Should PSA expand operations to meet demand?
Scarlem21
Posts: 238 ✭✭✭
I wonder if PSA has given any thoughts to expansion as a means of increasing revenue instead of increasing prices on submissions. I think raising the prices might decrease the number of submissions and help them catch up, but what if they expanded instead? That would spread everything out and greatly increase the number of submissions (and get them out the door faster). Instead of just a location in Newport Beach, what if they had a location on the East Coast and one in the Central States somewhere?
Also, do you think it might happen where PSA puts a hold on all levels of submissions for awhile? I don't know how they will ever catch up if they are getting crushed everyday with submissions.
Jeff
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I'd parlay PSA plus the points and the Over.
Good questions. I've been a big advocate for larger submissions not more submissions. I think this is the answer for slowing it down a bit. The more you submit the lower the cost.
50 - $20 each
100 - $18 each
250 - $15 each
500 - $12 each
1000 - $10 each
This will make every submission at least $1000. Slows down the pace, but still allows the collector to send in a lot of cards. Right now the minimum order is $200, it's just too low. Hard to make money for PSA on such small orders, plus it ties up the process too much. I'm a CPA, i don't want a ton of $100 returns, too many people to fool with. I would rather do half as many returns for around $300 each. I do the same processes for each return, but having to meet with the clients on the front and back ends takes up too much time.
Hey PSA guys, This will work I promise.
I hope they are considering that idea !
nothing will work w said bottlenecks in place. the biggest being research & id. physically going thru each card ensuring it's the right card, right year, right variation, right player and proper spec/cert number assigned i've been told is the biggest hold up. if that's the case, it doesn't matter how condensed you make the number of orders. the problem is intake & processing. once that is solved, i believe your process could definitely be proactive.
eta: and keeping in mind, numerous new products are released each month. it's constantly training and battling to keep up w the new-new.
There are no right answers to go about this. The industry is different from everything else. Maybe an east coast office would help. Heck, the USPS is becoming a major problem for them. I do think having cards graded in the US from Japan seems strange. I don't understand that at all.
Couldn’t the research and ID be done from anywhere? Spend some time to scan in the cards (maybe they don’t want to scan raw cards?) and that work could be done anywhere. If that is the backlog I feel that part could be one of the easiest to expand capacity in. I don’t submit so maybe I am crazy here....
Nic
Guides Authored - Graded Card Scanning Guide PDF | History of the PSA Label PDF
Their company is in a win-win situation. Their share price rose nicely before the buyout. They have great demand for their
product/services. They want the integrity of their product, or brand name to be the best there is, so how do they go about the increase in demand for their services ? The obvious answer is to keep the integrity of their brand name first and foremost on their mind, and think of ways to grow revenue while keeping customers happy. The easiest thing I can think of is to expand their New Jersey office and perhaps open up a Florida office.
PSA advertised for ex graders to come back and work part time to catch up on the backlog. This was about 2 weeks ago on Net54 so yes they are considering hiring. But I doubt training new employees ( not ex graders) would do anything but slow them down more.
I know when I train jobs takes twice as long
"I spent 50% of my money on alcohol, women, and gambling. The other half I wasted.
don't quote me, but i think there is some type of automated image recognition / code reader that is being tinkered with. how close is it to actually being implemented? no clue. i imagine still trying to decipher which of the 50 variations the actually card is might be tough to nail.
If they're not already, they really should automate most of the research and ID. AI should be able to correctly identify the cards amazingly fast. Then it goes to a human for a quick review.
I think they'd also generate a ton of good will by simply being more transparent in their process. It's frustrating as hell to have a sub sit at one stage for 6, 8, 10 months and have no idea what's going on. Even something as simple as where my sub is in the queue for each stage would be awesome. I'm #435,903 in line? Fine. If I come back 4 months later and I'm #215,450 then I can judge for myself my wait time.
I just submitted my first card for grading to PSA. How long does it take for it to show up as "entered" after it has been delivered to their facility (via UPS)? Does it depend on what service level you opted for?
Short answer, yes - higher levels will be entered more quickly. A longer answer is covered in some other threads here - there’s a thread on a backlog at Newport Beach USPS, plus a thread on submissions times that covers the actual times that some people have seen things entered, graded, sent, etc. You might be able to compare your submission type to the recent info in some of those threads to see what your reality might be.
Jim
Where are they going to find the staff to grade cards? One has to have the knowledge and
the passion to grade cards. Maybe out of a 1000 applicants they might find 15-20 who would
qualify. They don't want cards leaving PSA that got the "10" but obviously are not. The recent Rickey
Henderson rookie would be such an example. Quite a bit of "Denaro" difference between a
"9" or a "10". I would think that a moratorium on accepting cards for a few months and then
raising fees might be a partial solution. Steve at BBCE has an excellent solution for now.
