Something is ROTTEN in TCGplayer Direct...
Вставка
- Опубліковано 9 вер 2024
- This was a tough video to make. But - I have finally done so. I understand that this isn't necessarily the experience of all or most others, but maybe this can help you understand some of the things that have been affecting Direct specifically. I hope things get worked out, as I really liked the program in its form from just a few months ago. Meanwhile, I'll be focusing on developing my own business and not stressing about TCGplayer's business.
Check out ManaPool, it may be right for you: manapool.com/?...
I use Stamps.com for my mailing and shipping needs and you should try it out. Go to www.stamps.com/tell and use this code to sign up, C-4496XF-F3R, and you will get a $100 offer which includes a digital scale and $45 in printing credits.
To try out the original green card shipping protection, check out Shipping Shields: shippingshield... If you make a purchase through this link, or following from my Shop on my website, I get a little bit of a commission, which really helps me out in the long run. Use my discount codes for the appropriate size of your order to get a discount: tcgbulkkings200, tcgbulkkings500, tcgbulkkings1k, tcgbulkkings1.5k, tcgbulkkings1.8k. And don't forget to try out the Top Shields to make shipping Large Envelopes that much simpler for you!
Large envelopes I've used from Walmart: sovrn.co/1pazfyw
🔔 Don't forget to subscribe and hit the notification bell to stay updated on our latest videos!
If you found this video helpful, give it a thumbs up and share it with fellow online store owners!
Share your experiences and thoughts in the comments below. We'd love to hear from you!
My website www.tcgbulkkin... is the central hub to all my various social media enterprises. If you want to buy from the Shop or sell bulk to me, make sure you at least have a Free account, and if you want to support what I'm doing, or just get a decent discount in the Shop and a bit of free merch, go ahead and sign up for one of the Memberships! Cheers!
"If you make sales to get customers, rather than get customers to make sales...
You make the customer the goal." ~Alex Hormozi
CardDealerPro: www.carddealer... Use the code "TCGBulkKings" when signing up to Card Dealer Pro to receive 500 FREE Scans! Now scanning TCG cards and Non-sport cards!
Shop for supplies from BCW here: www.bcwsupplie... . They have your solution for boxes, sleeves, team bags and top loaders, deckboxes, &c. Use code "tcgbulkkings" at checkout to get 10% off your order and help support my channel!
If you're looking for BCW Supplies but live in the UK, then follow this link for CollectorFit: collectorfit.c... . They also have a 10% off coupon for using my code 'tcgbulkkings', and can import anything you'd need.
Shop for cards from me at these places:
TCG Bulk Kings Shop: tcgbulkkings.c...
TCGplayer: tcgbulkkings.t...
TCG Bulk Kings on Ebay: www.ebay.com/s...
TCG Bulk Kings on BuySportsCards: www.buysportsc...
Boltless Shelf Unit: sovrn.co/wex73l1
Use the shelves from two of these to make the shelves as I have them in the video. This is an affiliate link, so I'll get a little kickback if you get them through this link. But you don't have to obviously, these were just the most affordable ones I could find that fit my specs
FREE Card Conditioning Template: tinyurl.com/38...
Epson Eco-Tank ET-2803: sovrn.co/138fwfs
A serious time saver, pick up a self-inking return address stamp here: sovrn.co/z6cas43
To try out the original green card shipping protection, check out Shipping Shields: shippingshield... If you make a purchase through this link, or following from my Shop on my website, I get a little bit of a commission, which really helps me out in the long run.
Obviously, some of the links above are affiliate links, which will involve me getting a commission if you buy something from them. It's cool either way though, you don't have to get anything. If you need any of these kinds of things though, and you want to support me, consider doing so through one of these links.
Its almost like eBay buying tcgplayer was gonna cause some problems
🧐
They called me crazy, they said that I was dumb for selling bulk singles, but I couldn't help but notice going from 100+ orders a day to 15-30. MASSIVE drop off.
Not sure what you're driving at, but I've been able to sell these cards through this program for years, and the support for selling them has suddenly shifted without notice. Which is the point of my video I guess =]
@TCGBulkKings I was doing really good basically fallowing your method and then suddenly my sales just died. Went from having a hundred non direct sales and hundreds of direct a day to maybe 30 sales off direct and 100 on. Having changed nothing myself I was very confused what happened.
