John Rogers: Ponzi scheme?

[D. Bergin]

I often wonder if something like this will be what eventually brings down some of the huge Ebay sports card consignment outlets, long before anything ever comes out of any sort of shilling allegations.

Their margins are so tiny in their effort to compete with auction houses and each other for what they charge for consignment rates, I don't know how they cover their overhead..........unless their consignments are somehow loss leaders for them to gain capital to purchase and sell their own inventory at higher margins.

Actual auction houses give themselves a much bigger margin for error with their takes. What these Ebay houses are doing, just seems very Ponzi'ish to me.

I occasionally take on Ebay consignments in my niche, and charge a rate I'm sure most around here would consider vulgar, and barely clear much of a profit at all on those items, after Ebay, Paypal and various expenses are factored in.

If I tried to compete with what Probstein, PWCC and others charge, I'd be in over my head in no time.