Is it worth buying bulk?

I’m considering making some offers on nm bulk lots just wondering if it’s worth it? Basically between 2-3 cents a card. What you guys think?

yes very worth it hmu to buy my bulk!

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depends what you want to do with it. it can be very lucrative, but the work involved…

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If someone paid me 2-3 cents per card I would consider taking their bulk, yeah.

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I was looking at some 1k lots people want 50-60 bucks for English and Japanese lots. I was looking at around 20-30 bucks for the lot. I would hold it for awhile and maybe try to move them for a little a more. Make a small profit. At 20-30 bucks for a large lots I’m not really investing that much money it. I have spent 20 bucks at a Taco Bell adventure for myself :joy:

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There is no “moving” or “investing” in bulk.

Take it from someone who sells bulk regularly on TCGPlayer: it sucks. Your clientele will be players. If your bulk moves out of rotation, good luck selling it.

There is a reason why most large stores pay $10 per 1,000 bulk cards.

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I get it. My theory was for a lot of those rev holos and a common holos. See if I can make off that at at 20 bucks a pop I could afford the gamble.

Buying bulk, sorting the playable cards and selling the rest in 50-100 card lots on eBay or Amazon can be decent money but it is soooo much work. Competition is insane, sourcing bulk can be a pain, it takes up a ton of space and if you get past all those hurdles you still have to do some of the most mind numbing work this hobby has to offer… Enjoy

Ps yes I have bulk selling ptsd

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sounds good in theory, but in practice its pain

If you’re committed and interested in selling bulk on TCGPlayer, I would suggest watching this guy’s videos:

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As an investment at least no. You won’t find an Unikarp in there. If you really have free space and like the arts, sure why not.

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Everyone gives straight answers, but as with most big questions in life and business, it depends.

  • Do you have a job/business? What is your time worth?
  • Do you want your hobby to make you money?
  • Do you want to get into selling/grading, even if it’s at a loss (not necessarily)?

These questions and others may determine the answer in your case, but in my case, No. Dealing in/with bulk is not worth my time. :cry:

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@smpratte may have a different opinion on finding unikarps…

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I trade semi-modern product that I never got around to opening for bulk just to stock my local area and give to kids, but would definitely say its in general not worth the time that you put into sorting it, finding damaged cards, people not sending the correct amounts or types that they say they are, etc. Some people would view it as your time is money and not only are you likely not going to be making a decent wage just sorting it, you still have to list, do social media or advertise buying it, and any other things on the business side. That said, if you arent doing it for profit and just enjoy bulk, it can be enjoyable to some as a personal activity.

Its kinda like recycling metal, some people can make it a business if they put their all into it and have the know-how for monetization. Some people maybe break even but at least feel good about doing it. Some had the goal of recycling in the first place and regardless of time spent any money made is just a bonus to what they wanted to do.

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Depending of many factors:

  • Collecting Purposes: Bulks are only recommended if you want to complete expansions and if you’re doing, what I call, a Master Collection (term I use to refer to “As many languages as possible and as many variants as possible”). In most cases, bulks are full of cheap cards or even, in some cases, Energy cards, so don’t expect to find something extremely rare like a Full Art.
  • What you buy usually: Consider that Bulks are only worth buying if you don’t buy Booster Packs, Booster Boxes, ETBs or similars. Bulks are only useful if you buy Single cards. It helps you to “catch up” with expansions (what I mean is something like: “With Bulk you try to complete commons and you buy Rare cards or Full Arts”)
  • Content of the Bulk: In some cases, sellers can say that bulk only contain cards of a series (For example, they can say that the bulk contains cards of SwSh series) and in base of that, you decide if buying or not. Even, if you’re lucky, they can show pictures of the whole bulk. This is even better because it’ll help you to decide.

Believe me or not, Bulks sometimes can be cheaper than buying each card. I give you an example from my country: There’re some shops that sell bulks of 500 cards for S/100.00 ($27). It’s cheaper than buying booster packs or single common cards.

Oh, and also, if you think that you’ll get any profit with bulk, the answer is that it’s extremely difficult, and if you manage to do it, the profit will be really low. To sum up, Bulk will only help you with personal collection purposes but I don’t recommend buying a lot of bulk. Only when it’s necessary.

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it looks like you’re considering this from an investing standpoint. having to handle tons of volume (+ personal time) for such small margins isn’t worth it imo

You’d probably make more money quicker just getting a part time job

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i buy bulk all of the time, but its from pre-bw era typically

To be blunt - Bulk in 2023 is not an investable option. The SWSH era is the most heavily printed and opened era of all time. Pull rates were tough so tons of packs were opened, resulting in 8 bulk cards per pack.

If you said you would buy bulk to complete C/UC/R rare sets for your binder and then bulk off the doubles to Troll and Toad, I’d say go for it. But not as an investment.

Your time and storage requirements far exceed what you would get out of it

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