Scouting For Toys Reviewed + Buying From Vectis - For The First Time! 

Hi Jules, Great video. Vectis are a professional company and do take customer feedback as an opportunity to improve. Hopefully we can respond to some of the issues raised. Vectis ship up to 8,000 lots per month (not items, lots which might have multiple items in). We are a niche, specialist company and therefore the packers are professional in what they do, for example carded Star Wars figures can be extremely difficult to pack and the greatest of care must be taken. In response to the uplift in interest we have recently taken on THREE extra packers and now have a team of ten people to pack and ship, constantly. The new members will take a few weeks to be up to standard but we are working to shorten delivery times significantly. We also try to be competitive with pricing, we could charge a lot more but this would I am sure then be a cause for complaint. We also offer several other options - 1. Collect items in person from the Head Office in Thornaby or the Oxford Office (by arrangement). 2. Collect at one of the exhibitions we attend - this is a FREE and popular option for many. 3. Arrange a courier or third party to collect on your behalf. Commission charges - we are a business and therefore provide a service at a cost. You might compare this to online sellers such as ebay, their total fees can in some cases amount to 13 - 20%. In this case you have not factored in any time to list, deal with queries (of which there can be a vast amount), insurance, administration and PR. We do all this for you, it depends how mush time and expertise you have. A collection of a few hundred could take weeks of solid work for a lay person. The fee includes VAT (nothing we can do about this in the UK, we can provide option outside UK). It is not an even platform to compare a professional business with something like ebay. A comparison of Auction Houses would show we are about average, certainly not at the high end. As a buyer we hear comments regarding commission on top, my advise to any bidder is to think about the value of the item to you. If you would be prepared to pay £100 at a toy fair for the lot, then take off the 25% and either bid £70 or push to £80, you will still be nearer your ideal (or even bargain) figure you want with the commission and no shocks. We are glad a few people liked the programme and we would urge anyone with an interest to contact UK TV Play to ask for a second series :) we hope this tries to explain a bit behind some of the decisions. We are ALWAYS happy to listen to our customers but also need to reflect that we are a business, so in the case of things such as commission, we can't not charge but can help you with what you pay. If anyone would like more information or have any more suggestions for us, please get in touch.

Thanks for the video highlighting your experience. Scouting for Toys does feel like an ad for the company but perhaps it just reflects their good customer service.

Looks like you scored quite a few new Matchbox. Love the ones that look like it's really a Matchbox. 😃 The Old Robots look exciting to me. Always did want some of them and the Ray Guns. I did buy a Goose from a man and he swore my golden eggs would be along shortly. Then I'm buying some Robots. Take care Jules. 👍😃❤️

Vectis have always been slow on shipping but as you will know they have so many items to ship. I for one hope this leads to more toy and collectibles shows, we've been crying out for this kind of thing for years. I am hoping to do a selling process video in the future.

Another enjoyable video Jules. I was very surprised to see that the matchbox cars you won were stuffed into a box together with just packing peanuts. I would have expected something won at auction to be bubble wrapped if not at least individually wrapped before going inside that box. Leaving them tight in there might have restricted movement but could have easily scratched or dinged the boxes. I don't know if the boxes have as much value as say vintage Star Wars but I still found it surprising.

Thank you Jules, quite interesting. I've been primarily interested in paper collectibles for decades now, so I love your Matchbox cardstock item! I guess I should be thankful that an ebay auction item I purchased this past week took only 3 days to arrive ('70s Savage Tales magazine 2, 5, 6), but the expedited shipping was a little high-priced, and I would've chosen a slower option if available. Glad your items arrived safely.

Superb vid as usual Jules, but that 25% as well as the 20 day wait would be a strong No from myself, especially considering that purchasing from the USA via eBay can easily take less time to arrive!

Totally agree with you it is exciting bidding about two weeks ago. I accidentally bid on some toy farm stuff but when I got home I was presently surprised with Britannia toys and lesson learn don’t touch the red button lol , I was bidding on 10 items and got six so was very pleased then a person must take into consideration. The one time fee to join auction is fees including VAT and postage but all that taken into consideration I still got a very good deal explains to other people who are not familiar with online auctions

I watched the show and enjoyed the toy parts but found the general theme to be so money orientated that it was quite depressing. Especially the episode on the guy who was just flipping lego. Basically the show was just about how much 'value' they all had. And vectis seemed to have one rule, value it low and hope for a bidding war. I've heard many times that the fees added are excessive. And seeing what you got charged, they really are. It's not something I would ever take part in or bid on. But glad you are happy with the process and fees. I'll stick to the toy fairs :D

What I don't like that I didn't know before the show highlighted it, was that all the lots are just left in boxes for members of the public to come in and manhandle as they please. Given condition is a huge part of the price and some of these pieces are in the thousands they really shouldn't operate it like a free for all jumble sale! Oh and I have bought from Vectis about half a dozen times over the years.

Thanks you very much . This series sounds interesting . Need to find where i can view it . Hope you got some cool items . Thanks and bye .

The show was very misleading as not once did they mention the additional 25% buyers premium added to the sell price each time. Every time they showed the price something sold for it didn't include this so was a lot less than the bidders actually paid.