I am about to take a step back away from the hobby, and I was wondering what is the best way you would suggest me moving forward in selling cards? I actually did quite a bit of research before making this thread, but most thread questions about selling seemed to hinge upon being in the USA (meaning I cannot use GSP), so that makes things a bit more tricky for me. Furthermore, I haven’t sold a single card since 2010 so I feel like I might be missing some tips and tricks that would prevent me to be scammed on four-five figure transactions.
I’ll write down all the information I have accumulated to show I did my homework and I am honestly just worried about being scammed a few thousand dollars.
PWCC Vault/Marketplace: This was suggested to me by Qwachansey (Thanks again for giving me so much valuable information!) along with various other threads I have visited, and it seems like the safest bet. Problem I have is I think that they have recently changed the rules in regards to non graded submissions, so my guess is that I’ll have to manually get cards like my University Magikarp (for example) graded before selling, and with turnaround times that are 6+ months it means that I basically need to start planning to sell some of my cards for the next summer? Alternatively I can go through CGC, but another worry I have is that the cards will be moving four times: once from me to a grading company, once from grading company back to me, once to PWCC, and one more time to the recipient. This plus the fact that I’m guessing it’ll be more paperwork for PWCC to transfer me the money (I’m guessing Paypal) means that it’ll take more than half a year before any transactions of cards I want to sell to be completed.
Ebay: I think ebay is probably the quickest route for me to sell my cards, but with the lack of GSP I’m guessing I will have a high chance of being scammed. Most of the information in threads originate from sellers in the US, so any insights or suggestions on what I can do to protect myself shipping from Canada would be helpful!
Instagram/Facebook: Honestly from reading threads about selling from this route, it seems like its a bad idea, and the easiest way to get scammed unless I have a strong following and know members in the community very well, which I definitely do not compared to knowing efour members.
This thread is mainly just to ask if going the PWCC route is the best option after seeing what I wrote, as after I follow through with this I basically would have sunk at least a few hundred dollars in grading fees /“PWCC fees”. I don’t want to realize later on that there was a better option out there, as it would be a major hassle to back out later on and getting my cards back from PWCC.
For Mods: Please lock this thread if you feel like I have been adequately answered, as I do not want to make this look like a sell thread. Do note that I have nothing listed in regards to ebay/instagram/other posts on what I am planning to sell, so this really is not an advertisement for selling, but a genuine concern because I am extremely out of the loop in regards to selling for the first time in a decade.
Thanks for the response! But as respect to Mods and to show my genuine honesty in regards to making this thread to also help future Canadian sellers, I purposely did not tabulate the cards I am willing to let go in my collection as of yet!
I have experience selling from both the US and Canada so hopefully I can help you out here.
For high value graded stuff right now PWCC is pretty much the way to go. Even with the shilling/nonpayment issues on a small minority of items, right now their fees are more than worth the increased exposure and avoidance of dumb eBay buyers.
For mid-value graded stuff I’d probably just look to PWCC anyway, the fees may be higher but again, I’d value the exposure and hassle-removal fairly highly. If you’re fine to deal with it yourself, mid-value stuff might be where you start looking to sell on your own. Shipping from Canada to the US is relatively cheap and reliable, even now. However more international destinations might be a problem in terms of shipping time and scam likelihood.
Lower value stuff you’re likely to be better off selling yourself on eBay. As I mentioned, shipping from Canada to the US (the major market) is not that bad. If you list on eBay.com as opposed to eBay.ca, I wouldn’t be worried about visibility or anything. Deliveries will take longer, you might get more INR claims, but the decision on tracked/untracked and where to put that line will be on you. Even with these factored in you’ll likely still make more money than a consignment service.
Instagram/Facebook can be helpful for avoiding fees. There are also lots of local buy/sell groups on Facebook so you could likely snag some Canadian buyers there. However if you aren’t getting people to pay via F&F (and lets be honest, nobody should pay a seller F&F unless they’re very reputable) there’s still the potential for unpleasant buyers.
All of these options have pros and cons. The pros with selling yourself on eBay and IG/FB will be you’ll get the money fast and you may maximize the actual monetary returns when all is said and done. The cons will be it’ll be more work-intensive for you and you’ll have to deal with all the BS yourself.
