Part 2 of "What is a card shop to do"

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ChasDen

Guest
(part 2 of what is a card shop to do)

Who do you buy your cards from:

As a follow up to the previous post I offer the following question to all that read this post. As a hobbyist who do you buy your cards from and for what reason? Convenience, price, service, quality or maybe a mix of all 4? As a buyer you demand certain things from your supplier just as us dealers demand certain things from the wholesaler. When we buy any product we usually know what we want and we make our choices based on supply and demand, price and availability.

Wizard2000 – No offense, but if you think that you are going to make your “internet millions” selling magic cards through auctions and on the net, get out now while you still have the cloths on your back. The cost of doing business with ccg and trading cards is enormous even if you only do it part time. If you sell only mail order, you WILL lose money the first year (if you make it) and will spend 60 to 80 hours a week working for free. Last quarter of last year we listed over 2000 separate auctions. In order to make any money, our “magic” number ($) is $2.75 per rare card. Can you make $2.75 on each and every rare in the last box you opened? I have done the math, crunched the numbers and tried every “sales gimmick”. The only way you will make it in this business is to stick it out and hope to be the lucky one who comes to mind when the customer is in the position to buy. Our business (Magic Obsession not MTG) hit some serious bumps in Dec. and the beginning of Jan. We had a relative seriously injured in the hospital for a while, we have had trouble getting our web store configured, had a 2 week period where our isp (AT&T - I HATE THEM) was losing mail and at points not sending it at all. But through it all we still had customers looking for us. We work very hard to get that type of customer base and it does not happen over night. The down side is that we also probably lost 2 customers for every one during that time. My advise to you is prepare for the long run or consider a new line of income.

Everyone: I have seen many posts about local stores, lack of stores, and what happened to them all. If you are buying your cards from online auctions and then going to the local shop and bending their ear and expecting advice – shame on you, that advice and help cost them money – support them. If your local shop is full of idiots that treat you like your wasting their time then stop buy from them. Support the people who support you. Auctions are a great way for sellers to expose potential clients to their services. It is then up to the seller to keep you coming back. Internet sales can be a wonderful thing, but it may also be what puts ½ of our small to medium business out of business.

Food for thought

Enjoy Life is too short
 
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Mr_Pestilence

Guest
I think it's almost impossible for any Magic retailer to make money selling online. Why?

1. Too much competition. It cost me something like $10.00 to become a registered ebay seller. No business license. No overhead other than posting/end of auction expenses. No sales taxes. That means anybody can do it.

2. Not enough product. Yes, you can get truckloads of cards to open, but let's assume 4 out of the 44 rares in a small expansion and 10/110 from a stand-alone are worth more than $10, and that on average, you get 2 of these out of every box. You usually don't have any trouble selling these for a nice profit. The problem is the other rares that are worth almost nothing, not to mention the mountains of commons and uncommons that accumulate faster than "relatives" after you hit the lottery. Oh, and foils. Unless you get really lucky and rip a foil version of one of the hot cards, these are pretty much worthless. I carry about 3 dozen in my trade book, and I can't get rid of them. For every Rishadan Port, there are 100 Pale Moons. What do you do with this crap? The answer is apparently to bundle them together and try to sell lots. But Ebay is choked with crap like this. I am a completist, so I like to finish sets, with one copy of even the crappiest rares. For most of these, I spend about $1, plus shipping. After that...? Yet, Ebay has page after page of junk that doesn't even draw a bid.

So, I sympathize with people trying to make a living of selling Magic cards on the net. I try to sell some cards just to support my Magic habit, but it can be tough.

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[Edited by Mr_Pestilence (02-23-2000 at 01:15 PM).]
 
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Wizard2000

Guest
You have it pretty correct there Mr Pestilence. I think the problem is that any joe can buy a booster box, take out all the good rares, then sell the crap on eBay and try to get $ back for them. This is why you see page after page after page of crap like the Pale Moon and Oracle's Attendants.. which are still useful, but not exactly money makers. I imagine that the oversupply of junk will slow down eventually as people get tired of having to sell them for peanuts.
 
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Wizard2000

Guest
I am not as naive as I may seem, I do realize that most businesses will not see profit in its first months or even year of operation. I am learning what works, what doesn't work, and how to avoid some of the mistakes I have made recently. My long term goal is to try to revitalize gaming in this area with a shop of my own. Please do not take offense if I seem a little blunt, I just don't want to be known as another person trying to make easy money off eBay auctions. I work hard and I put much effort into what I do. I have done my own number crunching.. trying to figure out how much I have to sell cards for.. averages.. and etc. I hope it will pay off before long.

