Pricing practices and Inventory counts at Starcitygames

[ramanujan]

It is my belief that Starcitygames minimizes their stock in order to maximize profits. I will explain what I mean with a few examples.

When it was apparent that loyal retainers was no longer a 40 dollar card I assert that they purposefully removed the cards in their ownership from purchasable status. When several auctions ended near the 100 dollar mark, they reintroduced the stock at a higher purchase price.

Stoneforge Mystic, a current type 2 staple since the pro tour was sold out at Starcitygames, then a large number appeared at a higher price, then those sold out and another group were showing at a higher price again.

I want to state with absolute clarity that I do not think anything fishy is going on. Starcitygames has a right to sell or not sell any of their inventory at any price that they deem fit. They are the premier store whose prices are quoted more than any other store.

The purpose of this thread is to bring to light what I believe is not widely known information. I would prefer their selling style over the stores that fail to honor purchases if the cards value increases. Stores that do the later in effect have an option on their product due to transaction time and I fully avoid any purchases with those stores.

There is a side effect of wagging the dog the way Starcitygames does with their product. The other stores follow suit. When Starcitygames hypes a card like Scroll Rack in prices and later in articles, they are trying to unload beer at champagne prices. They are using their market position as the elephant in the room to push the price.

What is your opinion of this apparent selling practice?

[anonymos]

Sometimes it pays to be the big dog.

At least they're honest about it instead of canceling orders.

[xTrainx]

They are a for-profit organization. They have every right to do so, and it does pay to be the largest supplier of cards - its called using the tools you have to benefit.

And, to the canceling orders part: Even if they do eventually raise prices, or lower buylist prices, if you made the transaction with them before they did so, even if it hasn't been shipped yet, they will honor the price they previously cited.

[ramanujan]

I am not trying to assert that Starcitygames is doing anything wrong. As a business they can do what they please and they are obligated to profit. I am trying to state that when we see that a card X is priced at Y and is sold out that we should make no assumptions regarding how many of the card are in thier true inventory.

In addition, we should question whether thier prices represent true value. For example, if many people believe that a card is worth what Starcities prices it at then we are giving them power. That power can show itself on ebay auctions and trade lists eventually, becomming market price. This effect is dramatic and I believe that many of the high end cards for our format are overstated in value, with or without the potential of reprints.

Just look at the price of grim lavamancer and entomb. Both are contributing parts of tier one decks. The amount of each is similar. If anything, there are more entombs out there. lavamancer is 8 dollars and entomb is 45 on Starcitygames. There is no way that entomb is worth 45 dollars.

Just think about it

[Forbiddian]

I don't understand what's going wrong or the purpose of the post.

You keep saying that SCGs is doing nothing wrong (they're not), but then the very next sentence you bitch that their prices are high. If SCGs sets the price too high, they don't move units. Saying that they're charging too much is stupid. If you're not buying it, someone else is. If nobody else is buying it, they lower the price. Quite frankly: They do this FOR A LIVING. Yeah, they make mistakes. Maybe Entomb should be lower. And it will probably stabilize around $20 or $30 when the fad wears off, but for right now, it's the next big thing and people will pay $45 for copies of them.

I don't have their sales history or their market research, but they DO THIS FOR A LIVING. If they say they can find buyers at $45, they're probably right.

[Jak]

Isn't this obvious? They are a business trying to make money. Of course they are going to keep up-to-date on pricing and change them whenever. There is nothing wrong or dishonest by what they are doing. I find them one of the most honest since they always honor orders, never cancelling them, unlike some online stores that will cancel orders if they lose money.

Also, you seem to assume Starcitygames has some kind of monopoly on the selling of Magic cards. They don't. There are plenty of other stores out there that keep Starcitygames in check. If they try to manipulate the market price and just increase the price on cards, people will go elsewhere or just not buy. People manipulate the market price.

The reason Grim Lavamancer is much cheaper is because people have the card. It isn't being sought out by a ton of people. Entomb has just burst onto the scene since being unbanned. Not many people owned their playset and now they are trying to buy it all at once. Starcitygames isn't doing this. The willingness of people to buy it at the price is. Online sotres are just going with the trend, trying to make money and the price is going up with the demand of the card.

[ramanujan]

I am sorry that you misunderstood my post.

I am stating that what we are willing to pay for a card is not in our court anymore. Starcitygames states to us how much we pay for cards. Even though we have other venues at first like ebay and other stores, Starcitygames has the final say because we accept it. The auction buy it nows increase, other stores follow suit. Starcitygames has set the price. Because in general we trust their prices and trends, we do not hold the power. They have monopolistic power in an economic sense. They tell us.

The point is to educate. By bringing to light a major cause of the recent hyperinflation of legacy cards I intend on trying to deflate the bubble.

[Forbiddian]

The point is to educate. By bringing to light a major cause of the recent hyperinflation of legacy cards I intend on trying to deflate the bubble.