Ahh, okay, sorry, I guess I was sensitive to potential criticism. My apologies, I have been called crazy myself for selling bulk singles =]
It's been a biiiiig change, and the folks at TCGplayer aren't really acknowledging what's going on. I got to a point of either keep lying to myself, or adapt
@@DeathgripsCards I think demand may have shifted away from bulk singles and or there could be a decrease in sales overall on the entire platform post shipping increase.
I have noticed an increasing amount of (entitled) customers on facebook, reddit etc bitching about TCGPlayer shipping prices
@TachibanaTengoku I could totally see that they too are very close in line. Entitled is a great word for it.
Price of stamps went up by the same amount. Price didn't go up. It inflated.
Honestly while on the same note, bulk singles buyers can be some of the meanest people I've met. It's wild what people expect for an actual penny. 🙃
Direct is so much slower to ship than buying directly from sellers. Can’t imagine I’m the only one that has experienced this and is actively avoiding TCG direct sellers.
And it used to be the opposite. Direct was faster
I did expedited to try and get cards for the next weekend tournament. I ordered on the previous Saturday. They didn't touch my order until Wednesday and i couldn't play the deck for the tournament that weekend. I feel like their employees have gotten lazier.
I think it also varies with the seller’s location I live in the west coast and noticed anytime I order from a seller in New York, New Jersey or Florida it takes sooo long to get here. Usually over the estimated arrival date.
@@kruu4304I can promise you it's not the employees filling orders. That's a management issue.
I'm not a seller on Tcg player but usually if im shopping for stuff and my total is less than your shipping costs you get passed over as a seller and i continue to shop around.
I remember thinking about buying a full commander deck off tcgplayer. The deck was $53 the shipping was $90 and that didn't include 10% of the order since there were no listed price. It's cheaper for me to drive to Mox boarding house (the physical location for cardkingdom) than to have it shipped to me and the nearest one is a 4 hour drive
It feels like they are removing bulk from their direct program. Direct used to be a great way to complete sets cheaply, and from one place. Not the case anymore.
It's really getting hard to find some bulk items too. Especially for modern mtg sets that predate pioneer but post 8th edition
I've noticed the same thing recently. If I had to pinpoint when the drop-off happened, it seems like it was the 2nd to last week in June. That week I listed 4,500 cards (going from 7,500 listed to 12,000) and my sales dropped by over 50% out of nowhere. I ended up opting out of direct and my sales picked up a little but almost none of the bulk is moving. And if the bulk isn't moving the platform loses most of its value for me.
I can confirm I see the same problem on my end. Not only is this not good for our businesses, but also it's bad for Direct subscription customers. From a strategy point out of view, our businesses are weakened by the reliance we have on tcgplayer, and we can only real make any change through collective action, but I'm not optimistic about that right now.
I’ve noticed a lot of direct sellers have switched to $3.99 shipping and their floor is $0.01. These are large vendors with 50,000+ sales. So if your floor is 0.05 you can’t compete.
$3.99 for shipping is insane.
@@user-rw5zw9wi2qmost Direct sellers that list their shipping that high is because they don’t want to receive non-direct orders. OR profit off of any non-Direct orders that come through.
Yeah, but if there aren't going to be hardly any Direct orders, that's like robbing Peter to /not/ pay Paul
We are gonna need some answers from them on this. You put in all this work trying to play exactly by their rules and just got shafted....
Kinda how it feels like, yeah
They also changed the default search setting from NM to LP
while watching this video, noticed another bug, if you go to a stores feedback page and click "buy from this seller" then once on their "store" you cant filter by anything anymore -_-
Very annoying as it was one of the only ways to send people a stores inventory to a customer without paying for a store front from TCGplayer
Oh weird, that does make it more difficult
Yeah it is broken...
The $3.99 shipping sellers are SYP sellers, but the items aren't included in Direct ecosystem. Expect they'll be announcing the sunsetting SYP in the next 6 months. They're looking to cut labor and liability. This is also why they're cutting out items in Direct which are lower end ($100.) Because of changes in the makeup of their labor force (ie: the unionization) they have to scale back on providing labor as a service. Due to this, we may even see them abandon Direct altogether in the next 1-2 years. The bright side: this is a great opportunity for a competitor to rise against TCGPlayer, especially if they can provide labor as a service.
