A lot of us use the TCGPlayer site to buy and sell cards, frequently reselling cards on that site that we bought from them. Their fees are not unreasonable, and while some of us are exclusive to eBay for selling, it’s generally true that the more people who see your item, the more likely it is to sell. (Presuming that it’s priced at a level where it would sell, anyway.)
However, TCGPlayer has made some specific choices in their user interface that lead to less people seeing your item, and we need to be aware of these cases. Not just because it costs money, but because these might be cases where selling on a different platform is a much more profitable choice.
I’m not saying this to denigrate TCGPlayer or the service it provides. I use them a lot, both for buying and selling, and I appreciate the task they are facing. Hundreds of thousands of cards, frames, foiling, and conditions, plus the vagaries of shipping, taxes, and the Direct service…it’s a tremendous logistical challenge! I also really like their new data, for 1M/3M/6M/12M and knowledge of copies selling per day. These are things I wish they would improve, for everyone’s sake.
So let’s get into three big things you need to be aware of with TCGPlayer, which might be costing you profits.
If you’re a regular listener of MTG Fast Finance (and why aren’t you, it’s a great show, and we have the data to back it up) we’ve mentioned some of these concepts but we haven’t really set it all down together in this way. I’m collecting this information, combining it, making it simple for you to keep in mind
TCGPlayer doesn’t list all versions under ‘show all versions.’
This probably isn’t groundbreaking to you at this point, but TCGPlayer made the choice as the Collector Booster era hit us to list every version with a different frame, or a different foiling, as a separate product page. Here’s an example with Banner of Kinship, a card which has regular frame, Extended Art, and Borderless Art. Each of those has a foil, plus the Borderless has a Mana Foil treatment.
All told, that’s seven versions to keep track of. TCGPlayer has four listings for the card. If you type in Banner Of in the search bar, here’s what you get:
This is forgivable, but here’s the core issue with this choice. If I click the first result, I can only see two of those options: the original frame and the Prerelease foil. Worse yet, if I click on the original frame, and I click on ‘all versions’ I can only see the original frames. The only way to get to the premium versions is to know exactly which premium version I want, and type that into the search bar.
The egregious offense here is that a potential buyer, on the biggest card-selling platform in North America, cannot see all the versions side by side. TCGPlayer does allow you to see regular and prerelease foil side by side, along with all the reprinted versions, so why not give players ALL the options? Makes no sense.
TCGPlayer hides other languages by default, even if other languages are opened in English packs.
In Foundations and in Duskmourn, players can open a Collector Booster and get a Fracture Foil. One in three Fracture Foils in English packs are Japanese-language cards, the same as you would get in Japanese-language packs.
They are the same card, pulled from the same pack, and have a similar number of copies in circulation when you take into account Japanese-language packs having 100% chance for Japanese-language Fracture Foils.
But for TCGPlayer, the default language choice is English, and that means to find these copies, which are just as pretty, you have to go in and add Japanese to the languages you’re viewing. As a result, these copies move slower and go for cheaper. For this card, Enduring Courage, you’re looking at about $90 for the English version but half that for the Japanese version. Similar gaps exist for the other cards with this set of treatments, and you can save a lot of money if you want these cards. For instance, if you’re hungering for the anime Llanowar Elves, the English will run you about $425, but the Japanese can be had for $80 less.
And if you happen to pull a Japanese version, do yourself a favor and list it on eBay instead. You’ll make more money. It’s close to being arbitrage worthy, where I’m telling you to buy on TCG the Enduring Courage for $50 and sell it on eBay for $75 (which is something you could do right now), but if the gap widens much more, then the taxes, shipping, and fees won’t be prohibitive and you will indeed turn a profit.
Cheap price + high shipping + multiple copies = low profit
Let’s use an example of a card, the promo pack Infernal Grasp. The cheapest NM nonfoil is $1.86+$1.27 for shipping, a total of $3.11. People want their versions to match, so you want to get four, and this is where people mess up. They want their copies to show up as cheap, but add a high shipping cost, so you can get more money per sale. But then they make a costly mistake: They list a bunch of copies at once.
Here’s three vendors who have multiples of the same nonfoil promo, and all of whom are trying this game of high shipping.
At a glance, it looks like a killing, selling this card for at least double. But when you spread out the shipping, the bonus vanishes. Sure, the top one is $6.47 if someone buys a single copy, but if someone buys four, that’s $11.21 total. Per card, that’s $2.80, less than the person who listed a single copy at the cheapest price!
If I were to buy these as a spec (which I wouldn’t, though the new Borderless is intriguing) and get all ten, I’m in for $2.43 a copy before taxes.I get why people put a big shipping cost–they want to make sure that every order is worth at least a certain amount. But if you follow that practice, and lower your prices to keep up, then list lots of copies, you can lose money per copy.
This is only a problem when all three conditions are met, and if you avoid any one of the three, you’ll be fine.
Cliff (@WordOfCommander at Twitter and BlueSky) has been writing for MTGPrice since 2013, and is an eager Commander player, Draft enthusiast, and Cube fanatic. A high school science teacher by day, he’s also the official substitute teacher of the MTG Fast Finance podcast. If you’re ever at a GP and you see a giant flashing ‘CUBE DRAFT’ sign, go over, say hi, and be ready to draft.