Comments on: Insider: Selling on TCGPlayer

By: Ryan Overturf

Ryan Overturf — Sun, 05 Jul 2015 01:51:00 +0000

In reply to Casey Stewart. Yeah, it'll show the price and the shipping cost. Then there's a button to match the low price, and it matches the sum of the two.

By: Casey Stewart

Casey Stewart — Sat, 04 Jul 2015 22:56:29 +0000

In reply to mynnna. That fee not being split is one of my few beefs with TCGplayer. This is ESPECIALLY true for TCGPlayer direct stores.

By: Greg Henderson

Greg Henderson — Sat, 04 Jul 2015 19:40:31 +0000

In reply to Jamey. I had a few packages held at the buyers post office because of the do not bend stamp. They do indeed charge more for hand sorting. They also charge more if the top loader is ridged, although it's not often. To avoid the hassle, I use the flimsy card saver II top loaders and no stamp.

By: Casey Stewart

Casey Stewart — Sat, 04 Jul 2015 12:59:38 +0000

In reply to Casey Stewart. Wish I could edit my comments on the new website. "Does NOT include low" was supposed to say "does NOT include shipping". My bad.

By: Casey Stewart

Casey Stewart — Sat, 04 Jul 2015 12:12:13 +0000

In reply to Ryan Overturf. Low listed on TCGPlayer.com and any other websites that list it does NOT include low. Is "low" in the TCGP backend different from low as presented to the general public? I use a CC like service so I never use the TCGP backend. My order volume is too high for it :(

By: Ryan Overturf

Ryan Overturf — Sat, 04 Jul 2015 11:59:57 +0000

In reply to Casey Stewart. When you match low, it accounts for shipping that other distributors charge. You can also sort prices by "price + shipping".

By: Casey Stewart

Casey Stewart — Sat, 04 Jul 2015 10:40:39 +0000

The problem with using low (one of them anyways) is that low doesn’t include shipping and is usually set by a brand new shop charging 2-3 in shipping. On top of that, those same stores mess up mid with that nonsense 🙁

By: mynnna

mynnna — Fri, 03 Jul 2015 19:39:06 +0000

In reply to mynnna.

Kinda didn’t finish my thought, whoops. If that portion of the fee had been split as I expected, I’d have paid quite a bit less. So, be sure to keep this in mind when selling. If you’re buying collections, treat anything under $2-3 as ‘free’ (or as a bulk rare, whatever).

A good alternative for the cheaper stuff that’s still worth selling but not because of fees is buylists. In fact, even high dollar specs can be better sold off via buylists, sometimes. Many stores offer a 25-30% bonus if you take store credit. Combine that with vastly reduced shipping costs, no fees (and time saved!) and often times the buylist route comes out ahead. You can take the credit and just roll it into your next spec.

By: mynnna

mynnna — Fri, 03 Jul 2015 19:32:34 +0000

Just to reinforce the point about the $.50, it’s applied to your purchase regardless of whether the buyer is buying *only from you* or if the purchase with you is just part of a larger multi-store purchase. In other words, if I buy one Lightning Bolt from your store and the rest of my modern burn deck from other stores all in one go, you still get hit for that $.50, instead of it being split up the way that I had intuitively assumed.

Consequence? I *had* been listing plenty of less expensive cards, and as a result, over the six months or so I’ve been selling my total fees are close to 20%!

By: Grant

Grant — Fri, 03 Jul 2015 19:28:12 +0000

If you are just starting on TCG try listing your cards with the .99 cent shipping in mind. I sold cards at .18-.24 cents above what the last sold is this encourages people to buy 4 or more cards from you. You also don’t feel totally burned when someone buys 10-20 cards

By: Ryan Overturf

Ryan Overturf — Fri, 03 Jul 2015 18:28:11 +0000

In reply to Jamey. I haven't had this problem, though I have run into varying rates any time I try to track something at the post office. The structure seems quite loose.

By: Jamey

Jamey — Fri, 03 Jul 2015 15:21:08 +0000

It’s worth noting that writing or stamping “do not machine” or something of that nature on a plain white envelope is a excellent way to raise your shipping costs. The USPS can and usually will charge a nonmachinable surcharge of something like 20c.

This is not the case for parcels, where we’ve found stamping top greatly reduce the amount of mail “lost” by the USPS.