Any ideas on a fair % of sales I should get for selling a friends sports cards?

[707decals]

I have a friend that asked me to sell his cards on ebay and he would pay me a fair % of the sales. We both did not know what that % would be at the time. I did not want to do it, but he kept on after me and would come by my house with cases of graded cards. He left one with me and told me to look up some comps and see how much was in the case he left with me. All PSA and BGS 9 or higher. Mostly 2018, 2019, Bowman Chrome Draft Pick Autos, colors, etc. There were about 150 cards in the case, I got about 8 cards in when I was at the $25k amount. Which was good enough for me to move forward selling the cards. This case was only the tip of the iceberg. In order to secure my services, he gave me a stack of 15 cards that had a comp value of over $10k. I did not want to take the cards because of the amount of cards he wanted to sell was easily over $500k worth of slabs. I also did not need the money at the time. We agreed that we would settle on a fair % for both of us when it was time for me to cash out. His plan was to immediately reinvest the first month or two of sales back into cards. Keep in mind, at this point my friend has only bought cards and traded cards. He was not comfortable at all trying to sell them himself. I had to organize all the cards, figure out the comps, he bought me a new laptop and scanner to use for this. I had been out of the card game since the mid 90's. So it was a crash course in researching and learning what I was selling and when to be selling it. I did not want to use my ebay account, so I used his that had all buying no selling feedback. Of course ebay limited the amount we could list and sell at first. I maxed out the limits in 2 weeks at $25k in sales. Once I had the ebay store optimized with our logos and branding, I started to teach him how to list. I basically got all the listings ready as drafts and he could just go in and put the final prices or starting auction amounts and list the cards. Well I thought that would be a good thing and make less work for me. I was wrong, he went nuts and listed over 100 auctions within 24 hours. I have my own business to run so I was working on my stuff and everything I had listed was buy it now. A couple days before auctions were ending is when I found out that I had major work ahead of me. lol I ship the same day or the following business day depending on auction end time. When I started preparing the cards for shipping, I noticed a large batch of them had scratches and marks on the slabs both front and back. Some had adhesive from the cheap plastic card sleeves they were in. I told my friend about it and he seemed to think it was ok to ship them out like that. I refused to put my name on anything that a buyer pays thousands of dollars for and it gets delivered not looking like the pics I provided. The scans hid most of those blemishes. So I used a plastic polish system I have to buff and rub out any scratches and marks off the slabs. They looked better than new! I over package each one to insure they arrive safe. As you know it is very important to make all the buyers happy and start collecting the positive feedback, especially on high end cards. I sold for 3 months straight and we had sales around $74k (on Ebay) We had other sales in FB private groups and other channels. After baseball season, we took a break on selling on ebay. Now it is time to figure out a fair % for my services. I have done some research but its all over the place. I would love to hear what other sellers would charge or what you think is a fair %. Currently still waiting on over a thousand PSA submissions from last year. I kind of want to get the first batch of sales squared away before it becomes and amount too large. Thank you in advance for taking the time to read this long post and your input and advice.  

[soh.maryl]

Selling for friends is one of the best ways to turn friends into enemies.  It's better to take the time to teach him to sell with his own account.  Many people who have not sold here are unaware of the actual costs involved, not to mention the amount of work.  It sounds, however, like you've already begun doing this.

He came by your house with cases of cards and told you to check the values yourself? That, alone, would tell me this is not a good idea.

And you did not decide on a fair price yet although you've sold a lot of cards for him? 

Originally I would have recommended you buy his cards from him for a fair price and sell them yourself.

And, finally, it's much easier to read messages here if you use paragraphs.  

[hawkwind5454]

Just my opinion, but I think you should respectfully decline; Or, as stated, purchase the items yourself, at a resellable figure. No perfect world, and this whole situation of you selling for a friend could go south in so many ways. The category in which you are choosing to sell in has been known to entice fraudsters. If you are scammed in a sale, who bears the loss.... you or the owner of the cards? You stand to lose far more than what you might gain.  But [then] I always tend to err on the side of caution. 

[butch799]

Oh c'mon.  You decide on every last detail of the potential profits / costs / percentages before you even agree to look at the friend's cards.  Any other approach, nothin' but trouble the rest of the way.  Sheesh.  

