All I want to do is talk about Sportlots

[Dalston]

Originally Posted by nam812

First of all glad to hear that you are a repeat buyer. My ears are always open as a seller so please expand on the way I penalize those that add more card up to 10. My box rates are:

1 card - 44 cents
2 - 4 cards - 74 cents
5 - 10 cards - $1.09
11 - 16 cards - $2.17
16 - 102,896 - Free

Thanks, Nick

Hi Nick,

First off, "penalizes' is a harsh word that has negative connotations that I didn't mean to use. If I'd proofread properly rather than tossing off a message, I'd have changed to "disincentivizes". For the avoidance of doubt, I think you are a good seller, your shipping rates are objectively reasonable, and I've appreciate from you thoughtful posts over time that you think hard about how you set shipping rates.

With that preliminary out of the way, let me explain what I mean. My practice when checking out an order is to sort my cart by seller and scroll down working out which sellers I have enough to justify the shipping costs. Here is the incentive structure you are currently offering me to go and add more cards from you when I do that:

- 4 cards in cart - No incentive to look further. There is a shipping hit to adding between 1-11 more cards and I'd have to get really lucky to get to 16 without it being a huge time suck that will delay my multi-seller order.
- 10 cards in cart - Very little incentive to look further. There is a shipping hit to adding more cards. There is a shipping hit to adding between 1-5 more cards and I'd have to get somewhat lucky to get to 16 without it being a huge time suck that will delay my multi-seller order.
- 11-15 cards in cart - Every incentive to look further. Even if I just add random 20c cards to the order I'm going to save money. And likely I can find some cards I at least marginally want or have some resale value quite quickly.

Bottom line, I'm only going to give your inventory even a cursory glance if I have 11+ cards I want. Otherwise I'll tick the box to add you to the order with the cards already in my cart and move on towards completing my order.

Compare that to my incentives with the example pricing structure that looks something like this for box shipping:
1 card - $0.75
2-4 cards - $0.70
5-10 cards - $0.50
11-15 cards - $0.25
16+ - free

If I see that pricing (or anything that tapers down in that fashion - the precise numbers aren't important), I'm probably going to have a look at your inventory to see if I can find cards to add, because I know that even if I can't get to 16 I'll save some money on shipping, so it won't be a waste of time if I only find a couple of additional cards that I sorta want at the price. And once I start looking, perhaps it turns out you have a lot of a set or player I want and I end up making a much larger order.

Another way to look at this is that if someone ordering 16 cards from you in a box purchase is worth you making shipping free, it's a little counterintuitive to charge your highest shipping rate for 15 cards.

Hopefully that makes some sense about how I was thinking about it. But entirely possible that I'm in a minority in thinking about it in this way.

[wubh]

Newbie questions: I just started listing this week and am looking to make my first sales and hopefully get some positive feedbacks.

Would selling some low-end inserts and parallel lots via auction be a good idea? I broke some cases of 21 Mosaic Quick Pitch and could put together a bunch of smaller player, RC, and team lots of inserts and parallels as spring training heats up.

I have almost 3,000 cards listed so far and the majority are inserts and parallels in the $1-$5 range, plus some autos and parallels in the $5-$15 range (basically stuff that I decided against sending to COMC or haven’t gotten around to it) and some base in less common products (like Chrome MLS).

Would I be better off just sticking with auctions since I’ll never have the kind of inventory that optimizes selling bulk lots of set filler or for team/player collectors so I might get hit pretty hard by the fixed store fee structure?

Also, whatever you make from auctions isn’t added to the monthly store fee schedule, right? If so, $.15 cents to list with no further final value fee sounds like a pretty great deal.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

[nam812]

Originally Posted by Dalston

Hi Nick,

First off, "penalizes' is a harsh word that has negative connotations that I didn't mean to use. If I'd proofread properly rather than tossing off a message, I'd have changed to "disincentivizes". For the avoidance of doubt, I think you are a good seller, your shipping rates are objectively reasonable, and I've appreciate from you thoughtful posts over time that you think hard about how you set shipping rates.

