I got back into collecting a couple of months ago. And I thought I could maybe make a little money on the side flipping some cards as I found some decent offers and nice bulks. But after I’ve been more active on other auctioning sites. I wonder how so many people here can afford to have a store and make money off of it. Even on the smallest website people pay outrageous prices and pay often way more than their actual market value. eBay now even seems to be compared to the other sites.
How can some of you keep on having stores and keep a good profit margin? Is all your profit coming from buying bulk and buying out collections? Or are there some other ways or are able to get cards for a good price? Or do you simply settle for a really thin margin and make barely profit with a sale? After researching a lot and searching for so many pages I decided I probably just keep pursuing Pokémon as a hobby and hold on to some cards for a longer time.
But now I’m really curious how some of you can make a living out of this.
This is the mindset of somebody who wants to make (literally) a few bucks, while adding to their collection. And there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that.
But ask any big seller on here how many hours are spend and you quickly realize that there are better ways to make more money (but perhaps not more fun!).
The hours are long, the margins are thin, but genuine love makes it worth their while.
I manage to make a couple of hundred dollars a month from Pokémon but it’s nothing more than a sideline and never will be anything more than that. The things I sell on eBay are extras from bulk listings I’ve purchased often because there are one or two cards I want in the listing which are hard to find individually. The only time I’ve ever gone out of my way to intentionally buy cards purely to sell on was during the Munch promo period at the end of last year, but that’s very much a being in the right place at the right time situation and not something which happens often at all.
This is my approach to making some money back from Pokémon as a hobbyist:
Buy cards for your own collection (this is your hobby, after all).
Put aside any additional cards you pick up† which you feel could receive a high grade or are more sought-after.
Once you have a large enough stack of those (50+) get them sent off to PSA (this requires an initial investment).
List up those cards for sale on eBay, Instagram or where ever and start making some money back from your initial investment.
Repeat from step 1, using the profits from step 4 to cover the next set of grading costs.
This will be a slow process and will require an amount of luck, but eventually I think anyone following this should be able to start making some money. But this will not allow you to live off Pokémon: you are not a business, you are not making deals with distributors or being first to market with the chase cards from the hundreds of booster boxes you’ve opened for whatever set just came out.
† Additional cards includes bulk extras and good deals you may find along the way. I’m not saying all your profits will come from bulk, but for me bulk lots often hide the hidden gems which make the most money… however they also can contain a lot of crap which you’ll have to learn to just put aside or throw away.
For me I live a pretty simple life outside of Pokemon.
No Debt(interest bearing)
No drinking or drugs to suck out extra cash
Focus
Patience
I earn revenue from all of these:
Ebay
Personal Website sales and advertising
TrollandToad selling account
Patreon
Paypal direct invoicing
Youtube
EPN (Ebay affiliate links)
PSA Submissions
Also to cut costs:
Ebay Bucks
Credit card benefits
Ebates/Rakuten
Interest
I spend more time out of my day trying to manage all of these accounts, pay taxes, pay bills, etc.
It only takes a small amount of time to spend the money earned. There are always deals out there that have opportunity, you just have to pick and optimize that deal.
I wont go into much more as I have a place for that, but like the guys said above it does take a lot of work. The first 5 years or so was a grind. If you dont treat it as a full time job then it will never be that. Now I have the inventory but managing it all properly takes a lot especially when you are trying to stay on top of both retail and out of print product across 8 generations of Pokemon cards.
that’s also an uhm… interesting way to get to your 50 posts for the Secret Santa
Thanks for the in depth answer.
But I guess this is something that would not be worth your will if you didn’t have any passion for the cards themselves right?
I could never throw away any card.
Thanks for your answer Rusty,
Wow, I really respect your hustle. I was surprised when I asked you a couple of weeks ago about a price for a card I thought was cheap and you said you wouldn’t even buy it for that high of a price but now I understand how you got to be able to buy cards for that low.
Out of curiosity what do you mean by “you got a place for that” as a non native speaker I’m a bit puzzled.
@genchiro, “Out of curiosity what do you mean by “you got a place for that” as a non native speaker I’m a bit puzzled.”
I knew the answer was not being given in full so I was vague in an attempt to not advertise where I charge for that, while also being fair to the people who pay for that advice.
Probably more of an ebay instinct reaction from censoring my responses on there so long.