Did you try throwing it on the ground?

[thebadmagicplayer]

Welcome to capitalism. they're doing things to make them money, good for them.

[Malchar]

I am sorry that you misunderstood my post.

I am stating that what we are willing to pay for a card is not in our court anymore. Starcitygames states to us how much we pay for cards. Even though we have other venues at first like ebay and other stores, Starcitygames has the final say because we accept it. The auction buy it nows increase, other stores follow suit. Starcitygames has set the price. Because in general we trust their prices and trends, we do not hold the power. They have monopolistic power in an economic sense. They tell us.

The point is to educate. By bringing to light a major cause of the recent hyperinflation of legacy cards I intend on trying to deflate the bubble.

This is a large exaggeration of the situation. First of all, there's no evidence that other stores change their prices to match the prices at SCG. In fact, FindMagicCards.com suggests that there is a healthy variety of prices at each store. Besides, if the prices were truly too high, then the stores wouldn't be able to make any money, and they would be forced to lower their prices. Since that's not happening, it appears that the prices are not too high.
Secondly, on Ebay, it should be obvious that the "buy it now" prices will be above the market average. However, when bidding normally, one avoids any supposed "pricing conspiracy".
This market is a perfect example of what a monopoly is not. SCG doesn't have any patents and they don't even make a product. They merely buy and sell cards, just like everyone else can do on Ebay, in real life, or on a variety of other websites. This is an ideal free market, and there's no way that a company could get away with arbitrarily increasing their prices. The only victims here are foolhardy consumers that buy exclusivly from SCG and don't shop smart by comparing prices.

[Parcher]

While they may not be doing anything unethical, they are deliberately manipulating the market to their advantage. Not only in price, but in market availabilty. And yes, they are big enough, and have been around the Eternal formats long enough to do just that.

For example; SCG had Entomb listed at $20 since the unbannings. They listed their inventory at 4, and when they were sold, immediately re-listed their inventory at 4, while maintaining the same price. I know this, as I expected this spike, and was buying them for our team every two-three days as they updated since we run three different decks using them.

The day after the GP final, they list their inventory as 40 in-stock, and at $45. There is no way that this was not competely deliberate, as any Vintage player can attest. They pick up cards for nothing, and jack up the price.

This is expected, and even admired in any capitalist society; as it should be. But they also hoard these cards, not even offering them for sale when the prices are at a low ebb, (especially with Type I staples) and that is a concern. Since with the recent popularity of the Eternal formats, people are genuinely concerned about availability. Now, these more rare items may become for sale, but at such an increased price as to create an impassable barrier to those not already invested in the format.

[ParkerLewis]

Also, the only fact in the OP are observations. The rest of the OP is pure speculation (there's no harm in that as long as it's clear).

In this particular situation, since the card is popular, maybe they did go through their stock. Then received their next shipment of boxes, which they opened, and thus obtained newer copies of the cards. In the meantime, or simply seeing how easily / quickly the previous stock was sold, they adjusted the price.

It also really could be as simple as that.

Parcher's observations on the Entomb case definitely look more conclusive, though.

[lordofthepit]

Are you sure they didn't just sell out their inventory of a particular card very fast when there is sudden demand (such as with Loyal Retainers) and then update their price on their next batch of cards?

Not that I find it better or worse either way as long as they don't cancel an order that was already placed.

[Anusien]

Pretty sure they've admitted to this. They intentionally don't list their entire inventory at once, because they don't like being sold out. The goal is to find a price the card will move for steadily. If cards are sold out, they can't sell them. They don't like not being able to fulfill orders.

[MattH]

As I recall it was one of Starcity's stated goals that unlike smaller stores, they would ALWAYS be able to fill an order for anything. If it's out of stock, they'll go hunt down a copy, on ebay if need be, and sell that to you.

Now, bear in mind that's an old policy (I think it was 2003 when I read that?) but it was definitely in place at one point. It seems very likely that they decided that not listing their entire inventory was the better way to meet their goal, as Anusien described.

[Jim Higginbottom]

They also goto sites like findmagiccards.com and allmagiccards.com and buy out stores entire inventories of cards their articles are hyping. They were buying damping matrixs at .30-.50 and selling them for $2-5 after their authors hyped them.

[Atwa]

They also goto sites like findmagiccards.com and allmagiccards.com and buy out stores entire inventories of cards their articles are hyping. They were buying damping matrixs at .30-.50 and selling them for $2-5 after their authors hyped them.

That's their good right, isn't it?

If those sellers are smart, they watch which cards SCG wants to buy from them, only sell 4-6 of said card and raise the cardprice themselves. The fact most shops don't, is their own stupidity.

[godryk]

They have their right to do that, don't they? At least they don't cancel orders of already purchased items 'due to a stock error', as others do.

