My First Sales on Facebook

Last week I made my first few sales on Facebook. I'm not a huge fan of Facebook. In fact, I was off of it for several years and only returned because I moved to Quebec last year and I wanted to keep in touch with my friends back in Toronto. Facebook seemed the best way.

Facebook got popular when I was in university, and I was part of the original students that used it back when you needed a university email to register. I remember so many students lamenting the death of Facebook when the company announced that anyone with any email could register. Suddenly you couldn't post photos of yourself drunk when Mom and even Grandmom were now adding you to their friends list.

Facebook changed a lot in the years since. I found it changed in ways that made it harder to use. Like, I can no longer find people I want to add if they aren't somehow contacted to my current friends list (which is really, really small). Honestly, I find that being a man in his mid-thirties rapidly approaching middle age that there is not much Facebook can offer me that I would be interested in.

I also find these days Facebook is associated with conservative politics, especially in comparison to other social networks. Facebook feels like it's "the establishment" and it holds up establishment values, even if these values are racist or otherwise discriminatory. I think that's how you end up with Facebook being littered with white supremacy groups and that sort of thing.

Nevertheless, I read that it is possible to make some money flipping cards on Facebook groups, so I decided to give it a try. There are an absolute ton of Facebook groups for any subject you can imagine. I joined a bunch of sports cards groups, both ones based in the US and ones based in Canada, and I just hoped for the best.

My experience was that collectors on these groups are not as sophisticated in their hobby knowledge as collectors on, say, Blowoutforums, or on the blogosphere. While discussing shipping methods with one buyer, I had to explain what PWE meant. A lot of buyers don't seem to be aware of the buyer protection offered by Paypal and want to send money via EMT. It felt weird educating buyers about buyer protection when I am actually the seller, but that's what happened.

I made a few sales easily. There were a lot of tire kickers, so I had to be patient. Often I would end up negotiating a price with a buyer and he would say he'd send the money in the morning. Once someone says that, it's over. The money never gets sent. One buyer also wanted a picture of the fully addressed envelope his card was being mailed in. I guess he can make sure I wrote his address correctly, but other than that such a picture creates no additional protection for him as a buyer.

I did, however, make some sales. Most commonly I sold cards in lots. Because the collectors on these groups are not as sophisticated as collectors elsewhere, I found they were more interested in base cards and basic inserts. I was able to sell cards in small lots that frankly I thought were garbage and in the past would not have hesitated throwing these cards in the garbage. I didn't make a lot of money and I'm not sure if it was even worth the time, but the cards got sold. 

I know a lot of bloggers like to collect inexpensive cards (which is awesome, I love all cards), but I think most collectors follow a path of being new to collecting and collecting low dollar stuff, to realizing that there is absolutely no challenge to collecting low dollar stuff and move on to rarer, more expensive cards to collect. I also think novice collectors have it in their heads they can still collect everything of a particular player or team, and then realize after awhile they can't and become more selective about what they purchase. Novice collectors also probably realize at one point or another that they thought they were saving money by purchasing inexpensive cards, but they end up buying so many cheap cards that the total dollar value ends up being the same amount of money that a nicer card costs. It would have been more fun to have just purchased the nicer card.

Because the hobby is in a boom period right now, I think a lot of new collectors are gravitating towards Facebook to buy cards. I think these people are still novices looking to pick up inexpensive cards. I also think a lot of these people will lose interest in the hobby quickly and will exit once the boom period settles down.

Do you buy or sell cards on Facebook? If so, do you have any groups you recommend I can join? If you don't use Facebook, do you buy and sell on Twitter or Instagram?