PSA backlog

[BobbyStrawberry]

Originally Posted by Mike D.

That’s my take as well. Also, people who say “just hire more people” must not have tried hiring anyone of late…it’s really difficult right now!

Difficult? CU is worth close to a billion dollars and PSA is the industry leader. We're not talking about a Burger King franchise here.

[conor912]

Originally Posted by BobbyStrawberry

Difficult? CU is worth close to a billion dollars and PSA is the industry leader. We're not talking about a Burger King franchise here.

You’d be surprised how many people don’t want to sit in a dark room for 10 hours a day scrutinizing sportscards for $35k/year.

[Republicaninmass]

Originally Posted by conor912

You’d be surprised how many people don’t want to sit in a dark room for 10 hours a day scrutinizing sportscards for $35k/year.

More so in Newport Beach. Maybe they need an office in Podunk Iowa?

[Lorewalker]

The whole concept of these large group submissions is one I feel PSA should not encourage. By doing so I would think they are providing or at least implying assurances that the authorized dealer will safeguard participants' cards. So it begs the question if they have any liability or responsibility in this instance.

My bigger issue with it is that it creates an "unfair" competitive edge for the person or business who simply has the capacity to create these massive ongoing submissions. PSA was going to get the business from the individuals who make up these group subs anyway. These submitters now get much faster turnaround and they get a price per card that is significantly less. There is nothing stopping me from participating and sharing that edge but I like being able to control my own valuables to the extent that I can. I always worry something like this could happen or that cards gets switched out or there are delays on making the submission, etc. These subs are much different than two hobbyists piggybacking on an order. If my 200 card sub gets to PSA the same day one of these group subs of 5,000 cards gets there my sub is going to be there for months well after the 5,000 card sub has been returned.

[sox1903wschamp]

Originally Posted by Lorewalker

If my 200 card sub gets to PSA the same day one of these group subs of 5,000 cards gets there my sub is going to be there for months well after the 5,000 card sub has been returned.

I'm going to push back against this statement. First of all, the max allowed per sub is 500, not 5000.

And yes, I know you probably mean 5000 cards from one person broken down by 10 subs x 500. But I do not think they get done any earlier then the 200 card person, especially these days.

[Johnny630]

Wonder if the $12-$15 per commons for set Registry Builders ever comes back.

[steve B]

Originally Posted by Lorewalker

The whole concept of these large group submissions is one I feel PSA should not encourage. By doing so I would think they are providing or at least implying assurances that the authorized dealer will safeguard participants' cards. So it begs the question if they have any liability or responsibility in this instance.

My bigger issue with it is that it creates an "unfair" competitive edge for the person or business who simply has the capacity to create these massive ongoing submissions. PSA was going to get the business from the individuals who make up these group subs anyway. These submitters now get much faster turnaround and they get a price per card that is significantly less. There is nothing stopping me from participating and sharing that edge but I like being able to control my own valuables to the extent that I can. I always worry something like this could happen or that cards gets switched out or there are delays on making the submission, etc. These subs are much different than two hobbyists piggybacking on an order. If my 200 card sub gets to PSA the same day one of these group subs of 5,000 cards gets there my sub is going to be there for months well after the 5,000 card sub has been returned.

It's worse for submitters, but much better for PSA.

Years ago I had a very large international company that became a customer for a few months.

They were among the first to abandon just in time delivery on all their parts and supplies and go to an integrated supply model.
Largely because the US plant at least had something like 400 suppliers, and they studied costs of buying anything.
Get 3 quotes
Pick the best one
Get the purchase approved
Issue the purchase order

Apparently the average cost of just issuing the PO was around $400 in the late 90's.
So they first got rid of the places they'd bought a handful of items from. Then the middle size suppliers, and made deals with a handful of large suppliers to buy everything in a category from them at a set markup. Open books on both sides. At the tens if not hundreds of millions it made perfect sense to issue two Purchase orders a year to six different suppliers. (Their small package shipping alone was in the $40Million range.)

