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Selling Cards: eBay vs TCGPlayer vs Buylists
I was thinking virtually MTG finance today and I realized that 95 percent of what is written on the topic is about ownership cards. Common topics include similar hot speculation tips, box EVs, collections, and so on. On the other manus, very little is written about selling cards. When y'all really recollect about information technology, this makes sense. About of the people writing about MTG finance already know how to sell cards because they take been doing it for years, so the challenge is figuring out which cards tobuy, not how to sell. Based on some of the comments to my articles, I'm non sure the how and why of selling cards is common knowledge, so this is what we are going to be talking virtually today. I guess you tin can consider this article an addendum to my recently completed drove buying series. While I retrieve those articles did a adept chore of roofing my process for selling cards, I didn't really explain the "why" behind the process. Let'south start by looking over the options.
Trading
Personally I'yard not much of a trader so I'g not going to exist super in-depth on the topic. Whether you are trading in person or over the cyberspace, the major benefit and drawback are the same. The best part of trading is that you get (presumably) full retail cost for your cards. This means SCG prices, or TCG-mid prices, or whatever other metric you and your merchandise partner determine to utilize. This doesn't happen very often when yous are selling cards for real coin. Speaking of real coin, the downside to trading is that you are accumulating more cardboard rather than greenbacks. While there are others more than qualified than me to hash out concepts like trading upwardly, i affair I do know about trading is y'all are going to end upward paying the piper (a spread of some percent or some other) sooner or later if you decide to plough your cards into cash.
Assuming a straight 30 percent spread, trading ten $10 cards for one $100 cards doesn't actually put you lot ahead when it comes time to sell. Obviously the spread isn't the aforementioned on all cards (this is peculiarly true of low-value cards), and so the way you come up out ahead is trading ten cards that retail for $1 (butsell for$0.50) for one card that retails for $ten (butsell for$7), or past trading three $l cards that sell for $35 for one $150 card that sells for $120.
If you lot are trading online, transaction costs play a much larger role and trading depression-value cards into high-value cards is actually much more difficult. If you send ten $1 cards to x different people, you're paying at least $0.49 each for a stamp, which equals $4.90 total (this is not to mention tape, ink for your printer, sleeves, so on). If you use your points to purchase one $10 card (which is shipped to you for $0.49), you lot end upwardly losing $4.41 in transaction costs which is significantly more than the typical spread on a $10 card.
I'm non suggesting there isn't money to exist made in trading (because there is), but that this type of a grind isn't a part of my process, and so I'm not the best person to hash out its intricacies.
Local Sales
There was some confusion when I used this term in my last drove buying article. I'thousand not referring to selling your cards to your LGS (this is a form of buylisting with the benefit of no shipping costs and in-person card grading), I'm talking most selling to other local players or collectors. Local sales are — by far — the most assisting way to sell cards. The trouble is, unless y'all own a shop or accept some other professional outlet, it's hard to movement much volume in this manner even past using sites like Craigslist or Facebook.
Suppose you are looking to sell a Jace, the Mind Sculptor, which has a TCG-Mid cost of about $94, an eBay cost of around $eighty buy-information technology-at present, and a buylist price $65. Now say you have a friend that really wants a copy of Jace, the Listen Sculptor to stop off an EDH deck. Your buddy happens to mention that he/she is going to lodge i once they go paid on Fri. This is the verbal state of affairs you are looking for. You tin offer your Jace, the Mind Sculptor for a couple dollars beneath eBay prices (maybe $78) and avoid the shipping/fees/hassles associated with selling online, which is a win-win because your friend gets their Jace, the Heed Sculptor at a slight discount and doesn't accept to wait for it to testify upward in the mail.
This is even more of import with bulk cards, although instead of friends, you are probably looking for people from Craigslist or Facebook. Shipping 5,000 cards is expensive, likewise expensive to be worth buylisting; most buylists pay $3-$four per thousand and shipping in a Medium Flat Rate will cost you $2-$two.fifty per thou, you and then basically end up making $8 for thousands of cards. On the other hand, it's not that difficult to become between $v and $ten per m bulk cards on Craigslist. It might take a little while in some cases, but information technology'due south often worth the wait since you don't take to pay fees or aircraft, or lug a bunch of 40 pound boxes to your post function. I once shipped 300,000 cards in Medium Flat Rates though the post; information technology was quite the work out.
These are the situations I'm talking about when I say "local auction", just once more, unless you lot accept a lot of friends ordering a lot of cards (or ain a store), it's hard to make this your only form of sales. You just won't turn cards over quickly enough. This is the goal to aim for since it maximizes your profits, but instead of being my sole strategy, I look at local sales as a nice bonus when they happen to piece of work out.
The Big Three
Apart from trading and local sales, yous accept three principal options for selling your cards: eBay, TCGPlayer, and buylisting. Personally I lean heavily on buylisting, but there are certainly positives and negatives to each option. In comparing these iii options, we will be bold that all of the cards we are selling are in nearly mint condition. If you lot are selling played cards, I think the scale tips slightly in favor of eBay (brand sure to take pictures and list clearly), followed by TCG, with buylisting bringing up the rear only because most buylist brand heavy deductions for played cards (ranging from $0.70 to $0.thirty cents on the dollar).