[Parcher]

Of course they have a right to do this. It's smart business. Most other stores simply don't have the capital reserve, or even the business savvy to purchase such a great deal of cards on speculation, and wait for the now almost guaranteed rise in cards frm the reserved list.

My issue with this is that Legacy epecially is at it's all-time high. To the point where some are seriously considering adding it more regularly to Wizards events. Profiteering on this popularity, while in no way breaks any law, or even ethic necessarily, can certainly harm the propagation of the format if due to reducing the available card pool, and/or drastically rasing pricing newer players are unable to participate.

[android]

I don't really care for SCG and I especially hate when the local B&M store references their site for pricing.

Having said that, I will still offer up some facts in SCG's defense. First of all, for the longest time, I've used a number of references to get an idea of the value of cards. Currently, the most reliable is watching Ebay trends because that is what people pay in a truly competitive environment where supply is readily available (for most stuff). Other sources that I've used over the years have been periodical price guides and the largest online retailers (SCG being one of them - and here's where I come to their defense). Almost every price reference has junk rares priced between $1-3. SCG consistently has theirs priced at $1 or below. I can't tell you how many times I've purchased a shitload of $1 rares on speculation and had them jump up to $5, $10, $20 even. OK, it's not that many times but you get my point. Don't expect that when the cat's out of the bag that they are just going to sit idle. If you see a card's potential before anyone else realizes it or make an educated guess at what may become popular, you can go buy 100 copies of a junk rare and be positioned to make some money or trade. SCG won't stop you from doing so.

Anyhow, I hope that made sense. So many people are pissed off that they basically jumped on board a little too late. Get over it, the card obviously wasn't worth shit to you before the price spike.

For the record, I made an assload off of Flash, Entomb, Grindstone, Scroll Rack & Helm of Obedience. Most of those I bought for under $5. Sue me. I'm also sitting on a bunch of other junk cards I think may make a showing some time in the future. Nobody is mad about that but if/when they spike, there will be all these people complaining about how people like me horde all these cards. Lame.

[MattH]

That's their good right, isn't it?

If those sellers are smart, they watch which cards SCG wants to buy from them, only sell 4-6 of said card and raise the cardprice themselves. The fact most shops don't, is their own stupidity.

At PT Austin, one dealer was selling a lot of very good cards very cheaply ($8 spanish Onslaught fetches for example). Bleiweiss and I both got to that table at the same time, we were each grabbing cards before the other could get to them, it was funny.

[Bardo]

When it was apparent that loyal retainers was no longer a 40 dollar card I assert that they purposefully removed the cards in their ownership from purchasable status. When several auctions ended near the 100 dollar mark, they reintroduced the stock at a higher purchase price.

Every business is trying to find the "sweet spot" when it comes to pricing. You want your product to move and not get stuck holding inventory; on the other hand you don't want to sell too low because you need to make money to survive.

Instead of paraphrasing the most compelling argument I've read on this point, I'll just c/p a section from a recent Bleiweiss article:

"As much as people say that we [StarCityGames], as a company, have influence over the market – I think that oft times this influence is vastly overstated. I can’t just snap my fingers and start charging $10 for Wasteland and $30 for Tarmogoyf – we would be bought out by our competitors in three seconds flat, who would then charge the price for those cards that the market is willing to bear. At current rate of acquisitions, there aren’t enough copies of these cards that are being reintroduced (through collections and singles being sold) to meet demand."

http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/misc/18794_Insider_Trading_The_Cost_of_Cards_The_Rise_of_Magics_Popularity_Part_1_of_3.html

Pretty much sums it up.

[Aleksandr]

I'm also sitting on a bunch of other junk cards I think may make a showing some time in the future.

Out of curiosity - which ones?

[Malchar]

The losers are the ones who read an article about good cards and then buy the cards after the prices have shot up. The winners are the ones who can tell which cards are good or bad without relying on someone else telling them so.

[Phoenix Ignition]

Out of curiosity - which ones?

Scroll Rack, obviously.

But seriously, I will guarantee that if he mentions any halfway decent card that card will see a giant increase in price. Self-fulfilling prophecy indeed.

[Jak]

I think a lot of it has to do with brick and mortar stores not having them either. I was talking to a shop owner and he was just saying how he doesn't get older cards in. Most players don't have them in trade, they can't seek them out via ebay and reliably make a profit, and they of course don't crack boxes. This makes people rely on online stores.

I don't think it is just StarCityGames (not that they are doing anything wrong or dishonest), but when people have to rely on online stores to get their cards, these online stores are going to keep going up in price. When hundreds of people rush to get a certain card and can't do it at the brick and mortar stores and they all have to go online, which just makes the price go up more.

[dahcmai]

I give them credit for the strategy. It's plain smart.