[wildpitchsports]

I did some consignment back in the day and it was nothing but a huge headache to be honest.

You have to figure in your fees, selling costs, shipping costs, time spent and now for 2022 if you have any kind of sales (including shipping) you have to account for the fact that you will receive a 1099 K from ebay (Per IRS rules - signed into law March of 2021 by the Biden administration) and have to pay income taxes. 

It's just a huge mess anymore. Best advice I would give based on what you're describing value wise for those cards is to reccommend they get in touch with a few of the reputable consignment sellers on here or at some of the ones listed in Beckett.

Honestly, I wouldn't take on another consignment deal. Last one I had was 11 years ago - guy had a literal shoebox full of 1991 Topps Desert Storm baseball. Went through the grading, analyzing and everything. While at the time it was profitable for both myself and my client - I wouldn't advise doing it today especially with the higher grading fees, no more PayPal instant funds and the IRS situation that started this year.

[lamber9347 · Accepted solution]

@707decals I know there are lots of naysayers, but I've been selling items for a long list of friends, for about eight years now. Not one issue between any of us, still selling their items.

I charge 20% plus all fees. I keep an excel spreadsheet for each person. I update them on all eBay policies as they change, which is the hardest part about selling for others. Not one complaint from any of my friends. They are so thankful to me for putting up with the extra nonsense for them, they get their items sold without having to learn the e-commerce platform themselves. Works for me and my friends. Best of luck to you....

[albertabrightalberta]

@707decals 

My opinion is that you shouldn't sell items in a category in which you aren't familiar. Unless you know cards, know grading, recognize dings and flaws and how to describe, photograph and catch them if a switcheroo is done in a NAD case, there's no way I'd recommend it. 

Will you be able to answer questions or will you have to forward them to your friend, wait for the answer and then respond to the buyer? 

[fiveholefrank]

Depends on how close the "friend" is, ever since I had success on eBay I've had people come out of the wood work asking to sell this for them.  Generally those who are true friends and pay it forward, I will do 10% per listing.  I ALWAYS put in description this is not my item, I am selling for a friend with no time/means to list.  I inspect the item myself and list and surface/corner/edging issues and note that.  If non I will state I've Inspected item personally and find no visible surface/corner/edging issues.  I don't care much for selling for friends/family, however there are some that will take big items to shows with their reserved tables and take a stack of my items unlisted and move them for me thus pay it forward.

[cougarbj]

I've looked into this and to make it worth my while I charge a 40% consignment fee which takes into account the EBAY fees, shipping, and profit for myself.  I have different tiers, so if the card is above $1000 the fee comes down to 35%.  This typically gets people to do their own listing, but in reality the listing, fees, shipping comes out to around 20% and my "cut" is the other 15 - 20% depending on the price.  It's a lot of work, and honestly not much money at the end of the day.  Also, as many noted - the IRS fees are difficult to know - so the 20% may not even cover that part.  In other words, I would let them send it to a firm that does nothing but consignment.  

[donsdetour]

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@707decals wrote:

