Who thinks PSA Grading Fees will regress back to 15$ for bulk at some point? I’ve been seeing people say that they are going to start hoarding their less valuable cards for the time that happens.
My vote is no, they will not lower the fees, I even doubt they will have a special, they have no reason to. I personally only grade in bulk tier and I’m not waiting just to pay more in the future. I still know people waiting for 10$ fees to come back.
They will only lower the fees when their bean counters deem it to be a financially lucrative decision to make. Whether it be an increase in submissions overcoming the sacrifice in grading fee, or when they believe it will increase profit in the future with return customers.
PSA has very little incentive to lower grading fees. Even with the higher fees, they retain an enormous portion of the grading market share.
If the owners of Collectors Universe were in serious talks about being sold to a publicly traded company (i.e., a company like GameStop that is flush with cash), I could see a scenario in which they would want to show overwhelmingly positive revenue and consumer utilization by lowering the price.
It is a very tricky thing to balance, though, as any adjustment to the price will require a massive staffing response. There are only so many new hires that they can bring on at a time to feasibly retain reliable and valid grading standards.
I might expect them to open more submission centers abroad (e.g., Australia, China, Mexico, Singapore could be smart) before lowering prices.
Great recent (and more-Pokemon focused) interview with Nat if you haven’t already seen it. He talks about a lot of the stuff you brought up.
That video def helped the convo! Thanks for sharing