Hello everyone! I am a newer Collector and have been really getting into the hobby lately and loving it! But as I’ve started to expand my collection and start selling a few of my cards I’ve noticed how hard it is not to lose money on lower priced cards through selling on ebay. Since ebay takes 10% of the sale and Paypal takes 3% +.30$ and then there is shipping which would be $2.50-3.00 for one card give or take is it not worth it to sell cards $50 or lower? It comes out to losing 20% or more loss on sales of $50 and lower. I am starting slow and have been investing in less expensive sets like unlimited base set, fossil, jungle because the great joy of nostalgia and memories ive been getting and theres no price for that! But, I am concerned that my collecting at this level will ultimately always result in a loss if i choose to sell at a later time unless all purchases rise over 20%+. Does anyone else face this dilemma? Or do most people make sales in the 100$ range?
The solution to this dilemma is either just avoiding ebay and selling privately or the better option: don´t sell just buy. I personally never sell things below 50 euro as it´s not worth the hassle in my opinion. If you are that concerned about a (small) financial loss in the future you should maybe also reconsider the amount you are spending on the hobby as there is no need that something that should bring you joy makes you worry.
Thanks for the feedback! I really am not super worried about it, just concerned with the ability to move cards for different cards I may want in the future without incurring continuous losses. I also am just super curious and intrigued on how other people manage this. Like I see people like smpratte and other big names, who obviously have a big advantage over the common seller, who have huge amounts of sub $50 cards and sell them continuously and I am super curious on how they are not losing money through these transactions. Maybe only the big boys who get their cards super discounted? I’m not sure! But definitely interesting to think about IMO.
only buy cards that you would never sell
simple
Don’t sell at a price that would cause you to lose money. Factor in the ebay and shipping fees into your final sale price.
Another option would be to bundle lower tier cards cards together. This would raise the overall value of the listing to make it worth your while. How you bundle them is up to you. In Magic, a lot of people list 4 identical cards together rather than selling them individually.
Lower tier cards could also be sent in a Plain White Envelope. This lowers your shipping cost to about .50. If you go this route, just make sure you put some cardboard or something to prevent the card from bending. Someone recently sent me one that was inside of a greeting card which I thought was pretty cool. Just keep in mind there is no tracking if you go this route.
Aside from Ebay, Paypal and Shipping fees, you also have to be mindful of returns. You will have to eat the cost on some of your listings due to bad buyers, returns or lost or damaged packages.
This is no only an issue with things at the $50 mark. The fees will still cost you 13% whether it’s a $50 or $500 item. Proportionally it’s the same.
The real difference is in the fixed costs like shipping, where $3.50 is 7% of $50 and only 0.7% of $500. If the $3.50 will make the difference between profit and loss then your margins extremely small.
In other words, if you sell 1 item at $500 then you will take home $432.50
If you sell 10 items at $50 and you pay shipping 10x, you will take home $400.00
The difference is almost trivial. I wouldn’t sweat $32 on a $500 “investment”. If anything you should reconsider the price point you are buying in at since that will actually make a significant impact in this situation.
I should also mention that the effect of shipping will go up at lower prices (consider a $15 item) and will obviously have a larger cost if shipping internationally. The real issue with selling $50 items is the time/energy required to list and ship 10 things vs one $500 thing. Time is money. To mitigate basically all these issues, I’d recommend selling your stuff in lots.
Great thread. Something I’ve been wondering about as well.
What shipping option do y’all chose on eBay when sending in an envelope for .50 cents?
I’ve been sending my cards priority mail in a yellow padded envelope.
I like packaging well however I have some cards for sale that are less than 10 dollars. Bye bye profit.
I’ve always laughed when I see people selling cards on eBay for $3. Is it really worth all the effort of shipping and listing to net $2?
My main eBay Pokémon store only has listings over 50.00 for the above reasons.
Many top sellers sell loads of cheap cards and they do fine. Maybe some of those guys can chime in on how in the world they do it:)
2 dollars add up. Is it worth it? Currently not for me. Takes too long to list things. I usually only list 7 and up however even then it’s not worth it till you get over 15 in my opinion. When I price out a card most of the times I just put it away. I’ve got some listings sitting there for a long time at 6.75. I’m not going to lower them anymore. If they don’t sell at that price they are going back into a binder.
