I can’t agree with this more!
Increasingly, many of my purchases and even the occasional sale are happening right here on E4. I’m looking forward to this community and the marketplace here growing even more.
2 Likes
I’ve found that half my sales here are for items I didn’t even want to sell. But here on E4 we are collectors and actually want to help each other. You won’t find that anywhere else;)
5 Likes
I, too, have sensed a spike in the Force.
The Pokémon card market is doing very well right now. Let’s hope it stays that way! #KAG2020 #KAV2018
2 Likes
Out of my last 10 deals; more than 50% were made through this site, another decent % through instagram and most likely 10% using eBay.
You might feel certain items are drying on eBay, or scarce, but in the social media generation, there are several platforms were items go on sale: i.e Facebook (groups like Virbank; Instagram; Mercari and yahoo JP).
While i agree eBay is clearly drying, i feel like the main factor of this is people deciding to sell using other platforms.
1 Like
Yes, that’s why I was sure to include the word “directly”. If a seller lists an item for $250 and a buyer buys it, the seller gets $250 (-ebay fees) whether or not there are taxes involved. Of course there’s the indirect effect where the buying power of the buyer is harmed. Taxes do cause a shift in the supply-demand curve according to microeconomics but I don’t know how much that applies to Pokemon cards compared to things like milk and oil because the we can’t suddenly produce more or less cards as a response to a supply-demand shift.
This is 6000 miles away from my original point though. I was just trying to say I don’t think sellers are avoiding ebay because of taxes since you can price your items however you want - at least when it comes to BIN - and clearly the sellers above who continued to sell on ebay are witnessing record sales, not the other way around.
I understand what you’re saying. It’s certainly true that buyers will think about the tax more, because they are paying it directly (as opposed to indirectly).
As far as the supply-demand shift you’re talking about, I think it’s reasonable to say that the taxes will cause essentially no shift in the supply, so the only thing being affected is the demand. That means buyers will be willing to put less money in the hands of sellers. So in reality, the seller is likely the one taking the brunt of the impact on the eBay tax, even if it’s happening indirectly.
1 Like
An overlooked benefit to the taxes is it’s just one more reason to deal off eBay,
I haven’t noticed a change at all since the tax implementation. While I don’t entirely agree with the principle, it hasn’t really deterred buyers.
1 Like
The tax was implemented at a time that happened to coincide with a time of great growth for the secondary Pokemon card market.
High as prices may be, there’s a theoretical limit to what people are willing to spend for any given item at any given time. So assuming people are acting rationally and treat the money they pay in taxes the same way they treat money that’s going to the seller, then all that tax money is just money that could have been going to the seller that instead is going to the government.
Normally in such a situation, sellers would also respond by producing less of the good. (Less supply = what’s available becomes more expensive). So both the buyer and the seller would share the burden of the tax.
But in this case, since the supply is essentially fixed, in theory just about all the burden of the tax should be going to the seller.
If only people were that rational! But most do not view taxes that way, especially when you can often find eBay sellers on Instagram and buy items without taxes or eBay fees. There are entire industries built to avoid state use tax laws (cough cough PWCC vault). People – Americans especially – simply do not equate an 8.875% sales tax (in my case) with an 8.875% increase in item cost.
1 Like
It being a relatively new change many Buyers are just getting used to it. I mainly bring it up via pm as another inducement to deal off auction. I can see eventually the buyers coming to me with that request.
Again, for *most* products, there will be a shared burden between the buyer and the seller.
But for the reason I mentioned (a fixed supply) the burden of the tax is completely on the seller.
I understand that many sellers don’t *feel* like this is impacting them, but it’s extremely simple stuff and if you sell enough cards it’s definitely impacting you (even if you’re doing better than ever due to totally unrelated factors).
2 Likes
I agree with the ebb and flow of deals. There are months where I will find nothing on eBay and months where I will get a bunch of good stuff. That being said, I think the market is becoming highly optimized for high-grade cards, the days of winning a PSA 10 (or even a PSA 9) of a holo/ex card at 60-75% of “market value” are gone. A bunch of factors are contributing to this, I have an article on what I think is happening coming out on Ludkins soon. People with graded cards especially know the market, and I feel like people are searching out graded cards more often. The high prices in 10s have led some to rightly make the comparison with 9s and realize that for a very small (arguably often imperceptible) drop in condition you can get it at a much lower price. Thus the demand has increased and prices rise.
I still see a lot of deals on the ungraded market though. Just in the past week or so I’ve snagged what I consider to be some really sweet deals.
5 Likes
Not really eBay sales but in Europe I’ve had a huge influx of sales through Cardmarket. Almost all my cards I wanted to sell have been sold for very good prices.
With that money I could buy a lot of nice things such as a bunch of Japanese booster boxes on ebay. That lead to almost doubling of prices on these boxes on eBay and some sets drying up, I think almost all because of my purchases.
So even sales through other platforms have an effect on the supply on eBay.
All and all it seems there have been some major new collectors joining in 2019 pushing prices and decreasing demand.
1 Like
There’s great deals late at night.
6 Likes
See @dbruze 's recent thread for proof of his claim. 
Even on Amazon (I know lol). There was a seller I bought a HGSS box from for about $500, and 2 weeks later they had the same one listed for $900. Now that it’s known that people are willing to spend good money on Pokémon, sellers will keep increasing their asking prices.
1 Like
It’s definitely the case with 1st edition Base. A few months ago, I decided to start collecting the PSA 10 holos, and in general the availability has been a lot lower than in the past. A big part is that PWCC has really dried up with respect to Pokemon compared to even a year ago.
4 Likes
I also started collecting 1st ed PSA 10 Base Holos a couple of months ago - there was a constant (maybe 1-2) supply on the european market of most of the cards (except for charizard, hitmonchan and blastoise maybe) which is completely gone now. If a new one gets listed it gets bought almost immediately if it´s not considerably above the going rate. I think a lot of people recently realized that some of the rarest cards are finite.
1 Like
With regards to the above 2 posts…
www.elitefourum.com/t/psa-10-1st-ed-base-holos-have-little-pop-growth-since-2018/25416/1
This is what happens when you have constant demand and diminishing supply.
1 Like