Why don't we see more online card sellers with their own website?

Aric

I am curious to know why there are not more web sites out there where a card shop or a large card dealer has their entire inventory listed for sale?

I am talking about a site like justcommons or a version of comc but with a single seller.

Is it because of the expense of creating,hosting and updating the site? Is it because its cheaper and easier to just do the same thing with sportlots or comc or even ebay?

Mapleleaf

I usually go to ebay. Many sellers have a greater chance of interesting cards show up. A one seller site is good while supplies last and then too much work for one person to compete with multiple sellers. Some sellers do it but it would be hard to beat ebay.

Maurice

Lack of traffic as compared to Ebay.

Maurice

Probstein has announced that he will soon be moving part of his business away from Ebay and to his own website.

If I were to make a prediction, I'd say that Probstein will soon enough realize that Probstein needs Ebay more than Ebay needs Probstein.

He auctions many highly volatile, low population cards where one less bidder could be the difference between a $2300 sale and an $800 sale.

On the other hand, sometimes we see these types of cards sell for higher prices at auction houses than on Ebay.

It will be interesting to see what happens.

tmgrnzx9r

Traffic as stated by Maurice would be the key factor.

ABellPharmD

Sellers could take 4SCs approach and have the same inventory available on their own site and offer a discount to use that service. This way you still get eyes on your merchandise. Unfortunately this only works for BIN. Higher price items will be moving off of eBay soon as the new fees are going to really hurt. I'm interested to see what Probstein and PWCC have in mind. I could see them opening their own auction houses for higher quality merchandise. I think they could do well because the people bidding on the items they'd be auctioning will seek them out. If you can't find it on eBay, you'll look on "ProbBay" if you want the card.

Aric

I was thinking more along the lines of a fixed priced format.

Auctions require lots of traffic. No one is going to compete with ebay in that regard.

I believe the future lies in having an inventory of hard to find singles. Just look at our fellow board members search for a 2001 Will Clark Refractor or some of my own experience trying to track down some Marvin Harrison singles. Sometimes these cards aren't even rare its just that if they don't show up on ebay/sportslots/comc, there's now where else to look.

Or how about for set collectors looking for 30 commons to complete a set...Justcommons only does baseball plus his prices are a bit high. I mean I can't give away my commons but I also can't find someone to sell me the ones I need for a dime.

I'm getting on a tangent here...but I guess what I'm getting at is there seems to be an unfilled need in our hobby for more of this type of site.

Dpeck100

I spoke about this with one of my dealer contacts today.

Traffic is the key.

A low pop card needs to run in an auction unless a known buyer will pay a price that just seems to good to be true.

For more normal inventory a site would be a great idea.

The increase in fees could pay for itself in six months or less and you could list cards on both venues and will get traffic on your site.

I would go to a college and get a graphics design student to get some real world experience and pay them for their efforts.

This in the next few years will become more of the norm is my prediction. Websites are cheap and with PayPal you can accept payments easily and avoid the Ebay fees.

DCanfield

<< <i>Lack of traffic as compared to Ebay. >>



I asked a dealer if he felt the 9% (soon to be 10%) ebay fee was oppressive. His answer was no. He said he used to spend more than that on advertising and didn't have anywhere near the audience. For a lot of dealers this is their approach to selling.

aconte

<< <i>f I were to make a prediction, I'd say that Probstein will soon enough realize that Probstein needs Ebay more than Ebay needs Probstein.
>>



Maybe not.

aconte

Cumberland

I think a lot of dealers don't sell cards on their own website because they just don't have the time. Many dealers are bogged down between setting up at shows, or running their brick and mortar card shop, posting cards on eBay, dealing with a second job, family and so on, that there just isn't time to post cards to their website. I think dealers would be taking a hit if they abandoned eBay for their own site. Though, if they can find the time, I think selling cards on their own website, along with eBay, is a smart move.

sportscardtheory

There should be a site that links all sportscard websites into one single search, and all the sites are run by individuals. It would be like having an ebay store, but it's literally YOUR store and there would be no ebay fees or nonsense.

If there were 2,000 sites, the search would ONLY search the inventory of the 2,000 sites. For example, say I want a 1969 Topps Mickey Mantle. I go to said search and type in 1969 Topps Mickey Mantle, if any of the sites have one, it directs you to that site. It would be like a giant flea market, but not like ebay at all.

wallst32

<< <i>There should be a site that links all sportscard websites into one single search, and all the sites are run by individuals. It would be like having an ebay store, but it's literally YOUR store and there would be no ebay fees or nonsense. >>



How would this master site generate traffic? And who is going to fund it, if not by seller fees. How do buyers pay sellers? If by Paypal that's more fees. It just turns out to be a poor man's ebay. Ebay has many other advantages as well such as buyer protection. Maybe not so much of an issue for larger and well established sellers. But as a buyer, how comfortable are you going to feel about purchasing a high dollar card from a random seller?

Aric

Received this link today from a seller that I bought a couple singles from. Just a simple catalogue in pdf form.

Battersbox Catalogue

This is not an endorsement of the seller but an example of the type a thing I wish there were more of. Any one have any similar links?

BostonAmericans

<< <i>Received this link today from a seller that I bought a couple singles from. Just a simple catalogue in pdf form.

Battersbox Catalogue

This is not an endorsement of the seller but an example of the type a thing I wish there were more of. Any one have any similar links? >>



Aric,

Your original question was kind of self answering. If I read you correctly, you were wondering why there were no sellers online with individual online shops. The easy (and in some regards correct) answer is ebay. For the same reason B&M stores have dried up (ebay), it is not worth the time nor effort (save for the big boys - i.e. PRobstein, 4SC) to have individual sites. Same thing applies to shows. I am relatively new back in the hobby, but I have seen the impact of ebay vs. other means of selling.