So are you saying you didn’t want to get into too much depth to avoid giving out free patreon advice? I’m a native speaker and still had a bit of a hard time understanding this.
Yes. Going over how to make a living off Pokemon takes a lot more than a few paragraphs. It certainly takes a long time to get there unless you have a lot of money to drop. It does not sound like you do and neither did I, so it is a grind to get there. Coming into the market now is also quite a bit different than it was for me. I know it would be much harder trying to differentiate yourself as a seller now.
Longer explanation, there is no playbook, but here is some perspective: “living off pokemon” is just running a business, but with much more risk based on knowledge of a niche market. If you aren’t willing to constantly work, adapt, take risk, then you have no business running a business in general, especially in the hobby industry.
Most businesses fail, because most people don’t have what it takes. The people who survive the test of time in this hobby have all the attributes: consistently hard working, adaptive, constantly taking strategic risk, and perhaps most importantly, interest. Without interest you won’t attain the necessary knowledge to thrive. If you think you found a niche in something, someone is right there competing. You hit a home run purchase, awesome, it might never happen again, and if it does, it won’t be consistent.
The only real answer is: hard work & risk, that is how people afford to live off hobbies. There are no guarantees in life, especially niche markets like hobbies. It is extreme high risk high reward.
I do more or less the same as what @pichufan, said. It’s a slow process and takes time, but you eventually can build up the cash needed to get some of the bigger cards you want. It can get tedious, but is worth it especially when you think how some of the collectables build value over time.
I remember my first big buy was my PSA 7 first edition zard for 450… Now it’s worth 2k any day of the week almost. It pays to be patient and feels good at the end of the day.
I don’t know why people act like being in the Pokemon business (or any collectible business in general) is so much different than any other business. It isn’t.
It doesn’t matter what you’re doing. Pokemon, real estate, accounting, construction, a medical practice, whatever. Running your own business (and doing so successfully) takes an insane amount of hard work. Obviously, certain businesses have varying degrees of difficulty, but that doesn’t change the fact that all of them take the same amount of dedication.
@genchiro, the way I see it, so long as you’re willing to invest the time and effort and you have elite knowledge of whatever field you are entering, you can make a living off of it.
It’s honestly not a complicated process. It’s just one that requires a TON of time, especially in the early years when you are just getting started. Some people (let’s face it: most people) are not cut out for it. The ones who are cut out for it are the ones who are willing to spend a ridiculous amount of time working and working and working to get what they want. They are the ones who are willing to stay up into the late hours of the night to get things done. They are also the ones who don’t take no for an answer.
If you have it in you to do all of that, then you can be successful in any path you choose. But you have to believe it, and you have to be the one to follow through on your goals. That’s the thing with starting your own business: you don’t have a boss telling you what to do or paying you. You are your own boss and you are on your own. In that sense, it’s a double-edged sword, because it might be a while before you begin to take in a consistent income, but with the time and effort, it can be done.
Also, my advice: assuming you have a normal job that you work, do NOT quit. Bust your butt at that job so you can generate enough income where you can spend it on your business and so you have a regular source of income as you build your business. Then, once you start earning enough doing Pokemon and you are confident you can do this full time, then you can go from there.
It’s a long, hard, exhausting process, but if you can just get through it, there is nothing more rewarding.
Don’t let anyone tell you that you can’t do it. Believe in yourself, work hard and BUST YOUR BUTT and you will get there.
It’s bread and butter concepts into a higher foundation. From working into one niche to another like art, it isn’t especially a different core plot and involves expanding reach and knowledge but also trying what you haven’t done before. Escorting, hallucinogenscoffee and Deathspell Omega.
It all depends, capital is a big thing. If you have low capital you’re going to have to grind a lot, 10 years ago I’d be fussing over $200-$500 deals and sorting through 10s of thousands of bulk for 8+ hours a day and buylisting it to stores, selling the worthwhile singles etc. Now because my capital is so much higher and my free time is lower I couldn’t think of anything worse than grinding like that, those kind of deals aren’t worth the time and effort anymore, instead I buy ‘expensive’ things that I think will appreciate and just sit on them because I can afford to tie up the capital and play the long game.
Basically, there isn’t really a ‘one answer’, there are a lot of ways you can do it and it all depends on your current financials and time availability.
