If you’re looking to sell those vintage toys that have been taking up space in your place, read this before you bring them into your local vintage toy store — it’ll save you time and maximize your potential profit margin.
Before we get into our tips on preparing and organizing your toys, let’s talk about the benefits of selling them directly to a vintage toy store like The Toys of Our Lives.
Why Sell Your Toys to Vintage Toy Stores Instead of Online Sites?
Online auction sites like eBay — or platforms like Amazon and Etsy — have been the go-to place for people who want to sell their vintage toys. While these platforms have their benefits, you must also remember that they are more of a buyer’s platform.
It’s easy to buy vintage toys online. You search for what you want and hopefully find great options. A couple of clicks later, they are paid for and on their way to you.
However, from a seller’s perspective, it’s not as easy. Each individual toy you want to sell has to be listed on whatever platform you choose to sell them on. And with each listing, you need to take and post pictures, write descriptions, research price options, run auctions, package and deliver items sold, etc. You also need to deal with shared sale percentages and various charges, which cuts down your profit margin.
In short, it’s a big hassle.
On the flip side, if you sell your vintage toys to a vintage toy store, you don’t have to worry about all of that.
You bring the toys in, we take a look at what you have to offer, and we give you money. You may make less collectively, compared to what you could sell each individual toy for, but you save yourself the hours and hassle of having to try to sell them online.
That said, you shouldn’t just bring those dusty bins and boxes full of dirty and worn toys accompanied by a chaotic array of loose accessories in.
You could, sure. However, you’re damaging your potential profit, and even jeopardizing the chances of the vintage toy store taking on such a hefty project.
Why It’s Not a Good Idea to Bring in Unorganized Bins and Boxes
You may think it’s easy for vintage toy store owners and employees to go through collections you bring in — but it’s not. They need to:
Go through each individual toy and assess its secondary market value.
Research whether it is complete with accessories or not.
Assess whether or not they have duplicate stock of what you are trying to sell.
Check out their condition.
Clean and repair them.
Price out what they can pay versus what they would have to sell each item for to turn a worthwhile profit.
Don’t get me wrong. Vintage store stores love getting collections in. It’s like treasure hunting for us.
However, we also get overwhelmed when customers seem to think of us as an option like Goodwill or other thrift stores that can take in big collections in any condition.
We can’t. We won’t. We just don’t have the time or space.
Most vintage stores are forced to choose as wisely as possible. Sometimes we regrettably need to turn collections or items away.
The easiest way to get turned away is by bringing in loose toys (especially mixed random ones from different toy lines) in boxes or bins seemingly straight out of the storage unit, closet, attic, or basement — meaning that the items are likely disorganized and in disarray, with accessories incomplete, missing, or scattered.
Again, respectfully, vintage toy stores are not thrift stores or Goodwill where you can just drop off your boxes and bins of stuff.
Sure, if you’ve got a bin or box full of loose figures and toys from highly collectible lines like Star Wars, G.I. Joe, Transformers, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and He-Man, we’re going to want to take a look. However, if the collections aren’t somewhat organized, it could take weeks for us to go through them to see if the toys are worth buying.
Understanding What Vintage Stores Will or Will NOT Be Willing to Pay
Here’s the thing — you’re not going to get the top price you’ve seen your toy or collection get on the internet. Many things factor into those prices.
Condition
Completeness
Platform Sold On
People usually look up items online and say, “Hey, I have that. It sold for $300!”
Or they will look them up on eBay and say, “Hey, this person is asking $600 for what I have.”
First off, just because someone is asking for a certain price doesn’t mean it’s going to sell for that. Secondly, even if you have a toy in excellent condition that has sold for $300, that doesn’t mean you’re going to get that amount from a vintage toy store. We have to pay the bills too — and earn a profit from sales. So, you could be looking at maybe getting paid out 30%-40% of the lowest secondary market value of the item.
However, on a positive note, you’ve then made X amount of money you didn’t have before as the item sat around in your place — and you didn’t have to go through any of the hassles and wait to try to auction each item to get to that high ticket buy price you found online.
Many vintage toy stores, like ours, will offer you a fair price. Another option is consignment, which means that the store will not offer any money upfront, but will profit share with you for a higher profit margin on your end in the long run. It’s all about perspective.
Tips on How to Prepare and Organize Your Toys BEFORE You Bring Them In
Okay, let’s close up with on what you can do to better maximize your potential profit selling toys to us.
1. Make Sure You Want to Sell Them
You need to be prepared to part ways with them. If you’re expecting to be offered lottery-like money for you to sell them, you likely treasure these pieces too much and it’s not worth your time or effort (or ours).
2. Do Your Research
If you’re ready and willing to take whatever you can get, great. We love that. Less work for us and you get some extra money quickly. If you want to get a fair secondary market value, do yourself a favor and do some research.
Read More: Are Your Vintage Toys Worth Selling
3. Go Through Your Collections First
Don’t just bring that bin or box of toys from wherever they’ve lingered directly to the store.
Go through them.
See what you have.
Separate them by toy line.
Research and locate items to complete each piece (if possible).
Separate all broken toys from unbroken ones.
This will help give you an idea of what you have and what you may want for them.
4. Organize the Toys As Best You Can
There’s nothing better for a vintage toy store owner or employee than having someone bring in a collection that is super organized! There’s no better feeling.
It’s not enough to just have gone through them. Organization is key.
The best-case scenario for a vintage store would be:
Separate all loose figures and have them in a baggie with their accessories (if applicable).
Have each baggie marked with figure name and from what line (and year) — or have a spreadsheet list handy with that information.
Have loose vehicles in their own bigger bags, or at least placed nicely with others in a container.
Have loose playsets in their own container.
Have everything in plastic bins, as opposed to boxes. We can either take the bins off your hands when/if we buy your toys or we can give you the bin back. We prefer bins over boxes for ease of storage.
Why should you go through all of this trouble instead of us doing it all?
We’ll be able to give you a better price knowing what we’re looking at.
We’ll be able to give you a quicker payout because we won’t have to go through everything while juggling store duties, other customers, and personal time.
We’ll have less reason to pass on your items/collections if you hand over a well-organized collection.
If you can do even just 80% of the above, that’d be amazing for both parties. But doing 100% of it would be even better.
What About Toys in Their Original Packaging?
Yes, anything that is in its original packaging would be ideal. There’s more secondary market value for anything in its original packaging.
The value of loose toys has gone down unless they are complete and in amazing condition. Even then, it will depend on the current market and collectibility of the toy line.
But if you have toys in their original packaging, the process of selling them to a vintage store is much, much easier.
What Toys NOT to Bring Into Most Vintage Toy Stores
It’s hard to remember that just because they have value to you personally — or are super old and rare — doesn’t mean there’s a market for them in the eyes of vintage toy stores and collectors.
Here’s a general guideline as far as what most vintage toy collectors do not want to be brought in for consideration:
NO toy train sets or farm toys
NO baby or toddler toys
NO no-name toys from dime stores, dollar stores, etc.
NO loose old dolls
NO Beanie Babies (they are hard to resell)
NO Raw Pokemon Card Collections (too many cards, too little time to go through them all)
As I wrote, any vintage toy store is thrilled to get new collections in for possible purchase. We love to find treasures. We love to find new homes for your beloved pieces from your childhood. Following these guidelines just makes it easier for us to give you the best price we can offer.