My shipping method for a single card with tracking in a bubble mailer costs normally around $2.50, is there anyway to get the shipping to be cheaper? I use the paypal printing label for shipping because I believe it is cheaper than just bringing to USPS yourself. But I am curious if anyone has found any other cheaper alternative methods?
who says you have to offer free shipping? There is also nothing wrong in selling sub 50$ cards, people tend to buy multiple cards if they are cheap. Same goes for 5-10$ cards, whenever I sell them on average I get a total order of 30$, and I have essentialy 0 base cost on them, since I buy them in bulk along the holo ones.
These people are doing God’s work.
Most of the high volume guys just eat the risk of shipping untracked. Volume is retail’s bread and butter. Some of the stores on E4 are doing 100’s of transactions a week. The larger stores do even more volume.
For individuals with no employee’s its a tough gig. If you have time to spare, feel free to make it work. But the volume model makes more sense with employee’s.
It isn’t really worth the hassle. But as someone who appreciates the cards and the community I think of it as making someone happy by completing his/her collection. You’re also not expected to put up many pictures or a long description.
With that being said I don’t go lower than 2,50€. I think big sellers on cardmarket or other sites who list commons for 0,02€ are trying to get people to buy from them in bulk by offering a larger portfolio.
Employees, or a wife and kids lol.
At my peak I was doing 200 shipments a week and paying someone $12 an hour to do the bulk of it. For ~$60 weekly labor I was able to move a lot of product and make a lot of profit. It still required a decent bit of my time that I don’t really have any more and it also didn’t pay me an hourly rate in excess of my day job. I can’t work extra hours at my day job though to make extra money, my hourly rate actually goes down the more I work as I am salary. So with that said eBay provided a side income that most of my collection was built off of… just profits from primarily sub $50 sales. That was both new and old product as I also currently sell, just a fair bit lower volume these days.
Some people are recommending lotting things together and selling in bulk to avoid getting eaten alive by fees. Well guys with the time to do it will buy that at a fraction of market value, piece it out and make money off it. How much an hour depends on how good they are at it, but there is certainly money to be made.
Doesn’t spreading them out turn to costing more per transaction because of the separate shipping costs? Thats the issue at hand, is that you lose almost a quarter of sales for sub $50 sales.
I think that if you are struggling to make a profit even with sales under $50 then there is something wrong with the prices you are initially paying for the card. If you are flipping a card for whatever reason you should know when you initially purchase it that your are getting it significantly under market value and that it has potential to be flipped if you don’t want to hang onto it. If It’s just a cool card at a normal price, I wouldn’t buy it with the intention of selling it on ebay as the market is huge and you aren’t going to make money with dozens-hundreds of competitors.
Also, for most card singles under $50, I’m okay taking the risk of sending it in a PWE. I know I risk losing everything, but it’s a risk I’m willing to take provided that the buyer looks legit and has a good reputation. With some cards under $50, it doesn’t make sense to send it in a bubble mailer for $4 because that might be half of the profit. Buy a small scale, weigh your own bubble mailers or PWEs, and put stamps on them.
As mentioned, find different ways to market and package your items. Put them in bundles and sets. Sellers who are posting $3 cards are usually big names who are making thousands of these micro transactions each year. IMO, putting together an ad and selling a $3 card and watching it during a week period isn’t worth the minutes it just took off my life. With that being said, you gotta learn and start somewhere. I started my collection a few years back by buying up a few collections, keeping some cards, and selling off the rest of the cards while just trying to break even. ( I had no idea what I was selling and I think I might have accidentally pawned off some valuable cards…but it was all part of the learning process) I have for sure bought cards before from sellers on ebay who took a loss on the deal and I’m was wondering if they were just trying to build up positive feedback or were they clueless…Not sure, but there is a learning curve… you are going to make mistakes. posting on this discord and getting some ideas and then trying them out is a great start. Find out what works for your schedule and budget but the first step has got to be to not take losses on ebay sales.
OldSkoolPokemon should chime in. He did a very good video about how he sells bulk for cheap. Seems to be working for him.
He has lots of very informative videos. You should check him out 