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Baseball cards for the win this week.
Considering this is my main niche, I’m really eager to know more… congrats on the great sale!
8/29/2021 – 9/4/2021
Total items in store: 3282
Items sold: 63
Gross sales: $2360.73 (up 49% from one year ago)
Net sales: $1690.16 (up 48% from one year ago)
Lowest price sold (net): $5.81 — very low grade gumball machine hockey cards of Harry Watson and John Chad
Both of these went to the same buyer along with a third similar card that was a few bucks more. These were low priced leftovers from a lot purchase of low grade vintage hockey cards where the sale of one card months ago covered the entire lot price. I always love these low dollar sales even though I don’t recommend building your inventory around them.
Highest price sold (net): $122.59 — Sony Michel Panini One
This was my only sale over $100 this week, and it happened the day after Sony Michel was traded to a new team. I would estimate that between 25% and 50% of my sales happen because the player on the card is in the news for a good game (especially during playoff season) or they are acquired by a new team. It’s nice because it adds an extra incentive to get particular cards listed if the player is on a hot streak or their team is poised for a possible championship.
Panini One is a set that’s been around for just a few years, and the One in the set name refers to the number of cards in the box. I hate the concept (primarily because the retail cost of 1 card is $100 to $200) but the cards are very nice looking. The value of the card in the box is based on a number of factors: the player on the card, the rarity (serial number) of the card and perhaps the type of jersey in the card. Here is a lower value card of Sony Michel from my store which has a higher serial number and plain jersey pieces. This was much more likely to pull from a box than the card I sold, and a lesser player in this style of card will sell for just a few bucks.
Opening boxes is like going to the casino and putting all your money down on one hand or one number at the roulette table. I don’t know why anyone does it but I am not a gambler.
But I’m sure part of what keeps gamblers going is that every so often they get lucky. For example, this Kyler Murray card (not mine) is one of the most valuable in the Panini One set. He was the top quarterback drafted that year so his rarest autographs are still very expensive a few years later. Still nowhere near the price of the best Tom Brady autographs or other star quarterbacks from the set, but if Murray has a good season this year, who knows. If he does well, his cards will go up in value and the new buyer can make a profit too. But if he is just average, or gets hurt, or struggles, then the new buyer will have to decide whether to buy, sell or hold. Multiply that by thousands of different players, cards and sets and that’s how the eBay card ecosystem works.
It must be so easy to sell two $1000 items in a week and make $2000 for just a few minutes work. But that’s much less repeatable than an average sales price of $37.47. There are far more buyers out there with a weekly budget of $20 to $200 than a weekly budget of $1000 and up. So my philosophy (learned from our beloved podcast) has been to keep listing and eventually the buyers find you. And in doing that, you’ll get an odd high priced sale here and there. But build up the store and the $20 and $40 sales will add up over time.
There is a notorious sports card seller who specializes in a few particular expensive modern football card sets (flawless and national treasures are the set names) and this seller lists individual cards in their store for exponentially more than similar cards. A buy it now of hundreds or thousands for a card that I might sell for $50 to $100, and from what I’ve read they don’t negotiate much if at all. This seller has over 14,000 items listed and sells maybe five items a month. Their eBay store is basically a museum. If you want one of their cards for your collection, you can either pay their extremely inflated prices or find it from another seller.
It is definitely the same thing with this seller’s Food for Freedom and other rare war patches. From the description of one of their sold listings:
I will be selling my personal collection which boastingly makes up one of the nicest WW2 Home Front collections of patches ever assembled. You can view most of my collection on the US Militaria Forum under Home Front & the War Effort on the thread “Home Front Patches” with over 131,000 views! Whenever possible, I always upgraded my patches so anything in my collection is top of the line.
I will not be discounting patches from my personal collection. The BIN price is what it is set at. These prices are what the rarity of these patches have seen or should be from watching eBay since 2005 since I started collecting.<b></b>
The best part about hitting a listing milestone is waking up the next morning and seeing that you dipped below your magic listing number because things sold while you were asleep. It’s one of the best and most unique things about creating what J and R called the pipeline.
Keep those listings coming, you’ll be at 1234 and beyond before you know it!
Its funny Jay that Popeye’s methods are so similar to my own processes and yet completely different at the same time. (Really, that is this community in a nutshell.) I rarely buy more than about 200 cards in a week, but most of them are individually purchased from eBay auctions and I get most for below market value for a variety of reasons, the two most common being seller is missing keywords from the title (so the “right buyer” couldn’t find the card) or auctions are just fickle. Plus the value of cards fluctuates from week to week and especially year to year, so sometimes the card I bought 6 months becomes “more valuable” if the player does well or goes to a new team with a different collector base.
