Honestly I feel like the one man show brick and mortar are hit the most right now. I could be wrong but they get stuck with a lot and when margins get low they have to resort to selling things at cost, sorting through bulk for some playable 1$ cards… sounds really rough.
I appreciate the feedback! Yeah I’m definitely testing the waters right now getting as much insights in the community before I go all in to something:)
The difficulty with rating sellers based on adherence to condition guidelines is that there isn’t a unified standard for raw cards. TCGPlayer has a condition guide, but buyers/sellers mostly seem to ignore it.
Honestly, I think third-party grading and eBay are basically the solutions to this. TPG companies have internally consistent standards. And eBay is a good option for picking up raw WotC/EX-era cards since it requires sellers to add photos (unlike TCGPlayer).
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Yeah I use eBay for most of my purchases just because of the images. Still need to return occasionally from there since you can still hide some things from a couple photos.
I’d personally rather not have a third party looking at my cards. I just think more room for error,loss, damage. I know a lot of people do like it however. Ebay only does authentication guarantee but I’ve heard of some weird things going on with that service as well. I do think a marketplace to compete with eBay/tcgplayer would be healthy.
TPG is a pretty central part of Pokemon collecting at this point. Sure, there are some die-hard binder collectors, but for mint, older cards TPG is basically the only option.
Let’s say you want to buy a mint condition Skyridge Crystal Charizard. Or a mint condition Mudkip Gold Star. Like it or not, you have one choice: buying a graded one. Even on lower-end, pre-2007 holos, buying TPG cards is the only reliable option. It would be cool if I could just go on eBay and find a raw, mint condition Blaziken ex from EX Team Magma vs Aqua, but it can’t be done (or at least certainly not on a reliable basis).
So whether or not one personally likes TPG, it’s basically the only way to go for someone (like myself) who wants to collect older, mint condition chase cards. There’s no room for a marketplace for the cards most people on this forum collect because there simply aren’t many (or any) raw mint copies of the cards for sale.
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Inventory software that allows you to mass list/upload pictures in “batches”. It would ideally sync with ebay and keep track of sales linked to your COGS entered in when creating that batch. COGS would be linked to that listing and applied when the listing is sold. You can compare supplier profitability, get an inventory valuation for a given date, and track inventory seamlessly. It would be able to give you your P&L in an excel document for set parameters or dates. At the end of the year you can give the P&L and the 1099 to your accountant and you’re done.
I sell on Amazon and there’s software like this that they charge $69.99 a month for. Make something like this for ebay.
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An idea I had recently and started coding on was a platform that allowed regular users to set a buylist similar to how LGS’s and online shops have buylists. The idea being that it helps people quickly liquidate their collection to someone at (probably) a better price than selling to T&T or any other LGS at their buylist prices.
I ended up pushing it to the side as I became too busy, and never went back to it because I think trying to compete with the likes of TCGplayer or eBay as a startup with limited funds is essentially a losing battle.
I think most surface level & easy to think of ideas have already been done, and anything actually useful that you make will probably just get copied by those big guys anyway
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Hey Rob,
Just read through the thread and want to share some of my thoughts in relation to the various selling platforms. As a platform/middleman of a sale, be it pwcc/goldin/ebay or even paypal, when it comes to sale of a product one of their biggest drawing factors for buyers would be a certain level of protection for the buyer and seller.
From the buyer’s perspective, they might be willing to pay a 20% buyer’s premium on a pwcc auction on an already atrociously expensive item as; ultimately it will get him/her the card that was purchased, in the event of mishap (loss of cards) pwcc would have the capability to step in and provide guaranteed for it, thus giving the buyer confidence. When it comes to purchasing from other sites like ebay, buyers would generally not have to worry about ebay fees and they are covered under ebay buyer protection in the event the item is not sent out.
