The Numbers: May 22-28, 2022

I had a rare sale last week of a non trading cards item, a 3 disc dvd set about seashells for $40 which I bought a few years ago for about $1. That inspired me to take a trip to the same thrift store to see if they had any more cool stuff. No seashell DVDs but I came home with a box full of old books and weird DVDs and a new pair of jeans for less than $30 total. I’m sure there were more gems in this thrift store, but I focused on what I know best besides cards. These will be great items to list when the weather gets colder and I’m spending more time inside, or if I wake up one day and lose interest in selling cards. I don’t expect that to happen, but it never hurts to have a backup plan.

I couldn’t imagine paying the bills scavenging items like this, especially in New Jersey, and I’m envious of those of you who make it work.

5/22/2022 – 5/28/2022

Total items in store: 2152 (up from 2138)

Items sold: 45 (32 via best offer, 4 via seller initiated offer, 15 via promoted listings)

Gross sales: $2437.96 (up 4% from one year ago)

Net sales: $1774.44 (up 6% from one year ago)

Quantity sold: 45 (down 11% from one year ago)

Average sales price: $54.18 (up 17% from one year ago)

Time spent searching through online auction listings for new inventory: 15 hours

Jay asked me about this last week, and I thought it would be useful to start tracking my time. This is my time spent scavenging since it’s how I acquire almost all of my inventory. Auctions are really prevalent in the trading cards world, since so many new sets come out every year (50+ for each sport), and my inventory is built from buying at auction from large sellers who sell at volume and reselling at BIN/best offer. This is a good time to buy since I think a lot of people’s hobby money is less than usual with the price of essentials so high.

I was really thorough about looking through every seller and possible search last week to get a good baseline for a maximum amount of time. I noticed that I rarely spend more than an hour consecutive looking through auction listings. But on busier days (Sunday/Monday/Tuesday), I can easily spend an hour during the day and an hour or more at night just looking through one or two sellers. Some of these sellers have 20,000 or more auctions or more every week, and checking these auctions thoroughly has allowed me to build a much larger inventory with more high quality items.

I would love to cut this time down to less than 10 hours per week, without missing out on the bargains that are the foundation of my inventory, and I hope tracking the time will allow me to accomplish that.

Highest price sold (net): $166.12 — Cam Reddish 2019 Panini The National VIP diamond relic card #3/3

This card was given out to the big spenders at the National card show, and you can see from the picture how intricate expensive modern cards can get. This one is held in a thick case and has a little chip of diamond embedded in the card. Prices for these types of cards vary a lot more than most modern cards, since they’re not part of a traditional set and aren’t heavily collected like autographed cards or specific rookie insert sets. It does have a nice low serial number and the card is quite striking visually. Plus these types of cards tend to only get produced for the top players and rookies.

Like (almost) every other card I sell, I bought this card at auction ($40 and change) and sold it best offer. It took a sale, a price cut and just over a year before it sold. I don’t think I would pay quite that much for this type of card today. But it was a nice $200 sale!

Lowest price sold (net): minus $5.80 — Manny Margot Topps Glove Works red autograph #/10

The buyer of this card opened a case yesterday claiming the item was not as described. The flaws they pointed out in their six pictures from different angles are noted in my scans and description, and the approximate condition in my title (NM) is roughly what grade the card would receive (an 8) if it were professionally graded. Maybe a 7 since grading is subjective, but I certainly wasn’t trying to hide the flaws in the card.

You might think this kind of thing happens to me all the time, collectors being picky and all, but this is just the second INAD case this year. It’s easy to handle when it’s a sale less than $20 like this one — refund in full and tell the buyer just keep it. I’m out five bucks and some change, but that’s a small price to pay to move on with my day.