With that preliminary out of the way, let me explain what I mean. My practice when checking out an order is to sort my cart by seller and scroll down working out which sellers I have enough to justify the shipping costs. Here is the incentive structure you are currently offering me to go and add more cards from you when I do that:

- 4 cards in cart - No incentive to look further. There is a shipping hit to adding between 1-11 more cards and I'd have to get really lucky to get to 16 without it being a huge time suck that will delay my multi-seller order.
- 10 cards in cart - Very little incentive to look further. There is a shipping hit to adding more cards. There is a shipping hit to adding between 1-5 more cards and I'd have to get somewhat lucky to get to 16 without it being a huge time suck that will delay my multi-seller order.
- 11-15 cards in cart - Every incentive to look further. Even if I just add random 20c cards to the order I'm going to save money. And likely I can find some cards I at least marginally want or have some resale value quite quickly.

Bottom line, I'm only going to give your inventory even a cursory glance if I have 11+ cards I want. Otherwise I'll tick the box to add you to the order with the cards already in my cart and move on towards completing my order.

Compare that to my incentives with the example pricing structure that looks something like this for box shipping:
1 card - $0.75
2-4 cards - $0.70
5-10 cards - $0.50
11-15 cards - $0.25
16+ - free

If I see that pricing (or anything that tapers down in that fashion - the precise numbers aren't important), I'm probably going to have a look at your inventory to see if I can find cards to add, because I know that even if I can't get to 16 I'll save some money on shipping, so it won't be a waste of time if I only find a couple of additional cards that I sorta want at the price. And once I start looking, perhaps it turns out you have a lot of a set or player I want and I end up making a much larger order.

Another way to look at this is that if someone ordering 16 cards from you in a box purchase is worth you making shipping free, it's a little counterintuitive to charge your highest shipping rate for 15 cards.

Hopefully that makes some sense about how I was thinking about it. But entirely possible that I'm in a minority in thinking about it in this way.

I appreciate the detailed response, and if it were just the cards without shipping I agree with your premise totally. At shows I always offer deeper discounts with the more cards that are purchased. I have a bargain box where I sell cards for $2.50 each, 10 for $22 and 20 for $40.

Unfortunately the determining factor for the cost of shipping is weight, and more cards adds more weight. My structure is in place to obviously encourage larger orders.

Even with me increasing my box shipping prices slightly at 4 and 10 and 16 for the added weight, my box shipping price structure actually does slightly incentivize adding cards (except for a very slight reversal for the 11 to 16 card plateau), and then a much bigger incentive for 17+.

If we use 18 cents per card as our constant:

A 1 card order is 18 cents + 44 cents shipping which is 62 cents per card.
A 4 card order is 72 cents + 74 cents shipping which is 36.5 cents per card.
A 10 card order is $1.80 + $1.09 cents shipping which is 28.9 cents per card.
A 16 card order is $2.88 cents + $2.17 cents shipping which is 31.5 cents per card.
A 17 card order is $3.04 + $0 shipping which is 17.8 cents per card.

[Dalston]

Originally Posted by nam812

I appreciate the detailed response, and if it were just the cards without shipping I agree with your premise totally. At shows I always offer deeper discounts with the more cards that are purchased. I have a bargain box where I sell cards for $2.50 each, 10 for $22 and 20 for $40.

Unfortunately the determining factor for the cost of shipping is weight, and more cards adds more weight. My structure is in place to obviously encourage larger orders.

Even with me increasing my box shipping prices slightly at 4 and 10 and 16 for the added weight, my box shipping price structure actually does slightly incentivize adding cards (except for a very slight reversal for the 11 to 16 card plateau), and then a much bigger incentive for 17+.

