Have you tried using cardmarket.eu? I have made an account yesterday and apparently there is a good range of cards so I might slowly transition from ebay to there for the low value items.
I don’t think they are that good for graded cards but since you mentioned $3, it might be an interesting option.
@martin I second that, cardmarket is really good. However, there doesn’t really seem to be a continuous supply chain for most vintage cards. I bought a bunch of NM JPN e-Series holos a few month ago and there have been zero new copies added since then. So if you find a good seller, better buy the stuff you want as quickly as possible.
The other issue I have with them is their search option. Since you can basically only search for one specific card from from one specific set at a time, it makes it literally impossible for me to find certain Japanese cards that were, for example, released in ex Sandstorm on the English side, but released in Magma vs Aqua on the Japanese side. Even worse when the Japanese version was released in some exclusive set. It’s a reaaaaaal pain and such an unnecessary limitation.
Cardmarket annoys me a bit because I can’t see photos of the actual cards that I’m buying so I haven’t looked much into it. Also I’m not sure how’s the situation with Japanese cards there, I feel like it’s probably not as good as eBay on that sense and looks like muk basically confirmed my thoughts about that. So I’ve bought from Cardmarket maybe twice or so. I probably should look into it more but we will see.
Noted, thanks for the tip, @muk !
Regarding the search option, I noticed it is a bit weird! When I search for a specific card, I just type in the name and then go through the list until I see that one particular set I am looking for. Sometimes I need to do that two or three times because I miss the set name in the list. Really annoying indeed but at least the thought of saving those $25 for ebay global shipping makes it a bit better :]
It’s real easy to get in contact with sellers though. Most sellers upload pictures of more expensive cards, if they don’t have any pictures you can always ask. It takes some time to get used to it if you only know eBay but I love both selling and buying on their site.
Just to be clear, cardmarket is far from terrible. It doesn’t have quite the supply of Japanese cards that ebay has, but it’s always worth looking. It does have the issues I mentioned, but in other aspects it’s even superior to ebay imo. Specifically for low value modern singles, it’s definitely my go-to option. Where else can I get my newest Japanese Komiya non-holo common for like 5 cents?
Also, the condition standards are really high compared to ebay. In my experience, “NM” will be PSA 8+ quality like 75% of the time. Over time, you’ll find the “good” sellers for your niche and sort out the worse ones.
Their “shopping wizard” is aslo quite useful once you get used to it. It helps you getting the cheapest option for a “wishlist” of cards you created with the least possible shipments.
I really like the option “shopping wizard” in cardmarket as makes things easy to buy the cards you are looking for, mostly for the cards that cost cents. Really useful tool.