I try to sell Paper Magic singles at my Local Game Store (LGS) as much as I can depending on stuff that me and my playgroup aren't using for EDH / Commander anymore. I'm not sure If this applies to other Local Game Stores (LGSs) in other peoples' vicinity's but at the one I go to on Saturdays apparently there's an actual limit to how many card singles you can sell to the store so that it isn't as hard on the employees and staff to grade these items to potentially sell If they're fully approved. For my LGS you're not allowed to sell more than 50 cards all at once If you're trying to fire sell tons of bulk cards in which they prefer you handle with someone who will take it off your hands or dump for cash online If you're lucky enough to find a buyer for them. The idea is that they don't want to sit on a ton of items that's hard to sell since it's going to sit at the shop for a VERY long time.
I've been noticing a trend where I don't see as many high end Paper Magic cards that are non-Reserve List being sold at LGSs mainly because the sellers feel like they're getting a much better deal from online vendors rather than being charitable to Local Game Stores (LGSs) to help provide a physical location for people to play in. What ends up happening is that sellers usually wait til a bunch of reprints comes around where normally they would sell their original print copies to the LGS but what they're doing instead is selling these copies online while selling the reprinted copies to the LGS because they're making more for the original printings online than they are for the reprinted versions. With no In-Person Organized Play events they're probably more inclined to sell online rather than to their LGS. Sellers in a way have more power in which businesses they support and boycott which is also how some LGSs go under.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
America Bless Christ Jesus
"Restriction breeds creativity." - Sheldon Menery on EDH / Commander in Magic: The Gathering
"Cancel Culture is the real reason why everyone's not allowed to have nice things anymore." - Anonymous
"For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?" - Mark 8:36
"Most men and women will grow up to love their servitude and will never dream of revolution." - Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
"Every life decision is always a risk / reward proposition." - Sanjay Gupta
Some platforms like cardmarket.com offer a Wants-List where you can put your stuff in and then simply check with a Wizard how much buying these cards cost you.
That is very convenient and beats time investment in a store searching for the cards by yourself and then paying even more for them, so the vast majority will buy them online, especially the cheap bulk cards.
What works especially well for a store is if they run tournaments and people need specific cards for that tournament, they are inclined to buy them right there.
Thats much less the case right now as so many stores are not running any tournaments, especially not any big ones.
Most LGS have a reason to use these online platforms and sell there themselves, if they can be somewhat competitive with the price tags. Thats as simple as having a printer run the orders for the day and doing them once a day, its extra traffic for a store and has to go hand in hand (basically any store no matter what they sell, should in todays age have a online website to receive orders and use that to make more profit, it can be tremendous extra profit for very little work if most of it is automated, and shop employees have some time in the day where nobody is in the store and can easily to the online orders).
For more expensive cards its valuable to get a look at the condition of the cards beyond just a picture and you pay extra for secure shipping etc. which can be much easier be beaten by a LGS that can just hand them over to you for cash.
Some stores will also provide store-credit as a price-pool, and buying singles with that store-credit can provide some % off, then people are again inclined to buy them there.
Works fine, but it all falls apart if the store cannot run any tournaments and all of that doesnt work.
I think it's just a matter of Local Game Stores (LGSs) not wanting to buy bulk commons / uncommons when there's no real consumer confidence and credibility anymore especially with Wizards of the Coast / Hasbro's Secret Lair money making machine going brrrrrr. Because of this Local Game Stores (LGSs) are less inclined to stock non-Reserve List card singles and sealed product thinking it's too dangerous to carry in this current economic environment. This is causing the Expected Value (EV) to become inverted to the point where the cards within a few months time are either forced to tank in price by 30-40% or they double in price. While I do think it's important for Local Game Stores (LGSs) to keep maintaining their online platforms to sell card singles, I feel that they're being more conservative by not taking as much risk as they did pre-COVID and we're starting to see how it's affecting their business decisions and possibly why they would consider putting a cap on how many card singles you're able to sell to the store.
By easing the burden of LGS employees grading more card singles than they should it also hurts their business to online vendors where they aren't bound to buying tons of bulk commons / uncommons or even rares from sellers probably because they've adjusted their business model to handle it better than Local Game Stores (LGSs) which are still important in providing a physical location for people to play their favorite Paper Trading Card Games / Collectibles In-Person. Since Local Game Stores (LGSs) can only have as few employees at the counter as possible to be able to stay in business and pay rent for their landlord it takes more time to get these Buylist orders done when they could be doing other important tasks at their job or workplace as it tends to slow them down quite a bit from what I gather anyway. Sometimes they're forced to make sacrifices by refusing to accept certain cards that could also potentially hurt their business to their online competitors and other Local Game Stores (LGSs) as well.
"Restriction breeds creativity." - Sheldon Menery on EDH / Commander in Magic: The Gathering
"Cancel Culture is the real reason why everyone's not allowed to have nice things anymore." - Anonymous
"For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?" - Mark 8:36
"Most men and women will grow up to love their servitude and will never dream of revolution." - Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
"Every life decision is always a risk / reward proposition." - Sanjay Gupta
I’ve sold bulk/valuable cards I had no foreseeable need for to stores several times. Usually I’ll either sell to one of my local stores or to face to face games out of Toronto and Montreal. Usually it’ll be because those options have the best selection.
