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Thread: Pricing Strategy for Local Shops

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    Pricing Strategy for Local Shops

    I’m curious what you guys are observing of pricing strategies at your local card shop and if this sounds typical to you:

    I grabbed a bunch of junk singles (EDH stuff) at a shop the other day. When I was done, the guy helping me starting browsing Star City’s website for prices. This took me aback if only because I expect there’s some kind of margin calculation on SCG’s part, but it’s probably not frequently updated for cards with low visibility [citation needed]. Why not use Apathy House or other bench-markers?

    Anyhow, what are you guys seeing, what seems fair for low-traffic shops and is this the best strategy for a small place?

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    Re: Pricing Strategy for Local Shops

    One of our LGS uses SCG and then discounts the SCG price by an amount, usually. To still have a slightly competitive edge as far as being able to sell things cheaper than SCG and not have to pay shipping, but still make agood amount of profit for the store.

    Another owner locally tends to use Apathy House or Findmagiccards/allmagic cards and takes a meadian price from the store he knows are still active. If necessary and he can't find a price he'll cross reference SCG or Ebay as necessary.
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    Re: Pricing Strategy for Local Shops

    My LGS routinely does this, and also checks recently completed eBay auctions. Most of the time I don't care, as in the past they used to price off Scrye's lists. It's kind of annoying to have the card sit in the display, though, and not have the shop-keep know its price.

    I don't mind paying a slightly inflated price if it means I get the card now, and without shipping charges, but some of SCG's prices are hyperinflated and having that reflected at the LGS is undesirable. As long as the store is turning a profit margin, right?
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    Re: Pricing Strategy for Local Shops

    Quote Originally Posted by rukcus View Post
    As long as the store is turning a profit margin, right?
    Of course, but only so long as it works both ways.

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    Re: Pricing Strategy for Local Shops

    Our Local store tends to check on SCG's prices to see if it's a hot item and then makes up his own based on how well he thinks he can sell it. If it's one of those cards that moves so fast he can barely keep them in stock sometimes the price can go above what anyone else is selling for. If it's slow, he lowers it until things pick up again despite what you would pay on the net. Not a bad way of doing it, though he might lose track of smaller items and have overly high prices on things that rotated out. Elspeth and Knight of the Reliquary are perfect examples of that. He never had enough in stock to fulfill the demand and when they rotated he expected to be able to sell them, but couldn't. He's really got to keep track of drops better.


    Myself, I tend to sell things for exactly what I can sell them for online minus fees or whatever. I tend to be the cheapest anywhere since I am only getting what I normally would sell them for anywhere else. I price some things higher than normal if I know it's only going up later and especially on highly rare items like Summer or misprints. Anything beta I tend to sit on unless it's on the reserve list and not played. Lichs and such.

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