I have to ask opinions on Dean's pricing
 

As I scroll through ebay on 1960's graded cards stars and commons for this vendor, I amazed at the prices for buy it now. More commons than anything. Who buys this stuff? $53 for a psa 7 4th series common..... Maybe stars have risen closer to the 6 months ago asking prices for this vendor but less than psa 8 common prices......

Apparently, he has a pretty loyal customer base. Somebody is paying his prices, otherwise he'd be out of business.

I've bought from Deans before, usually very specific cards, I always go direct to his website, try to bundle to get the volume discount, and they don't charge sales tax so the net price is more reasonable.

Pure speculation on my part, but I think he probably does well with the impatient collector. He seems to have a lot of cards that aren't always readily available. If you're not the type to wait for your missing card to show up elsewhere, you'll pay his prices to have it immediately.

I don't care for his prices, but the scope of his inventory is undeniable.

He always has back scans. I have never bought from him on ebay, always direct

^What Al said^ plus in some of the rarer tobacco cards his prices are the best or close to it. That is only because their prices are the same as 2 years ago and the market has gone crazy.

I've bought from him. I stay away from his graded and higher condition cards. Way too high. But prices are not bad for very good or slightly higher conditions. A good source in finding print variations, especially on the back of cards.

Mike

Ebay ?
 

...doesn't E-Bay get upset when a buyer and seller bypass E-Bay fees and conduct business directly and privately ??.......they won't even let me give my contact info in a "contact the seller" ..

..

I'm not sure what eBay can do if sellers have their own separate website where they also list their cards that people can buy from. I have bought a few cards from Dean's directly through his website just as I have with TonyETrade and some others who I have found by just searching for them to see if they had their own website.

If you have money to burn, and want to buy the cards you want ASAP, then Dean is an option. He provides back scans, has rarer issues and you can reliably get cards from him.

Apparently Dean does enough business to employ approximately 10 people, or has enough margin from the business he does do to keep them employed.

I buy uncatalogued print errors and certain miscut cards from them, why anyone would buy a regular card from them when they could find a nearly identical one on eBay at half the price or less is beyond me. The 58 Slaughter and 63 Bell are examples of print errors that have I found on their site.

For a long time and with high volume of sales, even on ebay.

People who complain about prices just don't want to pay that price, which is fine. And he can hold cards until someone pays his price. Which is fine too. I wish I had a list through the years of all the Dean, 707 and Yepdog threads to see how many people who started them are still in the hobby :)

His ability to stay in business is due to volume of sales dollars versus volume of items sold. Just looking at his ebay sold items, he averages about $40/item sold ( this includes items such as a $400 raw 83 Topps set) and has sold around 1800 items over the past month on ebay alone. If he sells an equal amount through his website, he could have around $150k/month in income.

My guess is his income to COG is about 4 to 1 based on normal costs of many of the items he has sold. With the money left after COG, operating costs, fees, etc., I can see where he could easily afford 10 +/- employees.

I don't think Dean and his prices are going anywhere, what he is doing is working.

I am surprised to hear you say that. I am mostly a '50's and '60's collector and I expect I have easily skimmed over 5,000 Dean's cards while doing ebay searches and have yet to see one that is in the market.

If I might ask, what particular cards have you found to be reasonable.

I am sure they recognize that some large sellers like 4SC, Dean's, etc. etc. have their own websites and indeed they are linked because if you buy something off the website it disappears instantly from ebay. As long as they are generating substantial ebay sales, ebay I am sure accepts the reality.

Peter, a known hobby fearmonger, is right for a change :). Dean's has it's own web site, just like COMC and lists stuff on both. Cheaper on web site without the middle man. You give up ebay protections, but Dean has good service and long hobby reputation. As a long time customer I sometimes just email or call them with a best offer for something on their web site.

But for COMC you are best buying on ebay if you want the card this year

Even thru ebay COMC is extremely slow these days.

I have bought some raw cards from Dean, didn't think they were that off in price and they were accurately graded which one shouldn't take for granted.

Al

Here are some of the cards I bought from Dean's in the past year. All of them have some sort of print variation. So I'm not as picky on condition as I already have a nice condition one in my collection. The prices seemed reasonable to me or at least inexpensive.

