How Am I Supposed To Make Money On Pokémon Cards at $1-5?

[oneillsonlinesales]

I have 500 Pokemon Trading Cards In My Inventory, Went Ahead & Sleeved Them All,
Purchased Hard Sleeves & 4x7 Bubble Envelopes But Now I'm Crunching Numbers... 

My Costs:
500 Envelopes = $55
500 Top Loaders = $59
500 Penny Sleeves = $10

Total $124. 

$124 Divided By The 1st 500 Cards = 25 Cents (My Cost of Sale)

Sure Some Cards Sell For Alot But let's Talk About The Low Average Cards,
Sold Listings Show Card Sold For $1.00

Cheapest Shipping Option - 4x7 Bubble Mailer = First Class USPS $4.00

Now eBay takes 10% On Trading Cards.. For The Entire Sale.. (With Tax)

[Let's say 6% for example Reasons]

So On a $1 Sale + $4 Shipping = $5 
Tax on $5 = $0.30

eBay Will Take $0.53 On That Sale
Then There's My Cost Of Shipping the item (Materials Like Envelope & Such Mentioned Earlier) $0.25

$0.53 + $0.25 = $0.78

So With All This Being Said, If Said Pokemon Trading Card Sold For $1.00,

In The End, I Would Make $0.22  & eBay Would Make $0.53 On The $1.00 Sales

[jack_bucks_ghost]

you might consider selling them in lots. i sell sports cards and don't sell anything individually under $15...everything else goes into lots (cuts down quite a bit on shipping charges using 1st class). hope this helps...good luck!!!

[go-bad-chicken]

"How Am I Supposed To Make Money On Pokémon Cards at $1-5?"

You sell them in lots of say 5, 10, 20, 25 cards, etc. in one listing.  

[shewe_2395]

Umm sell something that you can actually profit from

[toysaver]

Just sell the expensive ones and you should make enough to justify your time.

[coolections]

The better thing to think about is "why" would you want to sell $1 cards ? It would be best to just take all those low priced cards and bundle them into "lots". I would sell 10 at a time.

[oneillsonlinesales]

Thanks for the quick feedback, This isnt my usual item to sell. Think we will just do a big auction & Ill go back to what i know best haha. 

[nobody*s_perfect]

Most sellers of cheap cards don't invest in bubble mailers and First Class package shipping. They mail them in regular business envelopes, with a single stamp, as a letter.  If you add some extra protection, but keep the envelope no more than 1/4 inch thick, add 20 cents for the nonmachinable surcharge.

Good news: eBay has introduced a tracked First Class envelope that you can use for up to 15 cards, and it costs only 51 cents for the first ounce.

Bad news: It's not available for Pokemon cards yet, just for sports cards.

Good news: eBay says they plan to expand the categories soon.

Bad news: You are in Managed Payments, where the final value fee isn't 10%; in most categories, it's 12.35% plus 30 cents.

References:

https://pages.ebay.com/seller-center/shipping/ebay-standard-envelope.html

 https://www.ebay.com/help/selling/fees-credits-invoices/selling-fees?id=4822 

[dabunk2000]

Maybe should have researched this BEFORE you spent the money?

[pokemoncatches]

Helping the competition eh 🙂

Bubble mailers are a no go. eBay just launched Standard Envelope, it prints a label with tracking for 51 cents. You can ship a toploader too to ensure safety. We have very few issues this method. On top of this a white envelope is 1-2 cents.

Penny sleeves you overpaid honestly. Top loaders are difficult because the price has shot up since Covid with limited supply. I'm burning my inventory but yes this is a burden expense right now and likely not to improve.

Maybe play with promoted listings at a higher price. It sounds like to a degree the math may not work with what specific cards you're selling. Maybe a lot would be better?

[nobody*s_perfect]

It' s great to see that apparently the new postage is  available for cards in the Pokemon category. Thanks for the update.

[eizner23]

I buy 8.5"x 11" bubble mailers and cut them into four, that saves me some $$.  You could also get away mailing them with two .50 stamps, charge buyer $2, make a little extra instead of the 4USD first class rip off.

[monster-deals]

Only you can decide what your time is worth.

For me selling cheap singles is not worth my time to source, price, list and ship because it would be taking time away from listing and sourcing higher priced items with a bigger ROI.