Posted By:
Jonathan PerryJust figured I would offer my opinion on Kit Young's prices. I belive his prices are so high because he has to protect his retail business. He has spent 15-20 years building his retail clients, and now does not want to lose them to e-bay and other online auctions. I am sure he has several repeat customers that buy only from him and his catoluges (except for a card show here and there.) If you look at any retail monthly catoluge the prices always seem higher than e-bay, same goes for Wayne Varner and Steve Verkman.
For example if somone is looking for a particular card lets say a T3 turkey red and they see it in Wayne Varners catologue for $500 then a couple of months later they see Kit Young has one for $525. A month later Kit Young has the same card on e-bay with an opening bid of $500. If the person wants that card bad enough they will have to pay. Now if Kit Young puts the card on e-bay for $9.99 with no reserve it could sell in one week for $350. But to Kit Young it is worth it to pay the $3-5 in listing fees, if it sells it sells, if not he got some cheap publicity. However he now is able to get that same buyer to buy from his catolouge at the price he sets. He is able to hold on to his inventory until he gets the price he wants because he has the $$$ in the bank.
Another reason his prices are high is if he has a buch of that same item in inventory. If he sees a card selling for $100 and he wants to get $300 for it, he has to spread the word that this is a $300 card and not a $100 card. He has a very good marketing stadegy howver it does not work well if you are trying to generate cash quickly. It works well if you have a lot of cash and want to slowly make more money as I am sure everyone wishes they were in the position to.