eBay

skatesave · ‎01-24-2017

I am a Hockey Seller and everything has stopped. I am the lowest priced seller in my catgory in 95% of he cards I list, and I cannot even give them away.

My Sell-Through Rate has gone from 85% in 2002 to Half a %, or in most cases zero %. I sold my first card last week in 6 months.

I have also sold a ton of Football, and Basketball over the years. I did notice that about 3 years ago I was selling David Robinson (The Admiral) Hoops Rookie Cards for between $5.00 and $7.00 each.

The other day I checked for a laugh and found auctions for 15 David Robinson Rookies, for $5.00 for the lot of 15 - YIKES ! , and the auctions were timing out, they were not being sold. I could not believe my eyes.

In Hockey - $40.00 Hall of Fame Rookie cards are going for .99 cents now, and many times not selling at all.

fire7man7 · ‎01-25-2017

The market is saturated as there are many more listed items than in the past (probably due to special listing deals provided to beckett.com & COMC sellers)and fewer buyers so prices continue to fall and often items go unsold, even if the same item sold for equal or more recently...so not all listings are viewed consistently.

savedfrommyspokes · ‎01-26-2017

IMO, the market for small sellers on ebay will continue to be soft to non-existent. For sellers who offer only 30-40 different massively over-produced cards with a $1 price tag and charge between 2.60 and 3.00+ to ship a card, they will be hard pressed to find many sales. Buyers gravitate to sellers who can fill many of their needs and they can pay a SINGLE s/h cost for all of their purchases. COMC is a good example of a "consolidated" seller who offers buyers millions of options with just ONE s/h cost. Not likely that many buyers look to spend $4 (with s/h) for every $1 card they buy......

twnpopcards · ‎01-26-2017

@savedfrommyspokes wrote:
IMO, the market for small sellers on ebay will continue to be soft to non-existent. For sellers who offer only 30-40 different massively over-produced cards with a $1 price tag and charge between 2.60 and 3.00+ to ship a card, they will be hard pressed to find many sales. Buyers gravitate to sellers who can fill many of their needs and they can pay a SINGLE s/h cost for all of their purchases. COMC is a good example of a "consolidated" seller who offers buyers millions of options with just ONE s/h cost. Not likely that many buyers look to spend $4 (with s/h) for every $1 card they buy......

I am slowly changing my listings and have another selling account where I offer the cards at much lower prices and shipping in a PWE and have found more and more buyers are opting for that or for multiples where it is then worth the $3 shipping. The higher priced cards still sell at higher prices with the buyers willing to pay for shipment in a padded envelope so the card does not get damaged, but the everyday cards are just not going to sell as well as they did prior to Beckett offering access to Ebay for its large sellers and then COMC signing on also.

IMHO the one advantage the smaller sellers have and must take advantage of is service, because if you read the negs that the larger sellers tend to get it really all boils down to customer service and packaging of the cards. But unfortunately, smaller no longer means 50-100 cards listed, it means having thousands of options for the buyers to choose from because that is what your competition has or find the niche market where your competition is not at.

David

Twnpopcards

skatesave · ‎01-28-2017

@savedfrommyspokes wrote:
IMO, the market for small sellers on ebay will continue to be soft to non-existent. For sellers who offer only 30-40 different massively over-produced cards with a $1 price tag and charge between 2.60 and 3.00+ to ship a card, they will be hard pressed to find many sales. Buyers gravitate to sellers who can fill many of their needs and they can pay a SINGLE s/h cost for all of their purchases. COMC is a good example of a "consolidated" seller who offers buyers millions of options with just ONE s/h cost. Not likely that many buyers look to spend $4 (with s/h) for every $1 card they buy......

_______________________________________________________________________________

My prices in many cases are as much as 50% less than COMC, and I've been at this for 55 years. I charge less than COMC to ship also.

If prople buy from COMC just because they are COMC, then they lack foresight, and a functioning cerebral cortex.

terryinstow · ‎01-28-2017

When cards were sold for a penny a piece when I was kid, I would spend evry cent I had to buy them. When I was a late teen I start buying cases. Around 1986 company were offering my 35 cases of their lastest product, a year early only 2-5. It was easy to see what was going to happen. I recent year when they started short printing cards of certain people on purpose and people trying to get $10 for a common player, that was it for me. To sell a card with tracking over $2, how could anyone make a profit?

savedfrommyspokes · ‎01-28-2017

If prople buy from COMC just because they are COMC, then they lack foresight, and a functioning cerebral cortex

I find it funny when "prople" start threads like this complaining about their cards not selling.....it always goes the same way....ultimately they blame everyone else for their lack of results.