For example - I live south of Boston. A few weeks ago there was a regular show at a local hotel. This show does well, and I find it somewhat interesting that I actually got a Wade Boggs auto fron the same room some 30 years ago (I think the card so split space with a model railroad show). But I digress. The big draw that day was John Hannah. I arrived to the show 'late' in Hog's appearance (around 12:20 - he was scheduled through 1:00 PM), but as soon as the last ticket for him was sold, dealers were packing up. What this told me that any profit they may get from post auto guests was not worth hanging around.

So to echo what others have said - traffic and cost. While there may be no direct cost to updating a site (i.e. updating inventory), the effort to driving traffic is not worth any potential profit. Example - part of my my re-introduction back to the hobby is if there is an athlete doing autos at this particular show (or any show), I will want to get that auto on a card that I can then get blue flipped (is that the proper nomenclature??) as I like the card (from my childhood) and the encapsulation (PSA does look nice). Where do I get my cards? Exclusively ebay. Why? I know I can get the cards I want in the condition I want from the dealers who are the highest caliber. So to that end, ebay has morphed into the 'virtual' continuous card show. You can find what you want, in the price and condition you want.

Going solo, unless you are Prob or 4SC, is a fool's errand. Not saying that it is wrong or not profitable, but why fix something that isn't broken?

MiniDuff

Here is the 64k question from my perspective:

Is there a service/template that will manage inventory/listings on both sites? Lets use 4sc as an example, most cards listed in both places. Will a sale on ebay, remove the item from the store and vice versa? If not, managing two completely different inventories presents a real challenge.

miwlvrn

<< <i>Here is the 64k question from my perspective:

Is there a service/template that will manage inventory/listings on both sites? Lets use 4sc as an example, most cards listed in both places. Will a sale on ebay, remove the item from the store and vice versa? If not, managing two completely different inventories presents a real challenge. >>




The scenario you describe above seems to work well for cross-listing COMC & Amazon from what I've observed. Not sure about others though.

blee1

<<<<There should be a site that links all sportscard websites into one single search, and all the sites are run by individuals. It would be like having an ebay store, but it's literally YOUR store and there would be no ebay fees or nonsense. >>>>


I like sportscardtheory idea......I will add that to my list of stuff to do....If you guys want to give me a few other sites besides mine taht I can crawl over to pull inventories from.

jradke4

<< <i>Probstein has announced that he will soon be moving part of his business away from Ebay and to his own website.

If I were to make a prediction, I'd say that Probstein will soon enough realize that Probstein needs Ebay more than Ebay needs Probstein.

He auctions many highly volatile, low population cards where one less bidder could be the difference between a $2300 sale and an $800 sale.

On the other hand, sometimes we see these types of cards sell for higher prices at auction houses than on Ebay.

It will be interesting to see what happens. >>



well he might rethink that if the internet sales tax thing passes. trying to figure out sales taxes (in some places its state, county and municipal) is going to be a major headache and $$ killer for small businesses. thats probably why the big guys (target, home depot, etc) are all for it. it will help kill their competition. and by the way it will never decrease the sales taxes or other state or local taxes we currently pay. anyone that believes that had better get some clean glasses.

PowderedH2O

10% for ebay may sound like a lot, but if you actually had to have a physical location to sell cards from, what would that percentage be? A reasonable storefront in a reasonable city is going to cost you thousands of dollars per month. That store will draw in mostly business from that city only, with an occasional out-of-towner strolling in. For your 10% you don't pay for a building, advertising, electric bill, water, local licensing fees, or insurance. You can also be open 24 hours a day, while still taking time to do whatever else you need to do. Plus, you get the advantage of having customers from all over the world see and bid on your items. Ebay has a lot of flaws, but the rates aren't one of them. 10% for all of that is cheap!

miwlvrn

<< <i>

<< <i>Here is the 64k question from my perspective:

Is there a service/template that will manage inventory/listings on both sites? Lets use 4sc as an example, most cards listed in both places. Will a sale on ebay, remove the item from the store and vice versa? If not, managing two completely different inventories presents a real challenge. >>




The scenario you describe above seems to work well for cross-listing COMC & Amazon from what I've observed. Not sure about others though. >>



Come to think of it, I've noticed a problem with this situation exactly as you describe where Burbank cannot seem to keep track of what they actually have in stock vs. what is already sold since they've spread themselves over so many different selling websites. Seems like half the time I ask them about buying a card, the come back a couple days later saying it is no longer available, even though it is still listed in several spots. Can be frustrating for the buyer.

On a related note, I just received an email originating from Beckett media advertising the end of auctions for Kruk on ebay tomorrow. I don't understand why such a message would be generated since it was my understanding that ebay and Beckett would be competitors in this regard. Also, not sure if the Kruk Beckett listings are automatically updated to reflect the ebay sales or not.

MiniDuff

The internet sales tax is quite simply unenforceable for micro sellers. The only way it could ever effectively come to pass would be for the feds to require ebay to calculate, withhold and submit for all. Can you imagine literally a million small sellers sending 38 cents here and six dollars there? It would create more work for the municipalities as well.

There story is there is a small business exemption to the proposed rule as well, so we will have to wait and see what the cutoff is.

Edit to add, the rule applies to vendors with over $1m in out of state sales, so it would hit some of the higher volume folks like 4sc, rick, pwcc, etc., but skip the casual seller.

SportsCardMan

You only have to pay sales tax 1 time on merchandise. If you paid sales tax when you bought it, you do not have to collect sales tax when you sell it.

In Virginia, you can apply for a "Sales Tax Certificate" which allows you to purchase merchandise tax free, but you have to collect sales tax when you sell it.