But I'm not in SYP, and it actually changes my shipping settings visible on the page to make my listings show $3.99 shipping. It's all so very confusing, and I don't get how it can be acting this way on purpose
Recently got into magic and decided i needed to get a deck made for an event next month. Out of the 60 cards i ordered, only 22 where on direct. The shipping between the 13 packages (AFTER optimizing the cart), came out to be more than the cards themselves.
Where as maybe a year ago, I ordered over 130 pokemon cards, and every single one of them shipped direct!
You'd be lucky to get 15 of those Pokemon cards on Direct now, it seems x.x
@@TCGBulkKings i had time so i just checked. Out of that whole pokemon order, only 24 are available on direct! Some of them in only available in MP, where as I ordered al NM without a problem back then.
Although there do seem to be to be some glitches, I unfortunately think that this is by in large intentional. I don’t understand their reasoning here - I get not wanting to spend the labor shipping out cheap cards but the whole point and draw of the program from the buyer’s side is being able to get your cards all in one order. As more and more cards are printed, if they continue the trend of only stocking expensive and newer cards, there will be a higher and higher percentage of cards that are unavailable and it will be harder and harder to justify paying direct premiums to only get a fraction of the cards you want through direct, needing to order the rest individually
I felt this slowness started during covid
I only joined Direct in late 2020, this slowness is a particularly new one that started by my and many others' experience around May/June of this year
As a buyer been seeing things acting real weird trying to filter on Direct. Typically I would find dozens of vendors for common newish cards with the filter on. Trying to buy bloomburrow singles probably 80% have no direct listing, which never happens
Exactly! This is a huge issue for sellers trying to cover costs of opening boxes or those (like myself) buying bulk collections that largely consist of c/u from newer sets. Suddenly all this product isn't available through Direct, so the sales are hugely depressed
I’ve had the exact same issue. Orders have fallen off substantially. I too assumed that they didn’t have enough inventory but it’s been happening for several weeks in a row. Thanks for sharing your experience and insight.
I am in the process of listing all my bulk on my own TCG store not Direct. I was going to shift to Direct, but it sounds like that is not the way to go right now. With the increase to shipping and getting discounted stamps (real ones) I can compete with the bigger sellers.
Direct raised the floor for free shipping and is by far the slowest shipping option of any online seller. You can also usually purchase cards cheaper individually than with Direct, unless you need bulk for your deck. I simply purchase my bulk from my LGS
Great video. Im a direct seller and noticed the glitch on several cards that fell out of direct in july that i was getting marketplace orders for, even with my higher shipping.
Couple observations: 1. The glitch seems to exist for only those cards you already had inventory prior to when this issue came up (early july by my estimate). If a direct seller try to upload a glitched card for the first time after that date, it wont show up with the glitch/3.99 shipping. 2. Tcgplayer seems to be fixing this albeit slowly. A few glitched cards that were there a few days ago show up as completely unavailable on direct. So i think eventually this issue will go away but your point still stands. Tcgplayer seems to be moving direct eligible product to higher value/non-bulk direction
Yeah, it was the shipping glitch that drove me up the wall. Like, the rest of it is the real issue, but this was just too much on top
As a buyer TCG direct is a hard avoid for me.
Massive quality control issues, massive shipping issues, and sellers not having cards they have listed. On top of tcg direct prices are normally way higher.
If I could just filter out tcgdirect sellers and then sort by that I would when I'm buying because I wont buy from them anyways.
One issue I've found, which isn't directly related to this, is that many cards that I put in my cart say free shipping. I also end up seeing cards from the same seller that mention free shipping over $10 or over $25. If I can't get my order over the threshold, I remove the cards that have the threshold from my cart and try to find more cards that mention free shipping. The kicker is that even after removing the other cards from the cart, there is still shipping. I thought it was weird originally that cards from the same seller, some would have free shipping and others would have a shipping threshold, but the fact that the ones that say free shipping still have shipping costs tells me tcgplayer has some issues.
Oof, yeah, I don't know what's going on with that, sounds messed up
I honestly believe theyre phasing out most cards that are below a certain value. With minimum wage going up, the change to 98% accuracy ect. Having to verify 500 cards that only gross $5.00 for them if theyre .02 cents each is probably a business model they want to silently kill. Vs the items which hit the pwe charge on top of that my GAP rep told me that on those cards if a customer orders say a $5 card from you and one from another direct seller they earn double the shipping costs on that making money hand over fist.