I got on the list despite being small because the head of purchasing was tired of buying a specialized item where he had to tell the seller what page it was on in their own catalog. I knew both our numbers and the big suppliers pretty much from memory. So I saved him a LOT of time.

More remarkably, they paid in 10 days when most huge corporations were holding the money for 90 days because they could.

[Tabe]

Originally Posted by conor912

You’d be surprised how many people don’t want to sit in a dark room for 10 hours a day scrutinizing sportscards for $35k/year.

If you're having trouble hiring, you're not paying enough. Period. $35k is incredibly low for a business charging $100-$150 per card.

[conor912]

Originally Posted by Tabe

If you're having trouble hiring, you're not paying enough. Period. $35k is incredibly low for a business charging $100-$150 per card.

Have worked in small businesses my entire life, sometimes there is no more money

[swarmee]

Originally Posted by conor912

Have worked in small businesses my entire life, sometimes there is no more money

And it's not really a minimum of $100 they're charging right now, since the vast majority of cards still in the backlog are still on $10-15 bulk submissions. And going forward, PSA (Turner) has expressed interest on bringing back much cheaper service levels for set collectors. So this high prices are the only prices phase "seems" to be only a blip.

[Mike D.]

Originally Posted by BobbyStrawberry

Difficult? CU is worth close to a billion dollars and PSA is the industry leader. We're not talking about a Burger King franchise here.

It’s not just fast food that’s hurting…try hiring a technician, a software developer, or basically any job up or down the salary scale. Unemployment is at 3.9%.

Higher wages can help…although that usually means higher prices. But we have a shortage of workers globally right now - probably with many contributing reasons.

That being said…PSA is having success hiring…from their website:

“ In January 2020, PSA's parent company Collectors Universe employed 421 team members. Today we stand 783 people strong and growing daily. We’ve been adding more than 2 people per business day for more than 6 months and we’re still going.”

[swarmee]

Plus, the modern market has been crashing hard and "investors" of the past couple of years seem over-leveraged in depreciating assets. If PSA hired 1,000 more and bought buildings to put them all in, it may not be the best decision in the long run. They have already announced their intention to open up multiple remote locations, but Southern California is an expensive place to run a company based on near minimum wage labor, with $500K houses the norm.

[Johnny630]

Originally Posted by swarmee

Plus, the modern market has been crashing hard and "investors" of the past couple of years seem over-leveraged in depreciating assets. If PSA hired 1,000 more and bought buildings to put them all in, it may not be the best decision in the long run. They have already announced their intention to open up multiple remote locations, but Southern California is an expensive place to run a company based on near minimum wage labor, with $500K houses the norm.

I have visions of PSA Grading Locations of Texas, Tennessee, and Florida, along with California and NJ for Autographs. That would be awesome.

[BobbyStrawberry]

Originally Posted by swarmee

Plus, the modern market has been crashing hard and "investors" of the past couple of years seem over-leveraged in depreciating assets.

I totally agree. This gets to the heart of my original question in that it seems then that their decision not to do more expansion of capacity is, in a way, admitting a lack of belief in their own product/service.

Contrast this with the approach SGC has taken, which seems to be "send us all your cards, we want more!"

[Paulcurlee1]

Originally Posted by BobbyStrawberry

I totally agree. This gets to the heart of my original question in that it seems then that their decision not to do more expansion of capacity is, in a way, admitting a lack of belief in their own product/service.

Contrast this with the approach SGC has taken, which seems to be "send us all your cards, we want more!"

That’s a really interesting perspective. Hard to not agree with!

[Mark17]

Originally Posted by BobbyStrawberry

I totally agree. This gets to the heart of my original question in that it seems then that their decision not to do more expansion of capacity is, in a way, admitting a lack of belief in their own product/service.

Contrast this with the approach SGC has taken, which seems to be "send us all your cards, we want more!"

