I'M DOWN BIG Selling Cards on eBay (What I Wish I Knew)

I sold several cards on ebay over the last couple of weeks all through auction and the results were, well, all over the place. Some cards did really well, some cards I got absolutely crushed on compared to what I think they should have sold for. And today I'm going to show you the pattern that I noticed and how it can help you approach how you sell your cards on ebay to get the most value possible. The Jeff Wilson show is brought to you by Arena Club, the official home of Slab packs. Now available every day, Slab Packs offer an exciting way to collect rated cards with confidence. Plus, every pack comes with an instant offer to buy your Slab. Don't miss out. Explore the latest Slab packs and more by downloading the Arena Club app. Just search Arena Club in the App Store and use promo code SCI for 20% off your first purchase. Here we go from the Arena Club Studio, Inside Cards hq. Okay, so first of all, I don't sell a ton on ebay. I buy a lot on ebay. I like ebay as a platform. It obviously it's the big daddy of marketplaces in the sports card world. But I don't sell a ton on ebay. I tend to do more selling at card shows that I set up at or honestly, I even, you know, sell to my own card shop, Cards hq, sometimes, so that I can help the store fill its showcases with some fresh new cards. But I will sometimes sell on ebay. And I decided a couple of weeks ago that it was time to start to parse through my collection and make it a little bit smaller and cash out a certain cards. And I decided that ebay would be a good place to sell a number of cards that I had in my collection. By the way, it's a healthy thing to do every now and again. One thing that I've noticed that I do, and probably a lot of you listening do as well, is we all continue to accumulate cards. We just get more and more. I just get more and more either because I buy cards at card shows or from Cards HQ or I, I will open up boxes. And so over time I just naturally end up with more and more cards. And you never want your collection to become overwhelming. And occasionally I will walk into my house or my office and I'll, you know, see just cards everywhere. And I'll be like, man, I got a lot of cards, like, you know, maybe a few too many. It's good every now and again to go through your cards and to consolidate down so it doesn't become overwhelming. So it doesn't become too Crazy. And so that the cards you have are ones you really, really want. They're the ones that you just love to have in your PC. So this process of like, you know, kind of selling through your collection, consolidating down your collection periodically, I think is healthy for every collector. And so this last time that I did it a few weeks ago, I said, I took a group of the cards and I'm like, I'm going to sell these on ebay. Now, when I sell on ebay, I use a consignment service. There's some major consignment services on ebay. The ones that I've used before are DC Sports 87. There's also four sharp corners. I've used them before. There's AMT, there's Probestein. These are all great collection or great consignment choices on ebay. And I, and, and I, I know all of these companies now. For this particular submission, I decided to use DC Sports 87, but I could have used any of them and they would have done a good job. I like using a consignment service for a couple of reasons. You just ship them your cards and they take care of it. It's so easy compared to trying to do all the listings on ebay yourself. These guys are pros. These guys are pros. They got the whole system down for imaging your card, building out the title, building out the description, listing it, running the auction once it sells, collecting the money, customer service, shipping the card to the person who bought it. They handle all of it. And I'm busy. I got a million things going on in my world. I don't have time to be dealing with all of that and providing a good job of servicing the customers who would buy from me on ebay. So being able to just ship those cards and a box to a consignment service and say, hey, please take care of these for me. That's a huge benefit to me for using a consignment service. And the other thing that's really cool is in many cases the fees are like the same or less, or if they're more, they're not much more than what it would be for you selling them on your own. Because these consignment services, they get huge bulk deals from ebay, so they're able to pass through savings to their consignors. And, and so as a result of that, you can really offload the effort of having to do all the ebay listings yourself and manage customer service and shipping yourself offloaded to somebody else and not even really pay much of anything for that other party to take care of it for you. So that's why in this case, I decided to send them all to DC Sports 87. I could have sent them to Four Sharp Corners or Probstein or AMT. Any of them would have been a great choice. But what these, what these consigners do for the most part is they, when they get your cards, they auction them. Their path is to auction. Their path is generally not to list them at fixed price or buy it now and, and some of them offer some options for that. But for the most part, the consignment services are there to auction your cards. And the reason why they want to auction your cards is they want to turn the money, they want to receive your cards. The way they make money is by selling your cards and thereby taking a percentage. So they want your cards to sell. They want to know that the moment they open your box and they start processing your cards that they're going to get paid out a few weeks later. Once those cards sell on ebay, they're going to get paid out a fee by taking a percentage of what the card sold for. For that work that they just put in to help you through that whole process, they want to know that that is going to be the case. So they want to auction your cards. Because what an auction does is it forces the sale of a card. If they just simply list them at fixed price, buy it now, make an offer type thing, the cards could be sitting there for months or years, depending