There's one way around all this anyway. Next time you're at a card show or large event, go in on the first day in early and find the cheapest seller, grab their business card and save the website address if they have one. Use them to buy cards. Those are the ones slow to update to the higher prices. I have a ton of sites and people I buy from and they are no where near the price of Ebay or Star City. I don't buy from either of those two places ever unless I just plain cannot find a card or I know it's cheap there compared to what I normally see. Simple enough of a fix. I buy most of my cards from a guy who doesn't have a website, he just travels around to shows selling cards. He's usually behind on the times since he doesn't own a computer. Good way to get a good deal.

[Angelfire]

The losers are the ones who read an article about good cards and then buy the cards after the prices have shot up. The winners are the ones who can tell which cards are good or bad without relying on someone else telling them so.

This. I see nothing unethical going on here.

As people have said, if they are priced too high they will not sell, it is a supply and demand market. No one is making people pay for "overpriced" singles. The "low stock" thing has two benefits: if someone sees 167 in stock there is no sense of urgency and it allows them to adjust the price to "match" the market.

I have never bought anything from SCG, hell I really haven't bought many singles to begin with. My collection is really built from winning boxes, drafting them and then trading the cards for shit I need.

Selling Magic cards is also not the most lucrative business and they should do what it takes to stay competitive.

[Parcher]

You've clearly not worked in retail.

What SCG does, and it is common practice in sales, so don't go thinking that they are monsters for doing so, is the reverse of the bait-and-switch commonly known as "taking the customer out of the market". It goes like this:

Brand X: I will sell you the card for $8.

SCG: I will sell you the card for $6.

Consumer: SCG, that sounds great. In fact, I wll buy 8 at such a wonderful price.

SCG: Well......I don't actually have that card available right now, but I'll be sure to let you know when I do.

Consumer: Well, ok. For the money I'll save, I can wait.

[One week later, Consumer is alerted to new stock available from SCG]

Consumer: Wait, you had none available at $6, but now you have 40 available at $12?

SCG: That's right, the market changed. Do you still want them?

Consumer: Screw you, I'll go with Brand X.

Brand X: Uh, sorry. We sold out all of our $8 card yesterday. Nothing left.

Consumer: #$@%#!!@#$@# Fine. I'll buy them from SCG since at least I know I'll get the real cards in a short time. Otherwise I could get screwed by some jag-off on Ebay.

Commonplace, and not unethical at all by standard business practices. But it may keep those without other means of getting the needed out-of-print cards from joining the Eternal formats. Especially with the recent explosion in popularity.

[Nihil Credo]

It's interesting to note that the above

Consumer: SCG, that sounds great. In fact, I wll buy 8 at such a wonderful price.
only 'screws over' people who want to stock up on the seemingly-cheap prices. If you're just a player who needs one playset of each card, you don't directly care whether there are 4 or 400 for sale.

[Parcher]

Who said anyone is 'screwed over'? I work in sales. I do this shit on a daily basis, and it's the norm.

But I do it in a business with a constantly renewable resource. SCG is doing it with a resource that is extremely limited, and continually, if only minimally, dwindling. For the fourth time, this is the only thing I see wrong. That they are either through manipulation of avaliable pool, or prcing, creating a barrier to new entry into the rapidly expanding format that I care deeply about.

[Forbiddian]

You've clearly not worked in retail.

What SCG does, and it is common practice in sales, so don't go thinking that they are monsters for doing so, is the reverse of the bait-and-switch commonly known as "taking the customer out of the market". It goes like this:

Brand X: I will sell you the card for $8.

SCG: I will sell you the card for $6.

Consumer: SCG, that sounds great. In fact, I wll buy 8 at such a wonderful price.

SCG: Well......I don't actually have that card available right now, but I'll be sure to let you know when I do.

Consumer: Well, ok. For the money I'll save, I can wait.

[One week later, Consumer is alerted to new stock available from SCG]

Consumer: Wait, you had none available at $6, but now you have 40 available at $12?

SCG: That's right, the market changed. Do you still want them?

Consumer: Screw you, I'll go with Brand X.

Brand X: Uh, sorry. We sold out all of our $8 card yesterday. Nothing left.

Consumer: #$@%#!!@#$@# Fine. I'll buy them from SCG since at least I know I'll get the real cards in a short time. Otherwise I could get screwed by some jag-off on Ebay.

It's only beneficial to take a customer off the market if you can move him units at a higher-than-market-price later. That practice is basically called advertising/brand name recognition.

Anyway, Brand X should have been moving units at $11-$13. That was their mistake. If someone is undercutting you by selling at $8 you can't effectively steal a customer from them, because more will fill the void. You'll have to wait for Brand X to sell out before people will buy your product.

Although it seems like SCGs won *THAT* customer with some magic voodoo, they really only "won" because Brand X moved all of its units and SCGs was the cheapest retailer. If SCGs had just said, "$12 please" upfront, then the same effect would have happened: Brand X would sell out, then the customers would move to the higher SCGs prices.


