Quicker turnaround times idea

Blindmelon5

Still not understanding how long PSA s process takes especially when time is of the essence. It’s a publicly traded company. Why not get a bigger facility with more graders etc. I’ve never understood why this isn’t feasible. Imagine sending in cards to grade and you get them back in a few weeks? That would be incredible and would make it so much more fun. Any business that experiences growth expands. PSA is really the exception. Any light to be shed would be awesome. Quite the conundrum.

alifaxwa2

Pretty sure they moved to a new, expanded facility 1-2 years ago

80sRockNut

I completely agree with BM5. I have been submitting cards for the last three years and the two biggest increases that I have noticed are price and turnaround time.

I understand that the demand is increasing and they want to hire professionals to keep their grading standards high, but it does feel like they were more focused on coming up with a new name (Collectors Universe) than meeting demand.

PSA is still the gold standard in my book, but it is a little nuts that I have to wait a YEAR to get my bulk (value) submissions back.

JoeBanzai

@Blindmelon5 said:
Still not understanding how long PSA s process takes especially when time is of the essence. It’s a publicly traded company. Why not get a bigger facility with more graders etc. I’ve never understood why this isn’t feasible. Imagine sending in cards to grade and you get them back in a few weeks? That would be incredible and would make it so much more fun. Any business that experiences growth expands. PSA is really the exception. Any light to be shed would be awesome. Quite the conundrum.

This has been discussed here over and over again.

If you owned a business, you might understand. Expanding a business is an expensive risk. PSA is in a perfect position right now, they have a high demand and a backlog of work coming in.

If they expand, their fixed expenses go up, too much expansion leads to a risk that if they eliminate the backlog and for some reason demand for their service drops, they go from a very strong position to a very weak one. In the event that they expand too far, simply reducing staff won't lower all the expenses incurred in expanding.

The investors want a safe business to own, not one that spends their money expanding if it's not going to lead to bigger profits. The stockholders don't care how long it takes to grade a card. Time is NOT "of the essence". They aren't curing cancer.

The other grading companies seem to have the same problem, from what I have read here. Unless a competitor can start cutting into PSA's market share by reducing turnaround times, while maintaining a high quality on their grading process, it's not going to happen.

PSA's cards seem to also bring the highest prices for most of the cards I see sold on ebay, so I don't see too many people switching grading companies to get their cards back a little faster and then end up selling them at a lower price.

DBesse27

@80sRockNut said:
I completely agree with BM5. I have been submitting cards for the last three years and the two biggest increases that I have noticed are price and turnaround time.

I understand that the demand is increasing and they want to hire professionals to keep their grading standards high, but it does feel like they were more focused on coming up with a new name (Collectors Universe) than meeting demand.

PSA is still the gold standard in my book, but it is a little nuts that I have to wait a YEAR to get my bulk (value) submissions back.

PSA has been a division of Collectors Universe for a long, long time.

JoeBanzai

@DBesse27 said:

@80sRockNut said:
I completely agree with BM5. I have been submitting cards for the last three years and the two biggest increases that I have noticed are price and turnaround time.

I understand that the demand is increasing and they want to hire professionals to keep their grading standards high, but it does feel like they were more focused on coming up with a new name (Collectors Universe) than meeting demand.

PSA is still the gold standard in my book, but it is a little nuts that I have to wait a YEAR to get my bulk (value) submissions back.

PSA has been a division of Collectors Universe for a long, long time.

I should still be able to get a Hamburger, fries and a drink at McDonald's for under $1.00, after all they have expanded.

blurryface

Lets focus on getting it right first. Then maybe worry about speed.

eagles33

I don’t mind getting what you pay for. My only complaint is that I wish they had the same system as BGS. If you pay for 10 day service, the order has a due date and those dates are usually held. I don’t like paying for a 30 day service that is the estimated time and it ends up taking 60 calendar days. Makes it hard to plan if are sending cards to pwcc or had a plan for the cards. Bgs has set times for each pay scale and they do a good job at holding the spans. That being said 95% of my collection is in psa slabs

JoeBanzai

@eagles33 said:
I don’t mind getting what you pay for. My only complaint is that I wish they had the same system as BGS. If you pay for 10 day service, the order has a due date and those dates are usually held. I don’t like paying for a 30 day service that is the estimated time and it ends up taking 60 calendar days. Makes it hard to plan if are sending cards to pwcc or had a plan for the cards. Bgs has set times for each pay scale and they do a good job at holding the spans. That being said 95% of my collection is in psa slabs

I will agree that if I pay more for a shorter turnaround time, and it takes a lot longer than it should, it bothers me a little.

Not enough to expect any company to expand their business to make me happy.

80sRockNut

As a self-admitted bull, and someone who has worked for multiple corporations and owns a business (that has expanded to three locations), I would definitely consider expanding if I was PSA. The market is growing significantly larger with each passing day, so I can see a nice return (especially with the low cost of capital in today's market) in expanding capacity. I could be completely wrong, but my experience has been that in similar financial crises, the strong get stronger ... and PSA absolutely seems to be in a terrific position to expand. But then again, it is always easy to spend other people's money, so what do I really know?!

Blindmelon5

@JoeBanzai said:

@Blindmelon5 said:
Still not understanding how long PSA s process takes especially when time is of the essence. It’s a publicly traded company. Why not get a bigger facility with more graders etc. I’ve never understood why this isn’t feasible. Imagine sending in cards to grade and you get them back in a few weeks? That would be incredible and would make it so much more fun. Any business that experiences growth expands. PSA is really the exception. Any light to be shed would be awesome. Quite the conundrum.

This has been discussed here over and over again.

If you owned a business, you might understand. Expanding a business is an expensive risk. PSA is in a perfect position right now, they have a high demand and a backlog of work coming in.

If they expand, their fixed expenses go up, too much expansion leads to a risk that if they eliminate the backlog and for some reason demand for their service drops, they go from a very strong position to a very weak one. In the event that they expand too far, simply reducing staff won't lower all the expenses incurred in expanding.

The investors want a safe business to own, not one that spends their money expanding if it's not going to lead to bigger profits. The stockholders don't care how long it takes to grade a card. Time is NOT "of the essence". They aren't curing cancer.

The other grading companies seem to have the same problem, from what I have read here. Unless a competitor can start cutting into PSA's market share by reducing turnaround times, while maintaining a high quality on their grading process, it's not going to happen.

PSA's cards seem to also bring the highest prices for most of the cards I see sold on ebay, so I don't see too many people switching grading companies to get their cards back a little faster and then end up selling them at a lower price.

Understood, but where’s the risk? A bigger space and a few more workers isn’t like opening up a manufacturing plant with heavy machinery, it’s just labor to meet demand.
By the way, the reward of quicker turnarounds is people get their cards back quicker and can sell them off and use that money to submit more. I know a vast majority of submitters don’t have the means to keep sending off tons of cards with no return. As with any flip business, the quicker you can flip stuff, the quicker you can reinvest that money which, in this case, means more money for PSA and the submitter. It’s a win win.
Lastly, I also collect a ton so those that I send off to PSA for myself can take 6 months if they want. I’m just saying a majority of submissions to PSA are flippers and people who run baseball card based businesses