Making a decent wage of sports cards.

[glassofwater]

My problem is I get lazy listing. I got pretty good at doing the excel sheet for listing and uploading on image shack. What takes the most time is setting the price and creating titles. If it’s from. The same set I copy and paste any tips for pricing cards and creating titles to save time?

[jamcas997]

Originally Posted by JoeAdam

I'm still working on stocking my store. I do it during slow times at work and I only have about 75 items listed at the moment. Plan is to do like 5-10 listings per day. Nothing crazy.

However, it does seem to be annoying that I get 1-3 orders per day. This means I have to spend the time to ship and make maybe $2-5 profit total. As I add more this will hopefully grow.

Would it make sense to convert my entire store to auction and have the starting price be my current BIN price? This way all of my sales occur on the same day and I only need to deal with shipping things once a week.

You could set your shipping to a 2 day handling. Thats what I do. I still do tend to ship daily with the USPS omw to work so Standard envelope can go daily buy bbl mailers can go every other day. Just remember this when you file your taxes you can claim mileage to USPS.

[tdbaseballcards]

I have 3 day handling so if I only have 1 sale that day I can wait a day or 2. I frequently ship same/next day and I find that having a 3 day handling leads to lots of feedback about it arriving/shipping fast.

[rwperu34]

Originally Posted by JoeAdam

I'm still working on stocking my store. I do it during slow times at work and I only have about 75 items listed at the moment. Plan is to do like 5-10 listings per day. Nothing crazy.

However, it does seem to be annoying that I get 1-3 orders per day. This means I have to spend the time to ship and make maybe $2-5 profit total. As I add more this will hopefully grow.

Would it make sense to convert my entire store to auction and have the starting price be my current BIN price? This way all of my sales occur on the same day and I only need to deal with shipping things once a week.

I don't understand the cost of spending time to ship a few vs a bunch. Is the PO or mailbox out of the way? I've literally got a blue box on my path in any direction. The extra time shipping would be about 30 seconds.

The auction strategy is my strategy. I think it's a good way to make a few extra dollars here and there, but there is a flaw in what you're trying to accomplish. Even if you had 10 sales one night a week, the payments are going to come in over several days (if at all). The second flaw is many of my sales come in the few days after I relist at fixed price!

[JoeAdam]

Originally Posted by beauspencer

Isn't the goal to list cards on eBay to sell them?

Yes...my point was that I'd rather sit down and do 10+ cards at a time instead of having to remember to ship a $1 card every day.

[beauspencer]

Yes...my point was that I'd rather sit down and do 10+ cards at a time instead of having to remember to ship a $1 card every day.

Gotcha. There's really not a good work around other than extending your handling time to 3-4 days. Then just sit down and ship every 3 days. Auctions is not a good idea because you'll get a fraction of what it would sell for as a BIN, plus as someone else mentioned the payments will be staggered up to 4 days.

[zack88]

Does anyone here use the third party applications ebay has listed? I started looking through them but I don't think it's anything I would benefit from at this point.

[booky]

do most of you guys only use EBAY to sell?
COMC or GOLDIN? etc

[grade]

Originally Posted by booky

do most of you guys only use EBAY to sell?
COMC or GOLDIN? etc

I might try Goldin someday.

[JoeAdam]

Originally Posted by booky

do most of you guys only use EBAY to sell?
COMC or GOLDIN? etc

Anything that I don't think will get a PSA 9 or better goes to consignment companies. Don't want to deal with the returns. Graded cards in general go to my PWCC account and get listed there.

[booky]

Originally Posted by JoeAdam

Anything that I don't think will get a PSA 9 or better goes to consignment companies. Don't want to deal with the returns. Graded cards in general go to my PWCC account and get listed there.

and do you find you make a good wage with PWCC? sorry what i mean is do you find PWCC worth the effort?

[booky]

when grading cards do you send PSA or nothing?

anyone have great stories about using COSIGNMENT places?

