looking at tcg, particularly pokemon card grading CGC is showing explosive growth
Now in October psa has increased both prices and turnaround times. I didnt auto-renew my psa membership which expired last month but i logged in for 10/10 day for a sub and noticed:
The CHEAPEST option for non member is $28 for bulk cards with 45 business days turnaround. I have 34 bulk tier cards to submit which would cost $952 + $55 for shipping. $1,000 bucks for a bulk sub is not okay!
Unfortunately for this reason I completed my sub with cgc. A lot of these will be pristine anyways so I dont expect any value loss overall but the savings are substantial
I DID utilize the value max tier since i have a couple 4 figure cards to grade but for only 4 cards i paid $254.54 AFTER 10/10 discount and still expect upcharges
The pricing and turnaround times are getting out of control and cgc is gaining heavily each month against psa. How much longer before cgc is the leader in TCG?
Not to be rude, but so long as people like you, who absolutely hate PSA, continue to use them day after day & complaint after complaint, they’ll be doing just fine
They raised the more expensive tiers substantially and blamed it on demand. But in reality it was a money grab because if your really worried about demand you increase the bulk tiers since thats the overwhelming majority of cards that holds you back
clearly they are worried about CGCs market share growth or else they would have went after the bulk tiers
instead they just lose goodwill with the community
do you guys see the numbers? CGC growth is insane. they are gaining on them every month in a big way. Cant ignore the data
408k tcg for CGC vs 803k for psa. Thats more than half as much now for CGC. Do you realize how insane that is? compare to just 2 years ago where cgc was a tiny fraction of psa
heck, compare just to 1 year ago and tell me again that psa is not in trouble in the TCG market
and again, psa increased prices and turnaround times this month, so when the data is revealed for October expect ANOTHER increase in market share for CGC
CGC’s sports growth is because historically they’ve graded approximately 11 cards per year in that area.
CGC got it’s foothold due to PSA’s high prices and long turnaround times a few years ago, and that’s fine. Just because CGC has time periods where they have positive grading volume growth, and times where PSA has negative volume growth, doesn’t mean CGC is taking that equal market share from PSA. It could just mean the entire market is growing.
I don’t think PSA is losing goodwill in the community in any meaningful way. Social media echo chambers may say otherwise, but they’re fine. Social media is a vocal minority of grading volume.
I really hope both companies do well! Any one company running around unchecked leads to complacency. But saying a company raising prices and turnaround times due to high volume/demand is an indicator business is bad just doesn’t make sense.
They increase prices because they are backed up, which anyone who submits with them can attest to right now. Also those charts that show graded volume don’t show margin. PSA was already making more per card, and now that margin is even higher with the price increase.
If its them somehow being scared of competition, alright, that doesn’t really change the situation. The former are the more realistic reasons why they are increasing prices.
It’s all a balancing act. PSA could raise prices by 10%, see a 10% reduction in volume, and be money ahead.
CGC turnaround times have recently been extended and per some e4 submissions, they are not hitting those TAT dates.
It is great to see 2 major players duke it out. Keeps things in check. Otherwise PSA could charge whatever they wanted.
I am aware of the longer term trends in grading volume.
I’m not saying they aren’t taking some level of market share, just that this isn’t a zero sum equation. Also, if volume decreases for PSA 10%, but they’re bringing in more money due to upcharges, price tier increases, or whatever else, they’re probably thrilled about that. Less work with similar $$$.
I don’t agree you can say CGC is “heavily eating into PSA’s share of the TCG market” based on the info we have as the general public.
Soon CGC will be grading 60-70% as much pokemon cards as PSA. They are already at over 50%
And this has a domino effect as more CGC slabs in the market will lead to wider acceptance of them, more vendors trading them, and repeat customers who simply wanted to try them out will come back to them.
Im not saying they are in financial trouble of any sort, they are grading more cards and especially making more money than ever. I’m talking about the pokemon market specifically and how CGC are setting themselves up to eventually be on equal footing with them in volume. PSA is always the standard but cgc is becoming so normalized that the two may become interchangeable in the pokemon market in the coming years if current trends hold up
This is very possible, but that doesn’t mean PSA is in trouble.
It could be like this:
PSA - 800k, CGC - 400k
6 months later:
PSA - 800k, CGC - 600k
I don’t think PSA will view it as in trouble. The market grew, CGC gained that new slice of the pie. They grabbed the customer that will pay cheaper grading fees. PSA was never going to get that business anyways.
With the way the market is going, all those cards that weren’t worth grading at $15 are definitely worth grading now at $17 through a middle man. The extra two dollars a card you pay now in grading you will definitely make up for or more on the sale side, especially when you factor in the super relative low cost basis of acquiring the raw card.
I’ve given up on holding all of my hoards of cheaper cards until cheaper grading comes, now is the time to capitalize. I honestly don’t think we’ll ever see below $14 a card from PSA again so if you’re waiting for that, you’ll probably never move those cards in graded form.
Hot take, grading companies are experiencing more business in the largest boom ever.
I think the biggest indicator of CGC taking PSA’s lunch will be when their prices to grade are comparable. Currently their lower prices naturally serve the lower end/higher volume. CGC definitely fills a need, I actually have a stack that make more sense for them than PSA. But when their brand/price value is seen as a 1 to 1 comp for PSA, that is when I would celebrate.
there is something interesting though that is going on with card comps
I think psa has a pristine problem. Like i stated this morning i was debating the allocation of cards to each company. one of the cards was the team rockets mewtwo 231. At first I was going to include it in my value max sub at psa but looking at the card its fairly perfect. I log on to ebay to compare comps
psa10 ~$2000, cgc pristine over $3,000
I said no brainer with the way the card looks ill take my shot and add it to cgc sub. currently it works as the great normalizer. I will lose money on a 1/1 basis for many cards at cgc but make up for it (and some) with the pristines (and savings from actual grading costs) This obviously only works with phenomenal cards but at the same time cgc tends to be an easier grader anyways. So a psa7 might be a cgc 8 and the money isnt too much different
CGC set themselves up very nicely they know what is needed to gain share and the market explosion has added fuel to the fire. when cgc finally stops showing growth i think they will tighten their grading standards to be more in line with psa. aka psa7 very like cgc 7. This will be to maximize value per grade level which is something you do when your at the top. But as long as they want to grow, customers want good grades so they are slightly more lax
for bulk cards with 45 business days turnaround. I have 34 bulk tier cards to submit which would cost $952 + $55 for shipping. $1,000 bucks for a bulk sub is not okay!