Card Shows: Tech as a servant or master?

[Exhibitman]

Originally Posted by x2drich2000

Adam, I half agree with your analysis, but you have to also look at it the other way around as well. Why would the $1 offer be unfair or dishonest? That $1 card with $4 shipping, as a seller, you are paying $4 to ship to the customer, Ebay/Paypal are taking their fee, and the tax is just going to the state not to you. As a result, on the $5 online sale, the seller is netting less than $1. That $1 offer nets the seller more than than selling it online. The key is finding that happy medium where both the seller and the buyer are coming out better, Unfortunately, my experience is that most seller and buyers want the whole savings their way rather than working on something in the middle.

I don't disagree with a happy medium but that is not how the comp bandits roll. They want it for the eBay price, period. Also, in a state with sales tax eBay makes the buyer pay it, but at a show buyers do not expect sellers to whip out the calculators and charge the sales tax.

You are also missing the context. Costs of sale on eBay are dramatically different than cost of sales at card shows.

Table fees at the Anaheim show last summer were $600 for an eight-foot table. The host convention hotel room rate for three nights is a total of $597, plus $90 to park, $45 for internet access, and 20% tourist taxes. My $597 stay becomes an $880 stay (rounded). Add to that at least another $50 a day to eat, and my travel cost amounts to $1,030. That's $1,630 just to be there and set up. Say I did a really good job of buying and I make 50% for each card I sell. The first $3,260 in gross sales is my break-even point. But wait, I also have to pay sales taxes, pushing my break-even point to about $3500. That’s the risk I take when I set up. Every sale goes towards covering that nut.

On eBay, I incur no costs unless and until an item sells, other than $300 a year for the storefront. The buyer also pays the shipping, the sales taxes, and a handling fee I add to every listing to cover my materials and the final value fees I have to pay on the shipping cost and the sales taxes (because eBay has turned those into profit centers too). My total overhead for eBay averages about 15% of sales.

If you want card shows to exist, and if you want sellers to offer cards for all budgets, you will pay more for an item than on eBay because of the sunk cost overhead that is non-existent on eBay. I run a pickers' table; i serve the middle-class collecting community. My customers are not the ones buying three-four-five figure cards in slabs. I sell a lot but I don't sell much that costs over $100 per card. A $2,000 day is a good gross for me. If I do $5-$6K at a four-day show, that's solid. Given the math, I can list a modestly-priced card on eBay at rock bottom prices but when you ask me to sell a card for the eBay price at a show, you are literally making it financially impossible for me to set up because you are cutting out the profit I need to pay overhead. If I do that, I might as well just skip it or put out expensive slabs only.