I’ve recently started a new eBay store to help support this hobby and boy was I excited when I opened it up! I listed my first card and BOOM, it sold really quickly! I used that money for some personal things, but I also used it to get all the things needed to get some inventory! I got a thermal printer, the paper, 6x4x2 boxes, basically everything that @PokemonClassics says to get on his shipping video. I got the stuff, and placed 4 cards in the box to send to CGC for grading. Now I can finally get rolli-
So I have to wait a month to get them back and I’m bugging out. It takes so long. I see these eBay stores that started in October and they are crushing it. But it got me thinking of my first question.
how do y’all have so much inventory? I have to wait a month for 4 cards and I’m going crazy, but the higher tiers really rare pretty hard into my system’s operations budget.
Secondly, I’m currently using a 60,20,10,10 rule. Is that what y’all use?
Thirdly, do y’all apply whatever rule y’all use immediately when you make a sale to get more inventory quickly or do you do it every couple of weeks so that you have more budget for potentially better inventory?
Any advice is greatly appreciated! Also more than happy to answer any questions
I wouldn’t put any of your own money into getting inventory. The best way to start a store is buy collections, keep the cards you want, and sell the rest to pay for that collection.
I’m not spending my own money. The percentage rule was from sales I made. I’ve heard that buying collections can be a great way to get some cards, but from what I’ve seen it takes quite a bit of money up front that you’re okay with not getting back for a while. Has that been true for you?
Also I’m selling graded cards only on my store. Does the same go for that as well?
I started out eager to crush it, and quickly burned out on flipping because the market is already well-optimized.
If you’re buying cards from someone that means you’re paying a price that they’re happy to sell at, odds are you’re not buying cheaply enough to cover the cost of shipping + sellers fees + packaging + getting your money back on the card + paying yourself for your time. So as a seller you have to find a way to add value to your initial purchase i.e.
grading cards
earning ad revenue on a YT channel
earning a premium on pack rips as a streamer
buying discounted modern cards from convention goers and flipping
buying unorganized bulk lots and adding value by organizing them into set lots i.e. by artists, by card set
Most people that I know on E4 collect for fun, forget about what they have and sell when they notice their collection has gone parabolic. Three years after getting back into collecting, I was able to do this too. I prefer this method because it’s the most chill way to earn on the cards I enjoy while still maintaining a stable income at my day job.
In your case, you have 4 cards you’re grade-flipping and yet you’re talking about an “operations budget” and revenue-splitting (unclear if you’re talking about your profit or revenue being split) with a safety net. I don’t want to be mean but you are very far ahead of yourself here. You’re treating an experiment as a business. If you want to grow a Pokemon business from the ground up, you can’t start thinking about safety nets and personal purchases with your business revenue. Stated differently, returning only 80% of your sales to your operations will stifle your growth if not kill your operation in a few cycles. 100% of your revenue needs to be reinvested into inventory and operations. Once you have consistent profit and an established business practice then you can start thinking about the other things, but that is down the line.
That being said, overall strategy depends on your goals. If you’re just trying to have some fun selling and try to turn a profit that’s one thing. If you’re looking to start a meaningful business Pokemon is so optimized now that if you aren’t leveraging a strong inventory or high starting capital then it’s going to be tough.
I started an eBay store this year and did mid 5-figures in sales, but I had a strong backlog of inventory I had built up over years of collecting, with many of those cards going up in value exponentially. As with many things in this world, once you have money things get exponentially easier. Now that I have a good amount of operating capital I can not only afford to buy a bunch of inventory, but have that inventory sit at PSA for 4-6 months before selling. I can also flip cards with thinner profit margins and do some of the things that @banks mentions as value-adds.
I can’t emphasize this statement enough. I’m on year 4 and have taken $0 in profit. Every single dollar I’ve made has been reinvested.
I wouldn’t take it super serious at first. Have fun and find out what works and what doesn’t. The market is so optimized and saturated that to be successful you either need to have high volume or be able to find an edge that provides at least short term consistent profits. If you find yourself having general success, keep going and expand your efforts if you can.
Beginning from nothing is very difficult. It took me several years of accumulating a collection (and “inventory”) before my selling became highly profitable.
