What I learned from my own eBay comic store: 6,566 listings by the numbers
I started selling comics on eBay in November 2023, after I bought a neighbor's whole collection for $600. The store, comiccollectingenthusiast, has passed 11,000 sales since. On 4 October 2026 I downloaded my active listings report from Seller Hub and counted everything in it. This is what a working back issue store looks like from the inside: 6,566 listings holding 12,491 copies.
No title, item number or buyer is in this post. Every number is a count of the whole report.
Two thirds of the store is $2.99
4,336 of the 6,566 listings, 66.0 percent, are priced at $2.99. That is my price for an ordinary back issue, and most of a back issue store is ordinary back issues. The next four prices are a long way behind:
| Price | Listings | Share |
|---|---|---|
| $2.99 | 4,336 | 66.0% |
| $5.99 | 308 | 4.7% |
| $4.99 | 258 | 3.9% |
| $9.99 | 222 | 3.4% |
| $3.99 | 190 | 2.9% |
By band, 74.5 percent of the store is under $5, 21.0 percent is $5 to $19.99 and 4.5 percent is $20 or more. 46 listings are $100 or more. The median listing is $2.99. There are 90 different prices in the store, and 98.1 percent of listings end in 99 cents.
The shelf is the 1990s
6,250 titles, 95.2 percent, name a year. Of those:
| Decade in the title | Listings | Share of dated titles | Median price |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1990s | 4,187 | 67.0% | $2.99 |
| 2000s | 815 | 13.0% | $2.99 |
| 1980s | 720 | 11.5% | $2.99 |
| 2010s | 221 | 3.5% | $5.99 |
| 1970s | 138 | 2.2% | $9.99 |
| 2020s | 132 | 2.1% | $12.99 |
| Before 1970 | 37 | 0.6% |
Two of every three dated listings are from the 1990s. That is what turns up when you buy collections. The 1970s books are fewer, and their median is $9.99. A year in a title can also be a book's or a toy's, so the newer decades' medians are not comics alone.
Who published it
Counted by the publisher the title names (a title can name two, like WildStorm and DC, so these overlap):
| Publisher in the title | Listings | Share |
|---|---|---|
| DC | 1,742 | 26.5% |
| Marvel | 1,235 | 18.8% |
| Image | 1,066 | 16.2% |
| Valiant | 454 | 6.9% |
| Malibu | 385 | 5.9% |
| Dark Horse | 195 | 3.0% |
| WildStorm | 169 | 2.6% |
| Archie | 57 | 0.9% |
Valiant and Malibu each outnumber Dark Horse here. If you buy 1990s collections, learn them.
Lots and sets are about one listing in seven
921 listings, 14.0 percent, hold more than one comic: a lot, a set or a run, going by the title. The median lot or set is $9.99; the median single is $2.99. The lots guide covers how to title and weigh one.
A third of listings hold more than one copy
2,129 listings, 32.4 percent, have a quantity above one. Together they hold 8,054 of the store's 12,491 copies, 64.5 percent. The deepest listing holds 66 copies. When I have copies of the same issue in the same grade range, they go on one listing and the quantity goes up. Copies in different grades each get their own listing.
What the titles look like
- The average title is 61.1 characters of eBay's 80. 869 titles, 13.2 percent, use 75 or more, and 122 use all 80.
- 95.2 percent name a year, and 37.8 percent say "Comic Book".
- 1,944 titles carry an old sale tag, "Back Issue Sale" or "DOLLAR Comic Sale". 1,942 of them are on my older listings, the ones with only a box label. On the listings with a label for each comic, 2 do.
Box labels and comic labels
2,951 listings, 44.9 percent, carry a label for the comic itself: the box,
a dash and a number, like 44W-012. 3,588, 54.6 percent, carry
only the box, and 213 box labels sit on two or more listings. 27 have no
label at all. A box label tells you which box to open when something sells.
A comic label tells you which comic to pull. The
custom labels guide has
the pattern I use now.
An item number is not a listing
When I counted which of my listings under $5 were gone between May and August 2026 by eBay item number, 61 percent had disappeared. Counted by my comic labels instead, it was 30 percent. The difference is relisting: a relist, a sell similar and an ended and relisted listing each get a new item number. If you work out your sell-through from reports, count by your own label, or you will think you sold twice what you did. Gone also means sold or ended; a report cannot tell the two apart.
What a price guide says about the dollar bin
In September I checked 200 of my comics against PriceCharting with a strict match: the same series, the same issue, the year within one and the same variant. 136 matched. For the 90 of those with an asking price in my 13 September listings report, the guide's value was a median 0.77 of my price, and 80 percent were within 2x either way. Under $5 the median was 0.94. From $5 to $20 it was 0.68.
So the guide agrees with me on the dollar bin and reads lower on the middle band. That is one store's prices. On a mid-priced book I go with my own judgment from experience, with the price guide chips on Point and Sell's review screen as a second opinion.
Why this is the store I built Point and Sell for
A store like this is thousands of $2.99 books, listed one at a time, each with its own title, year, publisher and label. That is the work I wanted off my table. Point and Sell turns phone photos of a box into eBay listings: each comic gets its title and item specifics, and its custom label from your box label. It shows the PriceCharting value beside a comic it can match, and your own history once you have some. It never sets your price.
Try it on a box · Why I built it · More guides
How I counted
From the active listings report eBay gives in Seller Hub, on 4 October 2026, using its Title, SKU (custom label), Price and Qty columns. A lot or set is a title that says lot, set, complete series, complete run or full run, names a range of issues or more than one issue number, or a count of comics, issues or books. The decade is the first year in the title. A publisher counts when the title names it. The relisting and price guide figures come from my earlier reports, as dated above. You are welcome to quote any number here with a link to this page.