@zorloth as with most things the answer likely isn’t just one or the other, but a mix of both. What should have been quite obvious if PSA wasn’t run by imbeciles was that it was not a good idea to come out of a pandemic shutdown with an unprecedented backlog and respond to that by massively increasing their backlog due to the specials that were offered at the cheapest prices in years. I don’t recall the exact non Pokemon specials but I believe there were some. I am likely not alone in having sent thousands of cards to them before the end of June to capture that stupid low pricing.
They have raised prices, not to $20 minimum per card but the prices have gone up substantially in a short time for sports cards. If they go to $20 per card I can guarantee you the extra they get per card will not benefit them with the amount of people that will switch fully to BGS or SGC. It sure would help them catch up on orders but I think they would rather keep their customers and figure out other ways to lower their turn around times.
I do find this point interesting in regards to CGC. I wonder how much more PSA’s delay helps establish CGC not just as a pregrade option but as a first option for many in the hobby looking to grade.
If the profit incentive is there, is the consensus then that it’s literally impossible for them to hire and train enough people (given that the cost of doing so isn’t a concern) to meet the demand? From a high level, it doesn’t even seem to me like any substantial restructuring would be necessary. They don’t need an expansion of services. They just need more people to provide services they already offer and have offered for years. Without knowing the precise inner mechanisms of PSA, it seems like the only expanding position that would require any real training and time investment is in the graders themselves. Even this seems like a stretch, since I bet a lot of members here have self-taught to pre-grade with great accuracy. And logging incoming cards into a spreadsheet isn’t fucking rocket science and, oddly, it seems like that’s where a lot of the backup is. Cards are sitting in a warehouse for two months without even being logged into the system.
From my perspective, the source of the outrageous backlog boils down to one of three possibilities: (1) It is not worth it, financially, for PSA to expand sufficiently to meet demand; (2) PSA believes they literally cannot expand (unavailable warehouse space? no local talent? idk); or (3) PSA is choosing not to expand for reasons unknown.
At the end of the day, it’s all speculation. Whoever is in charge over there knows what they’re doing (maybe… there’s always the Peter Principle!), and it’s up to us whether we stick with them or not.
I’ll tell you why PSA is not expanding to meet the demand: it’s because they’re located in SoCal and offer starting pay for graders of $30k/year. That’s basically minimum wage. And they appear to be making a genuine effort to hire more graders. But this effort will be fruitless unless they either offer higher wages/benefits and/or outsource the labor. I don’t see how paying a grader even, say, $60k a year wouldn’t be profitable. We’re talking about someone grading cards full-time. That one person is probably grading upwards of 50k cards a year. In order to make it profitable to hire someone at $60k a year, they’d only have to be clearing $1.20 a card (assuming the person grades 50k cards per year). This is not taking in account the cost of providing benefits, training, etc. But it still honestly doesn’t make sense to me why they can’t offer slightly more competitive pay and expand their workforce substantially. There’s an astounding amount of profit being left on the table. The entrance of CGC into the TCG-grading world is a symptom of this. CGC basically entered the TCG grading game to absorb some of the demand that PSA is failing to meet. If PSA was meeting the demand that existed for their service, I don’t think CGC would’ve even bothered to start grading cards.
I’m trying to figure out PSA’s aversion to opening up at minimum an East Coast branch and even more preferable a European branch. Only so many people want to live in SoCal… You can hire so many more people if you gave them an additional work location. PSA seems very hesitant to make the right calls to upscale to demand.
I might just be talking out of my ass here, but why doesn’t PSA just open up a branch in like Kansas or Ohio or something and hire people who would definitely be fine with minimum wage(which is all they’re offering apparently lol)
Like good luck hiring in SoCal to work at or near minimum wage. Start expanding to the east coast where you’ll actually find employees at the pay scale they’re willing to hand out