on how realistic you are with your pricing. But an auction for forces the action. But there's downsides to an auction and that's really what I ran into. I submitted this batch of cards to DC Sports 87. Some sold really well. Some, in my opinion, were disastrous results for me as the seller. And let me be clear, DC Sports 87 did their job very well. This has nothing to do with them. They did exactly what they were supposed to do. They did a good job. They took good photos, they put together good listings. They listed the cards promptly. No issue at all. With DC Esports 87, the issue was on the cards that I chose to submit for that auction sales method. And here's where the lessons come in for you. As you're approaching selling your cards and thinking about if you want to sell cards on ebay and how you're going to sell it, you need to remember this. An auction creates urgency, but it only works if there are enough buyers actively looking for that card. During that exact auction window. And what I just said is why some of my cards did really well and others didn't. Let's talk through some of the specific cards and then I'm going to give you the specific lessons that you can apply towards maximizing your sale price next time you're going to sell cards online. So here you go. First of all, cards that did poorly. Let's start with the bad ones. Let's get the brutal ones out of the way. I sent to DC Sports 87 an Albert Pujols rookie auto. This was a. This was a in person auto on not a. Not one of the most popular Albert Pujols cards. So this is not being an in person auto. This not a pack pulled auto. This is a little more of a specialized card. But the exact same card with an in person auto in the exact same grade sold on eBay one month ago at fixed price. Make an offer, best offer. It sold for $427. Mine at auction at DC Sports sold for $271. So a month ago the exact same car sold for $427 and mine sold for $271. A horrible result compared to what it sold for a month ago. But it's really worth noting and we're going to talk about this, that that $427 sale a month ago was a fixed price listing where the person was taking offers and they were patient. And mine was an auction that forced the action and didn't get the action that I wanted. I also sold a 20, 23, 24 tops Mercury Victor Webanyama rookie card that was numbered to 15. You would think that that would do pretty well. Victor Webanyama is hot right now. This is a rookie card. Well, it sold for $497, which I thought was okay until I looked at recent sales on ebay and realized the exact card a month prior had sold for $700 fixed price on ebay and mine at auction had sold for $497. But it gets worse from there. I sold a couple of one of one cards. I sold a Chet Holmgren. Very nice high end Chet Holmgren one of one card. I sold a James Wood one of one card. Both of those cards sold for less than half the price of what I was expecting. And I think what they would have sold for had I listed them at fixed price and took offers. They both went for less than half. I got killed. K I L L E D on those cards. Killed. I also, by the way auctioned a Roman Anthony card, a high end Roman Anthony card. I got killed on it too. It went way low. All of those went way low. But not every card I sent in did did poorly. I sent into 20, 23, 24 tops, Mercury Victor Webanyama, rookie patch auto number to 75 that sold at auction consistently with what it had been selling for in prior days, fixed price or auction. I also sold an Ohtani rookie card and it went at ebay auction for more money than what I had that card stickered at in my showcase at the last few card shows that I had gone to. I also sold some Pokemon cards. They did pretty decent as well. Some went above where I thought that they were going to go. So what's the lesson to be learned from this experience and how can you apply it to yourself? Well, there's a big difference between the theoretical value of a card and active demand auctioning a card, whether it's on ebay or Fanatics Collection or Golden or Arena Club or any auction platform, auctioning a card rewards active demand. Right now, a card may be valuable, but that does not mean that the right buyers are searching for that card during your auction window. Auctions don't always find the highest possible buyer. They find the highest buyer who is paying attention that week. And that was the problem with some of my cards. So let's talk through these again. I mentioned off the bat an Albert Pujols rookie card that was signed in person by Albert Pujols. This was not one of his key primary rookie cards and it was an in person auto, not a pack pulled auto. What does that mean? That means that this card is best suited for a true Albert Pujols collector. It's not going to be a particularly liquid card. What do I mean by liquid? A liquid card is one that's relatively easy to sell, that probably transacts relatively often online. And the moment you put it out on an online listing or a showcase or in your showcase at a card show, you're going to get immediate interest and Albert Pujols in person auto secondary rookie card. That's not that. That's more of a specialized card that an Albert Pujols collector or a collector of in person rookie autographs would appreciate. But that collector base is small and when you put a card out at auction on a seven day auction window, you got to hope that at least 2 of the people from that collector pool are seeing your auction, really want the card, and are bidding back and back and forth and back and forth and back and forth to cause the price to get up there. Because by the way, it takes two. Because if there's only one, they're not, they're not bidding against anyone. They just get it at the low possible price. If there's two, you get a bidding war. So you got to have at least two to get your card into a bidding war. But the problem is you got a seven day window and you got a small group of collectors that may not be fully paying attention to that seven, seven day window. It really, it's not just the seven day window, it's really who's online and paying attention the last five minutes of that auction. Because that's when the price is