Selling Magic the Gathering TCG cards Online -Lessons I've learned Over a Decade
As a long time seller of Magic the Gathering TCG products online through eBay and other sites, I can tell you it can be a very lucrative business. There are some pitfalls, and there's some huge reasons why you should get involved. I'm going to go over some lessons I have learned, and some basic information you can use to take your business online. All the art in this post is credited to Wizards of the Coast, of subsidiary of Hasbro. All the artists are credited on the cards themselves and I took all these pictures with my smartphone. All right let's get into it.
Selling Magic the Gathering TCG online- my background
I first began selling Magic the Gathering TCG products online almost a decade ago. I sold my cards directly to large sellers online, and it was a very lucrative process. I would go to physical stores and find underpriced cards and then go ahead and turn around and sell to large retailers online. Retailers online were hungry to develop their businesses, and their buylists were loaded with cards they were seeking. I also sold them cards I purchased as a child that had appreciated in value significantly. This was my introduction to the craft.
Magic the Gathering cards are pieces in a game like chess. The difference is that some chess pieces in Magic the Gathering cost a lot of money. When you buy a chess set, you get all the pieces. In order to build the most competitive decks in Magic, you need to be able to source and find the best Magic the Gathering cards on a budget. To ensure that you can play your best game, you will need to find the best pieces to play with. One way to get these cards, which are expensive is to flip your way into some excellent cards that you can use to win the game. A good way to do that is to tap into the collectibles niche of Magic the Gathering.
Magic the Gathering TCG- Collector's Niche
Older sets including Alpha, Beta, Unlimited and Arabian Nights and others hold a lot of high value cards. If you can find your way into some of these for cheap, you can flip them over online into more powerful cards. I am always checking online and in thrift stores for collections on sale. I tend to avoid collections for sale with no pictures, as the best cards may have been harvested already. Having a good relationship with local card dealers can get you the first pick on collections. Standard and extended and even vintage tournament decks end up costing thousands of dollars, I don't have that in the budget. I flip over some of the older cards to make more and go ahead and get these new cards.
My advice is to visit all your local gaming shops and hunt for deals. Many gaming shops will not care about bulk rares, and you can pick up bulk rare cards at some places for 25 to 50 cents and flip them for $1 online. You can find diamonds in the rough, and I suggest putting half your cards on auction and half on buy it now. This has really worked out for me on eBay, and be open to negotiation on the price you list. This is something that's key and I found that you can really walk away with high value gains.
I suggest looking for older staples in the Revised Edition as another strategy. Cards like Sol Ring, Birds of Paradise, Demonic Tutor, Fastbond the reserved list cards including Demonic Hordes and Darkpact all can be found for cheap and fetch higher gains online. People love the reserved list cards, and many people give these cards away for cheap as they are typically not good to play with. I've written about this before. The reserved list was largely crap rares, so if you find a lot of reserved list cards for cheap you can easily flip them and start to accumulate gains to purchase higher value cards.
Selling Online- Pointers for Success
Just like Magic the Gathering itself is based upon card advantage and tempo, selling is the same way. Many of the selling algorithms will reward you if you rapidly list many items and after you sell the cards, you ship the next day. and then actually buy from that platform eBay's Cassini, the eBay algorithm seems to favor those who are participants in the program and who shipped the next day. If I sell something on any of these platforms I make sure to ship on the next day to trigger the algorithms if you're hot and a hot streak you'll know it you'll have lots of cards selling all at once at this point you need to list as many cards as you can per day.
Another e-commerce strategy is to list on multiple platforms. I make sure that I utilize eBay, Amazon and Mercari and I always look at the buy list for large retailers. This is so you can spread out your sales and you get a wide audience. I have used smaller platforms including Offerup in the past and that can be a great way to get to know local people who do trade and play Magic the Gathering so that's a plus as well. If you're on multiple platforms, make sure that if you sell a card and it's listed on multiple platforms you immediately delist it from the others. The reason being is that if you start to miss sales or somebody buy something you already sold you can get delisted from the platform and get into trouble make sure that you're on the level and you manage your inventory.
Inventory management is huge, like I mentioned before. If you're on multiple platforms make sure you're keeping track of what you sold and if you're selling a lot, you can often accidentally double sell. You might have to go to a local card shop by that card and sell it to keep your standing good. Make sure that you are managing your inventory so that means you're keeping stuff organized keep things in different binders that you can easily get to them. I have different binders and containers that will hold my card so I can get to them easily when an order is placed. I usually put things into categories vintage cards from Alpha, Beta and Unlimited, reserved list cards and I have a lot of bulk rares separated by color.
If you decide to enter this awesome fun and rewarding e-commerce selling experience, make sure that you're honest make sure your forthright. Make sure that you communicate with customers and make good sales. Take pictures of the front and backs of your listed cards and don't hide any flaws. You're going to deal with a lot of customers, and you're going to make deals. Be open to negotiations if someone wants to buy one of your cards for slightly less than you've listed it for and you're going to make a profit sell it to them. The more sales you have the more ability that you're going to have to get noticed by the algorithm and the more positive reviews you're going to get. When you make a sale immediately rate the buyer with a good ratings that you get more good ratings as well service your clients and learn if you make a mistake make sure that you immediately give them a refund so that you don't have bad will with them or on the platform.
Thanks for reading. If you like this article reply with some your e-commerce stories, like and follow me. Thanks everybody we'll talk soon.
Posted on Hive, Blurt and Steemit. Posted under truth2 on Steemit.