AI for research doesn’t work when the items being submitted are new specs / first copy graded.
Yaz Master Set
#1 Gino Cappelletti master set
#1 John Hannah master set
Also collecting Andre Tippett, Patriots Greats' RCs, Dwight Evans, 1964 Venezuelan Topps, 1974 Topps Red Sox
True, but what percentage of their business it that? I bet 99% of cards aren't first-graded stuff.
Im not sure, but that’s a lot of what I submit.
Yaz Master Set
#1 Gino Cappelletti master set
#1 John Hannah master set
Also collecting Andre Tippett, Patriots Greats' RCs, Dwight Evans, 1964 Venezuelan Topps, 1974 Topps Red Sox
There is a reason Ultramodern costs the most (in "Value").
But even that's an easy fix. Have the card manufacturers send card art every time they release new product. And the beauty of AI is it only takes 1 card from a set to identify the majority of other cards in that set - since they're of the same design. Facial recognition identifies the player. Back side scan confirms it, along with brand, year, etc.
Maybe it's just me, but the scariest part of the automation concept is the handling of the card itself. It's not like you can put all cards from a submission in a hopper and run them through some scanner like the money counters Walt and Jesse use in Breaking Bad. Someone probably still needs to manually place each card on a double-sided scanner. It's definitely faster than someone looking at each card and individually looking things up but there are still manually components that can't be replaced by automation yet.
Eventually maybe we get to better automation, but when soft corners, edge wear, surface issues, etc. are so critical, it's going to be challenging to automate things end to end without the occasional mangled card. And maybe you can default certain levels to manual reviews, but what happens if someone tries to sneak that valuable 1 of 1 into a lower end submission - either intentionally or unintentionally - and that's the card that gets eaten, dinged, or scratched by the equipment?
Jim
I was just talking about the Research & ID phase, although I think especially with ultramodern, grading could be automated too. A computer can easily judge centering, corner radius, etc.
It doesn't need to be money-counter speed to dramatically speed up the process. Imagine a human simply laying out 100 cards on a 10x10 grid and having a scanner do everything in one pass. Then the human reviewing those 100 cards to confirm the grade. That would be way faster than the current process.
@daltex @Copyboy1
I don’t submit ultra modern. I was referring to items like below.
Yaz Master Set
#1 Gino Cappelletti master set
#1 John Hannah master set
Also collecting Andre Tippett, Patriots Greats' RCs, Dwight Evans, 1964 Venezuelan Topps, 1974 Topps Red Sox
Once you get behind it's very hard to dig out. Maybe they should have two services one for basic cards and one for less traditional cards like the ones DBesse27 has shown above. I love that PSA will slab just about anything but it cannot be easy to train up and educate new employees/graders to have such a wealth of experience to grade everything. If they could train up and hire new graders and keep them assigned to specific types of submissions it could help them dig out.
Successful card BST transactions with cbcnow, brogurt, gstarling, Bravesfan 007, and rajah 424.
Do you buy new cards? You may not understand that for a lot of cards there are many variants that are very similar but need to be distinguished on the flip. The days of just one Henderson rookie in the 1980 Topps set are long gone.
It's still not hard. Anything a human can identify, a computer can identify faster - no matter how many variants. Especially if there are lots of variants.
you're still thinking of conventional scanners being used.
epson v600 was a great scanner. but it's a dinosaur. these things instantly scan and measure. and it's not even designed for cards. text recognition, zero lids, zero feeding, zero sliding down to the corner, zero cropping, etc.
Guess I always just assumed that COMC was using some type of image recognition software since they handle orders with no paperwork. Just stacks of cards. I know they're slow now, but they weren't always.
PSA could offer incentives for their group submitters to get it right. Between the group submitters, their customers who fill out the initial forms, and then the graders, one would hope the error rate wouldn't be very high. It's never been perfect.
But what’s the eventual conveyor belt to and from that system look like? I know this is beyond just the thread topic, but ideal automation isn’t going to need a person to lay cards out on a scanner - they’ll be fed in and out automatically. I’m not as worried about lining things up on a scanner bed as I am wondering about the assembly line. The USPS has been doing something similar for years - maybe they don’t care about dinged corners or surface marks so they have’s solved for those problems, but they’re definitely worried about trashing envelopes, and we’ve all gotten shredded mail in plastic bags with apology stickers attached. That ain’t gonna cut it when a mistake like that can cost a company thousands or more. Yes, automation will happen, but eliminating a significant amount of manual effort is not right around the corner (in my opinion).
Different discussion for a different thread, though.
Jim
i believe the conveyor belt loading method has been covered in this thread:
https://forums.collectors.com/discussion/1053515/anyone-still-play-that-flipping-card-game-with-sports-cards-against-the-wall#latest
There was a mention elsewhere that earlier today the Sports Card Nonsense podcast on the Ringer interviewed PSA’s Steve Sloan and he had some interesting facts about recent submissions. He said that 50% of the total number of cards subbed during the first two months of 2021 were valued at $50 or less with 30% of that half valued at $25 or less.