Pros of PWCC are the exposure (read: maybe more money) and the ease of use. The cons are the length of time it will take to get paid, the requirement for graded cards, and the issue of nonpayment. If an item isn’t paid for then it’s another month for it to be re-auctioned, which can be a pain if you are planning to do something with the money relatively soon.
I think PWCC is the way to go as that’s the route I plan to take if/when I sell my collection. Are there people on efour you could reach out to? Not necessarily for a sale but I’d imagine if you’re selling trophies, there would be people interested or people who know people that would be interested on here. Not sure if that’s against the rules, if it is then disregard, but wanted to throw another option out there for you, fellow Canadian seller.
Thank you so much for answering me so quickly! (and thanks for editing my post, I really did not want to break any rules so I’m happy you fixed any issues I had with anything I wrote).
Based on your advice, it seems like I will probably have to stick with PWCC; I think the lowest in regards to the cards I am selling is probably at least 1000$ USD, and highest can be 10,000$ USD or more. Only 2 other worries I have with PWCC aside from turnaround time is probably if the auctions don’t go as expected, especially if I have cards that are expensive but more niche. Qwachansey mentioned PWCC vault to me but I am unsure how much exposure it has right now, seeing it’s a new program that just came out.
Ebay-wise, I think you have the pros and cons on point. I am used to dealing with sales back in 2010, but the difference is I would write losses on cards that are <20$ if things go south, whereas I can’t imagine randomly losing 1000$+ because a buyer tries to scam me out of a card.
I honestly can’t imagine selling locally in Canada, seeing that the average median income here is 25k USD I really can’t see someone meeting locally with me to drop a few thousand dollars on a single card. I know Virbank Pokemart is controlled by Charlie so it would be one place to look at, would there be any Canadian focused groups you would suggest?
Honestly PWCC auctions are really really good for higher value niche items, as Ethan mentioned it provides exposure to the card as these auctions practically are an event in themselves. If you are adverse to this then there is always the ability of just having a standalone BIN post on your ebay if you are worried about it not going for the price you want it on auction. Be prepared to wait a bit longer though.
I’ve had a lot of good experiences on there so I’d recommend checking it out. I don’t know that I’d recommend selling anything like a trophy on there but it’s worth checking out at least. Cheers!
I would agree with most of this but apart from a few points.
List it on eBay.ca and don’t bother with .com. I see all the cards listed from US, CA. AUS or the EU. The exposure is the same. The only difference is eBay points them out as “international sellers” which doesn’t really concern the US (main market) as there are no customs. The only listings that fail to grab attention or come up first in search results are the ones with bad picture / incorrect listing. My one tip is to add the word “Pokémon” as a prefix. I can only see cons while listing on .com as it’s not your home country and some eBay rep might take that as a point so to give the winning case to the buyer. Semantics I know. And since most of the times it’s the buyer that wins, don’t give them any more reasons lol
Selling on FB is fine. Haven’t done IG but Facebook is more secure with people with real names and you have the group members to validate certain people. F&F really doesn’t matter. It can still be chargebacked. If anything I would never go the route of F&F because if the buyer chargesback you will guarantee lose a case with PayPal as you’re not allowed to sell with F&F. It’s meant for uhh…friends and family. You’ll lose your money and your card. And worse, if found out you’re misusing F&F (which they will since you’re opening a case) to avoid fees, they can shut down your PayPal. If you want any kind of seller protection you do the transaction with G&S. I would only do F&F if it’s a reputed buyer and you can confirm that on FB groups. The Canadian group is Pokémon TCG buy & sell Canada and Pokémon North - TCG buy and sell
I totally agree with PWCC for the most peace of mind transaction. While I have never used them (but will use them in the future) my understanding is their fees is not really high as compared to eBay. eBay charges you 10% of sales + 1-2% PayPal fee. And PWCC is also around 13% I believe. I’m not sure on the exact numbers but the difference is not that high and you’re guaranteeing safety for yourself plus a higher exposure which may translate to better value as well
No matter the value of the card, get them graded. People send trophy cards, alpha, 1st edition charizards etc. and everything comes back. The horror stories get the most exposure but they are far and between. No one talks about the smooth, dare I say, millions of transactions with sports cards and tcg. If they are high value cards use the 5 day option and get your cards back in a month. Sure the fee is high if you’re selling something worth 2k at an average does $100-150 towards the cost really matter if safety and a quick delivery is your concern. And if you’re profiting 10x with lower grading fee as an example, it really wouldn’t matter to make it 9x again for the ease of transaction and safety in general.
