Can / Should PSA Split?

[skelly]

The word is that PSA turnaround times have increased at least partially because of the Pokemon / gaming card submissions. For what it’s worth, I have heard that most of the graders prefer to grade Pokemon and avoid the sports card batches if possible.
Would PSA consider treating Pokemon & Sports cards separately. This could maybe increase turnaround times for sports cards without having a negative impact on the gaming collectors. They need to do what the can about turnaround times. I actually heard an older gentleman ( maybe around 80ish years old ) tell someone that grading didn’t make sense for him as he was concerned he might not make another 4-5 months to see the cards come back. A heavy thought, but perhaps not unreasonable in his situation.

[Exhibitman]

That is a heavy thought...

[raulus]

I think there's a very real question whether they could survive as a standalone sports card grader, particularly if the economy takes a downturn. It's one thing to survive when times are good, but when the tide goes out, a lot of businesses get caught without a suit.

For that matter, even if they did have a dedicated sports card grading service, there's no guarantee that it would be any quicker with turnaround. Many businesses deliberately size their staff to create a backlog, and it seems like PSA prefers that setup as well.

[Peter_Spaeth]

PSA is killing it as far as I can tell. Why should they change anything? People submit no matter what they charge and how long the turnaround times are. They have the entire industry by (you name the body part). And as Nicolo points out why is dividing it into distinct groups going to help, the obvious way to make things go faster is hire more people, but they don't want to do that.

[raulus]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

PSA is killing it as far as I can tell. Why should they change anything? People submit no matter what they charge and how long the turnaround times are. They have the entire industry by (you name the body part). And as Nicolo points out why is dividing it into distinct groups going to help, the obvious way to make things go faster is hire more people, but they don't want to do that.

Don't forget that the flip is the commodity now.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by raulus

Don't forget that the flip is the commodity now.

It is and has been for a long time.

[Lucas00]

I'm sure they would rather handle pokemon. The corners aren't square, you can be a bit rough and they will still be exactly the same. You touch a baseball card wrong that's -4 grades.

[Yoda]

They have reached near monopolistic status. And we all know that can only mean inefficiencies, productivity lags, price control, poor customer service and general overall indifference.

What can change? Somebody with a Big Wallet buys them and completely institutes a new business model that works for the customer. Will that happen? Doubtful.

[Johnny630]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

PSA is killing it as far as I can tell. Why should they change anything? People submit no matter what they charge and how long the turnaround times are. They have the entire industry by (you name the body part). And as Nicolo points out why is dividing it into distinct groups going to help, the obvious way to make things go faster is hire more people, but they don't want to do that.

No reason at all to change...their current business model is Gold.

[Balticfox]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

PSA is killing it as far as I can tell. Why should they change anything? People submit no matter what they charge and how long the turnaround times are. They have the entire industry by (you name the body part).

Originally Posted by Johnny630

No reason at all to change...their current business model is Gold.

Precisely! The company charges whatever it wants, delivers service that's convenient for only itself and buyers keep lining up. Why change anything?

[tiger8mush]

I assumed (perhaps incorrectly) that PSA (and TPGs in general) have some graders who specialize in pokeman, others who specialize in modern sports, others in vintage sports, and others in prewar. Does the same grader with expertise grading modern pokeman also have the expertise to detect if a 5-figure N173 OJ has been rebacked, trimmed, or otherwise altered?

[FromVAtoLA]

That doesn't make any business sense to me. Nat has said only about a quarter of the company's employees are graders so the rest of the employees are back office, administration, slabbing cards, technology, managing inventory, etc, etc. By splitting the company in two you're getting rid of the economies of scale of all of that.
Collectors has been doing the opposite. They own PSA, PCGS, SGC, and WATA. So theirs is a growth strategy built on consolidation.

[icurnmedic]

No change incoming. Why would they?
That being said, I will not send anything to them. Poor customer service tells me they don't care for my business. And I am not waiting 6 months for an order.