I currently have an eBay rating of 164 and I know that's only about 1/3 of the people I have dealt with. I have many repeat customers and I take pride in the comments I get, I do read them all and listen. I have always made my best efforts to ship the cards asap, and I take my time packing to ensure the cards are not damaged by the USPS. Speed of shipment and reliability are the most frequently mentioned things in my eBay feedback comments, and I take pride in what I do for others in the community. I love the game of Magic, and I am a player myself. I will do nearly anything I can do to help others to enjoy the game, and that includes giving people an alternative to greedy, annoying card shop owners like the one in my town. :)
 
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Chaos Turtle

Guest
Just a note, since I was one of those who declared a penchant for online buying while decrying the dog who runs the local card shop.

I hope I didn't come off as one of those people to whom saving a buck is more important than developing a good business relationship with a reliable dealer. The only problem is that this fellow is hardly reliable.
My point with that was actually to suggest that part of the problem with some shops is not with the customer, but the owner (or employees, in some cases).
In fact, I do stop by shops in nearby towns and the city (about 2 hours away) where I do in fact have positive experiences, and I always ask about certain cards I want or just chat it up awhile. I will always give a local guy first crack at my business, but if they haven't got what I'm looking for, I will hit the auctions.
One other "plus" about the in-person shops is that you will often get great deals if you're a loyal customer, and I don't mean ripping off the poor guy. I actually stocked up on various commons and specific land cards (John Avon's Mirage Mountain...only the best for my Sligh :) )not to mention very specific requests (I had a couple of dealers track down as many Wolf-picture Hymn to Tourach cards as we could get...love those things, the ones that came in signed were the icing on the cake).

Oh, yeah, and allowing a place to play is a huge, huge bonus. Let us play Magic in your shop, and we will buy cards! Ever hear of Pack Wars? I've seen boxes of -- believe it or not -- Sixth Edition cards evaporate a Pack War frenzy has broken out.

It's things like this, personal treatment, that will get me into a store time and time again.
 
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Mr_Pestilence

Guest
It's worst than we suspected. I just came from Ebay, and many Nemesis rares (even the "Parallax" cards that a lot of people were excited about) are selling for under 50 cents each. At that price, you can't even afford to post them on Ebay, much less buy them in the first place.

Is this the end?
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Wizard2000

Guest
The cards are actually selling fairly well, but not for as much as they are worth. You are looking at auctions that have not closed. Most people do not bid on items until the final hour or so. I have seen a few odd auctions where cards sold for like $.40 each.

The problem is oversupply. There are like 2200 listings for Nemesis alone. People are flocking in and trying their best to take a little piece of the new set profits, but I don't see it happening. There are also tons of Joes out there buying booster boxes, then taking out the rares they feel are useless and tossing them on ebay, not really caring how much they sell for as long as they get something for them. That is what seems to be hurting the true businesses the most.

Something that I believe would help is if eBay were to make a separate section for businesses in order to be separate from the Joes and Freds and other 15 year old kids. They do that at One Web Place, but OWB just flat out sucks. I believe Yahoo has a business section, but I'm not 100% sure. Generally you find pages of people trying to sell commons and other crap at Yahoo since they don't charge for auction listing.

I think people will eventually get sick of taking the time to list cards only to sell them for a few cents. The quick money wannabe's will finally realize that it won't work and quit. At least that's what I hope or I will be out of a job myself. :)
 
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Dune Echo

Guest
Yeah, I'd buy from my local shop if it weren't for the shear magnitude of negative experiences there. You can't imagine just how cocky everyone is. I hate it. If I make a mistake, I'm decried as stupid and no one wants to play me. I even pissed off the main guy for card sales once because I beat his Toll Bridge deck (you know, Null Brooch, Ensnaring Bridge, Cursed Scroll with fast mana) with my own homemade Red/Green Sligh deck, not once but 3 times.

(I was proud. I had actually went back to the old mana curve statistics and figured out how to maximize everything I cast as long as I had Lanowar Elves out. I didn't have any help with it at all. Muscle Slivers are good. Believe me!)

Also, I hate walking in there and seeing the guy behind the counter who's always bragging about ripping off the store and getting first (practically free) pick on any cards sold or traded to the store. It pisses me off (honestly, because I'm jealous). So I really don't have anywhere to play at all anymore and the best place for me to get cards is eBay. I get all my commons from ChasDen (I'm ready to order when you come back online! :) ) But it sucks that I can't walk into my local card shop without the owner looking at me like I'm about to try to steal something. So why should I support them?
 
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Wizard2000

Guest
The card shop here is not much better than what you guys are describing. He sells no single cards at all, his packs are retail (!) price, and he is basically a jackass. He treats me like I'm 12 when I'm 23 years old, and he always answers questions like I should have known already. He is obviously in the business solely for cash and not for service.
 
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