If we use 18 cents per card as our constant:

A 1 card order is 18 cents + 44 cents shipping which is 62 cents per card.
A 4 card order is 72 cents + 74 cents shipping which is 36.5 cents per card.
A 10 card order is $1.80 + $1.09 cents shipping which is 28.9 cents per card.
A 16 card order is $2.88 cents + $2.17 cents shipping which is 31.5 cents per card.
A 17 card order is $3.04 + $0 shipping which is 17.8 cents per card.

Yep - I get shipping is calculated by weight.

The key question to ask is whether your margin on selling extra cards would more than offset the weight difference. Based on my experience shipping cards, I'm guessing it would, especially since:

- The weight of protective material doesn't increase in a linear fashion for order that don't merit every card being toploaded. Therefore a 20 card order of cards should weigh significantly less than 5 times 4 card orders.
- Once your aggregated orders get over 13 ounces, I'm guessing you are using some kind of flat rate shipping method anyway. And the cost difference between a 1 and 13 ounce first class package is not that great.
- If getting bigger orders wasn't fundamentally attractive to you , you wouldn't offer free shipping at 17 cards.

I see your point about average cost, but as a rational buyer (most of the time), the key question to me is not going to be average cost but the marginal cost of adding one more card. On low end cards, if adding one more card adds a dollar in shipping, I'm likely to stop looking and get it shipped unless I'm finding incredible bargains.

Again, I don't have an issues with your approach. But I'm guessing you would get more large box orders and make more money if you had a flatter box shipping structure (it doesn't even have to taper down) before the threshold at which you will send for free.

With that, I'll leave you in peace until the next time you have some cards I want and I give you some money

[nam812]

Originally Posted by Dalston

......With that, I'll leave you in peace until the next time you have some cards I want and I give you some money

Adam, Thank you for all the insight into your approach. It's always nice to get honest feedback from buyers so that sellers can see where they may or may not need to tweak their model. Even if nothing comes of it I want to thank you for having considered my items in the past, and I enjoyed that open discussion. Regards, Nick

[longhornjunkie]

Originally Posted by longhornjunkie

Buyer to take note of - user ID 13002021

Left me neutral feedback over the player content of one of my lots when I clearly stated it did not contain any stars.

Further to this... I politely messaged the buyer regarding my item description and his response was that his phone was stolen and the person made orders and had them sent to a different address. Who knows.

[longhornjunkie]

Originally Posted by longhornjunkie

Further to this... I politely messaged the buyer regarding my item description and his response was that his phone was stolen and the person made orders and had them sent to a different address. Who knows.

Sportlots confirmed his address has never changed since opening the account. I'll be blocking him. Buyer ID again 13002021.

They removed the feedback record but my summary still shows 1 neutral, may have to follow up if it doesn't drop off by tomorrow.

Edit: it was fixed the next day.

[frenchquarter]

Originally Posted by nam812

First of all glad to hear that you are a repeat buyer. My ears are always open as a seller so please expand on the way I penalize those that add more card up to 10. My box rates are:

1 card - 44 cents
2 - 4 cards - 74 cents
5 - 10 cards - $1.09
11 - 16 cards - $2.17
16 - 102,896 - Free

Thanks, Nick

Hi Nick, here is what I am seeing with your prices. Please correct me if I am wrong.

1 card is 44 cents.

2-4 cards for 74 cents = 18.5 cents per card for 4 cards

5-10 cards for $1.09 = 10.9 cents per card for 10 cards The price per card go up with 5,6,7,8,or 9 card orders. So if I am buying 4 cards, but I would like to buy 1 or 2 more, do I want my per card price to jump up to 15 or 16 cents?

11-16 cards for $2.17 = 13.5 cents per card, so you are charging more per card than you charge for a 10 card order. Plus, those extra 6 cards are costing the customer 18 cents each. So, if I have 10 items in my cart, what is the incentive to add 1 or 2 cards to the order or for that matter, 6 more cards and drive up the price per card.

16 cards only weigh 1.2 ounces, so the additional weight isn't costing you that much, unless it jumps you up from first class to Priority. And, something to think about with Priority. You pay the same for a 1 pound, 1 ounce box as you pay for a 2 pound box, so that extra 15 ounces is virtually free.