In the same boat man. It was like it happened overnight. I know Mason at CNA Games had the same experience. The percentages table you shared is pretty darn alarming. It almost seems like they are imploding the program on purpose. Starting to get a little better the last couple days though. Hang in there and stay out of your own way. Its not you.
Thank you for your kind words. I definitely spent a few days thinking I was losing it, but I've gotten better. The video helped me focus and process some of that =]
This happened to me as well. My orders by 50%. Im first theory was that they were bringing their ebay algorithm to tcgplayer. Which would basically hide and move around sellers listings to show the "best" listing. But who knows, im hoping its just something they are working to fix. We will see
I have noticed when I place a large order on TCG player (like 80 cards), there is always a card or two that are listed for almost $1000... when other sellers have them for 50 cents. I get tired of jumping thru hoops to get the best deal. SO I JUST GO ELSEWHERE
Yo I'm SOOOO glad you did this video. I thought I was going crazy. I allow my self $20 bucks a week to complete master sets and go ham on direct, and i was like.... this is odd that some random dollar ex's or v's and reverse holo's for pokemon arent available. That a side, knowing they were stopping onboarding I and you could sumize that something is changing, but i've seen a big drop in sales too both before and after (recently) requested to be removed form direct entirely for a short term time period as i re-assess my own capabilities and re-organize my schedule and structure. I dont't wanna play conspiracy theorist, but the lack of transparency on what is going on in general is a bi troublesome. I get making a statement is hard cuz it holds them to something, but walking blind tin the forest sucks. Banger video as always, M
uch love!
Sorry you've been having a hard time with it too. Good to see the buyer's perspective here. I'm trying really hard not to wear a tinfoil hat, and just report on what I and anyone can see if we just look, but the evidence is piling up in a bad kind of way. Thanks for watching, and I hope things improve for us all
I've noticed a big drop off also. Have 25k inventory
You pay for a storefront? Are they required through their own ToS to tell you of changes beforehand or at least agree to the new ToS as a paid customer?
Edit: a few minutes after posting i get to the point where you explain, what i assume to be announced changes lol
I just pay elevated fees for pro tool access. I don't know about any requirements for warning about changes on their end, usually things like this are "we reserve the right to blah de blah blah without notice blah blah...."
There's theories flying around that TCGPlayer is downsizing Direct to be modern and in demand cards so that they're not overwhelmed by the endless amount of cards. With the SYP list shrinking and the requirements getting stricter, i think they want Direct to be a service for stores who rip open sealed product to sell singles in mass.
It already was that though, and the older lower demand stuff was less represented. But this is an issue with newer sets and at least somewhat in demand cards being excluded from the program. It's bad for both sellers and buyers
@@TCGBulkKingsIt's definitely bad. I personally opted out of Direct as it wasn't worth it anymore for the sales I had. Maybe if my inventory grows I'll revisit it.
As a person who buys cheap bulk from direct I've always wondered how they were affording shipping some of these orders. Everything from direct used to come in a padded envelope even if it was a singular .20 cent card now they have downgraded to envelopes. I think TCGPLAYER is just optimizing like everyone else. They probably weren't profiting enough shipping people's .10-25 cent singles for them.
That's fine - I just wish they were forthright with that information, rather than gaslighting sellers into thinking they are the problem
Please remember, TCGplayer benefits from charging the buyer for shipping, subtracting from seller for shipping, PLUS, seller pays shipping for the Direct order to be sent to TCGplayer.
It’s a complete scam.
Have you considered that they're renovating the company internally and not looking to do direct at the moment? They aren't even accepting new seller applications.
Of course, but they do owe it to the sellers externally who need the marketplace to act predictably in order to function to communicate that. The sellers depend on TCGplayer to function for their businesses to run, and TCGplayer depends on those businesses running to stay afloat also. If seekers mass exodus because of a preventable communication snafu, then TCGplayer is going to have a bad time
They are definitely accepting tcgplayer direct. I just got confirmed on boarding yesterday. I'm was curious about it but seeing that they don't handle bulk orders well which is what I wanted this for I'm think I'm going to exit out and just self sell lol
@@user-eb2mu7xn9c Potentially a fix in the works, maybe a big bug in Direct and it's getting worked on
@@user-eb2mu7xn9cwere you already a seller prior? Or did you sign up as a brand new seller yesterday?