really going to escalate if there's a bidding war going on. And unfortunately, with a card like the one I just described, it's a smaller group of collectors that are going to go after that card. And it may just have occurred that I didn't have two of them that were willing to bid hard, that were on ebay at the moment that auction was coming to an end. I would have been way better off on that card to list it at fixed price and take offers and just leave it up there. I would have done a lot better in the long run. I may not have even had to leave it up very long, but maybe a month or two and I would have found the right buyer who makes the right offer at the right price and I would have sold it for a better price. I would have hopefully sold it closer to the $427 that it had sold for a month ago on a best offer scenario versus the $271 that I got when I auctioned it. Likewise, my Victor Web and yama number to 15. You would have thought that card would have done well because there was a lot of vector Victor webanyama hype and excitement right now. And it actually did okay at auction. I thought it did decently until I saw that it had sold for 200 more at a fixed price a month ago. And what that showed me was somebody a month ago just got really excited and paid up for that card when they saw it at fixed price. If you have a fixed price listing, you have the benefit of at any moment in times time somebody snapped buying it and overpaying. If you have an auction listing, the chance of someone just being online at two people being online at that moment and just going crazy with their bidding and overpaying is less. You just get a lot more exposure by having your card sitting up there at fixed price. And so somebody probably overpaid for that card a month ago. But by me putting it up at auction I got probably a little more true true of a market price. But man, I wish I had been the one selling it at fixed price the month prior and had gotten the extra $200. And the two one of one cards, ugh. Those ones really would have benefited from being fixed price because Chet Holmgren and James Wood, one of one cards that took a special buyer and if I had those up there at fixed price, taking offers and I was patient with them, I probably would have found those special buyers over the course of time willing to pay a premium for those cards. I didn't find them through a seven day auction or at least they weren't there at the end of the auction bidding back and forth as strong as I would like to have seen to escalate the price of that card. And then the Roman Anthony card I got killed on. Roman Anthony is cold right now. The there's not people searching actively for Roman Anthony cards. He was. His cards were hot to start the season. They were red hot. And unfortunately his season hasn't gone well and then he got injured. So the number of people searching right now for Roman Anthony cards, it's not very many compared to where it was even a month or two ago. And so unfortunately that was a matter of timing. Putting that card out there, I probably shouldn't have put that card out there at all right now. I probably should have just held that card back. Even putting that card up at fixed price right now and taking offers, I would not have expected to sell that card at a reasonable price, period right now. Because the excitement and hype about him is just not there as he's sitting on the injured list or as he's having a season where he's been slumping down. That's one unfortunately I probably needed to be patient with. The ones that I did really well at. At auction was a Victor Webanyama RPA from Topps Mercury number to 75, a card that sells relatively frequently. And of course there's so much hype about Wemby right now. It sold at a strong price consistent with what it had been selling for. It's a desirable card. It's a known card. It's a card that people are looking to buy. Ohtani, the Ohtani rookie card I sold, I did really well on. It's Ohtani. Ohtani is probably one of the leading people search for on ebay these days. So any Ohtani card you put up there probably is going to get a Good enough amount of attention in a seven day auction for it to sell for a strong price at this moment. And then Pokemon put some Pokemon cards up there. Pokemon is red hot right now. And if they're recognizable Pokemon cards that are liquid and transact heavily, chances are they're going to do just fine at auction. And you don't necessarily need to just put them up at fixed price. So it's really a nuance when it, when you are deciding what cards to send for auction and you've got to do the pre screening, you've got to put cards, you got to send cards to auction that you know are going to do well at auction. And that's not every card. And that's what my ebay experience with these cards just proved to me. A card is going to do well at auction when the card has broad demand. The player or TCG or character is hot right now. There are recent auction comps that's a good thing to check for as well. Multiple people are searching for that card and that player or character right now every day. And it's a recognizable and understandable enough card that buyers instantly know it and understand it. Meaning it's not a super niche card. And there's a reason for attention to be driven to that card. Something is causing that card to get attention, whether it's a super hot player or whether it's a in demand iconic card, or whether it's just really well timed with the market or whether it's just a very liquid, a liquid card that transacts all the time. There has to be in that auction window the cards got to get attention and it has to hit those elements to get attention. If it doesn't, you're going to be better off by far listing the card, fixed price and taking best offers. And certainly do that when the card is rare or hard to comp, when the buyer pool is narrow, when it's a one of one or unusual parallel which doesn't transact very often when the player is not currently hot. If you believe the right buyer out there exists and will pay a premium price. But you may need time to find the right buyer and you're willing to be patient, then you're going to be way