@popeyespostcards I still go back to the episode from a few years back where you and Jay discussed your business, it was extremely helpful to me as I’ve scaled up my own (different) card based eBay store over the last few years. The nostalgia factor and knowing what different buyers are looking for and why is huge in the sports card world as well.Love threads like this. Back in the days when we could do buy it now lengths of less than “good till cancelled,” I used to run all of my listings for thirty days and then end and relist or end and sell similar the day before all the items were about to end.
When I first started to end items monthly, it gave me quite a boost in sales the first and second time which was exciting. I’m going off memory since this was a few years ago, but at the time $1000 was a very good sales week for me and the first few times after ending and relisting all items, I hit $300 or $500 in sales in one day. I was more interested in tracking items sold and offers received then and I know I was hitting double digits (10+) in both categories when most days I would get 3 to 5 offers and 2 to 4 sales. So, no surprise I started ending and relisting every month like clockwork, even keeping up the practice after all listings went GTC.
I kept doing this end and relist process for something like a year total. I found that the boost wasn’t consistent from month to month. Some months were great, but some months I saw no boost at all. There is definitely a point of diminishing returns with ending and relisting, and I think once a month is too much. As I refined and tweaked my own processes, I found that I was spending too much time on things that weren’t shipping, taking photos or listing. So one of the things I cut back on were things like ending and relisting, and similar things like running weekly auctions (which are free for collectibles and trading cards).
I would still recommend that most sellers experiment with ending and relisting at least once or twice a year. Ideally, if you time it when eBay bucks come out or there is a big eBay bucks promo.
It won’t make you a million dollars or sell all your inventory, but it will be rewarding because sometimes an item that hasn’t sold and had no offers or watchers will sell within the first day you relist it anyway. Would that sale happen anyway? Who knows. But when I did this, sometimes in the process of ending and relisting, I would change up keywords in the item title, or change the price, and then the item would sell. So if ending and relisting gets you to do those things, definitely give it a try.
I had a feeling this might be coming based on everything going on in your lives and the tone of the last few podcasts. Jay and Ryanne, you are a tremendous inspiration and I can’t thank you enough for all the time and energy you put into creating your podcast and cultivating this community. My life would be very different without having found this podcast years ago off a recommendation from the flipping reddit. Your positivity and scavenger manifesto have helped me grow my eBay business in ways I never have imagined. This podcast has taught me so much more than just eBay with all of the other things you two have done as a result of the eBay business. It gives me hope for what my future can look like and that is such an amazing thing.
I actually quit my part-time job this past week to focus on my eBay business full-time. I’d held on to it “just in case” over the few years even though I was completely burnt out from it for a number of reasons. I’m honestly not sure I would have made the leap to do that without this community. It is so easy to stay stuck in a situation and avoid change. I didn’t grow up in a family that encouraged outside the box thinking or positivity, so I’ve always relied on finding those things in others and this community has been such a huge source of positivity for me, especially the last year as I’ve posted more regularly.
Sell trash, be free. 🙂
Congratulations on the great sale of the menorah. I got curious and looked it up and it’s a really beautiful piece of ironwork! what a steal for $7!!!
What was the international shipping to China like? Did you ship direct to China, did the buyer use a US freight forwarder like Shop Airlines or (I’m assuming is most likely) do you use Global Shipping? I don’t use GSP since most of my inventory is less than 1 pound and fairly easy to ship internationally, but for an item like this it must be a lifesaver!
PWCC’s scammy practices are probably the worst-kept secret in the modern card world. Each of the three biggest consignment card sellers (COMC, Probstein and PWCC) sell so many cards every day, including many very expensive ($10,000+) cards, and they have all had major problems of one type or another over the last few years. To an extent, I can understand it. Some issues with shill bidding and/or unpaid auction items are almost inevitable when you have thousands of consignment auctions ending every day. But PWCC’s shill bidding is so widespread. Most of their sale prices far exceed similar cards, to the point where most experienced collectors (myself included) actively avoid their listings.
PWCC’s problems are bigger than shill bidding, too. Here is a thread from the Blowout Cards Forums which details how PWCC has engaged in altering thousands of very expensive cards without disclosing that they’re doing so, and in fact taking steps to hide their dishonesty. Alterations or retouching is more common is some fields, but it’s a huge act of deception in the card world. In fact, the lowest grade on a professional grading scale, even lower than 1 – poor (which is basically a card your dog chewed up), is authentic altered. By contrast, PWCC and the criminals they worked with were altering cards to improve their grade from 7 to 9 or 5 to 7 — and not just your average cards, but the highly sought after expensive cards. So the leap in value by altering these cards so they would grade higher was truly massive. We’re talking millions of dollars.