Turned out the 50+ card Buylist I sold at my LGS somehow last week managed to get processed. Even though one of the in-store clerks told me that there was a 50 card cap on my Buylist order I talked to the manager of the store a few days later and he told me that apparently they still allow 50+ card Buylist orders it just takes longer to get completely graded. This is what I get for selling tons of Yu-Gi-Oh! bulk commons and uncommons that haven't been used for nearly 20 years, granted I got out of Yu-Gi-Oh! back in 2004 when I already got rid of my high-end rarity cards at the time so I'm just trying to clear out what I had left and somehow the gamble paid off.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
America Bless Christ Jesus
"Restriction breeds creativity." - Sheldon Menery on EDH / Commander in Magic: The Gathering
"Cancel Culture is the real reason why everyone's not allowed to have nice things anymore." - Anonymous
"For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?" - Mark 8:36
"Most men and women will grow up to love their servitude and will never dream of revolution." - Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
"Every life decision is always a risk / reward proposition." - Sanjay Gupta
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I've been noticing a trend where I don't see as many high end Paper Magic cards that are non-Reserve List being sold at LGSs mainly because the sellers feel like they're getting a much better deal from online vendors rather than being charitable to Local Game Stores (LGSs) to help provide a physical location for people to play in. What ends up happening is that sellers usually wait til a bunch of reprints comes around where normally they would sell their original print copies to the LGS but what they're doing instead is selling these copies online while selling the reprinted copies to the LGS because they're making more for the original printings online than they are for the reprinted versions. With no In-Person Organized Play events they're probably more inclined to sell online rather than to their LGS. Sellers in a way have more power in which businesses they support and boycott which is also how some LGSs go under.
"Restriction breeds creativity." - Sheldon Menery on EDH / Commander in Magic: The Gathering
"Cancel Culture is the real reason why everyone's not allowed to have nice things anymore." - Anonymous
"For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?" - Mark 8:36
"Most men and women will grow up to love their servitude and will never dream of revolution." - Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
"Every life decision is always a risk / reward proposition." - Sanjay Gupta
That is very convenient and beats time investment in a store searching for the cards by yourself and then paying even more for them, so the vast majority will buy them online, especially the cheap bulk cards.
What works especially well for a store is if they run tournaments and people need specific cards for that tournament, they are inclined to buy them right there.
Thats much less the case right now as so many stores are not running any tournaments, especially not any big ones.
Most LGS have a reason to use these online platforms and sell there themselves, if they can be somewhat competitive with the price tags. Thats as simple as having a printer run the orders for the day and doing them once a day, its extra traffic for a store and has to go hand in hand (basically any store no matter what they sell, should in todays age have a online website to receive orders and use that to make more profit, it can be tremendous extra profit for very little work if most of it is automated, and shop employees have some time in the day where nobody is in the store and can easily to the online orders).
For more expensive cards its valuable to get a look at the condition of the cards beyond just a picture and you pay extra for secure shipping etc. which can be much easier be beaten by a LGS that can just hand them over to you for cash.
Some stores will also provide store-credit as a price-pool, and buying singles with that store-credit can provide some % off, then people are again inclined to buy them there.
Works fine, but it all falls apart if the store cannot run any tournaments and all of that doesnt work.
WUBRG#BlackLotusMatterWUBRG
👮👮👮 #BlueLivesMatter 👮👮👮
By easing the burden of LGS employees grading more card singles than they should it also hurts their business to online vendors where they aren't bound to buying tons of bulk commons / uncommons or even rares from sellers probably because they've adjusted their business model to handle it better than Local Game Stores (LGSs) which are still important in providing a physical location for people to play their favorite Paper Trading Card Games / Collectibles In-Person. Since Local Game Stores (LGSs) can only have as few employees at the counter as possible to be able to stay in business and pay rent for their landlord it takes more time to get these Buylist orders done when they could be doing other important tasks at their job or workplace as it tends to slow them down quite a bit from what I gather anyway. Sometimes they're forced to make sacrifices by refusing to accept certain cards that could also potentially hurt their business to their online competitors and other Local Game Stores (LGSs) as well.
"Restriction breeds creativity." - Sheldon Menery on EDH / Commander in Magic: The Gathering
"Cancel Culture is the real reason why everyone's not allowed to have nice things anymore." - Anonymous
"For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?" - Mark 8:36
"Most men and women will grow up to love their servitude and will never dream of revolution." - Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
"Every life decision is always a risk / reward proposition." - Sanjay Gupta
"Restriction breeds creativity." - Sheldon Menery on EDH / Commander in Magic: The Gathering
"Cancel Culture is the real reason why everyone's not allowed to have nice things anymore." - Anonymous
"For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?" - Mark 8:36
"Most men and women will grow up to love their servitude and will never dream of revolution." - Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
"Every life decision is always a risk / reward proposition." - Sanjay Gupta