Good luck. Rick

[nam812]

Originally Posted by frenchquarter

.....The price per card go up with 5,6,7,8,or 9 card orders. So if I am buying 4 cards, but I would like to buy 1 or 2 more, do I want my per card price to jump up to 15 or 16 cents?.......

That does not happen Rick. Check this chart to see what actually happens in the 1 to 10 card range with my box shipping rates.

[frenchquarter]

Originally Posted by nam812

That does not happen Rick. Check this chart to see what actually happens in the 1 to 10 card range with my box shipping rates.

Attachment 535868

The price of the card doesn't matter. We are talking about shipping costs.

In your scenario, with 18 cents per card, it does bring the per card cost down, but what if there are some $1 cards in there? The average cost per card goes up.

You need to just look at your shipping rates. I don't mean to be arguing with you. Believe it or not, I am trying to help.

[nam812]

Originally Posted by frenchquarter

The price of the card doesn't matter. We are talking about shipping costs.

In your scenario, with 18 cents per card, it does bring the per card cost down, but what if there are some $1 cards in there? The average cost per card goes up.

You need to just look at your shipping rates. I don't mean to be arguing with you. Believe it or not, I am trying to help.

I never took it as arguing.

As for the cards, I have to base all my thoughts on 18 cents per card because that's what most of my listings are. I have 103,905 cards listed that have an average price of 28.3 cents each. I cant start guessing what if they buy a $1 card or a $2 card or a ........

Thanks for the help

Nick

Edited to add:

Just to make sure I wasn't losing my mind I did another chart with only the shipping cost per card and it still goes down.

Whether the buyer selects and 18 cent card, a $1 card or whatever, the shipping cost per card goes down from 1 card to 10 cards (except for a tiny 3 cent uptick from 4 to 5 cards)



Nick

[tribefan26]

Originally Posted by nam812

I never took it as arguing.

As for the cards, I have to base all my thoughts on 18 cents per card because that's what most of my listings are. I have 103,905 cards listed that have an average price of 28.3 cents each. I cant start guessing what if they buy a $1 card or a $2 card or a ........

Thanks for the help

Nick

Edited to add:

Just to make sure I wasn't losing my mind I did another chart with only the shipping cost per card and it still goes down.

Whether the buyer selects and 18 cent card, a $1 card or whatever, the shipping cost per card goes down from 1 card to 10 cards (except for a tiny 3 cent uptick from 4 to 5 cards)

Attachment 535879

Nick

Most of the issues here comes from the options we as sellers have for shipping cards - Sportlots gives us the breaks of 1, 2-4, 5-10, 11-20 etc.

It is very difficult to set rates for shipping where you don't have areas were there is a "penalty" for adding a card - the 4 to 5 and 10 to 11 are the areas I see the biggest issues.

Asa buyer I try really hard to avoid ever buying 5 or 11 cards from a seller. I can go from 5 to 10 for no additional shipping.

[tribefan26]

Originally Posted by frenchquarter

Hi Nick, here is what I am seeing with your prices. Please correct me if I am wrong.

1 card is 44 cents.

2-4 cards for 74 cents = 18.5 cents per card for 4 cards

5-10 cards for $1.09 = 10.9 cents per card for 10 cards The price per card go up with 5,6,7,8,or 9 card orders. So if I am buying 4 cards, but I would like to buy 1 or 2 more, do I want my per card price to jump up to 15 or 16 cents?

11-16 cards for $2.17 = 13.5 cents per card, so you are charging more per card than you charge for a 10 card order. Plus, those extra 6 cards are costing the customer 18 cents each. So, if I have 10 items in my cart, what is the incentive to add 1 or 2 cards to the order or for that matter, 6 more cards and drive up the price per card.

16 cards only weigh 1.2 ounces, so the additional weight isn't costing you that much, unless it jumps you up from first class to Priority. And, something to think about with Priority. You pay the same for a 1 pound, 1 ounce box as you pay for a 2 pound box, so that extra 15 ounces is virtually free.