Rob from rng games just put out a great video. I dont do a tremendous amount of bulk but mostly pick up peoples pokemon collections. I think the best coarse of action is to have a non direct account for chepaer/older cards and then have a direct account for anythint over 4-5 bucks. Im going to give that a go
As a buyer who generally pays up and buys from TCG Direct I am noticing horrible quality control befor they ship. I only buy NM and got send two near mint in package with a card creased in the center. Literally bent in half and they sent it out on near mint order.
Card Kingdom massively dominates TCG when it comes to a modern card market. More expensive sure but you get ehat you pay for. One of the largest issues is the insane charges for shipping and then getting SEVENTEEN separate packages over the course of weeks. CK includes shipping and you wait a week of that. All in one package.
yeah they do pretty well it seems, though I've heard some issues about condition from them as well. But also, they only deal in Magic, not any other game, so that's room for someone to also dominate or at least be pretty good
Thank you for sharing this information and shedding light on it. As a seller myself (non direct), I was curious on if there was an algorithm to this. I go from 30-60 which is big for me to barely pulling in 5 or so.
So you've been able to deduce what SKUs and Sets are technically available in Direct (which is impressive) but the harder number to know is how many copies are actually on shelf at any point time. You could be wasting your time listing 10 copies of card that only has 5 on Direct's shelves. So while it could be possible to move 5 copies at once you'd never move the 10 at once. Couple this with the fact that of those 5 copies are out of stock then you're waiting for some other seller to replenish inventory so you can move your listing. That could be as long as 15 days just for shipping if everyone isn't using priority.
Actually, what I've deduced is that I /don't/ and /can't/ know what's available in Direct. Did you watch the whole video? And sure, Direct in principle has its issues, but this video is about the new issues popping up that didn't previously exist, not with the concept in general.
Not gonna lie, been trying to buy off tcgdirect lately so everything could be in one package. But the inventory just seems to not exist, every other thing I add to cart get "moved" to save later.
Great vid. Hoping we get some answers and changes. Im not a direct seller, but as someone interested in growing, the appeal is definitely dropping off when considering working towards qualifying for direct.
I couldn't in good conscience keep pointing people towards it if they are going to push out bulk sellers this way. Thanks for watching!
I'm wondering too if this is another symptom which may have prompted TCG Player to crack down more aggressively on correct conditioning for Direct. I think it's 100% more nuanced than that, but it does make one wonder what they have in store given the more strict compliance requirements and the on-boarding shutdown.
I think theyre having a personal inventory issue and trying to correct it. I purchased 2 151 Reverse Dragonite, sure enough you was the seller. When I received the order, it was the regular holo dragonite and when I contacted TCG they said they dont have the reverse holo on their inventory.
Oh dear lol
Same thing has happened to me many times when ordering reverse holos through direct.
Did you eventually hear back from your GAP advisor?
Not anything since they asked for clarification of my issue =[
It's just a shame that we continue to see that eBay's purchase of tcgplayer wasn't to expand their business as much as it was to eliminate its competition. Really disappointing that they continue to roll back the programs that made the platform successful.
I'm a much smaller seller, with only about 2000 sales on the tcgplayer platform. You're right that things might be buggy, and it could be temporary. But I also no longer have any reasonable expectation that they are going to fix the issues with their systems; it seems much more likely that they will just continue cuts when things don't work.
A sad but common story, I'm afraid =[
I dont sell. I do shop around.. the shopping experience on tcg has changed to make me less likely to find what i want..
This didn't sound correct to me, because I wouldn't think TCGPlayer would want to hold a bunch of product, but I was told the way TCG Direct works, is that when you sell something through tcgdirect, they ship the card they have, and you replenish their stock by shipping to them, which allows them to ship more product in fewer packages and the sellers can do the same.
This is all correct, yus
@@TCGBulkKings If that's the case, it's possible that tcgplayer doesn't have any stock of some of the cards you are trying to sell, so even though you added them to the site, technically through tcgdirect, they don't have them in stock. That's my only guess.
It's not ideal, and I feel like with brand new sets, and with old sets from the 90's you would run into this quite a bit.