The benefit of the fake-low price is that it gives you brand name recognition: Customers think that you're selling at the cheapest prices, so they'll always check in with your company later. There's only a finite amount of shopping one can do even on the internet, and if SCGs is one of the two or three places that customers shop first, you'll move a lot more units. Rather than "taking a customer off the market" (which does work in other cases -- like housing where customers are actually unique -- this is the only case I've heard of taking a customer off the market -- although yeah, I don't work in marketting), I think it might just be advertising that they have low prices.

Also, studies have shown that the "supplies are running out!" tactic really works. I think if SCGs put up like 18,000 Black Lotuses then people would think the price is ridiculous and units aren't being moved. But if they put up like 1-2 at a time and constantly update saying that Black Lotuses are sold out, then customers think that other people are paying that price and that it's ok.

[BenBleiweiss]

It is my belief that Starcitygames minimizes their stock in order to maximize profits. I will explain what I mean with a few examples.

When it was apparent that loyal retainers was no longer a 40 dollar card I assert that they purposefully removed the cards in their ownership from purchasable status. When several auctions ended near the 100 dollar mark, they reintroduced the stock at a higher purchase price.

Stoneforge Mystic, a current type 2 staple since the pro tour was sold out at Starcitygames, then a large number appeared at a higher price, then those sold out and another group were showing at a higher price again.

I want to state with absolute clarity that I do not think anything fishy is going on. Starcitygames has a right to sell or not sell any of their inventory at any price that they deem fit. They are the premier store whose prices are quoted more than any other store.

The purpose of this thread is to bring to light what I believe is not widely known information. I would prefer their selling style over the stores that fail to honor purchases if the cards value increases. Stores that do the later in effect have an option on their product due to transaction time and I fully avoid any purchases with those stores.

There is a side effect of wagging the dog the way Starcitygames does with their product. The other stores follow suit. When Starcitygames hypes a card like Scroll Rack in prices and later in articles, they are trying to unload beer at champagne prices. They are using their market position as the elephant in the room to push the price.

What is your opinion of this apparent selling practice?

The day after the GP final, they list their inventory as 40 in-stock, and at $45. There is no way that this was not competely deliberate, as any Vintage player can attest. They pick up cards for nothing, and jack up the price.

Hey guys:

Just thought I'd chime in here, because I am primarily the person responsible for the online stock, buy and sell prices for StarCityGames.com. None of what we're doing is a big secret, so allow me to adress a couple of the points made on this thread:

The inventory we show on our website is a live inventory, meaning that anything we show as available, we physically have on-hand (barring inventory errors). That does not mean that we show everything that we have available for sale; the Stoneforge Mystic example is a good one, as we have some amount of them more than we are allowing to be purchased at one time.

There are several reasons for this - but most important among them is that we've found that it is bad business to have to cancel orders/limit quantities on people's orders. Let's look at Stoneforge Mystic as an example.

Stoneforge Mystic is a card that I believed in - in fact, it was my pick for the set of "the card I thought would have the most dramatic rise in value from where it originally started". When we first started preselling Stoneforge Mystic, we had it priced at $1.49. It rose to $2.49 by the time of release, and then hit the $6-$8 mark after it was one of the three Worldwake breakout cards at the Standard Pro Tour.

Now, we honored any preorders for Stoneforge Mystic at the price bought - so if we had 20 available for sale at $1.49, and you bought all 20 - congratulations! That was a good investment! However, preorders are a tricky item, and prices are due for rapid fluctuation based on A) what else gets spoiled from the set, and B) people actually getting to play with the cards.

For our preorders, and for any other cards we have for sale, we list publically what we feel comfortable selling in one sitting. Again - nothing mysterious about this - my thoughts are that if you're listing a card at price X, you should be happy to sell as many copies of that card as you have listed to the public (even if it's to one buyer, who is speculating/gettig a card that you might not have priced up fast enough), because the facts are that if you have the card at that price, you wanted to sell it at that price.

Now this is all fine and good for any cards we have in stock in large quantities, but I can tell you that this is not the case in any way, shape or form for Legacy staples. We literally cannot keep Legacy staples in stock at this point. I personally do not like the price trends on Legacy staples right now, to the point where I wrote a three-part series about how I think Wizards really needs to reprint Legacy cards to make the format more affordable, before it goes the way of Vintage.

To specifically address three cards you named in your posts:

1) Loyal Retainers: We sold out of 100% of the stock we had in the system on this card, and honored 100% of those sales. The price jumped sigificantly to the $100 range, within a week. At that point, we went into our unsorted foreign inventory (it takes a LOOOONG time to correctly sort, enter and file foreign cards - so unfortunately we are not as quick in updating our foreign inventory as we are our normal inventory), and jumped up any Loyal Retainers that were due to be entered into the system on the next go-around of foreign entering. In this instance, the additional Loyal Retainers (all Japanese or Chinese) were a result of the long lead time needed to prep our foreign inventory to go live.