Having read through so many threads/comments from newbies/returnees to this hobby over this past year I can just imagine the stuff that they’ve been submitting. Just days before this March 1st price hike there was someone getting ready to ship ten 1990 Fleer cards at the $75 Express Level and I honestly thought that was a typo until someone else tried justifying these cards at that service level by saying he was likely grading Jordan’s,Gary Payton rookies and David Robinson 2nd yr cards. If they’re spending $75 a pop on those cards what the hell are they subbing at the Value level?
Eric
Erikthredd’s MJ Collection: https://www.psacard.com/psasetregistry/publishedset/395035
Erikthredd’s Nike Air Jordan Collection: https://www.psacard.com/psasetregistry/basketball/key-card-sets/nike-poster-cards-michael-jordan-1985-1992/alltimeset/408486
If they’re spending $75 a pop on those cards what the hell are they subbing at the Value level?
I've been guilty of this - especially when the minimum sub # was 50 on Value subs. Last summer I had like 40(ish) legit cards to grade and needed 10 more for the discount, so I just threw in some 1990 Skybox Jordans, a few Fleer Gary Payton rookies and even an Upper Deck Mutombo rookie (LOL). They all should be 9s, which will be worth the grading fee, and if a couple pop to 10s, I'm golden.
I'd never submit those at $75 a pop though.
I think we’ve all thrown in some cards like your examples so we could reach a certain total number of cards especially when they were only going to cost $8-12 in recent years but $75? Yikes.
Eric
Erikthredd’s MJ Collection: https://www.psacard.com/psasetregistry/publishedset/395035
Erikthredd’s Nike Air Jordan Collection: https://www.psacard.com/psasetregistry/basketball/key-card-sets/nike-poster-cards-michael-jordan-1985-1992/alltimeset/408486
AI has to be taught though. It's not like you can just fire up a computer and have it instantly start identifying every possible card and player - AND variation - that PSA gets. It has to get its base data from somewhere and that involves LOTS of prep work.
It has to get its base data from somewhere and that involves LOTS of prep work.
Most of that work is done though. Facial recognition and character recognition could pull player, team, card brand, card # and year issued instantly with no problems. Then all you do is upload card images (that you can easily get from the manufacturers) and it can match card design/variation. You could even upload signatures and have it validate autographs.
Hell, most of this technology is already available on Google Photos. I can go to my photo set right now and search for "elephant" and without any photo tagging, it'll pull up all my elephant photos. Or if I tag just a single name in one photo, it can find all the photos with that same person.
This is likely one of a few areas, the photo database, that they can throw bodies at. Receiving and pack/ship are others, maybe the sealing? The rest is going to be a slow ramp, IMO
Agreed that automating actual grading would be much tougher, although things like centering and edges would be simple. Corners would be tougher, but not out of the question. Surface would seem to be the toughest solve. But if a human grader got a card that was already computer-graded as, say, a 9 - it's a lot faster to start from that and review than it is to start from zero.
1) No, it's not already done.
2) Google has stuff in place for their photos but it's not like PSA has access to that data or can license it.
so. i gotta know, just how many elephant pics ya got in there?
Anyone without at least a few dozen isn't really living.
does -iasis count?
Facial recognition software is literally everywhere. Peter Thiel, who is behind the NFT craze owns Palantir, one of the biggest facial recognition software companies anywhere. A system could be up and running in a matter of 6 months or less.
No
all ears then.
LOL. Went on Safari in Tanzania and Kenya, so I have quite a few!
is this where we insert the "what-a-ya get when you cross an elephant w/ a rhino" joke?
That anecdote aside, I don’t think people are clogging PSA up with junk era cards. They are submitting $10 Luis Robert cards and second year luka base cards and other ultra modern cards. If that were not the case, ultra modern wouldn’t have its own higher price category.
that's part of the problem. but no more than everything else.. star wars, gpk, pokemon, mtg, marvel, soccer, footy, wrestling, fortnite, tennis, golf. just about any and everything printed on cardboard is on fire and getting subbed. a year ago, i'd agree 100%. today, it's just not fair to preclude all these as causes for the influx and delays as well.
eta: in fact, i'd say it's quicker to log, r&id and breeze thru 100 base luka cards than any of the other cards from above mentioned sets.
Riding them with the fam in old Siam, Ayutthaya I believe.
Wonder if these grading advances,AI, take place will grading rates go even higher? With all other TPG's following suit into AI? Maybe we should be careful what we wish for.
I don’t know if it is pure marketing, but whomever HBG is they claim to use AI.
https://hybridgrading.com/
Maybe PSA needs some legit competition.