@@dustinroberson1865 clearly. The issue is that TCGplayer have made changes that dramatically affect the mix of available cards through Direct, relatively suddenly, and with zero communication or warning. Along with other buggy issues that are popping up on further investigation
@@TCGBulkKings I'm definitely not condoning it.
@@dustinroberson1865 I'm not saying you are, just reporting that you have found the issue, and also that the issue has been hidden so no one realized that was the issue
We have been discussing this a lot in a mtg finance discord. I’m assuming this is cost cutting and bugs. Sadly, eBay is destroying business models for a lot of sellers. Looking for another platform to emerge.
I can't tell you how much I've wanted to just have ready to go an alternative marketplace that can just do Direct but properly. I'm not really in a position to do this but it doesn't seem that difficult
@@TCGBulkKings ya I met the people that run mana pool at MC Chicago and have been looking at them. They have way too many short term goals to grow sellers/buyers before they’d go down the direct type of route. Unfortunately, TCG had a stranglehold on that business model in the US
I think something is wrong with direct as well. I price to direct low and love me or hate me but I sell singles for 0.01 sometimes. This past month I have had so many penny cards sell fulfilled through me and customers pay $3 shipping because I have it high to discourage orders. Something has to be wrong with the cart optimizer or something there’s no reason someone would pay $3 for one penny card
There are many issues that come together to create these problems, it seems
@@TCGBulkKings just from this week alone I have 50 orders less than 10 cents with $3 shipping. Has to be because of that filter not showing other people that you showed.
Makes me wonder if its an inventory issue where they haven't processed reimbursement cards yet or something goofy like that.
I thought that was possible too, but it's too many different problems over too long a time period imo to just be slow processing
Half way through the video if the you put 3.99 shipping would you show up as direct?
No, when I had these cards listed, I would still show up, but it would never change to a Direct listing
I was a seller on TCGplayer in the late 2000s. Didn't really care for it back then, seems like it's gotten way worse now. You'd think after 20 years they'd have figured it out, but I guess not. Ebay is still the #1 place to buy or sell trading cards imo.
I noticed it stillcsays .99 shipping when i go to list something but in reality its listing it as 1.27 shipping cost so when i try to set it as the lowest price available i end up being over a quarter higher than the lowest. Im only a level 2 seller at this point as i just started selling few months ago and dont have many cards listed
That's so weird
Great, so me buying bulk from you yesterday was a bad idea because it will soon be unsellable on TCGplayer direct?
Not at all, these cards are great and will be sellable in the regular fashion, even if TCGplayer doesn't get Direct back to working like it should. I don't have any idea what's going to happen with Direct, but people definitely want these cards
Chase I know one thing I am wondering is they made the change to 1000 card minimum for SYP and only being able to send card that are specifically listed on the Syp pull sheet so they are potentially shrinking their inventory they have on site? I feel like either they are shrinking their onsite inventory or staff cuts. I feel like if the business is growing then I don’t know why they’d make the changes to accept less total SYP orders, not able to move your extra inventory to SYP, also making to change to kicking people out of direct. I would think there’d be an increase in direct sales for the stores still participating if they were kicking people out however it seems that the opposite has happened.
I can't speak to most of that, as it's all internal to TCGplayer. But I can say that the mix of cards available has absolutely shrunk, and it appears to be shrinking in a way that the important information isn't readily available to sellers. I don't know if there are just bugs and mistakes, or if there is a mustache-twirling scheme, or something in between.
I have gone from 60-70 orders a day to maybe 10-15. It is very frustrating. I wish there was viable competition. I don’t like having all my eggs in one basket, and EBay really is not much of a choice.
Believe me when I say I'm going to explore just how much of a choice Ebay is for our kinds of businesses. And if it isn't, I will be making my own competitive choice =]
@@TCGBulkKings Does it make sense to keep pro if direct is no longer really a good option.
@@designatedinquirer I'm not dropping it off it yet, I'm hoping the QuickList plus that's coming soon helps out, but if it's not working for me I'll probably reevaluate
From you and several other comments here I do assume it is one of two things: (1) TCGplayer changing their policies to "not sell penny cards anymore" without telling you, the sellers, any of it; or (2) some code problems over on their side resulting in so many cards still having a TCGlow listed but being marked as "not for sale/out of stock".
