I have been selling on ebay for years, which means I also have usually been taking 11% loss on everything I sell. Now there’s no way I would have sold some of the things I have for the prices I have gotten without eBay but I have wondered how Instagram compares? Do you get many serious buyers? Is it more/less effective?
I would mostly be selling psa cards from a few hundred to a few thousand $.
Thanks
I’ve been selling cards on IG since I got back into the hobby last year. With that being said, it’s important to have a good position within the IG community, not just so you’re exposed to more people, but also so you come into contact with legitimate buyers, sellers, and collectors. For the cards I do let go, I would say 90% of my sales are made between 5 or less people. So far, I haven’t had a single negative experience on IG in regards to buying or selling, you just have to be smart about it.
the ebay fees you mentioned is an argument that buyers on IG will use to lowball on your items, nobody will pay you ebay prices on instagram
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My advice is don’t even bother with IG, just stick with ebay. Sure, if you want to showcase and share pictures of your cards on IG and potentially make a sale here and there, go for it, but don’t treat it as a marketplace or expect to get same prices as ebay without paying fees, that just won’t happen. Also you will encounter a lot of lowballers and annoying kids telling you that they can “easily” purchase the items you’re selling for way cheaper elsewhere.
I love ebay for the hassle free transactions and most of the sales being made without annoying negotiations and chatting, just the simple: buyer pays for the item, you ship it for them, and that’s it. Sure, the fees might be a little bit high, but how easy it makes things it’s totally worth it.
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I’m still pretty new to the IG scene myself, but I already have appreciated some private sales. I think it’s worth it to do some of the bigger item stuff on IG first before you go to Ebay. I also enjoy IG for trades as well. Just make sure you know the person is credible or you have buyer protections when you do a paypal transaction.
One thing I will say, however, is that there’s usually a lot more communication involved and has a bit more hassle. But for the lack of Ebay fees, I find it worth it 8 times out of 10.
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It has its pros and cons.
Pros:
- Occasionally being able to get better than eBay prices because of the lack of fees (though you’ll be lowballed out the wazoo for this)
- Ease of communication and negotiation
- A fairly large audience and an established selling culture
Cons
- Lowballers and children consistently asking if you’ll take 60% of market value because it’s not eBay
- Instagram culture of dubious refund claims, flipping to resell, and just general childishness (my favorite interaction was when someone agreed to buy something off of me, tried to resell it for higher on their page, and then didn’t pay when they couldn’t flip)
- People who pretend to be interested and you invest your time but they never really even considered a purchase
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Also: seller saying “make an offer” and when you make a reasonable offer they say “I’d be looking for a little bit more” and then they come up with a ridiculously high counter offer. Then you show them eBay sold listings to back up your original offer. Then the seller says “then you should just stick with eBay”.
And then the seller comes back to you couple days later with “hey are you still interested?”.
…and they still want PSA 10 prices for their PSA 9 cards.
_>
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I’ve never sold on Instagram but I have bought a couple of times from others.
Positives
- Messaging people is really easy and you don’t have to go through eBay’s messaging hurdles just to ask a simple question.
- Everyone I’ve spoken to is really friendly.
Negatives
- As soon as I mention that I’m in the UK more often than not the person I’m wanting to buy from will either stop messaging back or go down a path of “I don’t know how to ship the card to you as you don’t live in the US”, to which explaining how tends to lead to a dead end or a “The cheapest postage USPS offer is $50 to the UK” which I’m definitely not paying on some $5 card.
- I have no idea how to find people who are selling cards. Hashtags are difficult to use. The only people I’ve bought from so far have used the #pichu hashtag and the only successful purchases I’ve made have been on images which weren’t actually marked as being for sale.
Instgram Community grew a lot during last few months thats for sure. I find it there’s way more pros than cons, most of the instagram people know each other by now and at this point whenever a new collector shows us, there’s a trend to shout out him to introduce it to the community.
Cons in my opinions are raffles, razz or ‘‘waffles’’; or anything that introduces some sort of gambling that most of the times is arranged and ends up in a scam.
The good thing is you can actually block/not follow these guys.
My instagram feed is populated with high quality pictures and cards from most high end collectors.
If you jump into it, follow me @pokemonargentinatcg ; ill toss you a follow back and shout you out, i got a solid follow base and around 400-500 collectors browse through my insta-stories daily.
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I agree with your point entirely! Also, I already follow you. 
@pokemon_card_project
I see some of the highest prices paid for cards on IG. The buyer pool is less educated and more likely to impulse buy. Most of the cards I see on IG are overpriced.
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Like all selling platforms it has its pros and cons. I rarely sell on IG but ironically I am there often just checking post and photos. If you position yourself and learn the ropes it could be a positive place to buy and sell. But I would take my time and tread carefully, a lot of great guys there but also a lot of not so great guys 
First of all, thanks to everyone for the responses. It gives me a good handle of what to expect. I think the hardest thing might be to just starting out and actually getting people to see what I’m posting. Maybe I’ll lean it more to just showcasing what I have. @pokemonargentina I’ll take up your offer and I’ll let you know if and when I’ve created am account. And anyone else who wants to follow let me know too 
EBay has been a great place to sell for me. I do like not having to deal with third parties (as a buyer or seller). I’ll keep it as my main selling platform and just factor the 10% in as normal. However, I might move some things to sell there and see how I go.
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I’ve bought cards from as low as $200 dollars to as high as $5k off of Instagram. I’ve even purchased fron some posting on this thread. It can be hit or miss from a seller’s perspective. I’ve sold a few on Instagram, but it takes sime work. Most of my sales have come from cards that I had no intention of selling. A buyer sent me a pm on a card I was showing off with a great offer and I took it.