better off listing at fixed price and taking offers than you are putting the card out to auction. And as a litmus test to know when to put your card to auction or when to put it fixed price and to take offers, I would ask yourself this question. How many serious buyers are likely to want this card in the Next seven days to the point where a bidding war could escalate. If the answer is many, then an auction can be great for you. Send it off to one of those consignment services or list it on ebay yourself and get that card going at auction. But if the answer is only a few or none, then you're definitely better off going the fixed price route, in my opinion. Rare cards need patience. Hot cards need competition. Auctions can bring competition if the card is hot. If it's not a hot card, you need the patience of listing at fixed price and finding the buyer. There's one other test that I think you can run as well to help guide you on how to list your card on ebay. Searching the sold listings. Of course you can do this if you've got a product like Market Movers, which we use here. It's pretty sports card investor. It's a great source for doing this. Type in your card, see what it has sold for recently, but look beyond just the prices it sold for. How has it sold? Compare the recent sales from the last month of your card. What did it sell for at auction versus what did it sell for fixed price. You're going to notice that with certain cards, if they're, if they meet the criteria that I talked about earlier of cards that you probably want to auction, you will notice that the auctions on those cards are consistently selling for around what they're selling for fixed price. And you should see multiple results of auctions selling over the course of the last 30 days. If you don't see that, if you see that. Oh, actually the sales from the last few months, there's only been a few of them and they've all been fixed price or there were two sales in the last month. One was fixed price and one was auction. And the auction went for 20% less than the fixed price. Well, you got a pretty clear sign that you are going to be better off listing your card fixed price. But it is going to require you to be patient. And then within the auction results you see, if you want, you can dive a little step further. Further. Are those auction results consistent? Is are you seeing that those auction results are getting a lot of bids? You can, for example, in market movers, you can click on the actual results individually down in the sold section of our pages and you can click and we'll take you out of ebay and you can actually see how many people bid on the card. Was there a bidding war? Did the, did the cards get a lot of bids? Are you consistently Seeing auctions sell for reasonable prices and those auctions are getting a lot of bids, then you're probably very safe auctioning your cards. If comps are strong, if comps are recent, and if the cards got a lot of bids when they were auctions, an auction is going to be a great route for you to go. If the comps are thin or all over the place, then fixed price may protect you. Even though you got to be patient when you're selling a card a fixed price. And of course keep in mind that auctions are time sensitive and timing matters. Ending auctions when buyers are more likely online is always going to be the best. And that means the evenings and that, you know, Sunday nights are the biggest night of the week for ebay auctions for a reason. Most people are on their computers Sunday nights looking for auctions. That's a good time to end your auctions. But really in the evening, the 9 to 10pm hour Eastern Standard time is going to generally be your period when most people are on, you know, bidding. Avoid ending your auctions at all at odd hours. And of course consider what's going on in the world around you. What cards are you auctioning in relation to the sport schedules? Auctioning football in the off season is going to yield a lot worse results than auctioning football football in the weeks leading up to the kickoff of this season. Cards are going to be hotter then, right? Depending on the sport schedule. Listing hot players when they are actually hot, of course is going to be huge for you, as you saw with my Shohei card and one of my Wemby's cards that sold so well and do not auction a player who is not hot unless you are going to be comfortable with a weak auction result. Auctions are momentum plays. So your card, your player, the character, it's got to have momentum for you to capitalize on it with an auction. Fixed price is a patience play and if you're willing to be patient, there's a lot of cards that you're actually better off listing at fixed price and taking offers. Now look, I am definitely not done using ebay auctions. Far from it. I will continue to use ebay auctions and I will continue to use these consignment services long into the future. But I am going to be more selective before I send my cards to auction next time, before I send them to a consignment service, I'm going to do everything I talked about in this video. I'm going to make sure that I've got a a hot card, a hot player, a card that sold at auction before at strong prices recently. Those are the cards that are going to auction. The cards that are more niche, the cards that are one of ones, the cards that are players that are maybe not hot in the moment, those are the ones that are going fixed price and then I'm taking offers on Ebay is an incredible marketplace because the buyers are there. But your job as a seller seller is to match your card with the right selling formats in order to attract the buyers that you need to get a good result on your card. And hopefully this episode has given you some tips on that. Let me know what you think in the YouTube comments. Guys, thanks for listening. And don't forget, these full length episodes of the Jeff Wilson show are available on the Jeff Wilson show channel on YouTube. They're also available on Spotify and on Apple Podcasts under the Jeff Wilson show. So make sure you subscribe everywhere so you can listen to it on the go. Thanks for watching. See you soon in the next one. Take care.