The scope of cards which were altered is massive, and the detective work by some members of the card collecting community (known as BODA, or the Blowout Detective Agency) to unmask these deceptions is truly amazing. There are so many cases of deception in card sales, particularly among the very expensive cards.
However, the thread I linked is from over two years ago. There was talk then of an FBI investigation, which has happened before in sports memorabilia sales. About 20 years ago, a large autograph forgery operation was taken down through an FBI investigation called Operation Bullpen and many of the bad actors involved went to prison.
The funny and kind of sad thing about all this is that even though it’s huge news in the cards world, it’s so far removed from the day to day of my eBay life. I have 8400 feedback on my selling id and (knock on wood) have never received a negative feedback. I’ve never had a buyer attempt a bait and switch, or claim that the card was in lesser condition than I stated, or anything else like that. Not one, over 10 years of selling and 4 of doing it basically full-time, and I am careful and honest but I am also human.
I think the reason is that my average sales price is under $50. It’s a very different world from the one with these high-end consignors whose items regularly sell for $1,000 or $5,000 or $10,000 or more, and the consignors net a small percentage of the sale. I can see how greed can take over, especially with the lack of oversight around cards compared to stocks and things of that nature.
I hope that eBay restricting PWCC listings is the first step towards an investigation and penalties for those who have committed fraud. This is such an unusual action by eBay that it wouldn’t surprise me.
Congratulations, and also hope you all feel better. What a week of highs and lows!
One of the things that helped most when I had Covid last year were long, hot showers and epsom salt baths. My body aches were really bad, especially at night, but the steam from the shower and the salt on my muscles gave me enough energy to accomplish small tasks like cooking a small meal or packing a few sold items.
I was a lurker on these forums for a long time before I started posting, so it was a thrill to get mentioned on the podcast this week. Thank you. The podcast and this community has provided me with so much encouragement and positivity, and it feels great to provide some of my own knowledge and experience in return. There are a lot of things about the process of selling on eBay which are universal even if the specifics about what we sell and how we sell are different.
Before I found my current niche, I used to be one of those scavengers wandering around the Goodwill outlet or the local flea markets looking through piles of shirts and other random gewgaws for treasure. I knew there was money to be made on those things, and every so often I would find something worth selling. But most of the time I would spend less than $10 and find almost nothing at all. Maybe it’s because that particular Goodwill or flea market wasn’t very good, or maybe I was there on the wrong day. But more likely I didn’t know enough about what I was looking at. It’s hard to find something worth selling when your main strategy is hope you get lucky enough to find a hundred dollar item. It’s more likely you’ll find multiple things that will sell for $20 or $40, but only if you know what you’re looking for and why it’s valuable.
8/8/2021 – 8/14/2021
Total items in store: 3151
Items sold: 77 (54 by best offer, 9 by seller initiated offer)
Gross sales: $3277.85 (up 37% from one year ago)
Net sales: $2345.89 (up 44% from one year ago)
Lowest price sold (net): $6.44 — autographed Art Ditmar card
The set concept of these Historic Scripts autographed cards is simple: 10 autographs in a box for $100 or whatever the boxes cost, and that’s it. A handful of the autographs were all-time greats and the vast majority were a mix of baseball players from the last 100 years of baseball history that don’t sell for much. Maybe you pull a Mays or Mantle, but more likely you’ll get someone who played 18 games in 1957.
I picked up a huge quantity (200+) of these Historic Autographs Scripts cards in a huge lot auction a few years ago. There were just a few pictures, so it was kind of a mystery lot beyond the title. I paid around $2.50 each, or a little over $500 total, and at the time that was the most I’d ever spent on one auction.
I made my initial investment back within a few months, since there were a few autographs in the lot that were more valuable because the player was popular or had died many years ago. For the last year or so, I’ve sold a few of these cards every month. They rarely sell for more than $10 since most of the players are obscure and the cards are ugly. Not a great combination, and if the cards were not autographed they would be worth nothing, really. Every so often, new auctions for autographs from this set pop up, and they almost always sell for $5 or less.
More often than not, I am the one who buys them. I don’t list many items for under $15 anymore, but I have a weakness for this particular set.