My success comes down to three things: 1) knowledge, 2) timing, and 3) luck.
To be successful at selling Pokemon, you must have the requisite market knowledge of everything you wish to buy/sell. How often do these items sell? What is their expected market value? Is this value likely to change by the time you receive and intend to sell the item? This will allow you to understand when items are overvalued or undervalued, regardless of whether there is a strong or weak market.
Almost everything in life is about timing and luck. If you put the work in (i.e., see #1 knowledge), then you can set yourself up to benefit during the right times in the market. Luck is not something that you can control, but when it does happen to you within the context of selling (e.g., you find a card for fractions of its actual price, or a random card that you bought years ago went parabolic due to a YouTuber), you need to act on it.
I wrote the term “inventory” in quotes in point #1 because I won’t buy anything that I dislike, regardless of whether I intend to sell it. My inventory was once part of my collection. If everything went to shit tomorrow and nuclear winter was upon us, I would lovingly stare at my collection as the sweet whispers of death spoke to me. For me, there is something enjoyable about selling items that I genuinely like. If I was forced to sell MetaZoo or something that I have no connection to, I would feel a little hollow.
Selling “professionally” (I define this as having such a substantial income from selling that it shows up on your taxes, but you may define that differently) requires a level of coldness to be successful. For example, you must sell cards that are stonking parabolically even if you love them, as it is in your best interest financially to do so. If you were only a collector, you wouldn’t have to make these tough decisions, but if your goal is to make money, collecting must have a reasonable limit.
Being “good” at selling requires depth in today’s market, not breadth. It is more valuable to be an expert at a very specific domain of cards than a general seller of everything. This will help you find the best deals for selling in the future.
Do not waste money on marketing or operations. It takes very little money to start up an eBay store. The main cost is what you are selling. You don’t need to be the biggest or flashiest store to be profitable. If you sell what everyone else is selling, expect lower margins.
That’s my plan also. Just something to do on the side to support my collection while my day job supports the family. I guess after getting the calculator out it all seemed pretty reasonable until turnaround times got involved.
But I’m wondering how this would help support my goals in the hobby as well. I started this so I could save up for grails that I wanted, but if it’s all going to inventory, is the idea that eventually I would just trade one of my inventory for the card?
Well, I do have a lot of fun with the business bit of it, but the ultimate goal is to find a way to support/save for cards I want without digging into my day job money.
I am quite literally starting from nothing, so this is actually really nice to hear.
I’ve thought this too and I’m glad I’m not alone.
My goal is to make money to spend on/support my collection. I’ve realized that if I had sold part of my collection this past summer during the peak, I could have both my collection back and had a ton of money left over to get even more cards.
Your mindset towards this will have to change due to what everyone else has already pointed out. Hyper-competitiveness and price optimization is going to eat your margins and slow your sales rates, quickly killing any over-optimism you start out with if you don’t stretch your expectations over the long term and adjust your approach to handling turnover. Any new stores who’ve popped up during this most recent hype-train who are “crushing it” are likely doing so because they began with advantages that 95% of people in this space don’t have. For example, 6-figure capital, high volume/low margin easy chase sales, knowledgeable contacts in the hahbee who facilitate avoidance of early mistakes, etc. Your plan of eeking-out profits from a minuscule starting position will result in either no or incredibly slow growth.
How much genuine, in-depth knowledge of the singles market and TPCi business practices do you have? Have you experienced periods of relative disinterest and slow growth in Pokemon? Are you prepared to have inventory potentially sit unsold for 12+ months, and do you understand all the factors that can make cards and products fluctuate in value?
At least right now, I don’t use the card business money for personal collection purchases. If I want something, I either buy it with personal funds or sell part of my collection to pay for it.
I do plan to take a major profit this year and buy a house, but I couldn’t have built up as much as I have if I was skimming off the top. Every dollar has counted to get to where I am today.
Try not to compare yourself to anyone else on ebay or youtube. Plenty of guys over the last 12 months have come into pokemon with 6 figure starting budgets. If you have capital, you can be a huge store even if you’ve been here for 7 minutes
I came to say this. Basically the best indicator of success today is how much capital you can pour into a profitable rinse-and-repeat cycle since the margins are so optimized