2) Entomb: Your time frame on Entomb is off here. First, Entomb went from $20 to $40ish for the same reason it went from $10 to $20 once it got unbanned - it was the progression of "Hey, it's unbanned, so maybe I should pick them up now!" to "Wow! This just won a Grand Prix and placed people in the T8 of the SCG open ini the same weekend" We sold out of every copy we had before I even came back from the SCG weekend. The ones that went into the system were a result of me acquiring a large stock of them from other sources, between the Monday I got back from the SCG Legacy Open, and the end of the week (in the case of the Entombs, we had them, and entered them into the system, this past Wednesday. They were not in the system on Monday or Tuesday).

3) Scroll Rack: I believe in Scroll Rack in the same way that I believed in Natural Order - my once-a-year speculation into the future of Legacy. Might be wrong on this one, but guilty as charged on Scroll Rack as far as buying them up. We'll see if I end up being right or wrong on this one, but I think that with time, people will come around to Scroll Rack.

I do appreciate the discussion about our business practices, but I can state for the record that, Scroll Rack aside, we are doing nothing to manipulate the card market on Legacy. At this point, it is almost a straightforward matter of supply-and-demand, where presently the supply is way, WAY below the demand - especially given the growth of Magic, Legacy, EDH and the European Legacy scene over the past year.

I will reiterate one thing I've said previously - StarCityGames.com does not magically control the Magic singles market, given E-bay and dozens of other vendors out there. We just do our best to aware of the market, and to react to it (or predict it) as accurately as possible.

I'd be happy to take any questions that anyone might have! Feel free to drop me a line here, or by private message, or by e-mail (blogfanatic@yahoo.com).

- Ben

[ramanujan]

BenBleiweiss,

I really appreciate your feedback. With speculation comes some error (Retainers and Entomb). All that being said, I do have a few questions that I would like to know the answer to.

Would you consider placing an indicator on your website indicating when you have more cards in your real inventory than you have currently for sale? If not, is there any reason beyond the manpower requirements why you would not do this?

It seems like if it is public knowledge to the employees of Starcitygames that there is more stock in the real inventory like with Stoneforge Mystic, then it would be equally easy to state that next to the "inventory" that you currently show as being available on your website.

Would you consider showing that indicator for the cards of the next set when it comes out?

Would you consider showing an approximate count of the real inventory that you have for the next new set?

Have you ever removed inventory from stock without it being sold due to financial risks or in an effort to increase interest?

Again, thank you for offering to answer questions.

[BenBleiweiss]

BenBleiweiss,

I really appreciate your feedback. With speculation comes some error (Retainers and Entomb). All that being said, I do have a few questions that I would like to know the answer to.

Sure!


Would you consider placing an indicator on your website indicating when you have more cards in your real inventory than you have currently for sale? If not, is there any reason beyond the manpower requirements why you would not do this?No, and yes - that is information we do not feel comfortable having public, sorry.



Would you consider showing that indicator for the cards of the next set when it comes out? No, sorry.


Would you consider showing an approximate count of the real inventory that you have for the next new set? No, sorry. For the same reasons that Wizards of the Coast does not release print run information, we do not feel comfortable having the total amount of product opened per set as public information.


Have you ever removed inventory from stock without it being sold due to financial risks or in an effort to increase interest? I'm sure we have, at some point. For instance, if Channel were to be pulled off the Restricted List in Vintage tommorrow, I'd probably restrict the majority of Channels we have available for sale, while the price stabilized.

- Ben

[xTrainx]

I honestly couldn't care about the argument at hand, I just think that its incredible that SCG(or at least someone from SCG) sticks their head in often enough to see whats here, and then takes the time to explain what they do without any of the cloak and dagger crap you see floating around.

Kudos.

[majikal]

I really don't understand all of the hate for SCG. Sure their prices for some things are higher than what you'll find on, say, MOTL, but they're a dealer! They have to make a profit, and they have to pay for overhead, and frankly they do a damn good job of making sure their customers are satisfied. I just recently bought about $600 worth of FBB duals from them, and they arrived two days later in the best packaging I've ever seen, and for about 40% cheaper than what I would have paid if I had gotten them from anywhere else, honestly. So sure, when it comes to the hot card of the moment, buy somewhere else. But when you know that you need the utmost care taken with your cards and don't want to risk losing your money or get scammed, there are very few other vendors I would trust.

[Parcher]

Let me try to address Ben directly since he seems to be the only one who understands my point. First, let me state that I order cards from SCG all of the time:

1. They have the best inventory. Not necessarily of any specific card, but overall.

2. Almost guaranteed shipping time to the day.

3. THE BEST card conditions, especially with regards to older cards you will find. I guarantee their version of a SP Tundra is VF or NM by anyone else's standards.

4. In the rare case it's needed, excellent communications.

So I have no generic axe to grind. But the fact is, Ben has validated eveything I said regarding price spikes and inventory control. And ramanujan's questions have put a finer point on it, since they admit that they have stockpiles that they are neither willing to sell, nor to disclose.

