I’m trynna figure out what my collecting will look like in 2-5 years. I’ve started an eBay store this past January to be able to pay for this hobby without digging into my normal income, and it’s actually looking pretty promising. Ver slow, but promising nonetheless.
That being said I have a couple questions regarding this:
How has starting a store changed how you collect? Are you able to get cards of higher value now? Do you just love the game and reinvest everything and collect a different way? I’d love to know.
When you started, what did you expect your store to look like in 2-5 years and how did it actually turn out?
What are you able to do today because you started your store? Is it your main source? Do you have a regular job and use the store to spend bookoo bucks on pokemans? I’d love to know.
I know there’s some great sellers on the forum so I appreciate any thoughts you could share, lurker or not!
It enables you to scale the dollar amount you’re running the business with. It’s basically compounding reinvestment. When you sell a $100 card for $120, you now have $120 to re invest back into the ‘business’ like spend on another card. Sell it for $200, you know have $200 to spend. One year later you might now be selling a card for $5000.
You in your new store position will take a lot of effort for small results(5 here 10 there), but each iteration will build momentum. Eventually the same effort of selling that $120 card but now selling a $5000 card will produce bigger returns.
And of course along the way you may buy a card you like for your collection. But each dollar you take out of your store business to buy a card for your collection is one less dollar used for scaling your business.
Thank you for responding. I was starting to think that no one was going to.
I guess I wouldn’t feel so bad taking some from my business reinvestment. I came into this world with nothing, so I could spare a couple dollars of reinvestment to my collection
I am not a big-time seller, but like you envision for yourself, I mostly sell to help fund my collection. I keep in the back of my mind generally what my “budget” for collecting is, and this budget serves to both fund personal collection purchases and purchases intended for sale, with personal collection purchases generally permanently taking money out of the fund and sale-intended purchases helping to increase the fund (over time, when sales are realized).
I didn’t really have a long-term view for the business, but I’m starting to develop and implement a vision of what I’d like my store to be. I am hoping to dedicate more time to the store this year to see if I can achieve a certain goal revenue by the end of the year (sounds lofty, but I assure you, it is probably a small amount compared to others on this forum ). I personally just enjoy the process of buying and selling, so I’m having fun with it. I don’t worry too much about reinvesting all profits back into the business because my intention is to have fun and to let me be a little more loose with collection purchases, not become a full-scale business intended to supplement my income.
Since starting the store, I have defintely been more comfortable purchasing personal collection items, but I also do not have my eyes on “expensive” things. Any purchase >$100 generally takes me quite some time to pull the trigger, to give you an idea of what buyer pool I’m dabbling in (actually, my limit is probably $50—I can’t even remember the last time I made a $100 purchase for the collection). It’s gotten to a point where I probably could purchase ~$100 cards/items reasonably, but I think it’s a mindset thing. Because of this, it’s generally been hard to scale the business because most of the items in my store are < $50. This is something I have to think about if I want to reach higher revenue goals.
I’m not a big seller either, but I’ve been selling on ebay for 10+ years. The biggest boon for me was putting that much value into something out of my hands. Selling 50$ was a lot, then 500$ now $5000?..
It can be difficult to split time, and for that reason, I’m still not selling a lot. Personally, looking to get back to selling <50$ cards more, and simply selling my spare stuff to possibly buy larger items. Like trading up. It really depends what your goals are, to be able to envision what it will look like. I never and don’t have the goal to make it replace my full time income, so I am pretty much where I started, just at a higher price point. Sell a few dozen to a hundred items each year.
I’m kinda like @bbobrob , where I don’t like to spend a lot on my collection, EVEN if I have the money. (I’m over here selling $x00 slabs, while buying magic lands for $5 and being super happy thinking, “MAN! I want THAT card.” Maybe it’s poor-kid syndrome, IDK…
The other thing that hasn’t been mentioned: Taxes. If you scale-up your business, there are different costs and advantages to different types of taxable income. It’s good to consider those requirements and limitations. Hobby income vs business income, Capital gains, write-offs, etc.
No matter what you choose, I wish you the best in this Super fun hobby!
Well, it´s a little more complicated. I do not own a ´store´, or maybe that´s just the way selling cards on Ebay is called?
I only sell in Europe, things here and there. It´s cool, because with the funds you can buy things that you otherwise wouldn´t have bought. I initially focused mainly on sealed because it´s a ´safer´ investment, but now I buy cards that are nostalgic to me.
I didn´t expect a lot. That is some advice I would like to give everyone.
). I personally just enjoy the process of buying and selling, so I’m having fun with it. I don’t worry too much about reinvesting all profits back into the business because my intention is to have fun and to let me be a little more loose with collection purchases, not become a full-scale business intended to supplement my income.