Good luck. Rick

An order has to be in the 100 card and up range for priority shipping to make sense. Orders in the 5-100 cards range I generally ship via first class - which has rates that vary by 4 oz increments.

I cant set shipping rates that guarantee cost per card always goes down. Setting my 5-10 rate requires me to make sure on average I can cover all costs in that range. If I jump it by 15% to make sure the cost for a 5 card order per card is less than a 4 card order, I can't cover my costs when I get up to 10 cards.

Sportlots creates a big disincentive to 5 card orders.

[RustyGreerFan]

I appreciate they are attempting to improve the site and experience. One thing I am missing are the one-click recent searches. Any idea if they have anything like that still?

[dgrimes248]

Originally Posted by RustyGreerFan

I appreciate they are attempting to improve the site and experience. One thing I am missing are the one-click recent searches. Any idea if they have anything like that still?

still there: click on My Account and then Account Profile. Scrool down and they are at the bottom

[RustyGreerFan]

Originally Posted by dgrimes248

still there: click on My Account and then Account Profile. Scrool down and they are at the bottom

Ah. I liked it b/c it was quick before. Might as well just type it out again.

[timber09]

Originally Posted by tribefan26

An order has to be in the 100 card and up range for priority shipping to make sense. Orders in the 5-100 cards range I generally ship via first class - which has rates that vary by 4 oz increments.

I cant set shipping rates that guarantee cost per card always goes down. Setting my 5-10 rate requires me to make sure on average I can cover all costs in that range. If I jump it by 15% to make sure the cost for a 5 card order per card is less than a 4 card order, I can't cover my costs when I get up to 10 cards.

Sportlots creates a big disincentive to 5 card orders.

Keep in mind that they are discussing shipping rates to "The Box" and not just standard orders - for standard orders, I agree with you 100%

To throw in my $0.02 on Box shipping. I figure I am going to send off 2-3 packages to SL every month and I build that in as a cost of doing business. I am happy to provide people with a discount as it is way easier for me to process a Box shipment than it is a standard order.

That being said - my table is as follows:
1 card = $0.60
2-4 = $0.50
5-10 = $0.35
11-16 = $0.25
17-25 = $0.25
>26 = Free

I really only charge to dissuade one card orders that could cost me more in paypal fees than I make.

Not sure how many buyers even look at the table though - I still get all kinds of threshold buyers (4, 10, 25 cards) that make no sense to me. Many people end up stopping at four cards when the fifth is essentially free.

[nam812]

Wouldn't it be great if there was an "add pic" button on the add inventory page instead of having to add it and then go to your inventory report page and add the picture? I know that 99.9% of cards we all add wont need a picture, but why not? Heck, 99.9% of the cards we add wont need the "card attributes" section, but it's there. lol

Sorry just thinking out load.

[ScottBreaks]

Originally Posted by nam812

Wouldn't it be great if there was an "add pic" button on the add inventory page instead of having to add it and then go to your inventory report page and add the picture? I know that 99.9% of cards we all add wont need a picture, but why not? Heck, 99.9% of the cards we add wont need the "card attributes" section, but it's there. lol

Sorry just thinking out load.

It's a good idea. Wish they also had a field that would show what the current lowest asking price as well. Would make it easier when I'm adding larger sets instead of flipping back and forth between tabs when pricing new inventory or even updating price on current inventory.

[nam812]

Originally Posted by ScottBreaks

.......Wish they also had a field that would show what the current lowest asking price as well.......

That can be deceiving because the lowest asking price of a card might be 23 cents when everyone else's is around $1.25), but that seller's shipping for 1 card might be $4.00 when your shipping for 1 card might be $0.92. Then you end up selling a $1.25 card for 22 cents just because you used the lowest asking price as your guide with no regard to his 1 card shipping rate.

I understand that what I said only matters in a small shipment, and it wouldn't really matter in a 20 card, 30 card, etc....order.