I have a friend that asked me to sell his cards on ebay and he would pay me a fair % of the sales. We both did not know what that % would be at the time. I did not want to do it, but he kept on after me and would come by my house with cases of graded cards. He left one with me and told me to look up some comps and see how much was in the case he left with me. All PSA and BGS 9 or higher. Mostly 2018, 2019, Bowman Chrome Draft Pick Autos, colors, etc. There were about 150 cards in the case, I got about 8 cards in when I was at the $25k amount. Which was good enough for me to move forward selling the cards. This case was only the tip of the iceberg. In order to secure my services, he gave me a stack of 15 cards that had a comp value of over $10k. I did not want to take the cards because of the amount of cards he wanted to sell was easily over $500k worth of slabs. I also did not need the money at the time. We agreed that we would settle on a fair % for both of us when it was time for me to cash out. His plan was to immediately reinvest the first month or two of sales back into cards. Keep in mind, at this point my friend has only bought cards and traded cards. He was not comfortable at all trying to sell them himself. I had to organize all the cards, figure out the comps, he bought me a new laptop and scanner to use for this. I had been out of the card game since the mid 90's. So it was a crash course in researching and learning what I was selling and when to be selling it. I did not want to use my ebay account, so I used his that had all buying no selling feedback. Of course ebay limited the amount we could list and sell at first. I maxed out the limits in 2 weeks at $25k in sales. Once I had the ebay store optimized with our logos and branding, I started to teach him how to list. I basically got all the listings ready as drafts and he could just go in and put the final prices or starting auction amounts and list the cards. Well I thought that would be a good thing and make less work for me. I was wrong, he went nuts and listed over 100 auctions within 24 hours. I have my own business to run so I was working on my stuff and everything I had listed was buy it now. A couple days before auctions were ending is when I found out that I had major work ahead of me. lol I ship the same day or the following business day depending on auction end time. When I started preparing the cards for shipping, I noticed a large batch of them had scratches and marks on the slabs both front and back. Some had adhesive from the cheap plastic card sleeves they were in. I told my friend about it and he seemed to think it was ok to ship them out like that. I refused to put my name on anything that a buyer pays thousands of dollars for and it gets delivered not looking like the pics I provided. The scans hid most of those blemishes. So I used a plastic polish system I have to buff and rub out any scratches and marks off the slabs. They looked better than new! I over package each one to insure they arrive safe. As you know it is very important to make all the buyers happy and start collecting the positive feedback, especially on high end cards. I sold for 3 months straight and we had sales around $74k (on Ebay) We had other sales in FB private groups and other channels. After baseball season, we took a break on selling on ebay. Now it is time to figure out a fair % for my services. I have done some research but its all over the place. I would love to hear what other sellers would charge or what you think is a fair %. Currently still waiting on over a thousand PSA submissions from last year. I kind of want to get the first batch of sales squared away before it becomes and amount too large. Thank you in advance for taking the time to read this long post and your input and advice.  

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Got a good bookkeeper??

Consignment should be with a contract. 

Also you are the one who would end up eating loss, due to claims of not received, as well as item not as described etc.

 End result is you could also end up with tax forms to fill out for the person: and also be responsible for all taxes as income etc....

Say 50 percent would be valid due to you take all the risks.

[707decals]

I agree 100% Unfortunately we had been working on several other business projects unrelated to the cards at the time. As well as getting a non profit organization started.   

[707decals]

Before I even took pics of the slabs, I studied and researched everything I needed to know and then some about the cards. Every card was graded by PSA and BGS all 9 - 10. My question was what people thought  a fair % is for the work of selling them. To answer your question, by the time I listed them, I knew more about the cards than my friend that owned them. My item descriptions were detailed and 100% accurate. I never got any questions about the cards other than people trying to lowball offers. When you are selling $1500 to $10k Slabs, the serious buyers know what they are buying and it is rarely an issue. Plus our username is very well known in all the major private FB groups we are in. I could answer any question that anyone could possibly have. The only issue I had out of all the sales was a USPS issue that everyone else was having at the time. Luckily it was a card that sold at auction for a few hundred. Buyer would not respond to any of my attempts to keep them updated on the status of their package. I made the decision to give a full refund and told him to keep the card when it gets delivered. 2 days after that it was delivered. Never heard from him. 

[707decals]

I agree 100% Unfortunately we had been working on several other business projects unrelated to the cards at the time. As well as getting a non profit organization started.   I also agree about the paragraphs. I wrote that on my girls POS fire tablet and it kept reformatting the text every time the tablet would get a text. lol 

[707decals]

I was not worried about scammers, I am well versed at selling online and ebay. That is why he came to me in the first place. I would accept full financial responsibility if I got scammed. I am just asking for opinions on what a fair % would be for the work I did to sell them. My friend would give me probably whatever I asked him for. I would actually be willing to take less than what people think is fair because hes my friend and if it wasnt so much work, I woudnt charge him at all. He had offered me over $20k in graded cards not too long ago. I could not accept it. Too much.  

[707decals]

Finally! Someone that actually responded to my question! Thank you! My friend now knows how to list on his own but we are selling mostly on a private website now. The fees here were just insane after we started hitting the max sales allowed on here. I was thinking around 20% was fair. That being said I will probably ask for %15. 

Thank you again!