Reality check - a friend of the family bought an art supplies shop, built it up from the bottom, has a bunch of staff. the shop wasn't profitable for the first 2 years and it's barely making an even ground now if that. The fun thing about the owner is that her and her husband work separate jobs and their shop is funded in low times by their other incomes. If you think evilbay shop owners only buy and sell on ebay and that's their entire income, then I have to inform you that you have a sadly naive outlook on life.
The big stupid price sellers don't listen when you turn around and give them friendly advice on what will actually sell a model and still at decent profits for them, it doesn't matter about those sellers, what matters is the mums and dads and other randoms that acquire miniatures collections and plonk them up,a nd if there's even a tiny bit of labelling to guide them, a simple search shows the rare stuff as stupidly expensive, so up they go at those prices. Those lots are the ones that are huge prizes for our community, but with prices driven through the roof because of the big stupid sellers it doeasn't help anyone, new or older in terms of community association. These sellers existed in scattered amounts 4 years ago when I started acquiring my rt era space marine and tyranid/genestealer collections, now they are getting more and more commonplace. They're here, and for the forseeable future they are here to stay.
