Quote:
Originally Posted by packs
I guess it depends on definition. When I said hobby shop I didn't necessarily think of hobby shop solely as a brick and mortar store with a lease. A lot of the hobby is online now. It's very difficult to order something like a case of 2022 Topps Chrome from Topps as a normal consumer. Those roads tend to be closed off to the everyman and always open to distributors who pay bulk rates.
That's where my bandit comment comes from.
Also, the product's retail price and resale prices are almost never equal and the distance between the two is almost always automatic. Take the Logofractor boxes as one small example. They cost $45 when they were released but almost immediately got dialed up to $125 per on the secondary market. There's a ton of money to be made in the hobby if you can get the cards in bulk. And you definitely don't need a lease or employees to capitalize. You can do it from your house and by yourself.
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To get product direct, one has to have a brick and mortar store. It's a Topps requirement for product. I believe most of the distributors are using the same criteria, and even with one, it's difficult to get much of the good stuff and requires the shop to order quantity of the sets that don't sell too.
This is why the side hustle breakers charge so high - they aren't getting the product at distribution cost or direct. Many of them are scammy and scuzzy, and some are a straight rip off. But these breakers aren't the ones eligible for the $20 program under discussion? That's for hobby shops.
Online exclusives are usually a big win or a total bust. They get bought up by the bots if people think it will be a winner, and prices escalate until people stop paying them. But online exclusives like Logofractor that skip distribution channels entirely are separate. How Logofractor specifically is popular right now is beyond my comprehension...
Buying non-exclusive product, like base Chrome, off Topps' website is usually a rip-off and can be done much, much cheaper through other avenues.