[rwperu34]

Originally Posted by booky

when grading cards do you send PSA or nothing?

anyone have great stories about using COSIGNMENT places?

I go PSA or nothing, but will still pay a premium for BGS 9.5. It's been nothing since late February of 2021, FWIW.

The only consignment I've used as a seller is PC_Sportscards. You can see their grading thread in the grading forum.

As a buyer the consignor I win from most often is DCSports87.

[jamcas997]

Originally Posted by bryanscs

Here's a picture of my setup. It only works if you have an extremely hard floor surface (concrete, etc).

Had to bring this back to the top as it is a great way for storage and organization

[grade]

1-vintage Pokemon. Graded
2- Sealed ultra modern Pokemon if you have capitol
3- Mid priced Sports Cards. $100 - $1500.

I do not sell on ebay. Basically PWCC and Amazon. Need the freedom to enjoy life. Focus on buying and let the other platforms pack, mail and deal with payment nonsense. (just got back from a around the world vacation without having to stop sales due to 3rd party fulfillment )

Not efficient at all. Do leave a lot on the table. More of a hobby with full time returns.

[jamcas997]

Selling cards is not my primary source of income as I have a Job, Mil Ret, and VA it is becoming a steady flow. This month so far my sales have been steady the Ebay SE sales are still well above 85% and have been so this whole year. For this month of September I noticed my sales have slipped the same as every September the last 5 years.

While October normally rebounds great I have decided to make a new category for my ebay store. I have taken the lead of 1 Million Cubs and running free shipping BINS from $1.50 to $1.99. I only have 2140 items listed and will continue to list building up my inventory. Most of what I will also be putting up is parallels in this category and not much base.

[rwperu34]

Originally Posted by jamcas997

Selling cards is not my primary source of income as I have a Job, Mil Ret, and VA it is becoming a steady flow. This month so far my sales have been steady the Ebay SE sales are still well above 85% and have been so this whole year. For this month of September I noticed my sales have slipped the same as every September the last 5 years.

While October normally rebounds great I have decided to make a new category for my ebay store. I have taken the lead of 1 Million Cubs and running free shipping BINS from $1.50 to $1.99. I only have 2140 items listed and will continue to list building up my inventory. Most of what I will also be putting up is parallels in this category and not much base.

Mine have slipped too. I'm sending out the same number of packages every month, but the average package is ~30% of Jan-Aug.

I didn't know about the September slowdown being normal. I doubt I'll rebound in October since I'm all baseball. I suspect it will be slow for me until January.

[paparoke]

Originally Posted by jamcas997

Selling cards is not my primary source of income as I have a Job, Mil Ret, and VA it is becoming a steady flow. This month so far my sales have been steady the Ebay SE sales are still well above 85% and have been so this whole year. For this month of September I noticed my sales have slipped the same as every September the last 5 years.

While October normally rebounds great I have decided to make a new category for my ebay store. I have taken the lead of 1 Million Cubs and running free shipping BINS from $1.50 to $1.99. I only have 2140 items listed and will continue to list building up my inventory. Most of what I will also be putting up is parallels in this category and not much base.

Originally Posted by rwperu34

Mine have slipped too. I'm sending out the same number of packages every month, but the average package is ~30% of Jan-Aug.

I didn't know about the September slowdown being normal. I doubt I'll rebound in October since I'm all baseball. I suspect it will be slow for me until January.

Whew I thought it was just me. September has been extremely slow and about a third of my typical month in sales thus far. I suspect I'll start seeing more football selling soon.

[nam812]

Originally Posted by jamcas997

Selling cards is not my primary source of income as I have a Job, Mil Ret, and VA it is becoming a steady flow. This month so far my sales have been steady the Ebay SE sales are still well above 85% and have been so this whole year. For this month of September I noticed my sales have slipped the same as every September the last 5 years.

