My First Ebay Sales

I made my first Ebay sales since returning to the hobby. They are far, far from my first Ebay sales ever, but just my first recent ones. I've also sold other things on Ebay in the past couple of years, but not cards.

I bought a bunch of packs at Walmart around Christmas and pulled a few valuable cards. I just had them sitting aside this year, as I've been busy and never bothered to research exactly how valuable some of my pulls here. Although a lot of people are self-isolating, I work in essential services in retail management, so during the pandemic I've actually been significantly busier than I otherwise would normally be.

I spent a couple of hours one night last week going through my stacks of random cards and researching prices on Ebay. I decided to focus just on cards that would sell for $5 or more. I wanted to offer free shipping to the US and Canada in order to simplify things, but in order to do that cards would need to sell for at least $5 so I don't lose money.

I figured the best practice would be to list the cards as BINs with best offers, rather than as auctions. I guess auctions would sell more quickly for some cards, but I'm afraid I wouldn't get the price I wanted if I listed the opening price too low. I also thought a higher opening price on an auction would deter buyers. So, BINs and BOs were the best way.

I listed eight cards on Ebay, and within a day sold the four most popular ones. 

First, I sold a Pete Alonso Topps Chrome rookie for $9.75. After the cost of shipping and packaging as well as Ebay fees, the total came to $6.15. One of the few advantages of being a card reseller in Canada is taking advantage of the favourable exchange rate when it comes to sales. However, that bonus is mostly negated because it costs that much extra to buy cards, and I do a lot more buying than selling. Still, it helps.

Second, I sold a Zion Williamson Donruss rookie for $19.88. After expenses that came to $15.16. I was lucky to have pulled this card. If I was in the US I would have considered having it graded, but one of the other awful things about being a Canadian collector is how ungodly expensive it is to grade cards with PSA or BGS. The duty fees are unreal, seriously. Unless your card is worth more than $500 or something, don't even bother.

Third, I sold a Ja Morant Donruss rookie. This was another lucky pull. I got $11, with $7.28 after expenses.

Fourth was a Ja Morant Hoops rookie. I received $9.50 from the buyer. I shipped this card with tracking, which ended up costing $12.40 for a net loss of $-2.90. I didn't realize the cost of the tracking until after I had left the post office. This was the first card I shipped, so when I shipped the others, I sent them regular mail (all in bubble mailers) without tracking. My profit would have been about $6.

So, in total I earned $25.69 after expenses on these sales. That converts much higher here in Canada. Of course, this doesn't figure in the cost of buying the packs these cards came from, let alone the cost of buying other packs at the same time that yielded nothing valuable. Figuring those costs after the exchange rate, I probably made a little money or broke even.

One thing I need to do is take better photos. I don't have a scanner, so I use my cell phone. Lighting makes it tough, but I'm going to keep practicing.

I have a few more cards still listed.

Do you sell on Ebay? What strategies do you use to sell cards?