I don’t think I perceive of it that way. The frequency is not regular enough to be depended upon for any overall strategy. For example: I don’t consider it a rate increase when I buy a gallon of milk for $2.50 just because there was a sale last year where it was $1.75.
I wouldn’t go as far as Gotta in breaching $10/card minimum. We share sentiment, but diverge in degree. However, I think $8 is a perfectly reasonable baseline price. Realistically, most mass submitters are on independent contracts anyway. So you’re talking about the average submitter here. And I don’t think they’d be affected by a rate hike of $1/card for both bulk tiers.
The gradual rate increase for improved turnaround is severely underleveraged, in my opinion. But further capitalizing on it would require a substantial improvement in effective turnarounds. I’m not investing in faster turnaround if there’s a chance it will go slower. Alternatively, as a business, I can’t win the gamblers over at my higher margins if my faster turnaround times are not guaranteed. No one is paying more for the same service, potentially. There has to be some guaranteed real benefit.
To maintain the highest level of quality and if anything to widen the current gap between them and BGS on that level of quality. If they can make more profit on the same service they can sustain the same profit levels on a lower turnover rate. There would be less cards out in the wild in their cases for sure but there would also be measurably less errors/issues out there attributed to their names not only due to the lesser quantity but also due tot he higher quality as Charlie demonstrated with great sample size the increase he has spotted in mechanical damage issues.
We all know it isn’t PSA 9/10 commons and uncommons that advertise the brand well and their name. We know it is the higher dollar value cards that do so. If undeserved 10’s were less of a thing and pops remained a bit lower on cards due to that then prices could climb.
Also what competition? BGS is even further behind. Given that the only “competition” if you can even call it that is even further behind on turnaround times it becomes even more evident that the prices DO need to be increased. The world only has so much professional grading capacity and we are in a time where demand is far exceeding the supply. The only way to correct that quickly is to raise prices. A slower way to correct it is to increase capacity but that should be a very slow process. They’ve tried to speed that process up and it has shown.
I would consider this a very bad idea. The value of massive submitters is regularity. Subjecting the entire company to the irregularities of small submitters is dangerous. Large contracts = consistency. That’s why you sacrifice part of your profit. PSA doesn’t dish out contracts willy-nilly. You have to meet terms and show you’re going to keep meeting the goals you were signed under.
But the market also isn’t a zero sum game. Large scale graders are critical for the secondary market. It can’t survive as a niche product. Bringing it into line with what larger companies need to survive improves the whole market and creates a profit opportunity for small submitters.
BGS is actually taking steps to reduce their backlog. Specifically, they temporarily suspended their 10-day guaranteed service to catch up on non-guaranteed orders. I tend to think BGS is more popular with MTG players, and PSA tends to more popular with Pokemon.
I think we could all agree that improvement is needed.
Considering there’s multiple concerns with people landing on both sides of each issue shows us that it can be complicated and difficult to achieve improvement.
Would adding a buck to all services solve the problem? Only if the proceeds were spent to improve service like more hiring and training. This is no given considering the normal priorities of corporate management.
You see, nearly nobody is going to alter their submission habits over the dollar increase.
But
Quicker service will;)
At the risk of damaging Charlie’s reputation by having me agree with him…he is right here.
Projections are key and negotiating terms with high level customers is important in meeting goals on a consistent basis.
Something else. Psa’s bottom line isn’t the number of cards/submissions graded. It’s those things that follow the $.
The increase in volume is the main dilemma. Why the older certs are more consistent is due to consistent submission volume. The pokemon submissions from 2007-2013 were pretty much the same.
I also think people forget PSA is niche. They don’t have a lot of cash (relatively speaking). They need more cash to incentivize the individuals in the hobby who can help them make the right moves. The push to do SMR articles alone was a grind, but it paid instant dividends, unlike their stock.