I find it sad should TCGplayer (or eBay as new owners) decide it's not worth it to deal with penny cards anymore. And even if so, then their lack of communication is horrid. I hope it just means their code is broken and the are already aware of it and try to fix it asap. Because the alternative would mean Direct is dead for anything cheap which would be a massive hit to bulk traders (and buyers as well!).
perfect summary no notes
They really need to bring back SYP (sort your product). I think that is what used to stock alot of this product.
Yeah sort was the first chip to fall it seems
That seems terrible to deal with as a seller or a buyer. I was looking to buy some cards and have to see how the direct optimization works different from the non-direct Optimization option to see how they are differnt for yugioh because I usually have no preference for direct or not
I think there are issues with attempting to opt out of Direct cart optimizer too =/
Okay so now you know what Direct has in stock. However, you also know what direct does NOT have in stock. What if you went to focusing on that side of TCGPlayer? It's probably more labor packing individual orders but should be an easier short term transition.
Whether a card has a Direct quantity or not really shouldn't have a large impact on the volume sold of a single card type across the entire platform.
Actually, what I've demonstrated is that I /don't/ know what Direct has in stock, except by looking at the listings on the buyer side individually. Did you watch the whole video?
And cards absolutely sell much faster through Direct than they do when they are not in Direct. And if my pricing is being skewed because I'm trying to sell through Direct and thus pegging my prices to Direct pricing, but there is no chance of selling through Direct, then I'm not pricing correctly for the actual market. And TCGplayer have gone out of their way to make their buyers incentivized to buy through Direct. And so on and so on.
This isn't quite right. There are ways to set your prices at direct prices (provided there already are direct prices.) But on a per-card basis, there's no way of knowing if a card is available on direct without manually checking listings. Furthermore, no card is on direct permanently. Once they've sold their copies, direct listings come down until they restock.
No way to know when that happens either, unless you were one of the sales. Even then you'd have to be eyeballing emails constantly. Most of us find out what cards sold on direct when we're packing the direct order, I assume.
I’m still in direct but I’ve been moving a lot more over to eBay side… last month my RIs sat at TCGplayer for a month before Being processed the last two processed as soon as they were received. Strange times… I’m also in a sellers discord and some of them are
Done with direct entirely
I still think it's a great program in principle, but TCGplayer aren't securing the bag on their end, and it's making it hard out here
Hey Chase, I know you've talked about the Seller Growth/Acceleration program before but I'm not too sure which video its in. Did you feel there was any benefit to meeting with their rep after being invited?
I haven't done a video specifically about that. I'm honestly a little underwhelmed. It was nice to be able to talk with someone with an inside understanding of TCGplayer, and I really like my rep. There have been some relatively minor insights that I feel have helped me a bit. But I feel like they make a lot of hay from offering suggestions that I am already suggesting, such as optimizing your shipping processes, or organizing your inventory to match TCGplayer's invoices so that order-pulling is more efficient. And then using those positive experiences to roll you into an eventual soft sales pitch for Roca and things like that. Not that they shouldn't be doing those things, not a criticism, but an explanation of why I'm not getting as much out of the program as others.
Sure you've made a video on this already, but they're not taking new sellers right now either
I did a lil short about it, yeah, not much really to say about it lol
@@TCGBulkKings I'll check that out
Were you able to get any feedback from support tickets with the weird pricing for cards that should be direct but aren't? I was trying to recreate it myself to submit a ticket, because i think we should just bury them in support tickets until they fix it, but I wasn't able to recreate it with the magic cards i was testing. (ex. untethered express, AER) Are you using the mass price tool to price the cards to direct low? I tried that last week and it killed all of my sales, i just went back to tcg low +10% and things have picked up again. I think there's some issues with using direct low with those phantom direct prices in the database and there's just some actual crazies out there who have the only direct listing on a card and put in $999 and it totally screws up your ability to automatically price with direct low.
