What’s the secret to selling cards on a large scale?

[homerunhitter]

No worries, it came off to me that you were trying to be a funny guy or smarty pants! (Instead of trying to be productive and help/answer the question)

How do you figure? Do you know how many cards 20 people working 8 hours a day can list/process? A ton!

[bnorth]

Originally Posted by homerunhitter

No worries, it came off to me that you were trying to be a funny guy or smarty pants! (Instead of trying to be productive and help/answer the question)

How do you figure? Do you know how many cards 20 people working 8 hours a day can list/process? A ton!

Being a business owner of many years. You get what you pay for in product and employees. 10 decent workers getting 1.5X min wage will usually out work 20 minimum wage morons. Your milage may vary but that is my experience.

[homerunhitter]

Very Good point! That makes sense.

My point in hiring 20 employees is, do you think to get that big as a business you need 10,15, 20 employees to do the grunt work versus one guy sitting there all day scanning, listing, sorting, packing. I guess I can’t just see one person becoming a huge company doing the work all by themselves. It’s possible but I think to take a business to the next level (besides being a casual seller) it would take many additional employees to sell alot and make money!

[G1911]

If it was as simple as taking out a loan to cover startup costs and then hiring X people to process and list to make a successful card business, we'd all be doing it and rich. Business is a lot more complicated than people who don't know about it think. If you think you can do it to by doing this, then do it! If you're right it's an easy road to the riches.

Also, some of these named businesses are not exactly high volume crackers of modern material or pulling the big hits. Deans always pulls the big hit cards?

[bnorth]

Originally Posted by homerunhitter

Very Good point! That makes sense.

My point in hiring 20 employees is, do you think to get that big as a business you need 10,15, 20 employees to do the grunt work versus one guy sitting there all day scanning, listing, sorting, packing. I guess I can’t just see one person becoming a huge company doing the work all by themselves. It’s possible but I think to take a business to the next level (besides being a casual seller) it would take many additional employees to sell alot and make money!

I really don't think it would take anywhere near 20 employees. Last I knew Dean's Cards had 9 total employees to cover every aspect of their business.

The hard part is the initial start up. You need to buy a ship load of product to start. Then all the initial listings will take some time. Once going maintaining it would be way easier with less people.

[homerunhitter]

Agree but do you know how long it takes to sit down and list an scan a box of cards to eBay! It’s like watching paint dry on the wall. It’s a tedious very slow process. It’s a lot of work for peanuts! (We are talking about selling modern dollar cards here!)

[bnorth]

Originally Posted by homerunhitter

Agree but do you know how long it takes to sit down and list an scan a box of cards to eBay! It’s like watching paint dry on the wall. It’s a tedious very slow process. It’s a lot of work for peanuts! (We are talking about selling modern dollar cards here!)

Scanning a whole box of cards takes a couple minutes at most. Not sure about listing them all. I haven't listed a ton of cards on eBay in close to 20 years. I have not used it but there is software that makes it way faster now.

I can't imagine only selling super cheap cards is a money maker no matter how it is done.

Also the biggest rule in selling cards is you make you money buying cards not selling them.

[homerunhitter]

Burbank sports cards sells millions of dollar cards each year so there is definitely money in selling low dollar cards in bulk. Burbank sportscards is a multi million dollar a year business that specializes in selling cards in bulk.