shape. Still it hurts to spent 50 bucks on something like Planet Earth, and now see it value for 19 bucks.

kahuna

Since I started buying dvds in 1997 I have brought about 2500 of them. Got lots of deals from Reel.com, Big Star, Amazon.com. All those coupons and also Amazon.com GC's from Free Fride. I also made tons of extra money selling the many OOP dvd I had. My kids ended up with about a 1000 of them. I also gave a lot to my Mom and my brother and his sister-n-law.

When HD-DVD and Blu-ray came out I said enough is enough and stopped buying SD's.. A few months ago I started selling off my SD collection. I will be sending in my 9 Priority Mail Flat Rate box to Dvd Planet tomorrow. I also decided to try and sale some on my local Craiglists. I posted a lists of about 200 dvds. 80% of them were new/sealed. I first listed them at $5 for new and $4 for used. Also buy 5 get one free. I got no sales. I then dropped it to $4 new and $3 used. So far I only sold 15 with 3 freebies to two buyers. I have one of the buyers coming back on Friday to pick up 12 more. Since yesterday I get many offers to drop my prices by $1 each. Because they can go to BB and pick up the same titles new for $3.99. I tell them to be my guest and head on over to BB and CC.

Heck I even posted my Korean Movie dvd collection on there. I think there were about 100 Region 3 and Region free dvds and sold not one of them. I was asking $5 each for them.

fitlissa76

Yeah, but if you think about it you're not paying gas to go to work every day. You just go one time every day to every other day to the PO & that's it. You're not paying for a work wardrobe. You're able to eat at home because you're working at home, no having to eat out for lunch & then maybe even eating out for dinner more than you should because you're too tired from your day to cook. All of that expense is taken out of the equasion. I myself wouldn't do it, but these mega sellers make a pretty nice amount of cash with everything considered.

rw2516

Plus, if you're a business, all the ebay and paypal fees are business expenses for tax purposes.

Travis McClain

It's been too long for me to quote Econ 101, but I distinctly recall going over this very example with cars. In any event, the point is that you "chose to invest a lot of money into expensive dvd sets." Not only is that a bad investment idea, really, but were you into the investing enough to have left the DVD's factory sealed?

Also, Planet Earth is not a good investment choice. Costly, yes, but it is entirely too mainstream and well promoted. Supply and demand determine your value, and when something has been produced in as high a quantity as that, you're not going to have enough demand later to get a great re-sale value. With DVD's, either you flip it early, when you'll get as much of your purchase price back as possible, or you have to sit on it long enough for it go out of print and experience a rise in demand. Just be grateful you didn't consider HD-DVD an "investment."