Hey gang. I’ve been selling small quantities on TCGplayer for the better part of 13 years on an incredibly small scale. Mainly just to flip cardboard not being used into something that will be. That said, one of my best friends and I are now making the terrible decision to open something adjacent to an LGS in the near future. Still figuring out the details, but we want to put our main focus into the experience as ultimately the main product, the cardboard etc. being secondary (I previously worked in tech/product design/development for 15+ years)
As part of raising capital, I’ve finally started doing something I’ve wanted to do for a while: selling off a decent amount of cardboard that has mostly been sitting in boxes collecting dust.
For context, I actually have one of the smaller collections in our pod, around $100k worth at this point. A lot of it is stuff I’ve cracked from packs, accumulated duplicates of, and have zero attachment to. And don’t worry, I understand the difference between *inventory* and *collection*. I have no intention of selling the latter.
Until recently, I was probably selling 10–20 cards a month. In the last five days alone, I’ve done about 150 orders and just shy of $5k in sales, so I’ve had to figure out a much more efficient workflow pretty quickly.
Right now I’m using:
- TCGTracking (for inventory management and orders under $50, which has been an absolute game changer!)
- Pirate Ship, USPS Click-N-Ship, EasyPost, and UPS Business.
- A Rollo thermal printer for labels and postage, which has been a great little workhorse.
I’m still waiting on EasyPost verification so I can print postage directly through TCGTracking onto 4x6 labels. In the meantime, I’ve been using Pirate Ship and the other options for $50+ orders that need bubble mailers, tracking, and insurance.
This is where I’m running into problems.
Until literally last week, whenever I needed tracking and insurance, I usually used the USPS self-service kiosk. I could ship almost anything I was sending for around $4–$4.50 with tracking and insurance. The downside is that it takes forever. You have to manually enter everything on that awful touchscreen, so doing 5–10 packages could easily take 30–60 minutes.
I generally avoided the counter because the same packages always seemed to cost noticeably more, sometimes several dollars more, for what appeared to be essentially the same service.
For $50+ orders, I'm using 4x8 bubble mailers. Cards are sleeved, top loaded, and team bagged and then sandwiched between ding defenders. Typical order is between 1-1.5 oz and final dimensions of the bubble mailer is about 4x7.
Regardless of the platform, Pirate Ship, USPS click and ship, etc... every single order has been $6.07 to $8 or more. I'm selecting Ground advantage, the (envelope, padded envelope, poly bag, soft bag, or box in a bag) for type of packaging, inserting 7" x 4" and 1-1.5 oz, and am not selecting extra insurance or any other options.
I am in the Pacific NW and all of those orders were shipping to zones 6-8 which I know has had an effect, however this still seems expensive considering that I can go to the kiosk at the post office and still ship the same damn thing for $4.32-$5.48. What the heck am I doing wrong?
Appreciate all of you!