[ScottBreaks]

Originally Posted by nam812

That can be deceiving because the lowest asking price of a card might be 23 cents when everyone else's is around $1.25), but that seller's shipping for 1 card might be $4.00 when your shipping for 1 card might be $0.92. Then you end up selling a $1.25 card for 22 cents just because you used the lowest asking price as your guide with no regard to his 1 card shipping rate.

I understand that what I said only matters in a small shipment, and it wouldn't really matter in a 20 card, 30 card, etc....order.

Yea, that's the part that I struggle with too. Then you would need a field that shows what percent of sellers/inventory are at the low price, then you're starting to get crowded on the entry screen.

[nam812]

The thing that really needs changing is the way a customer can search a seller's inventory. Right now they have to know what they are looking for and see if that seller has it. To me, a buyer's interest needs to be stimulated beyond the few cards they are focused on at that moment.

They way to do that is when they click on search seler's inventory they need to see a page comparable to what us sellers see when we look our inventory report page, like this:



It would be clickable just like our inventory report page, but for the buyer it would just show what cards in that set the seller has, and the price.

In my opinion that would stimulate a buyer to search for more cards they might not even remember they need than they do now with the few crappy ways available to them.

[RustyGreerFan]

Originally Posted by nam812

The thing that really needs changing is the way a customer can search a seller's inventory. Right now they have to know what they are looking for and see if that seller has it. To me, a buyer's interest needs to be stimulated beyond the few cards they are focused on at that moment.

They way to do that is when they click on search seler's inventory they need to see a page comparable to what us sellers see when we look our inventory report page, like this:

Attachment 536320

It would be clickable just like our inventory report page, but for the buyer it would just show what cards in that set the seller has, and the price.

In my opinion that would stimulate a buyer to search for more cards they might not even remember they need than they do now with the few crappy ways available to them.

Yes, yes, yes. I am a buyer on sportlots and am constantly looking for smarter, faster, better ways to shop. I especially wish they had a way to sort by highest price. That way I can search for say, 2019 Optic, select fresh inventory, then sort by highest price. If I'm only into cards worth $5 or more, I could sort by price and then know almost instantly if there's potentially something to buy. As cumbersome as it is now, I run out of steam and patience pretty quick. It's very time-consuming.

If there actually is a way to do this, or similar methods/workarounds, or ANY search tips, I'd love to hear about it.

It sounds like some of you are experienced sellers on sportlots, so you are probably already aware of this, but when i messaged them about input this was the response:

"I do get a lot of feedback.. and it is all welcome. If you
ever have any ideas.. please pass them on!"

It also sounded like a majority of the effort is currently going into making the site more mobile friendly as they said buyers are by far mostly using their phones while sellers are mostly using desktops.

I am into baseball low-numbered parallels from 1997-present of semi-stars and stars. The rarer the card the more lenient I am with who the player is. No autos, relics, or base RCs. If I need to check your inventory, or keep an eye on your inventory, please let me know.

[nam812]

Originally Posted by RustyGreerFan

......when i messaged them about input this was the response:

"I do get a lot of feedback.. and it is all welcome. If you
ever have any ideas.. please pass them on!"..........

Well when I messaged them the idea i mentioned above, this was their response:

"Yes.. there are lot of enhancements and ideas that we have
with the site. However, as we have told others and we have
to continually remind ourselves, that main focus of the
rewrite is to upgrade technology and make the site mobile
friendly."

Oh well.

[tribefan26]

Originally Posted by RustyGreerFan

It sounds like some of you are experienced sellers on sportlots, so you are probably already aware of this, but when i messaged them about input this was the response:

"I do get a lot of feedback.. and it is all welcome. If you
ever have any ideas.. please pass them on!"

I made my first sale on sportlots in Nov 2005 (some 2005 Heritage SPs) - I'm approaching 200,000 cards sold 17+ years.

I gave up asking about improvements after about 2-3 years. The site works for me, but I think it could be better, but he likes to do things his way.