While October normally rebounds great I have decided to make a new category for my ebay store. I have taken the lead of 1 Million Cubs and running free shipping BINS from $1.50 to $1.99. I only have 2140 items listed and will continue to list building up my inventory. Most of what I will also be putting up is parallels in this category and not much base.

So you net between 40 cents and 85 cents depending on your listing price, which is fine, but the pain in the butt is scanning all those cheap cards

[grade]

If i could manage 5 of you, we all be millionaires.

Just one advice. Scale up in price level keeping the same amount of time per day/week.

Keep up the great work.

[jamcas997]

Originally Posted by nam812

So you net between 40 cents and 85 cents depending on your listing price, which is fine, but the pain in the butt is scanning all those cheap cards

using smartphone, getting about 20-25 items listed an hour. Most are from the same series.

[nam812]

Originally Posted by jamcas997

using smartphone, getting about 20-25 items listed an hour. Most are from the same series.

Do you do both front and back scans on cards that inexpensive? Also, do you do them in a variation/choice listing or separate listings for each?

[jamcas997]

Originally Posted by nam812

Do you do both front and back scans on cards that inexpensive? Also, do you do them in a variation/choice listing or separate listings for each?

No scans front and backs with smart phone , most are inserts & parallels , refractors and prizms most have duplicates with 3 to 5 of each. So that makes them worth listing. Using same templates mostly cut and paste.


the edit

only 5 cards sold today all were SE. I will just keep adding to inventory.

[rwperu34]

Originally Posted by nam812

So you net between 40 cents and 85 cents depending on your listing price, which is fine, but the pain in the butt is scanning all those cheap cards

Yep. The idea is you'll get plenty of people putting multiple cards in to one shipment. Plus you draw people to your store and get more eyes on higher priced items. In theory enough to make it worthwhile. This Blowout member beauspencer's entire game plan and he seems to be doing ok and enjoying himself.

That and using low leverage time. I mean I could be listing cards right now instead of typing this response...

Originally Posted by nam812

Do you do both front and back scans on cards that inexpensive? Also, do you do them in a variation/choice listing or separate listings for each?

Hell no! Only if there's a serial # on the back.

I'm doing individual listings, but if I had a high percentage of a particular set then I would do variations listings.

Originally Posted by jamcas997

No scans front and backs with smart phone , most are inserts & parallels , refractors and prizms most have duplicates with 3 to 5 of each. So that makes them worth listing. Using same templates mostly cut and paste.


the edit

only 5 cards sold today all were SE. I will just keep adding to inventory.

I'm sure you know this, but it took me forever to figure out. With the "sell similar" function the duplicate listings take half (or less) as long. If I have a duplicate of a card, before I leave feedback I hit the sell similar button, delete the pic, and save it as a draft. Then later I take the pics and come back add them to the listing. I'm right about where you are using Microsoft Lens for photos (20-25 per hour), but it's more like 40-50 if they are duplicates.

[jamcas997]

Originally Posted by rwperu34

Yep. The idea is you'll get plenty of people putting multiple cards in to one shipment. Plus you draw people to your store and get more eyes on higher priced items. In theory enough to make it worthwhile. This Blowout member beauspencer's entire game plan and he seems to be doing ok and enjoying himself.

That and using low leverage time. I mean I could be listing cards right now instead of typing this response...



Hell no! Only if there's a serial # on the back.

I'm doing individual listings, but if I had a high percentage of a particular set then I would do variations listings.



I'm sure you know this, but it took me forever to figure out. With the "sell similar" function the duplicate listings take half (or less) as long. If I have a duplicate of a card, before I leave feedback I hit the sell similar button, delete the pic, and save it as a draft. Then later I take the pics and come back add them to the listing. I'm right about where you are using Microsoft Lens for photos (20-25 per hour), but it's more like 40-50 if they are duplicates.

If I can add 25 to 50 a day I am happy. If I get more than that done even better. I'm just trying to drum up some more sales.