You would have to be living under a rock to not know what eBay is. eBay has certainly been used by more people over the years than any other platform and as the first major online sales platform many people have bought and sold items on it for decades!  

The reason why EBay is so extensively used by people all across the world is due to the vast availability of products. Millions of buyers and sellers all across the world meet here every day and make thousands of deals. If you do not use something any more, you can sell that on EBay too.

If you have a good collection of DVDs you no longer use then you can certainly sell them on eBay.  However just because they can be sold on eBay does not mean they will sell well or for a good price.

DVDs still have decent demand but the demand on eBay is normally based on pricing. If you price your DVDs well then you should be able to sell them quite quickly. If they are too expensive then they can sit for months without anyone looking at them. Often used DVDs will sell for incredibly cheap prices and if they are movies that are more than a year or so old then they will often go for .50 each at most in larger lots. 

There are some DVDs that are sold on eBay in bulk that can go as cheap as .25-.30 so as you can see selling in bulk will not be very profitable unless you got your DVDs for free. 

Besides eBay there are a variety of places that you can sell your items at both online and off. We will discuss some of the pros and cons of selling online as well as some additional tips for selling on eBay in the rest of this article. 

Should you sell online?

The first thing that you have to ask yourself when you are planning on selling your DVDs is if you should sell online at all. Just because you “can” sell your collection online does not mean that it is the best option for you. Some things to consider when selling your DVDs are: 

1. Quantities:

If you are looking to sell one movie at a time you are likely to get higher prices when selling online than if you are selling locally to a shop or on places like Craigslist or Facebook. If you are selling a bulk lot you can often get the same price when selling locally that you would end up with on eBay because of shipping costs and fees. If you live in a place that has a decent sized population and you are trying to sell your entire collection then trying to sell your collection locally first is a good idea.

2. Margins

When you sell online you have to consider the cost of shipping, transaction fees as well as the likelihood of returns and the associated costs with that. Even with all of those things considered you are still much more likely to sell your items at a higher price online than you are locally. If you are trying to get the highest net prices for your DVDs then online is certainly the best place to do that.

3. Less Negotiations

When selling online you can set up to sell at a set price and not have to deal with negotiating or moving your prices when someone asks you to. Ebay allows offers and even auctions but you can just use the Buy It Now listing and you won’t have the hassle of haggling with people about your prices. 

If you are selling locally you are bound to get a bunch of low bids (even if you put no low bids accepted) and will normally have to negotiate with a lot of people before finding a buyer.

4. Audience Size

Selling on eBay or other online platforms, which are visited by millions per month assures that your product is exposed to a bigger purchaser base. Selling offline will limit the exposure of your product and will make it where you can only sell to people locally or someone who is willing to drive to you.

5. Easier To Sell

As said in the previous point, thousands of potential buyers visit eBay every day with the intention of purchasing something or at least seeing what is available to purchase.Hence, putting your products up on eBay will ensure that your listing is seen by those thousands of potential buyers and that in turn will increase the probability of your product being bought by someone.

What does selling on eBay require?

Selling on eBay used to be the wild west with buyers and sellers both taking a risk when making a purchase that the person on the other end of the transaction was being honest. Nowadays all of that risk is taken on by the seller. 

Selling on eBay sounds simple and the setup certainly is but the difficulties come when you get a scammer who buys from you or something happens with the order. When you start selling online people no longer see you as an individual they are buying from and will now see you as a faceless corporation that they can take advantage of. Although in general selling online is more profitable and setting things up is easier if you run into a bad buyer, things can go downhill fast. 

There are some important things to consider before you ever start selling your DVDs on eBay. Some of these are: 

1. Are You A Dedicated Seller?

Selling on eBay requires you to be quite dedicated as not only do you have to list the items you will also have to answer questions about them, take pictures, upload tracking, ship on time, deal with issues with the delivery, and much more. If you are planning on selling things on eBay for a long time in the future then all of these things are just a part of doing business. However, if you only intend to sell your collection and that is it then the hassle that you will have may not be worth the extra money that you will make by selling the DVDs online.  

2. Are You Selling Blank Dvds Or Dvds With Some Content?

A major factor that will determine whether your DVDs will sell well on eBay or not is whether you are selling blank DVDs or DVDs with content. If you are selling DVDs with content, then what kind of content does it have? Is it old TV shows or movies? Is it newer Disney DVDs? Is it movies from the 90’s that are not old enough to be nostalgic but too old for many people to even remember?

There is not much demand for blank DVDs as they can easily be purchased at many local stores or in bulk on Amazon but if you are selling DVDs with movies or TV shows on them then the kinds of shows that you are selling will make a huge difference in how well they sell. 

3. Your Reviews

A lot of people base their buying decisions on eBay based on the reviews that the seller has. If you are brand new to the site then people might still take a chance but if the first few reviews that you get are negative then your sales will likely plummet and you may lose your account entirely! 

Reviews are terribly one sided on eBay as you cannot leave negative reviews for buyers so even if you have a horrible person who buys from you and scams you there is virtually no recourse. Some bad buyers will even hold a negative review over your head trying to get a refund!

4. Price

As mentioned earlier the price that you are changing for the DVDs will have a huge effect on how quickly they will sell. If you price them at what you paid originally then they will never sell. If you price them too low then you are missing out on some of the profit you could have made. 

A trick that we have learned is look up the item itself on eBay and see what other people are charging for that item and then go either slightly lower or the same price. That way you won’t sell yourself short but you will also be the cheapest one so far more likely to sell your DVDs.

If you are doing this for a business then you will want to figure out what your minimum profit margins are and make sure you set the pricing above that. Many people just set their prices to be the lowest on eBay without knowing that they are losing money on every sale. If you are selling off a collection then obviously the collection won’t sell for as much as you paid originally but if you are selling DVDs as a business then selling too low will mean closing before you ever begin. 

5. Competitors

If you are a new seller then you should make sure to research your competitor’s listings as prices in order to know what you’re competing against. For example, you could also provide some freebies with your DVDs like a DVD cleaner spray or a cleaner cloth to gain a competitive advantage against your competitors who sell only DVDs. Again, this is something you likely wouldn’t do if only selling your collection but if you are trying to start a business then doing small things like that can help you get a leg up on the competition. 

These are a few factors you will want to consider if you want to start selling DVDs on EBay. If you are already a dedicated seller on eBay and find that your DVDs are not selling, one thing you could do is market your products on social media platforms like Instagram and Facebook. You could also make your own blog and put eBay links on your blog so that people know where to buy your products from.

Conclusion

These are just a few of the things that you should consider when trying to sell your DVDs online. For most people it is not worthwhile to set up an eBay account and go through the hassle and time of listing products online if they are only selling their personal collection. DVDs certainly do still sell well on eBay but that trend has been going down for many years and will likely to continue to decrease in the future. 

If you are trying to start a business online then selling DVDs probably is not the best place to start as streaming has continued to erode their popularity and it is likely only a matter of a couple of years until physical movies are entirely done away with. 

As of now DVDs are still selling on online platforms like eBay but the competition can be quite fierce and when you combine that with scammers that you will likely encounter DVD sales online are simply a tough business.