Topic: Price Spike Protection

How do other sellers handle price spikes?

do you just sell the cards at the crazy low values if some 0 feedback user logs i, and  buys your pre-adjusted card for 10% of its current value?

Do any of you have suggestion how not to get a case of feel bads that you missed out?

example Bridge from Below has went from 3$ to 15-18$  Deckbox doesn't update its values very quickly and we haven't see the price change yet and it has been nearly 40 hours

any suggestion would be great

Re: Price Spike Protection

I generally just go by tcg prices anyway, either mid or market.

Always looking for modern and legacy staples.

Re: Price Spike Protection

MichaelL wrote:

How do other sellers handle price spikes?
do you just sell the cards at the crazy low values if some 0 feedback user logs i, and  buys your pre-adjusted card for 10% of its current value?

Do any of you have suggestion how not to get a case of feel bads that you missed out?
example Bridge from Below has went from 3$ to 15-18$  Deckbox doesn't update its values very quickly and we haven't see the price change yet and it has been nearly 40 hours
any suggestion would be great

1) I believe I have a price-spike policy in my profile that specifically says I will refund any price spikes, period.
2) I also have a policy that you are NOT to pay me at all, until I pull the cards and confirm condition and price (this also helps to avoid price spikes)

Now... DeckBox cannot use TCG pricing automatically (TCG has specifically stated that they consider DeckBox to be a competitor and thus will not allow them access to the API)

I have given this lots of thought, and it would be relatively easy for DeckBox to implement some form of price spike protection.  The spikes are documented on MTGStocks, and it would be relatively easy to scan that data stream for the top 100 movers up and down.  We'd then need a way to suspend card sales (and maybe trading) for sellers for any cards they are selling that have spiked.  The seller would then be responsible for un-suspending the card.  This is all work that Sebi would need to do (love Sebi and this site) and he's just one person, so all site enhancements and data improvements have to be prioritised.

I have cancelled one price-spike buy on my account, and I actually paypal'd the buyer $10 to sooth his bruised ego.  I don't generally sell high $$$ value cards, because I am a 4x collector, so the majority of my high value cards are simply NOT for sale or trading.

Anyways, that's my 2 cents.

At some point, I will be implementing a system to spike-protect my account via some custom coding (there's value in knowing how to code) as I can access the TCG API as an individual and side-step the whole competitor BS.  It would be nice if the community had a neutral site that was a price site, which didn't sell cards, and instead sold access to the pricing data, but we don't have that (as far as I know).  If we did have that, then no one site would have a monopoly on pricing, and the neutral pricing site would simply be reporting on pricing from multiple sources and collating the data into one neutral spot.

Re: Price Spike Protection

My issue is in part the fact that PayPal now charges to issue refunds.  The buyers can leave negative feedback on a canceled sale.  I have become hesitant to list anything over a dollar.  If the price spike is only 1-2$ then no big deal.  Even if it was 0.25$ to 2.50 I'd honor the sale.  But going from 4 to 20 and multiple copies I'm not interested in losing 40$. especially  when I could fire sale them for 30 on eBay in an hour


Just wish seller could check a confirmation process on sales.  I'd even be okay with buyers being able to leave neutral feedback on cancel/refunded orders.  Just not negative

Last edited by MichaelL (2019-06-11 19:33:05)

Re: Price Spike Protection

MichaelL wrote:

My issue is in part the fact that PayPal now charges to issue refunds.  The buyers can leave negative feedback on a canceled sale.  I have become hesitant to list anything over a dollar.  If the price spike is only 1-2$ then no big deal.  Even if it was 0.25$ to 2.50 I'd honor the sale.  But going from 4 to 20 and multiple copies I'm not interested in losing 40$. especially  when I could fire sale them for 30 on eBay in an hour


Just wish seller could check a confirmation process on sales.  I'd even be okay with buyers being able to leave neutral feedback on cancel/refunded orders.  Just not negative

I must admit it would be nice to have a confirmation process on sales before the buyer pays.  This would enforce my "profile policy" of not paying before I confirm condition and price, since I generally don't grade cards until I pull them, unless they are horribly deformed (in which case I normally destroy the card outright, regardless of value).