MTG Card Consignment Business Feasible?

[adamlach86]

Hello,

I've been looking into starting my own online card store. I'm thinking of offering a consignment service to supplement my own offerings. My question is this: do you think people would be willing to consign thier unused cards for profit?

Basically I'll split consignment lots into card singles, which aggregate much more value than bulk card lots would garner otherwise. When I sell the singles, I credit the consigner 80% of the sale price. My worries are that people may perfer immediate (although much smaller) returns on their bulk cards, rather than delayed, cumulative payments. What do you think?

Thanks,
Adam

[John Cox]

Hello,

I've been looking into starting my own online card store. I'm thinking of offering a consignment service to supplement my own offerings. My question is this: do you think people would be willing to consign thier unused cards for profit?

Basically I'll split consignment lots into card singles, which aggregate much more value than bulk card lots would garner otherwise. When I sell the singles, I credit the consigner 80% of the sale price. My worries are that people may perfer immediate (although much smaller) returns on their bulk cards, rather than delayed, cumulative payments. What do you think?

Thanks,
Adam

I know from my own experiences that if you ask retail you will likely be left with many unsold and unsalable cards. If you massively undercut then your not really doing what a business does (which is turn a profit). The way a store makes money selling cards on ebay is to normally count of a large amount remaining unsold or being sold later when they become hot ticket items like show and tell and flash did (for years those cards were where worthless), while making the majority of money from cards this doesn't apply to (goyfs, Mythics etc).
I would hazard a guess that a lot of your consignment customers would be people looking to offload the cards that no one wants that would fall into the "will sit on ebay forever" category. To do this with someone else's cards seems cruel as they either won't be paid for years or will never be paid. My advice is to stay away from this business.

[dahcmai]

I do some consignment, but I find it's only worthwhile when you're dealing with power and other large ticket items. It's not even close to worth it for smaller stuff under $100. You'll spend more time than it's worth for small value cards. You can try, but you'll find out the same thing, your time is worth more than the profit.

[jandax]

I do some consignment, but I find it's only worthwhile when you're dealing with power and other large ticket items. It's not even close to worth it for smaller stuff under $100. You'll spend more time than it's worth for small value cards. You can try, but you'll find out the same thing, your time is worth more than the profit.

Consider this, OP. If you're dealing largely outside Eternal staples, and bring up Bulk as a first example, you're just creating a low paying full time job for yourself.