For sommething like Stoneforge, I honestly don't care. There are boxes being opened every day, and they'll be as easy to find as most any new set (except the Zen flood. Way too many cracks) in short order. For most other recent sets, it's not much different. But for cards that haven't been in rotation for 7+ years, and especially for those on the reserved list, I find it almost criminal to keep those cards out of the hands of those who need them to join the format. And SCG could potentially (obv, we'll never know) have enough in reserve for profit reasons, to allow entry to the format to those who quite literally cannot find them elsewhere due to simple numbers remaining left in circulation.

Again, SCG has benefited Legacy tremendously with the Duals three+ years ago, and the current 5Ks. But propagating the format is a primary concern with any vested in these smaller Eternal formats. And any barrier to that should be a concern.

[android]

Out of curiosity - which ones?


I'm sorry, I don't wish to disclose all my secrets.

A. If anyone found out that I stockpiled Apocolypse Chimes, I'd become the laughing stock of the Magic community.

B. There are several dozen cards that I've picked up by the hundreds that I feel have a powerful effect on the game state but at this time are limited due to various reasons.

C. Most of the cards have cc of 2 or less.

D. I'll give you a couple examples.

1. Serra's Sanctum (buy for < $2)
2. Manabond (buy for < $2)
3. Weatherlight rare lands (though these will likely never be broken again)

and yes Scroll Rack for < $2. I'd say I typically shoot for about $1 for most speculative buys. I don't get into cards that are ~$5+ even if they are going up.

[Sharpened]

Again, SCG has benefited Legacy tremendously with the Duals three+ years ago, and the current 5Ks. But propagating the format is a primary concern with any vested in these smaller Eternal formats. And any barrier to that should be a concern.

I'm pretty sure that SCG is not trying to drive the price up speculatively for just that reason. I would think that the danger to the propogation of the format is a bigger risk to their future profits then any gains by misleadingly shorting supply. It really sounds like any unlisted inventory is a designed controlled release during periods of extreme price fluctuation.

One thing I have noticed, and Ben hasn't addressed specifically is that when out of stock on an item, the price goes up quite a bit. For example, once out of stock of a single, it looks like starcity will always err on the side of overpricing an item. I don't see any maliciousness in this, just an observation. I suspect its always better to overprice and then have to lower then it is to have all the inventory fly off the shelves the day its updated becuase you underestimated the price increase that the market is willing to take.

I do occassionally wonder if that has an effect on the price across the market. While I suspect SCG is big and iconic enough that their pricing has a nonzero effect on the market as a whole, it just seems like the ebay auction information can more then drive down anything thats overly inflated.

[Angelfire]

Magic singles is a Supply and Demand market and the prices are determined by the consumer not SCG. Without a monopoly there is essentially no way to unethically sell Magic singles, no one is forced to buy anything. Think their prices are too high? Buy from somewhere else. Flooding the market is bad business 101. Limiting how many how are willing to sell and then seeing how the market adjusts is again good business practices.

Props to SCG for addressing this thread and I would just like to point out most people agree with their business practices and appreciate having them around.

[semioldguy]

Also I believe it should be noted, that sometimes it only appears that StarCityGames is out of stock. For example, when they sell at a Grand Prix/Pro Tour or some other event like GenCon, they take a portion of their stock with them. That stock must be taken off their website as they would not be able to sell the same card by both mediums. When they return from the event, the cards they did not sell at the event (or cards the acquired at the event) can be added back on to the website for sale again.

[Fling]

I rarely buy from SCG because their prices seem on the high side and they are frequently out of stock (this may just be my luck, but it seems consistent). Between ebay and various sites listed on store.tcgplayer I tend to find everything I need. I've never had a bad experience buying from SCG, which probably helps with their popularity, it's just I often don't see what I need as listed in stock, or the price is higher than their competition, so I move on. I've pre-ordered from the occasionally and gotten some good deals, and will definitely order from them again if I happen upon something I want at the right price. There are to many small on-line only stores and card shops moving into the market for them to really cut everyone else out, and while they may affect market prices a bit here or there, their promotion of the game and article content are enough for me to not be bitter about it.

[mchainmail]

I noticed there's 114 SP English Tabernacles at Pendrell Vale in stock right now... I'm curious if that number is correct or not... (and if it is, all I have to say is *wow*)

[xTrainx]

Well...they were taking them in for a lot.

[Kangaxx]

I noticed there's 114 SP English Tabernacles at Pendrell Vale in stock right now... I'm curious if that number is correct or not... (and if it is, all I have to say is *wow*)

Holy crap! They probably have more tabernacles than hymn to tourach! I bet they could possibly have a monopoly on those things.

