I am going to my first real notable card show. There’s only a few cards that I am hunting for my personal collection. Will probably spend quite some time there, so thought I might try my hand in flipping, if for nothing but for fun.
Not something I typically do so thought I ask the flippers here for some advice. What are you looking for typically? The odd underpriced items, buying larger lots at a discount. Is it better to sell them on eBay or at another local shop. Where and how are you typically going out to look for value.
In all seriousness, I think every event will have its own microcosm of a market on what is hot and what is not. If you will spend a lot of time at the event, maybe you can find out what is selling the best and kind of keep trading up and see what you end up with.
Would love to know what you managed to start with and what you ended up with.
You’ve pretty much called out the options. Some dealers may have mispriced items, and there will be plenty that are willing to offer you a discount if you buy in bulk. If you’re in the grading game, you can also look for mint copies of desireable cards with the intention of grading them before selling.
The important part is doing the math beforehand to make sure there’s actually a margin for you, particularly if you’re selling on eBay.
I wouldn’t bother trying to sell to a cardshop, they’re looking to buy at the same prices or lower than you are.
Most card shops I’ve seen offer 80% of market price.
If you’re looking to flip your best chance is to buy a table and vend during the event. Participants understand and accept that you’ll give them less than if they were to list it themselves
Good point and I totally forgot about this. If you already have some inventory for sale you could absolutely buy a table and advertise that you’re buying cards.
Echoing this. As a normal show attendee, you may be able to find good deals on a few things or even make a big bulk purchase but most vendors aren’t going to sell to you at some crazy discount that will make “flipping” worth the effort. Every vendor is going to look up the market value of their items and try to sell to you at that or maybe slightly lower if you offer them cash. You’ll likely then have to find a buyer online, deal with fees and shipping, etc. If you choose to vend you can buy from show attendees at whatever market % you choose to offer. It currently ranges from 70-80% market value.
You’d probably make more money working a minimum wage job then trying to flip card show vendor’s product
People definitely don’t realise how much of a ballache churning-and-burning cards is, at least in a manner that makes it even remotely viable. I work full time but took on some regular gardening jobs over this summer, not because I need to, but because I had quite a lot of spare time and wanted to fill it with something I enjoyed and that would earn consistent cash. (And good cash at that, wow…). I would take those lawn cutting and hedge/tree trimming jobs again over card flipping any day of the week.
So if you’re flipping just for fun, I’m assuming you don’t care about time value of money in this instance. You just wanna make some amount of profit. Is it CAC Chicago that’s happening this weekend? Or a small local show? Dynamics at each are different.
Vendors are obviously also trying to make a profit. Most people are going to want 90-85% of market value minimum for their stuff, that range is roughly comparable to what they can get for it on eBay after fees. I’ll happily take 90% of sticker for anything in my cases at shows. But at these prices, there’s no money left for another reseller to make any money downstream - so you have to do better than that.
Buying in bulk is the easiest way to get discounts, but you need a way to offload what you buy on the other end at a margin that’s worthwhile. It’s tough to get these discounts on popular stuff that consumer con-goers will buy for full market value or a slight discount all day.
Operate in niches. You can get deeper discounts on much more niche/promo/JP cards that people who vend in person don’t really deal with. Those do better on eBay, and not all vendors sell on eBay. There’s some easy but small money in picking out error cards. Anything with an alignment dot or misscut bought at market price is usually a win. Buying at shows is a great place to get cards to grade and flip since you can inspect cards in person. If your eye for PSA 10s is great, it’s not too hard to pick out gem mint cards to buy at 90ish% of TCG market prices. Again, your dollar-per-hour is gonna be pretty bad, but you can definitely do it for the satisfaction of making some money on Pokemon!
I’ve bought cards at events from vendors and sold cards to vendors, but I’ve never bought and sold the same card at an event.
I think you will find it challenging because in order for this kind of arbitrage to work, you have to find a card that either the selling vendor has underpriced or the buying vendor has overpriced. And typically the opposite happens at these events. Not to mention there are going to be hundreds of people attending with similar intentions or would do they same thing if they see the opportunity.
For arbitrage to work well, the primary thing you need to do is find a pricing inefficiency in the market. Like buying cards from Japan and selling them on eBay, or buying raw and grading yourself. In my experience, these type of card show events are extremely optimized, arguably even over-optimized in favor of the vendors.
I would recommend just going for the experience. You can try to flip things but don’t go in with high expectations.
I have a crazy idea for you. It’s probably illegal and no way would I do this but it’s the only thing I can come up with. Ok so take pictures of vendors cards, list them on eBay at buy it now prices for an amount you can make money on (if vendor will sell for $100, list for $150). Then if it sells on eBay go buy the card and ship it. If it doesn’t, pull the listing or pull the listing if the vendor sells the card.
