Topic: Why I have stopped selling

I recently started selling on DB. After a few weeks of trying it I have decided to stop. I thought I would give my reasons here and as least some of them could be addressed by changes to the website.

My reasons for stopping were:

  • I want to have a minimum purchase amount. I list one in my profile but there is no way to enforce it. When I recently received a purchase for only a few dollars I cancelled it on DB, then had to go to PayPal to refund the purchase. PayPal charged me to refund. Quite the pain.

  • I asked that people not pay until after I had a chance to confirm that I could find the cards and confirm the conditions. Only one buyer did this, the rest just paid. Having been on DB for many years and with many thousands of cards for sale, there are going to be mistakes. Fortunately I did not have problems with the sales I made but I would need to be able to check before receiving payment to feel comfortable.

  • Finally, most of the sales I made were of cards that had just soared in value due to inclusion in some Modern deck so I was selling it for a fraction of what it was worth. Not sure how DB could help with this.

I'll still sell if someone requests it but I have removed all of my prices.

Re: Why I have stopped selling

I pretty much agree. I was in the Top 10 in the number of sales for a while but for a variety of reasons I've basically stopped trying to use Deckbox market. The first two points you make are pretty important. I didn't realize Paypal charges to do refunds.

The third point is also difficult to address. But I noticed that a lot of the times my sales were on cards that were spiking and that Deckbox just hadn't caught up on (or I hadn't refreshed my prices enough.) No offense to the people who did this, but I really hated seeing someone purchase a bunch of spiking bulk cards off of me plus a $5 card  that they clearly didn't want but had to purchase to satisfy my $10 minimum... they just wanted the bulk cards that were spiking.

I even started turning off my prices around PTs to try to avoid this. But that wasn't sufficient. It felt like half of my sales became like this. A market whose sales frequently make one side unhappy is not going to be very vibrant.

The market is set up as it is because I imagine Sebi wants to offer buyers a smooth experience where they can just make spot purchases at pre-defined prices. But this is undesirable for sellers in a variety of ways, and upgrades to the market haven't really been forthcoming. I'll give things another shot if I become interested in liquidating parts of my collection again, but I agree that these are all things that I'd like to see addressed.

Last edited by 9700377 (2015-10-02 02:24:10)

Re: Why I have stopped selling

I do agree there are some pain points.

I was always reluctant to implement some of these because it puts buyers off. As a buyer everyone wants to simply pay and be sent the cards, and minimum order sizes and large delays for discussing with sellers are very off-putting.

For example I recently added the cart optimizer / shopping assistant which finds ways for buyers to buy things cheaply, and a "Pay All" button on multiple orders. This cannot work if a seller does not want to be paid immediately, only after he confirms the purchase. So I'd have to exclude all sellers that want this option for all these features...

I am also not sure what the solution is either yet... but as always, I am open to discussing it further.

Re: Why I have stopped selling

I think the one that should definitely be implemented is the minimum order. It was a $4 order after which I took down my prices. I guess PayPal has some sort of minimum as they were charging me $0.55 (almost 14%) on this order when I think their norm is about 3%. When you add the 6.9% for DB and 3.5% currency exchange I was looking at about 25% in fees. Then I was going to have to find the cards, package them up and ship them to get $3. Crazy.

Re: Why I have stopped selling

  • PayPal is 2.9% + $0.30 (ref). PayPal also charges for currency exchange (2.5%) and international (outside Canada & US) transactions (1%).

  • Selling on Deckbox is 6.9% (ref) + PayPal

  • Selling on eBay is 10% (ref) + PayPal/Credit Card fee

  • Selling on TCGPlayer is 11% + $0.50 (ref) + PayPal/Credit Card fee

Instead of stopping selling you might as well try this: try to effectively implement a minimum order on your own using shipping options: increase your shipping charges to cover the flat fees: +$0.30 across the board and + 3.5% for each international. Then increase it to the point that the minimum order would be worth it to you to send. To remain competitive you can then decrease your card prices a little bit.

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Re: Why I have stopped selling

Yeah, I'm thinking of just putting a $5 shipping fee on orders under $10. Seems crazy but it's honestly probably the best way.

That said, this sort of thing still messes with the shopping assistant, I'm sure. Sebi should just allow sellers to hardcode some parameters on their shipping options so that the assistant can maximize around them.

Deckbox is undoubtedly a cheap option for selling but I think it probably has a disproportionate share of "shark" buyers that are just looking to snatch up underpriced cards, and that's still going to be a real problem.

PSA: It's the Pro Tour. If you're selling cards, you should probably unlist everything in standard right now.

[Edit: Noticed that max card quantity is already hardcoded. Good.]

Last edited by 9700377 (2015-10-16 18:16:49)

Re: Why I have stopped selling

d72B wrote:

  • PayPal is 2.9% + $0.30 (ref). PayPal also charges for currency exchange (2.5%) and international (outside Canada & US) transactions (1%).

  • Selling on Deckbox is 6.9% (ref) + PayPal

  • Selling on eBay is 10% (ref) + PayPal/Credit Card fee

  • Selling on TCGPlayer is 11% + $0.50 (ref) + PayPal/Credit Card fee

Instead of stopping selling you might as well try this: try to effectively implement a minimum order on your own using shipping options: increase your shipping charges to cover the flat fees: +$0.30 across the board and + 3.5% for each international. Then increase it to the point that the minimum order would be worth it to you to send. To remain competitive you can then decrease your card prices a little bit.

This is definitely the best way to handle it, and why my minimum for shipping is about $1.20.  Also PayPal doesn't 'charge' to do a refund, but they just don't refund the fees. I know this is sort of a semantics thing, but essentially you end up eating the fees for receiving the payment, even though you gave that payment back to the customer.  I've also taken my cards off the market place for a while, but I may put some back up before Christmas.  It tends to be a bit of a  hassle to keep up with, and if you're not able to devote the massive time required to sort cards, ship small orders and keep up with prices, then it's not worth it to sell.

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Re: Why I have stopped selling

I like the idea of setting a higher shipping rate. Is it possible to apply a discount to a purchase after the order has been put in but before it has been paid for? If there is then I could charge a high shipping rate but indicate in my profile what my real rates are. I could then apply a discount after I have verified that all is in order (I have the cards and have checked the conditions).

So as long as I can apply a discount after I receive an order, I think I am happy again...

Re: Why I have stopped selling

I used to have something like "ask me for a discount before paying" in my profile. Buyers who actually read my profile were rewarded. Those who didn't still got what they expected. So I wouldn't sweat it if buyers don't wait for the discount before paying. If they come back after payment asking for a discount then you can do a PayPal partial refund, offer them a bonus card, - or better yet, offer them a bigger discount on their next order wink

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