Buylists
The biggest benefits of buylisting is you can sell your cards instantly (you don't have to wait to find a heir-apparent) and assuming you lot are selling nearly mint cards, you volition go 100 percent of the quoted value and you but accept to transport in one case per vendor. Other than shipping costs, at that place are no fees associated with buylisting. Most vendors off a xx to 30 percent store credit bonus if you lot are looking to buy other cards. You lot are likewise dealing with a reputable company rather than a random stranger.
The downside of buylisitng is that the prices can be lackluster in some cases. This is especially true of hard tomove cards, oddities and foils, depression-end rares, and most commons and uncommons (with the exception of hot tournament staples). For case, the spread (the difference between sell prices and buy prices) on tournament staples is generally betwixt 25 and 35 pct. This hateful if you buylist your Thoughtseize which retails for well-nigh $2,0 you tin expect to get between $13 and $15. For fringe or casual rares, the spread is frequently in the l pct range, and so if you're selling your Divineness which retails for about $7, you can expect to get about $3.50 from a buylist. Where you really accept a beating from buylists, though, if when y'all sell playable but not-staples commons and uncommons. These are cards that generally retail for betwixt $0.25 and $i.00, but are only purchased for $0.05 or $0.x (many buylist count played eatables and uncommons valued at $0.05 or under as bulk)
This last role is important: generally buylists are not a great place to sell cards of lower raritiesunless they are high finish tournament staples (cards like Path to Exile or Serum Visions)orunless the are literally bulk (selling a $0.20 bill of fare that no i wants and has little potential to increase in the future for $0.05 is a great deal, considering majority rates are $0.005 per).
Ebay
The great part nigh eBay is yous have a worldwide market at your fingertips; the site has tons of users and there is a large market for MTG cards in specific. While more fourth dimension-consuming than buylisting, list isn't reallythat difficult once y'all save some templates. Again, this is bold yous are selling well-nigh mint cards; taking and uploading private pictures of each card to display status adds a considerable corporeality of time to the process.
The downsides of eBay are two-fold. First off, you demand to deal with fees and shipping costs. Ebay charges a flat 10 per centum "final value" fee on each item you sell, so if you sell a $100 card, it is automatically knocked down to $ninety. Then Paypal (which is basically the just payment system on eBay these days) gets another 2.9 pctplus a apartment $0.30 per transaction. This flat fee actually makes the selling of inexpensive cards quite difficult. While $0.30 off a $100 auction is insignificant (0.003 percent), on a $10 card it jumps upwards to 3 pct, and on a $1 bill of fare a whopping xxx percent. This is not to mention an insertion (or listing) fee, which can be another $0.30, depending on your how your business relationship is fix (your first 50 listing per month have no insertion fee).
This math changes based on a few things like purchasing a storefront, becoming a power seller, and various other criteria, just most of these applies to loftier-volume sellers. If you are simply starting off on eBay or only sell a few things each calendar month, you can wait to pay around xiii per centum off the tiptop in fees, and this doesn't include the incidental costs associated with shipping (about buyers these days are savvy enough to include shipping as role of the items cost). Personally I simply figure that each eBay sale costs 15 percent of the total value. Information technology could be as depression every bit 13 percent, but all things considered, over the long-haul, fifteen percent seems about right.
The other result with eBay is fraud. It'due south not really viable to ship a $3 playset of Dark Rituals in a chimera mailer with tracking — the shipping costs will equal the buy cost of the cards. Equally a result, yous are sort of priced into sending with a postage stamp and hoping for the best. It is widely understood that eBay basically always sides with buyers in disputes,particularly if yous are shipping without tracking (and even sometimes with tracking). So some percentage of buyers (in my experience somewhere between 3 and five percent) volition merits they never received the cards you shipped to them.
This number is reduced by tracking, but there are even so squabbles near status and other random things which finish up costing you money. The feedback system on eBay also favors the heir-apparent, every bit seller cannot leave negative feedback to buyers, but heir-apparent can to sellers. Some buyers use their ability to give negative feedback to, in essence, bribery sellers into giving them what they want. I vividly remember i person who bought a v,000 card "instant collection" with fifty rares sending me a message saying, "the collection is great, only I'grand pretty certain some of these cards are not actually rare (they were, but not all had the golden symbol), I really don't want to get out you lot negative feedback, but unless you transport me some more rares (no offer to return the initial batch) I'll have to." This is a no-win situation for a seller; y'all either take a feedback ding (which over time can lead to your business relationship existence downgraded or even suspended from eBay) or you send out some more than cards and pay another round of shipping. Unfortunately, this state of affairs (or similar) happens far likewise oft on eBay.
TCGPlayer
Equally far as selling your Magic Cards, TCGPlayer is the most well known site on the internet today. In many ways information technology's similar to eBay, although it has some tight restrictions on how many cards you can list when you are first starting out and the listings are more than MTG specific and standardized (especially for conditions) then y'all don't have to worry about taking pictures. The market is very competitive, and especially as a new seller you are going to have to toll at or beneath TCG-Low (rather than mid) to sell much of anything. If you lot and ChannelFireball are selling for the same price, in most cases the buyer is going to choose the established make over a random seller.