Maybe once a month, I sell a few to the same buyer who collects a particular team. And once or twice a year, I receive a really enthusiastic message or feedback about one of these cards because the buyer has a personal connection to the player, who was a long deceased family member or an old neighbor or something. Those are messages are why I keep an eye out for these cards when they’re cheap enough. Even buying them at $1 or $2 each, the profit on one card is just a few bucks, and you can’t have a profitable store only selling items like that. But it’s always rewarding when they sell, and it’s nice to have items like that in your inventory.
Highest price sold (net): $118.81 — Mike Mussina 1/1 Topps Archives autograph
The Topps Archives Signature cards are a good example of how modern cards work. The boxes cost about $70 each, which is a great price compared to the more expensive brands like National Treasures and Flawless that cost hundreds or even thousands for one box. Those brands, and most others, offer a chance at rookie cards, or jersey cards, or shiny inserts that get jaw-droppingly expensive for the best players. But Topps Archives Signature sets keep it real simple. In Topps Archives, you receive 1 serial numbered autographed card in your box.
If you get a good player with a low serial number (like a 1/1), congratulations! You did good. If you get a lesser player numbered to something higher (like /87), tough luck. Those cards regularly sell for $5 or less. People who open these types of boxes typically buy a case (15-20 boxes) since that improves your odds of getting a name player with a nice number.
I purchased this Mussina card from someone who opened multiple cases worth and didn’t want to deal with the “hassle” of selling on eBay, so they posted their “hits” to Reddit. One of the many weird things about the modern cards market is that eBay is what allows card buyers and sellers to connect. Prices would be so much lower if eBay didn’t exist because it’s a simple worldwide platform that’s easy to use. Yet there is a small subset of card collectors, maybe 5 to 10 percent, who do anything and everything they can to avoid using “feeBay.” So this whole separate universe of transactions happens through message boards and social media. I’m not a social media person, so I mostly avoid those places unless there’s a deal to be found when I happen to be looking.
Definitely want to surround the pennant with a few pieces of flat cardboard so there is no chance of the buyer cutting open the package and accidentally cutting into the pennant. Even with stiff cardboard, you will still be able to ship the package first class domestic or international (under one pound).
Shipping nerds are forged in the fire of necessity. Once you panic at the thought of shipping a weird bulky item enough times, it is no longer a major thing.
This is a great way of looking at the shipping process. I don’t sell or ship large or bulky or odd items, since I have a niche of mostly small items and I live in an apartment so storage space is limited. But I’m confident from listening to the podcast for the last few years and reading the forums religiously that I could learn how to package and ship those types of items. It would be slow going at the beginning but eventually you learn the best way that works for you so those steps become a part of the process.
The ability to expand and change is one of the biggest keys to making an eBay store work over the long term. The podcast touches on this very frequently, like how different selling clothes was ten years ago compared to now. But if you have the right processes in place, you can sell almost anything on eBay which is the ultimate beauty of the platform.
eBay already has a really good built in price guide for trading cards, and it’s Terapeak. Their collection / price guide beta isn’t refined enough to differentiate between the minor differences in cards that make them so valuable. It also uses eBay listings to populate its price guide values, which is a problem because lots of sellers game the system with titles that use keyword spamming.
For example, Mike Trout’s 2011 Topps Update rookie (one of the more valuable modern baseball cards since Trout is one of the best players) has an average sales price in the price guide feature which is far below what a Trout rookie would typically sell for. This is mostly because the card has been reprinted in various sets in the last ten years. These reprinted cards, which aren’t 1/10 as valuable or desirable as the true rookie, are often listed by sellers with a title like “Mike Trout Topps rookie reprint.” Technically true, but something that most knowledgeable collectors filter out of searches.
Unfortunately the price guides aren’t able to do this yet. Maybe two or three versions from now, this feature will be useful. Right now it’s not.
A lot of the short term price fluctuations which happen with cards are because of the prevalence of auctions in the category. Auctions are so unpredictable and a poor way of determining “true” value of something, especially when you also add in the standard errors which happen with listings. In the case of cards, sometimes they sell less because a player’s name is spelled wrong, or the team name is missing from the title, or a key feature of the card is not attributed properly. For example, autographed cards are most frequently titled as “auto” but some sellers use a synonym like “signature” or “autographed” which almost always results in the card selling for a lower price than it could.
Retro’s advice is perfect, particularly about the GPS stamp. That’s one of the best advantages of using USPS versus UPS, FedEx etc who tell you to pound sand if an item is lost.
You’ll win the eBay case if tracking shows as delivered, and if the buyer’s unreasonable, don’t forget to add them to your blocked list to ensure you won’t have to deal with their shenanigans again in the future.