I'm just glad I picked up a playset of Eureka when I could, they're totally sold out in SCG.com, cardkingdom, and troll & toad both. I remember logging on to Ebay a week or so ago and they were all kinds of listings for Eureka, a few days later not a single listing, not even in any ebay stores. Hmmmmmm, could Eureka possibly be a hot commodity right now despite the fact that it's an unproven card in a tournament environment?

[majikal]

Holy crap! They probably have more tabernacles than hymn to tourach! I bet they could possibly have a monopoly on those things.

I'm just glad I picked up a playset of Eureka when I could, they're totally sold out in SCG.com, cardkingdom, and troll & toad both. I remember logging on to Ebay a week or so ago and they were all kinds of listings for Eureka, a few days later not a single listing, not even in any ebay stores. Hmmmmmm, could Eureka possibly be a hot commodity right now despite the fact that it's an unproven card in a tournament environment?
Seems pretty solid in theory, for the same reasons as Show and Tell. Although it's pretty hard to build your deck around it and not auto-scoop to FoW. Or combo. Or just having your opponent dump their hand and race you.

In all honesty, I think Natural Order is just plain better for most intents and purposes, although stuffing your deck full of Eldrazi and going "Eureka FTW!" might be amusing if you get paired against a Standard deck.

[BenBleiweiss]

I noticed there's 114 SP English Tabernacles at Pendrell Vale in stock right now... I'm curious if that number is correct or not... (and if it is, all I have to say is *wow*)

It was an error. Corrected! I wish we had 114 Tabernacles :)

- Ben

[Meister_Kai]

It was an error. Corrected! I wish we had 114 Tabernacles :)

- Ben

And here I was, shitting my pants, wondering how 114 people managed to shell out $279.95 in 6 hours.

Good to see it was a mistake.

[xTrainx]

And here I was, shitting my pants, wondering how 114 people managed to shell out $279.95 in 6 hours.

Good to see it was a mistake.

I lol'd.

[freakish777]

I haven't read all of the thread.


That said I know exactly why SCG employs this practice.



Not only does it keep them from losing money when a card suddenly becomes more popular, it also leads to a better customer experience.



That's right, it leads to a better customer experience.


Here's the reason.

Worlds 2007. Nassif gets a feature match in round two. He plays a Spinerock Knoll, never actually activates it, and proceeds to blow his opponent out 2-0. His deck (not that I had a list) looks absolutely disgusting. I go over to SCG and put their inventory of Spinerock Knolls in my cart at $0.50 a piece and click the Checkout button (I did this at a couple other places too, Foils as well). 2 of the 4 places call my cell phone later that day saying "We're sorry, we're going to cancel your order for anything above 4 normal and 4 foil Spinerock Knolls, we both know it's the breakout card at Worlds."


If SCG didn't have an automated way to ensure that buyers can't pick up more than 4 at time or so, you'd actually be getting shafted even harder by the smaller/private seller that successfully buys them out at the low price and then proceeds to hoard them (inflating the price even more).

Imagine if SCG has a stock of 54 Entombs and they list them all at $2 before the card gets unbanned in Legacy. The first guy to successfully place an order for 54 Entombs on SCG website for $108 at 12:01am right after the announcement and buy them out certainly doesn't do as much business as SCG and isn't as well known as SCG. Now it'll be infinitely better for the one guy to be able buy all those cards at the low price and turn them around over the next 2 years at 2000% markup, but it would actually damage the players in the long run to allow that, because it would take those 2 years for that smaller seller to unload his cards into the hands of players, and potentially drive the price up even further.


If SCG has it in stock, they're going to sell it at a price they believe is reasonable (they aren't going to just hold on to it forever, holding inventory is bad for business), but they'll do it in such a way that ensures that sudden market fluctuations can be accounted for with the minimum amount of lost revenue. This ensures that cards keep being sold to players who want them at prices that the market will bear without people like me (or other opportunists) being able to buy them out of their stock and actually harm the market in the process (while benefitting themselves). If the 54 hypothetical Entombs that SCG had owned accounted for 10% of Entombs in the market, and 54 more people came to SCG website looking to buy 1 Entomb after they had sold out, they would be sorely disappointed that it was sold out. They would be even more disappointed when the one opportunist who got them sold them 1 at a time on eBay and they all had to outbid each other for just the ONE Entomb.


SCG knows what the fucks up. If anyone else doesn't understand what's going on, just be glad that cards aren't even more scarce (and therefore more inflated in price) and in the hands of someone such as myself.

[Kangaxx]

Seems pretty solid in theory, for the same reasons as Show and Tell. Although it's pretty hard to build your deck around it and not auto-scoop to FoW. Or combo. Or just having your opponent dump their hand and race you.

In all honesty, I think Natural Order is just plain better for most intents and purposes, although stuffing your deck full of Eldrazi and going "Eureka FTW!" might be amusing if you get paired against a Standard deck.

I just checked Ebay and there's one listing with x4 avaliable copies. They are now going for $70 a pop! Another amazing investment on my part I guess, haha. xD