Selling MTG/Pokemon/Yugioh

[DantheDiner]

I acquired card collections for MTG, Yugioh, and Pokemon. I spent the past week learning about the card markets, and understand that select rates have some value, and the vast majority is worth under $.50 on TCGPlayer. The consensus seems to be to pick out the few value cards using the TCGPlayer app, sell those individually, and sell the worthless rest in bulk. I run a full-time eBay store, and don’t have time to create another selling project. I found a comic shop that will buy my rares at a reasonable rate, and it will be easy for my to sell off the remainder in bulk.

Still, my business mind won’t completely give up the idea of an opportunity. I was wondering whether anyone with experience selling cards might offer feedback on this thought. I haven’t been able to find much on Google/Youtube about selling low-value cards.
1. Most of the cards I looked at had some active trading value on TCGPlayer, between around $.10-$.80. I have thousands of cards. If I figured out an efficient method to sell them, that amounts to a substantial potential profit.
2. I have a helper I hire for other work, and I could offer to create a join venture with him. I provide the cards and materials, he does the selling and shipping, we split profits evenly. I could hire someone to teach us to grade cards.
3. I could automate most of the process. The TCGPlayer app seems very efficient for listing, and I could set up an address label-printing Dymo, or a printer that prints addresses directly onto envelopes.

[littleBlueHouse]

I have had a few project lots, as I call them, and I have done the individual and lot sales. It becomes a problem when you start thinking of only those and messing with the way you are selling them. Like going back and forth with lots, spending a lot of time researching etc. It almost becomes like an albatross just hanging around taking your thoughts off of other possible sales.

What I found is that I picked out a few of the most valuable items and then sold the rest as a big lot. I’m sure I lost money, but once that lot was out the door I couldn’t fiddle with it anymore and waste time on the “what if” aspect. Just think about the time you would invest, how long it will sit, and what is the profit that you would actually make. Estimate how much you would make per hour. What are you looking at in profit (rough estimate) and divide by how long you estimate you will take on researching, listing, and packing.

It’s hard but you have to be honest with yourself if it is really worth forgoing listing and researching other items for how much ever profit you think you may make. I have to remind myself of this on almost a daily basis. I don’t know if I helped at all but good luck with whatever you choose. I don’t think there is really a wrong answer unless you find you would make $1/hour.

[almasty]

As someone that buys A LOT of lots to divvy up, I totally get wanting to maximum profits from it all. However, I think there are a few questions to consider when it comes to amounts this low – how much of the sales will be eaten up by fees? With an employee, how much will go towards their earnings out of the gross profits? Taxes? Additional expenses?

I don’t sell pokemon cards, but I know they can do very well on Ebay. What I would probably look into is if they could do well in smaller lots for larger amounts of money – 30 or 40 cards from a specific series for $10-20? Something like that rather than micro profits per card. It would still take a lot of work and time to sort and list, but at least it would be for an overall larger amount of money. Since pokemon cards are so popular, at the very least they should sell very quickly rather than just sit for all the work put into it.

[littleBlueHouse]

Thank you for this Almasty – I didn’t think about the series thing, but I am making note of that in case I ever come across a lot of something as well.

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