1967 Topps #171 Cal Koonce Cubs 6 - EX/MT (#293464107245) 3.50
1967 Topps #132 Ozzie Virgil Giants 4 - VG/EX (#402089849200) 1.20
1965 Topps #418 Johnny Edwards Reds 5 - EX (#402073034961) 3.25

1965 Topps #80 Turk Farrell Astros 4 - VG/EX (#293474405101) 1.20
1967 Topps #195 Al Jackson Cardinals 5 - EX (#293471950922)) 1.30
1967 Topps #51 Dave Adlesh / Wes Bales - Astros Rookies 5.5 - EX+ (#274258826025) 3.00

1965 Topps #119 John Kennedy Dodgers 4 - VG/EX (#274240367089) 1.60
1967 Topps #68 Bob Buhl Phillies 6 - EX/MT (#402073679810) 4.50

I have not bought anything from him in the last 6 months so there prices were from at least 6 to 12 months (or slightly longer) ago.

Mike

I didn't think Deans was willing to entertain offers since there are discounts through their website based on how much you spend.

With 707, seems like the typical listing is a '50s or '60s card that's overpriced in the 20% to 50% too high range. Occasionally his complete sets from that era can even be a pretty good deal.

With Dean's, most of his prices (with the exception of many of the tough variations that you're able to use him for, which can be priced ok unlike just about everything else there) are 2-3x to 20 x what something is worth. Often with notes about how this $25 (almost) complete '80s team set w/ $2 worth of cards is the "perfect gift for that team's collector".

IMO, it's entirely different. Both huge, established dealers. One who just sells fairly high. Happens all over. The other charges exorbitant prices aimed at people who don't know any better and see his company come up first in google searches.

All that being said, Dean is a very smart businessman whose model is very successful. How he does things from top to bottom could make up an entire semester for an advanced business school marketing class.

I'm just not a fan of how that class would be titled "how to succeed in business by purposely ripping people off"

Look at any commodity card on ebay, or almost any. There are just HUGE numbers of offerings at prices ranging from way too high to absurd. It must work or people wouldn't do it?

I am not a fan...at all...and I know I've told the story here of when my wife called them direct a bunch of years back and was totally taken advantage of trying to fill out a set for me...that disgusted taste in my mouth will never leave...


It was funny though, when cards jumped here a few months back all of a sudden some of his pricing on his older listings became good deals. He had a few nicely priced super tough 55 Bowman cards where there were only a few online...and were now priced right. I still paid more from others and was happy to do it. But I'll admit, I didn't think I'd see the day where I had to pass on a Deans card that was the better deal AND better shape. I'm sure he has made the proper adjustments by now...

Piece of shit company.

Yeah, my sense of his operation is they make their money off people that don't know any better. Either starting out in the hobby or like your wife looking to buy cards for a gift.

It might be a successful business strategy but I don't have a lot of respect for those who choose to do business that way.

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Oh, and thanks Mike for the explanation. I can see how for low priced cards there is a convenience factor of being able to get all your want list filled in one swoop.

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People still shop at convenience stores, even though there are better bargains to be had. Nothing wrong with Deans pricing or strategy. There is a wide range of options for buying cards, just a sign of a healthy market.

The convenience store isn't charging close to 5 or 10 x more than the "better bargains."

And if that convenience store charged $5 instead of $1 for a candy bar (while telling you how it was a great gift for someone at that price), I imagine the first thing that'd come to mind would be "what a ripoff. This place is trying to screw people over"

Not looking to argue, but I'll point out that this happens ALL the time. Airport gift shops literally sell things for 5x more. So do movie theatres, stadiums, etc. Ever pay $5 for a bottle of water you could have gotten for $0.20 at Costco? Maybe you haven't, but people do all the time.

Different options for different needs. The market will accommodate all buyers at every price it can in a system like ours. Its a sign of health.

That's comparing apples and oranges. In many of those situations with the gigantic markup, the higher prices of those items is necessary for the business to succeed enough overall. The consumer often realizes that paying $12 for their bleacher ticket isn't going to make the team's ownership enough money to survive on its own, so they understand that it's practically an inferred part of the deal to be ok with paying $5 for a water or hot dog (and that overall, the value of that day's ballpark experience adds up reasonably for both sides in those spots).

This does not apply to a company who knowingly sells a $70 card set to an unknowing consumer for $400 (while inferring that the price is fair).

The places you listed can charge higher prices because usually they don't allow you to bring your own food or water, or people are traveling and don't easily have the option to anyway.

Dealers can charge whatever they want for their cards, and for cards that are hard to find, it makes sense that if Deans has them, they will sell even at a premium. The few cards I have bought from Deans fall into that category. What I don't understand is how they sell readily available cards at the prices they generally have them listed for.