Apologies for the long post but I hope it helps. Good luck!
@hamster, thank you for your response! I think I’ll do a hybrid approach based on what I am seeing then. I do think niche trophy cards are hit or miss sometimes for PWCC auctions, and I am just afraid I severely undersell if somehow the card does not get traction for that specific auction. I don’t mind my cards being sold lower than market rate, but if it sells less than its raw price it would be a huge bummer. Some of the cards I am planning to sell are rarely sold in the marketplace in PSA 10 condition, making it hard for buyers and sellers alike to estimate its value.
@arkhive, thank you for your suggestion! I’ll take a look at it later tomorrow and see what are the typical cards being sold there!
@fizzyadrenaline, thank you for your advice! Those are really valuable tips, and I suppose now my options mainly would just be checking efour buy threads and PWCC to avoid any headaches in the future. For ebay, I guess I’ll put that on the backburner for now while I deal with higher end transactions securely first! I’ll also give Facebook a look since you and arkhive both suggested the same facebook group, but I’ll be very wary of doing transactions unless it’s local with the group due to the chargeback issue.
So instead of creating my own thread, and perhaps in the service of aiding @nuttun simultaneously, I will ask:
Why is it that PWCC route prevents potential scammers? What if PWCC’s listing of your card was sold and shipped to a scammer who tried to do the classic scam of returning NAD item and returning something else? Why and how are you covered? I would think it would be the same mess as if you did it yourself. PWCC wouldn’t still pay you I would expect–I expect they would just say, 'sorry, we tried".
Is there a way to prevent being scammed as a relatively new seller? Or at least have some chance eBay sides with you/refunds you in case something does happen? It always sounded to me like you just need to hope nobody tries something shady - and if they do you’re basically out of your money/card (unless you’ve thousands of succesful transactions over the past x-years)
Facts or just a thought? Never heard of eBay siding with the buyer because it wasn’t listed on the site the seller is originally from
The way to get scammed is choose the right buyer. By that I mean sell to accounts with good feedback. Not saying new sellers are all scammers but if you’re selling to them it’s a risk you’re taking and it’s upto you to decide if it’s worth it or not.
On the point of selecting the location as your own country is because when you list shipping (and say you have selected US) and it’ll give you options with USPS while I’m in Canada and ship through Canada post. Computational problem lol. Also if someone overseas buys your item their import/custom duties might be different from country to country. They may get hit with x percentage from US and y percentage from someplace else (your actual shipping location). There’s multitude of reasons why you shouldn’t do it. As I mentioned usually it won’t be a problem. The problem arises when a buyer files a case due to any reason. You don’t want to give more reasons to eBay to send the verdict against you.
@fiery,: Did you ship through USA or Canada? Just wondering because shipping itself from Canada would be an issue, and I was wondering how you approached with shipment of high valued items through post. Arkhive gave me good pointers through PM, but wondering how you managed it. How was your success with the vault vs the monthly auction?
@brendantheclayboy: Very fair question you’ve asked that I am curious as well! I can already see a layer of protection versus selling yourself, since ebay knows that PWCC would not pull any “empty” box scams compared an ebay seller, so the best they can do I am guessing is returning items that are “not as described”, in which case they cannot also send back fake items as PWCC would explain to ebay the scam. Not sure what would happen if a chargeback happens though.
@fizzyadrenaline, Thank you for your detailed answers and advice on this thread! Honestly I would love to do some ebay selling myself, but the first few cards I am letting go are quite expensive, so I think if I start an ebay store with all your advice, I should sell cheaper cards to garner a selling reputation first with ebay.
Well then if that were the case, the answer to my question would be that PWCC has special entitlements in ebay’s eyes, and is effectively scam proof as it is their word against buyers. This just does not seem likely. Hope there is someone who can shed some light upon this. Everyone seems to say PWCC is safer. I can see them being less stress and work, but I don’t see how someone couldn’t just pull the same crap on PWCC as they might on an independent seller. I know PWCC wouldn’t be accused of empty box scams. I would worry that they would just claim it isn’t as described and just send back something else. I don’t see how PWCC would have any leg up against anyone else in going to ebay and explaining the situation. Hopefully there is, and I would love to hear from someone who might know. And it would surely help Ditto out as well.
. What cards have you got to sell?
(Kidding…kinda)