Comments on: Insider: How to Drive Sales

By: Sigmund Ausfresser

Sigmund Ausfresser — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 12:00:22 +0000

In reply to mickeal.

Really?! Wow, I didn't even realize! It's been so long since I offered free shipping that I hadn't noticed the change in policy. That's rough that they take fees out of shipping as well – seems unfair. Plus they double dip and take fees out via paypal fees. So brutal.

Thanks for the clarification! And thanks for reading 🙂

By: mickeal

mickeal — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 07:19:48 +0000

Nice article. Though, I feel compelled to point out that you no longer "pay more fees" by offering free shipping. About a year ago, Ebay started taking the FVF out of the shipping as well. The only way you would pay more fees with free shipping is if you also had to collect sales tax on the item. (i.e. Ebay now takes takes: ((SalePrice + Shipping) – (Sales Tax)) * .09

By: pi

pi — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 13:24:00 +0000

IRL mostly and on a Craigslist equivalent, though that doesn't work as well as I would like. I sometimes trade them to a store at their buylist prices when trading up to something expensive (Workshop, Tabernacle, that sort of thing).

I price based on TCGPlayer low, though I might try higher if I feel like I have a chance at that. I can often move EDH Foils at near Dutch retail prices as they are rarely found in stock anyway (guess who bought the last copies when they were still priced too low ;)). I will also price what I think is a good investment higher assuming it will eventually move. Heck, I sometimes randomly price something high if I cannot seem to find a good indication and hope for the best (Foil spitting image that's out f stock everywhere).

Sometimes I probably do need to price my cards more aggressively. Still sitting on far too much Modern stock which I am now simply trading away as few seem to be into buying it.

By: Sigmund Ausfresser

Sigmund Ausfresser — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 11:49:33 +0000

You bring up a very important point on profit margins. Many people strive for better margins. This leads to fewer purchases and longer inventory hold time. If that's something you're OK with because you'd prefer larger margins for your time, that's perfectly reasonable. I strive for the Walmart approach – I settle for smaller margins and I attempt to make larger purchases / sales. Also, while many times my margins are narrow, I do manage to acquire some cards at a 20-30% discount. If you look at my Cardshark purchase from last week's article, you can see how well I did. The Black Sun's Zeniths and Ratchet Bombs where the only cards I wanted to aggressively unload but couldn't on MOTL. So I settled for no profit so that I could have the cash back to reinvest. It's all about opportunity cost.

I'd be interested in hearing where you sell cards adn how you establish prices.

By: pi

pi — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 09:47:53 +0000

Interesting to see how others do it, moving the cards is certainly a weak spot for me.

My one problem is that a 10% margin is often not worth the effort. Browsing through a webshop to identify bargains, ordering from them, checking the cards' condition, sorting them, listing them anywhere all takes time. Those need to be considerably expensive cards for me to accept a 10% margin to make it feel like it's worth my time and effort. I probably wouldn't consider it worthwhile if it makes me less than $15/hour, so that's $150 worth of cards at 10% profit.

I tend to stay away from anything that doesn't look more like it'll make me at least 30% or $15 per order. If I am already placing an order anyway I might be a little more lenient but this happens rarely (I for example know that my local group likes to buy Perfect Size sleeves at 5 euro/pack and I know where I can get them at 4 euro/pack so I include a few if I order from there anyway because I know I can move those for profit).