In my mere 35 years of selling cards, I apparently have stumbled upon one thing that you have not during your 55 years of selling (okay, so not so much selling lately, more just offering cards for sale). That is quite simply I am accountable for my own results and if my results are not where I would like them then I make adjustments to get the results where I want them....I do not waste my time placing blame on anyone/everyone else, the market, etc.

FWIW, you can send offers over to sellers who have their items on listed on COMC........makes your claim about your pricing being "lower" kind of moot

tdziemianowicz · ‎02-20-2017

I can only comment on my own experience ...

I'd been out of card sales for a year, and just jumped back in last month, due to an eBay offer for no listing prices.

I had starting shipping most under-$5 cards in PWE a long time ago, and that's all I have now.

This time around, I began offering to ship two cards for the price of one ($0.79 which covers the hand-cancel postage of $0.70 and the 10% eBay fee). I've sold about 30% of what I've listed since mid-January. About half the sales have been multi-card.

Again, these are all common cards I collected as a kid in the 1960s, in lower grade, selling for a couple of bucks. But they have started to move.

For what it's worth ...

no-plain-white-envelopes · ‎03-07-2017

No clue what is going on in the Hockey market , but since the election my sales in Baseball and football are up by 2 1/2 times . My monthly average for the last 2 years was 200 items sold a month. since the election I am at about 550 items a month not counting March which I am at 400 as of now. People are coming out to spend money and they are not just buying new stuff , but older stuff I have had listed for over a year.

skatesave · ‎03-13-2017

@savedfrommyspokes wrote:
If prople buy from COMC just because they are COMC, then they lack foresight, and a functioning cerebral cortex

I find it funny when "prople" start threads like this complaining about their cards not selling.....it always goes the same way....ultimately they blame everyone else for their lack of results.

In my mere 35 years of selling cards, I apparently have stumbled upon one thing that you have not during your 55 years of selling (okay, so not so much selling lately, more just offering cards for sale). That is quite simply I am accountable for my own results and if my results are not where I would like them then I make adjustments to get the results where I want them....I do not waste my time placing blame on anyone/everyone else, the market, etc.

FWIW, you can send offers over to sellers who have their items on listed on COMC........makes your claim about your pricing being "lower" kind of moot

______________________________________________________________________

I am not blaming anyone. In 2002 I had 400,000 cards. I am down to my last 10,000, so I have had plenty of glory days.

I think it's kind of funny when people enter threads and have no idea what they are talking about, but want some sort of internet fight, just move on.

Comc has about 5000 Hockey listing or more on eBay, I don't really care about their website, cards just languish there, that is why they are now selling on this site. If things sold on their site, they would not be on eBay with such a huge presence.

neannie4 · ‎03-15-2017

I think it's kind of funny when people enter threads and have no idea what they are talking about, but want some sort of internet fight, just move on.

It is even funnier when some user, like yourself, fails to heed their own advice....BTW, I am not the person who's cards are not selling. That would be you. Maybe if you knew what you were talking about your cards would be selling. Go stand in front of a mirror and repeat your own comment quoted above...it is actually good advice for YOU.

What is the funniest though, is I know why your cards are not selling any longer.

outofroom · ‎08-15-2017

Just to show how bad it really is, I listed and re-listed and reworded and re-listed again a lot of over 1,200 assorted Hockey cards. While not graded, most were in excellent condition. They were donated to the book sale, which I run for our local library. I finally dropped the price to under $10, thinking someone might buy them for their child. Absolutely NO interest..........not a question, not a bite, not a watcher.

We had also received a donation of several hundred baseball items, including statues, plaques, mint playing cards, porcelain figurines and cards and much more. After listing many individually and then grouping them by lots, I finally ended up selling the on Craig's List to a flea market dealer for a pittance.

As a result of these experiences, we are no longer accepting donations of sports memorabilia.