PSA backlog

[conor912]

Originally Posted by BobbyStrawberry

Difficult? CU is worth close to a billion dollars and PSA is the industry leader. We're not talking about a Burger King franchise here.

You’d be surprised how many people don’t want to sit in a dark room for 10 hours a day scrutinizing sportscards for $35k/year.

[Republicaninmass]

Originally Posted by conor912

You’d be surprised how many people don’t want to sit in a dark room for 10 hours a day scrutinizing sportscards for $35k/year.

More so in Newport Beach. Maybe they need an office in Podunk Iowa?

[Lorewalker]

The whole concept of these large group submissions is one I feel PSA should not encourage. By doing so I would think they are providing or at least implying assurances that the authorized dealer will safeguard participants' cards. So it begs the question if they have any liability or responsibility in this instance.

My bigger issue with it is that it creates an "unfair" competitive edge for the person or business who simply has the capacity to create these massive ongoing submissions. PSA was going to get the business from the individuals who make up these group subs anyway. These submitters now get much faster turnaround and they get a price per card that is significantly less. There is nothing stopping me from participating and sharing that edge but I like being able to control my own valuables to the extent that I can. I always worry something like this could happen or that cards gets switched out or there are delays on making the submission, etc. These subs are much different than two hobbyists piggybacking on an order. If my 200 card sub gets to PSA the same day one of these group subs of 5,000 cards gets there my sub is going to be there for months well after the 5,000 card sub has been returned.

[sox1903wschamp]

Originally Posted by Lorewalker

If my 200 card sub gets to PSA the same day one of these group subs of 5,000 cards gets there my sub is going to be there for months well after the 5,000 card sub has been returned.

I'm going to push back against this statement. First of all, the max allowed per sub is 500, not 5000.

And yes, I know you probably mean 5000 cards from one person broken down by 10 subs x 500. But I do not think they get done any earlier then the 200 card person, especially these days.

[Johnny630]

Wonder if the $12-$15 per commons for set Registry Builders ever comes back.

[steve B]

Originally Posted by Lorewalker

The whole concept of these large group submissions is one I feel PSA should not encourage. By doing so I would think they are providing or at least implying assurances that the authorized dealer will safeguard participants' cards. So it begs the question if they have any liability or responsibility in this instance.

My bigger issue with it is that it creates an "unfair" competitive edge for the person or business who simply has the capacity to create these massive ongoing submissions. PSA was going to get the business from the individuals who make up these group subs anyway. These submitters now get much faster turnaround and they get a price per card that is significantly less. There is nothing stopping me from participating and sharing that edge but I like being able to control my own valuables to the extent that I can. I always worry something like this could happen or that cards gets switched out or there are delays on making the submission, etc. These subs are much different than two hobbyists piggybacking on an order. If my 200 card sub gets to PSA the same day one of these group subs of 5,000 cards gets there my sub is going to be there for months well after the 5,000 card sub has been returned.

It's worse for submitters, but much better for PSA.

Years ago I had a very large international company that became a customer for a few months.

They were among the first to abandon just in time delivery on all their parts and supplies and go to an integrated supply model.
Largely because the US plant at least had something like 400 suppliers, and they studied costs of buying anything.
Get 3 quotes
Pick the best one
Get the purchase approved
Issue the purchase order

Apparently the average cost of just issuing the PO was around $400 in the late 90's.
So they first got rid of the places they'd bought a handful of items from. Then the middle size suppliers, and made deals with a handful of large suppliers to buy everything in a category from them at a set markup. Open books on both sides. At the tens if not hundreds of millions it made perfect sense to issue two Purchase orders a year to six different suppliers. (Their small package shipping alone was in the $40Million range.)

I got on the list despite being small because the head of purchasing was tired of buying a specialized item where he had to tell the seller what page it was on in their own catalog. I knew both our numbers and the big suppliers pretty much from memory. So I saved him a LOT of time.

More remarkably, they paid in 10 days when most huge corporations were holding the money for 90 days because they could.

[Tabe]

Originally Posted by conor912

You’d be surprised how many people don’t want to sit in a dark room for 10 hours a day scrutinizing sportscards for $35k/year.

If you're having trouble hiring, you're not paying enough. Period. $35k is incredibly low for a business charging $100-$150 per card.

[conor912]

Originally Posted by Tabe

If you're having trouble hiring, you're not paying enough. Period. $35k is incredibly low for a business charging $100-$150 per card.

Have worked in small businesses my entire life, sometimes there is no more money

[swarmee]

Originally Posted by conor912

Have worked in small businesses my entire life, sometimes there is no more money

And it's not really a minimum of $100 they're charging right now, since the vast majority of cards still in the backlog are still on $10-15 bulk submissions. And going forward, PSA (Turner) has expressed interest on bringing back much cheaper service levels for set collectors. So this high prices are the only prices phase "seems" to be only a blip.