Maybe PSA thinks so:
“if I grade the normal submission first I would only have middlemen complaining.
If I grade the middleman cards first, I’ll have thousands of people complaining.”
Having tremendous delays, they could face heavy lawsuits, so they prefer to prioritize direct submissions. Many have also paid for membership and PSA do not want refund that money back.
This and the money thing makes the most sense to me, in principle. When you think about it, it makes perfect sense that PSA would deprioritize middleman orders. Dealers pay them significantly less per card, and they know that original submitters will more likely get angry with the middlemen than PSA themselves. Indeed, PSA won’t even speak to you about an order you sent through a middleman if you contact their customer service.
Just to clarify, I think it makes perfect sense why current middleman orders are deprioritized for the reasons stated here. I more so meant encouraging middleman subs in the future, not prioritizing current ones. PSA receives less money from each individual card, but the tradeoff is that they do less work and get more business that they might not have otherwise. That said, I guess if they’ve scaled up the organization to be designed to handle tons of individual orders, then they might just not care about the things I mentioned above.
Yeah I made my first ever PSA subs in 2020, and both were through Ludkins. My most recent sub for the $18 special was direct and I can’t imagine ever going back to a middleman. Maybe I would reconsider if a middleman has a price point that is hard to resist (like $3 less per card or something to that effect), but the chances of that happening are slim to none. Likely just going direct from here on out.
IMO, the fact that middlemen organizations exist at all is an indicator that PSA’s service offering has/was lacking in such a significant way that outside companies began existing to fill that void.
PSA absolutely wants to prioritize getting as many individuals to subscribe to their Collectors Club Membership because it is 100% incremental profit to their grading services. Now that they have their feet under them from a capacity standpoint, I’m not surprised that they are doing everything they can to incentivize individual submissions.
If they keep their grading price the same, we can probably safely assume that they are getting enough business that they feel they don’t need the additional middlemen contributions to their backlog, and should see further de-prioritization of middlemen submissions from PSA.
All that being said, I feel bad for collectors who submitted through middlemen and have orders from 2020. That’s a really long time to be waiting for your orders and it can’t be a good feeling for the middlemen either
Just checked the dates on my 3 outstanding orders with Ludkins, I have one from November 2020 (Been in QA2 for several months now), and two from February 2021 (Both still in Grading).
October 2020 still grading, maybe will hear more when Lost Origins comes out as it seems to fitting haha
I don’t necessarily disagree with this but I did want to point out from a logistics perspective, it’s easier to handle one 1000 card order than fifty 20 card orders. The improved efficiency leads to lower cost that can be passed on to the consumer. So I don’t think the existence of a middleman company implies failure for a grading company.
I do agree that middleman companies take away from PSA’s margin though which is why they seem to be trying to shed them. All they have to do is not offer a discount for bulk submissions and it’s game over for a lot of companies
my oct 2020 sub arrived to my house 80 days after I was given notice of up charges
Might PSA open UK/European grading locations? I don’t think this is out of the question given their growth and recent expansion into New Jersey. Although they don’t yet accept trading card submissions at the NJ office, I suspect that they may in the future.
I still have a couple orders from early 2021
PSA UK (Formerly Ludkins) had a brochure with their announcement of becoming PSA UK, and in it it mentioned their goal is to add grading facilities there eventually. For some reason the link to that brochure is broken now though.
Great points here. It is a balancing act for PSA in terms of middlemen IMO, because they have a lot of reasons to encourage their use as you explain. Some of the reasons why they would not want to use middlemen though:
As @pfm explained, middleman orders have a lower margin than direct submissions. The question is, does all the benefits of the middleman for PSA outweigh the costs financially? For example, does the decreased time spent in Order Entry, Research & ID and Shipping mean that the grading cost discount works out?
Middleman companies mean PSA is putting a lot of financial trust in the middleman. Remember the Marx Cards fiasco where they screwed up, didn’t have the money to pay for their submitters PSA grading costs, and then went bankrupt? Obviously this is a worst-case scenario, but this illustrates how a breakdown in the middleman service can screw both PSA and the original submitters way more than any one person not paying can do.
This point is debatable, but similar to @lamplamp’s point earlier, the massive success of middleman companies indicates that the barrier to entry for PSA grading has been made too high. From confusing international shipment processes to subscription membership barriers, these are things that PSA could decrease in order to maximize their profit margin. I think we’re starting to see this with the transition of Ludkins to PSA UK. By streamlining the submission process, PSA could make more money.
I’m just hoping I get my 2020 subs back in 2024…
I posted on may 29th that my ludkins tracker moved to QA2.
July 15th, one of the cards I subbed had a +1 in the pop report (there was only 1 prior). Still no change in pop for the other cards I subbed though.
Now I have no actual idea what is going on but I feel like PSA has a huge gigantic storage place for cards. And they are using scanners or something to just pluck out the highest priced tier orders while others get buried. Here’s a day in the office at PSA…
Time to grade some cards from the mountain. Let me pluck all the super express and walk thru first. Once those are down I’ll work on express. Once those are done I’ll work on some regular $30 plus submissions if I got time.
Someone yells from the background “What about bulk and middleman orders?”
No one cares this is a business we have to make the most money possible. Now that I think about it let’s upgrade our upcharge team to make sure we milk every penny!!!
Genius Bob! PSA to the Moon!!
I had two orders out from 2020. One Oct. and one Dec… I ended up getting the Dec one before my Oct order which is still out there in the abyss. Here’s my timeline:
ORDER #1
Sent - Mid October 2020
Notified of Upcharges - May 2022
Notified of Shipment - …still waiting…
Received - Maybe by my future grandkids
ORDER #2
Sent - Early December 2020
Notified of Upcharges - November 9th, 2021
Notified of Shipment - November 30th, 2021
Received - Dec 2021
Grading was the longest process but it’s odd my second order came back already and not the first. Also Ludkins informed me in July 2022 that the order I paid upcharges for in MAY is still at PSA… Here’s my theories:
PSA has been doing first in, last out process. (Or which ever box they can grab easiest).
PSA opened new buildings at this time, so OCT orders could be buried at the old place.
Orders that showed up first at the new place get done before the old place sees the light of day.
Ludkins waits till every member of the order has paid their upcharges to pay PSA?
Many people involved in one order so time of upcharges and next move could be lengthened.
Ludkins is getting the same pounding getting back cards that PSA had.
I don’t know anything
I think PSA has run out of plastic slabs from China, and are prioritizing what low supply they have on hand to higher tier orders. Very likely all Ludkins orders actually have been graded, and are waiting their plastic coffins. They likely won’t change what step they are on (from grading to assembly) until they actually have enough plastic in house.
I haven’t heard this theory yet. Very interesting though!
If that were the case (no pun intended), PSA would most likely come out and publicly state that. It would be a dream come true if PSA had an easy scapegoat like that.