Here over again, the main consequence is fees. TCGPlayer takes 8.five percent total value fee off the top (and so a $100 sale becomes $91.50) and so charges some other 2.v percent Paypal fee, both of which are actually slightly less than eBay. The problem is they likewise accuse a apartment $0.50 "credit carte du jour processing fee" per lodge, which means selling inexpensive cards individually is pretty much off the table. Certain, y'all can sell your Varolz, the Scar-Stripped for $0.45 plus shipping, but you really end upwards losing money and time in this transaction. Of course this is different if you tin can sell several cards in the same lodge, merely fifty-fifty selling a $2 playset isn't that appealing with $0.50 off the top. As with eBay, this flat fee is less of an issue if you are selling expensive cards, merely information technology really kills annihilation worth less than a dollar or two. I should notation that you can reduce these fees slightly by using TCG-pricing (instead of manually pricing your cards), but I'grand non really sure how effective this is for new sellers. If you lot have have experience with the dissimilar pricing options on TCGPlayer, be sure to give your opinion in the comments.
Economic Comparisons
Allow's discount buylists for a quick second (we'll add them in our next comparison). Assuming y'all can sell a card for the same price on either eBay or TCG, which is the better option based on the fees you'll be charged? Permit's run across.
As y'all can see, everything else equal, the fees assessed past eBay and TCG are (almost) exactly the same for a $11 card (exactly the same for a $10.40 sale). Anything under this price, y'all're better of selling on eBay. Anything over this price, y'all'll pay less fees with TCGPlayer.
Only what about buylists? For this we have to deal with actual menu prices rather than hypotheticals. But a few notes on the methodology. First, this assumes all cards are nearly mint. Second, it assumes that shipping and transaction costs are equal. Finally, as for pricing, the buylist prices are the actual best buylist offer from amidst several reputable vendors (which means no fees), eBay prices are the lowest purchase-it-now currently listed on eBay minus fees (12.9 percent + $0.30), TCGPlayer prices are TCG-Depression minus fees (11 per centum + $0.fifty).
| Card | Buylist Cash | Buylist Trade | Ebay | TCGPlayer |
| Time Warp M10 | $8.19 | $x.67 | $x.14 | $10.16 |
| Elspeth Tirel | $9.00 | $11.seventy | $11.01 | $8.76 |
| Krenko, Mob Dominate | $2.90 | $3.77 | $4.08 | $3.22 |
| Avacyn, Angel of Promise | $26.00 | $33.80 | $25.79 | $28.99 |
| Blood Artist | $1.25 | $1.63 | $ii.44 | $1.48 |
| Jace, the Mind Sculptor | $65 | $84.5 | $69.35 | $76.99 |
| Temporal Extortion | $2.30 | $two.99 | $three.xviii | $2.61 |
| Living End | $iii.twenty | $4.16 | $4.12 | $iii.93 |
| Sorin, Solemn Company | $5.71 | $7.42 | $6.60 | $6.82 |
| Bayou Revised | $115 | $149.five | $104.22 | $127.66 |
* An unscientific sample made by picking random cards off a list with the goal beingness to include diverse ages, formats and toll points.
Every bit yous can see from this nautical chart, the cash prices for buylists are typically the lowest of the three options, with eBay and TCGPlayer battling it out for the highest. On the other mitt, if you are looking for store credit, buylisting is almost always comparable with TCG/eBay, and actually comes out alee in many instances.
Of course these numbers are a footling more simplistic than I would like. Most importantly, they don't include shipping which is some other checkmark in favor of buylists (since you can generally send many cards, even thousands of cards, in one order to minimize shipping costs). It besides doesn't include condition deductions (favors TCGPlayer/eBay), potential for fraud (favors buylists/TCGPlayer), opportunity costs (not certain who this favors. With buylists you can get your money back within a week, with eBay you lot can get it back instantlyassuming you find a buyer for the bill of fare).
Summary
For me, it breaks down like this: All thing equal I sell to a buylist. It is easier for me and you don't have to deal with sometimes illogical/enervating private buyers or fraud. I tend to sell playsets of low-end (only non bulk) cards on eBay since (more often than not) buylist don't pay enough and the $0.50 flat fee from TCGPlayer crosses it off the list. For expensive cards TCGPlayer is probably the best bet, assuming that none of the buylists are paying a comparable price. Of form, all of this is assuming you can't discover a local buyer, which is better than any other option.
If you are willing to trade menu for card, ever, always, e'er take the store credit. In fact, buylisting with a 30 percent bonus is pretty close to merchandise value, with the main benefit being that your merchandise partner has any card you could always desire, and in some cases even sealed product (and xxx percent off a booster box is basically wholesale prices).
Anyway, that'southward all for today. If you accept whatsoever questions about selling cards, or any comments on something I may have missed, please exit them in the comments. Equally always, you can attain me on Twitter (or MTGO) @SaffronOlive
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Source: https://www.mtggoldfish.com/articles/selling-cards-ebay-vs-tcgplayer-vs-buylists
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