Let me tell you how i make money with Pokemon and Magic the Gathering Cards
Hey everyone, a year ago, i sat down and had a hard think about money. It is tough being a college student who cannot find a job during the school year. Luckily my parents are very supportive and i manage to get by with a summer job. But as the months fly by, i want some more disposable income. What did i turn to? The internet! 10's of hours later examining Google with things like "how to make money online" and all i found was dead ends and scams. Instead of going deeper, i took a step back and remembered i had some luck on eBay a few years back selling some of my old toys. I thought about what i could sell, and instantly i thought cards. I had a bunch laying around my house and i really enjoyed them as a kid, but now i do not get as much enjoyment and i rarely even look at them, let alone play with them. So i decided to check already sold listings of some cards i had on eBay and the results were staggering. Many of my Pokemon cards were worth 2$-20$! I also examined my Yugioh cards and found them to be worth far less, so i decided to neglect that aspect of my Trading Card Game eBay experience. I also dabbled in Magic the Gathering, and not-surprisingly they were worth a lot too!
If you want to check out my eBay listings, my account is called Frozenmtg
So let me give you some tips on how exactly i do business on eBay for my cards.
I will split up the magic the gathering and the pokemon card tactics
Pokemon
I focus mainly on this, the biggest reason is that i had the most amount of these cards left over from my childhood, so i got into selling these first.
What i do- 1. Examine what i have. This means sitting down and sorting your cards from different sets, to different rarities. In the bottom right there should be a circle, diamond, or star. A circle means it is a common card, a diamond means uncommon, and a star means rare.
2. Go to http://www.ebay.com/ Once there i type in the names of my rare cards, one by one and click "sold listings." what this does is rather then showing you the active listings happening right now, it shows you what has already sold. This saves so much time and effort trying to gauge the prices of things, because you instantly know what people are willing to pay for things. You can specify this further by seeing what has sold in the soonest date to you, or the highest price sold. every option gives you lists upon lists of card sales.
3. Determine whether it would be worth selling the card alone. Usually what i do is charge flat standard shipping - $.59 - for one card (unless it is worth over 10$ then i try to make sure its fully protected). I buy an envelope and a stamp at my university post office for 59 cents so shipping does not give me money, but neither does it make me lose money. So now anything the card sells for is the money you receive and can keep. (except that ebay takes a small percentage of sales) Ebay also charges different listing fees for doing different things. The best part is though, that you get up to 100 free (basic) listings every month! You can always pay more for fancy things like subtitles, and scheduled listings (it lists at a specific time for you) but they are really unneeded for the novice seller.
4. If the card is worth pennies, it would probably not sell, because the buyer has to pay 59 cents AND what the price is. So what i do is group together a bunch of cheap rare cards, throw in a few 1-2$ cards, and sell them as a lot. Usually for this, depending on the quality of the cards, i do free shipping for the buyer, to attract bids. If i have some really nice cards, ill charge 5$ or so, to make sure i can ship them in a solid container that will not damage the cards.
5. Do not be afraid to bundle things, also do not be afraid to break up lots that are not selling and sell cards individually.
6. Well eventually i would have to run out of cards right? What i do to keep this operation flowing is to every once in awhile type in Pokemon cards into the search bar, and then i click "ending soonest." This shows me all the pokemon cards about to end. through experience and prior trial and error, i see some cards that i may be able to snatch up at a low price, if not i move on until bored.
7. Another buying technique i use is to type Pokemon cards into the search bar then click "lowest price." Now it will show me all the cards in order of cheapest to most expensive. I then put items on my watch list and try to snipe them in a few days when the auctions end, or if it is a buy it now, i can get it right then.
8. I buy card lots and sell them as individual cards, and i also buy individual cards and sell them as lots. You have to keep your mind open to anything. If my card is worth over 3$, sometimes i do buy it nows. If it is worth less, usually i just put it up as an auction.
9. Most sales are done during 5-8pm. Most sales are done on monday, then sunday, then saturday. If i am really busy 5-8pm on those days, i will put up my auction to begin at a scheduled time, which costs 10 cents to do. Well worth it if it sells, right?
10. Be clear and be ACCURATE in your description of your item. You will have no luck, and many headaches if you are inaccurate or try to scam people. There are feedback scores, and people will know to steer clear.
11. Make a few cheap purchases before you start selling cards, to try and get a feel of Ebay, and also to give you a few positive feedback scores so more people are likely to bid confidently on your items.
These are but a few of the tips and tricks i use for pokemon cards, and most of which can be applied to Magic the gathering. But i do have a few tips and tricks devoted entirely to Magic the gathering cards will be posting later.
Hope you liked my first post, thank you for reading and have a great day
