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As I’ve moved more of my main niche of modern and vintage cards out of my eBay store, and onto my port on the consignment site I use, my weekly scavenges have become all about making the math of volume sales work. It went really well for me this past week. I pick up basically all of my inventory through searching the daily auctions of a few sellers, building up a pile over the week and saving on combined shipping.
Auctions are big in the card world for two reasons: the majority of cards sold flow through a handful of large sellers (basically card reselling companies) and new sets are released on almost a weekly basis. Like 30 or 40 new sets per sport every year, and in the last few years, even previously unloved sports like F1 racing, women’s basketball, golf and college sports have received multiple set releases every year. The card market hit crazy heights during the pandemic, which really helped me grow my business. While sales aren’t at the same level of a speculative frenzy now, the market is still healthy.
I didn’t find anything incredibly interesting or unique or expensive this week. I really dug through what I bought, and the most interesting item I could find was this sealed 1964 Looney Tunes Fher 3 card pack for $6 with combined shipping, which I cracked yesterday and will send to consignment. My target price for my consignment port is $5. I’m always hoping to keep my average COGS around $2, and I was right around that number on my three larger orders from last week. Here are those numbers:
90 items for $181.84, 31 items for $68.50, 37 items for $55.37
Some of these cards, like WNBA jersey cards, will go into my curated team lots, which I’ve been selling more consistently at 10 cards in the $30 to $39.99 range. So at $1.50/card, I can make a healthy $15 profit on each lot. Most of the cards will get shipped to my consigmnent port where I’ll aim for that $5 target price. Some might go for $7 to $10, others might go for $3 to $5, and inevitably I’ll lose on a few. A few cards, like relic cards from Season 1 of Once Upon a Time, cost me a bit more than my average price, but to the right buyer they will sell for $10 or more. I never know what auctions I’m going to win, but I’ve learned to trust my gut on certain sets and types of cards as I’ve increased my sales volume more and more. It took a lot of learning to get here! But the math is working really well for my business right now, and it’s became a fun evening routine: dig through the auctions of all these different sellers and see what treasures I can find.
What did you scavenge this week?
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I haven’t been scavenging for the last few weeks. I did pull 4 OLD bins of shoes out of my death pile so I can start listing them. There were some great shoes in there! Shame on me for letting them sit for so long.
It’s about time for yard sale season to start up, so scavenging will pick up soon. I need to get my space cleaned up a bit more to prepare.
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Antique full-size violin and bow in an unusual wooden case for £5. Presumably hasn’t been played for many a year, as the woodworm holes look pretty old. No label inside or name on the bow, unfortunately. A couple of years back I was at an auction where a bow got knocked down for a thousand pounds, so I’m a sucker for a cheap old violin, even if it is a wreck. Just in case…
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<p style=”text-align: left;”>On vacation in Boston this week. My daughter was thrilled with the college area Goodwill selection of smaller sized clothing. The thrift prices are as much as half off where we live in California. Gas is $1.50 less as well. Will go grocery shopping today before checking into our Airbnb so we will see how those prices are… Today we are going to the bins but will have to be quite selective as I didn’t bring shipping supplies. Seeing a lot more Americana / transferware than I am used to. Always fun to pick a new city.</p>
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