SGC seems to have solved the backlog issue by using the primary economic principle from Econ 101: Backlog gets a little heavy, raise prices a bit, temporarily. Backlog gets down to normal levels, lower prices a bit to ensure steady flow of new submissions.

Result is, SGC can maintain service with reasonable timeframes for their customers, as well as some stability for their own business situation, with the managed submission rate.

Now they just need to establish a registry, preferably a non TPG specific one, to put themselves on even footing with PSA, among the registry crowd.

[Paulcurlee1]

Originally Posted by Mark17

SGC seems to have solved the backlog issue by using the primary economic principle from Econ 101: Backlog gets a little heavy, raise prices a bit, temporarily. Backlog gets down to normal levels, lower prices a bit to ensure steady flow of new submissions.

Result is, SGC can maintain service with reasonable timeframes for their customers, as well as some stability for their own business situation, with the managed submission rate.

Now they just need to establish a registry, preferably a non TPG specific one, to put themselves on even footing with PSA, among the registry crowd.

If they started a registry I would switch all my psa cards (which is 2/3 of my collection) over to sgc. For any sgc decision makers watching.

[Dead-Ball-Hitter]

Originally Posted by Paulcurlee1

If they started a registry I would switch all my psa cards (which is 2/3 of my collection) over to sgc. For any sgc decision makers watching.

I’d have a bunch to cross to SGC as well.

[swarmee]

Originally Posted by Mark17

Now they just need to establish a registry, preferably a non TPG specific one, to put themselves on even footing with PSA, among the registry crowd.

SGC won't do that, but if Who's Bobby?(tm) of VCP does it, they would be a beneficiary.

[JCU]

I guess for myself I’ve never seen the value in getting them graded. When I began collecting and working in shops before owning one. Grading cards was the best part of the hobby. Learning from other critics and them learning from myself. The eye, the tools and techniques. It was important to the buyer and the seller. Now some ghost slaps a golden number on a case with a seal and everyone’s stuck with an interpretation that many times I feel is flawed. One time I picked up a Dr J rookie and called a friend who was a graders grader. I told him I’ve got something and I’ve got a notebook with a letter and I’m on my way over in an hour. He looked it over for 30 minutes or more. He said what’s your letter lol I told him if it’s the same as yours your buying me lunch. His was a M and mine was a W. Possibly the nicest on the planet. I believe it went to a very happy man in Colorado. Now it’s a number from some ghost. Maybe that’s best if you’re buying or selling. It’s just no fun and little discussion.

[jh691626]

For whatever it's worth, I did end up getting an allocation today at the PSA virtual ""event". I started at 3096 and it got all the way down to me after about 35 minutes.

They definitely awarded more than last time. I wonder if they are feeling more comfortable with where they are in terms of being able to crank them out in 90 days, or whether it was b/c this is the last one for now, or what.

I realize many of you could care less! But thought I would report in case people care and fully accept all arguments that I am dumb for paying $50 for economy grading. I'll report about whether it got turned around in 90 days.

Jeff

[bobbyw8469]

Originally Posted by jh691626

For whatever it's worth, I did end up getting an allocation today at the PSA virtual ""event". I started at 3096 and it got all the way down to me after about 35 minutes.

They definitely awarded more than last time. I wonder if they are feeling more comfortable with where they are in terms of being able to crank them out in 90 days, or whether it was b/c this is the last one for now, or what.

I realize many of you could care less! But thought I would report in case people care and fully accept all arguments that I am dumb for paying $50 for economy grading. I'll report about whether it got turned around in 90 days.

Jeff

$50 per card is entirely too much. I feel as though the hobby has abandoned me.

[bnorth]

Originally Posted by bobbyw8469

$50 per card is entirely too much. I feel as though the hobby has abandoned me.

I agree. At that price is it taking all or most of the profit out of selling the cards you can submit at that price range? It is definitely too high just to slab your cards to protect them.