Similarly from the seller perspective, selling through the various platforms might require a certain percentage of fees to be incurred, ebay is around 12.9% and goes lower depending on sales prices; while pwcc does not take any commission after their revision. For ebay trust me, everytime i made a sale and look at the fees charged it pains me but; I know that ebay as a middleman is reliable enough to NOT disappear into thin air and would carry out the process of holding the funds paid by the buyer, and release it to me if the sale process is completed smoothly. For a newly set up site, it takes time to build this trust and if the only advantage is lower fees with all the risks involved, honestly the seller might be better off listing his card on facebook, instagram, and sell off the card whilst only incurring paypal fees. Chargeback from purchasers is also an issue faced by private sellers to buyers with malicious intent, they are rendered helpless when this happens. On a platform like ebay, if the buyer were to attempt a chargeback they will be doing it against ebay, which I assume is tougher to pull off thus giving the seller more assurance.
Several sellers concerns:
- chargebacks from buyers
- Sufficient exposure when they list a card for sale
- brand building (pulling off successful sales on a random ABC website wouldn’t build
up as much of a successful branding as compared to ebay (an account with 99-100% and 50k feedback speaks for itself to a certain extent for example) ; thus they feel inclined to stick to ebay) this is even more if the seller has a presence on social media and have been around for ages, like @smpratte. This is specially the reason why people are willing to pay even more fees to have their items consigned, at the end of the day sometimes the biggest concern for sellers is not the net amount of money they get but to pull off a successful, fuss-free sale.
buyers concerns
- Reliability of new sites to pull off the sale; especially for higher valued items.
2)After sale service - customer service (live chat function etc)
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How much Ruby/Rails/Javascript do you know? I’d be happy to integrate useful features into this site
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I’ve been collecting EX era cards the past 3-4 months and I feel you there. Lots of waiting and checking new listings to only a few raw ones. I collect binders/sets but seems like I am outside the majority.
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Recording COGS is something I have thought about recently. I feel like a lot of card stores I’ve gone to don’t mark down their cost when they buy collections. I could be wrong but this would be an important number I would want to keep if I ran a card shop. Sealed product is much simpler and can be tracked emetic no hassle.
Neat idea! I’ve thought of something like that too. Could be used for bulk as well. I’m a data analyst at a medium-large sized company and I’m always surprised at how long simple changes take to make. I think are definitely some advantages of being small and nimble.
Thank you so much for your comment Justin! This is really helpful. I’ve heard from some people on Facebook that chargebacks really hurt them. Anyway of getting around them? The only thing I can thing(other than size like ebay) is to use crypto. No banks to be able to screw sellers. Would knowing the platform has your funds escrowed in a public space make you feel more comfortable. I totally get that it’s a risk to buy/sell on a new platform.
Hi! I’m a data analyst so I’m more familiar to sql and Python but the past couple months I’ve been learning php and JavaScript. I have some more free time now as the past month has been very busy(just got married!
) Would definitely be interested in learning Rails and Ruby! What kind of experience do you have building web applications?
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Raw card binder collectors are the majority by a long shot. A lot of collectors of this nature are quiet collectors that you might never see or hear about. Maybe that is why graded collectors seem like the majority, because you see more of that.
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Are there any sites that have buyers list what they want and at what price they want it?
Wondering why there are many sites catering to sellers but not buyers. Or at least none that I am aware of/are available in my country.
That’s been my gut feeling… How can you tell? My feeling is from things like POP reports vs the amount prob printed. I haven’t done a deep dive on it however.
The only thing I’ve seen in Pokémon is bulk buying. Buy lists I haven’t seen. Someone earlier mentioned a website called Cardsphere used for magic the gathering. I really like their setup. You create a buy list and a sell list and mark how much you are willing to spend on certain cards. If a seller is okay with it they ship it to you and get what you said you were willing to pay. The buyer needs to put that money down before of course.
In terms of the # of collectors across all categories of Pokemon cards? Sure. But if we’re talking about highly involved collectors who purchase cards on a regular basis (aka people on this forum), then I’d imagine that graded card collectors comprise the majority.
Basically, if someone (like OP) wants to start a profitable business related to the sale of raw Pokemon cards, I’m not sure that binder collectors spend enough (collectively) to make it viable. Even TCGPlayer, a platform with tens of millions of dollars in funding propelling it, moves an astonishingly low volume of Pokemon cards. A TCGPlayer that relied solely on Pokemon cards simply wouldn’t be viable.
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