Yeah, there are definitely problems with using Direct Low as a reference point for pricing, that I wasn't aware of until a few days ago. I haven't put in a support ticket, I just passed the info to my rep at TCGplayer. The shipping glitch comes up when you have Direct as a filter, on many cards that aren't filtered as "out of stock" by this filter, when you click into them will only show some sellers, and all will have $3.99 shipping. When you toggle between having Direct filtered or not on those pages, new sellers will appear with Direct no longer filtered, and many of those that were showing up will have their shipping showing what they actually have it set for, instead of $3.99. Try Azumarill in Paldea Evolved to see this in action, and then you'll see it in lots of places
@@TCGBulkKings it may just be because magic has fewer cards with the issue than pokemon that it's harder to find an example, i've spent the last 30 minutes and haven't found one to recreate it with but can with pokemon pretty easily. I did open a ticket with them, my rep always just tells me to throw a ticket in and they'll ask around as well, i'm just paper trail coded from years of ticket work. I'll bring it up with my rep at my gap meeting this week as well. I've also put in another ticket about the phantom pricing for tcg direct low and its effects on mass pricing as well as trying to use the spreadsheets. Hopefully some others are putting in tickets as well, we can squeaky wheel this problem.
As an update to this, i've been working with support, they're still working on it, but they do acknowledge that they have the cards in stock to support direct, there are direct sellers, and it should be listed as direct. This is actively being treated as a bug the devs are trying to fix.
@@superheman oh man that's more info than I've gotten back, thanks for the update
I personally love tcgplayer support and hate ebay’s. Ebay support can feel like 1984 where tcgplayer support as both customer and seller has been flawless. I have been very worried about how ebay might ruin tcgplayer.
Even after they kicked out some vendors from the direct program
Chase,
You’re not alone and many of us sellers are noticing that your theory with multiple other theories are correct. I want you to know your work on this situation is amazing and is so needed for us sellers. BUT there two camps that sellers are putting themselves into. One being the sellers like us who heavily rely on this and our opportunities are limited to smaller budgets and the other camp having enough cash to throw into the problematic situation and can crawl out a lot faster. We don’t need the two camps and we need to stand together.
Now here’s my rant.
I am so freaking frustrated of having to redo my systems to profit while these platforms have us by our balls(so to speak). There’s smaller platforms we could all move to BUT why can’t we all stand up together and actually do something about this. Why is it always the haves vs have nots. Why can’t the people who are throwing money at the situation realize that we all have a space in this industry. When the bigger sellers can’t be bothered with the lower valued cards but the players still need and want them. I feel like this move for tcgplayer is isolating a big chunk of the market and we need to either find the platform to beat tcgplayer and their market change.
Alright that’s all I have to say but I will end on this. Every card and every seller has value and we need to plug the hole in the market TOGETHER.
Sending love and peace✌🏻
-Clay
Thank you Clay, it's hard sometimes not to feel like I'm screaming into the void and it's not even screaming back lol
And yeah, there are some different positions and opinions here, but this is ultimately bad for the market itself, whether you are big enough not to notice the issues now, or you are feeling the squeeze down here in the dirt. There is a big mood at the top that only certain cards have value, and the rest is garbage. Well, I'm here to collect the garbage I guess, even if TCGplayer craps the bed and ruins the low-end market on their website
@@TCGBulkKings you’re definitely not screaming into the void about this man. We just need to get together and decide what we do or where we will all start selling our bulk at
@@TCGBulkKingshey man I sent you a dm on instagram about a direct issue I just uncovered today. I don’t know if it’ll help you but it’s more information. Thanks buddy
So who is direct for anymore. I know many people who have stopped using tcgplayer due to their messed up direct system
who was it that bought tcgplayer a while ago or tempted to buy? Also, I was thinking doing the same someday I really like reverse holo Pokémon cards, and I think many cards game have some form of reverse holo mechanic in it or I could be wrong xD? and I guess it could be any common/uncommon that gets holo treatment too.
I wonder if this is why my sellers account is taking forever...because there is stuff on their backend that theyre trying to fix...
What do you mean "taking forever"? I know they have paused onboarding new sellers' accounts
@@TCGBulkKings going on 3 weeks no response. Been trying to use the tcg account I've had for years to actually sell instead of buy. Stuck since beginning of july.
That's longer ago than the announcement about pausing onboardings, but maybe it has something to do with that
@@TCGBulkKings I hope so. I want to believe that what they're doing is getting ready to unveil a new updated system with a monthly subscription. My corp-o brain says that makes sense.... I just recently started to try and sell and I'm not sure if most of you already know but the onboading process for new sellers, all that FAQ info, is all for outdated services that are no longer offered.🤷♂️so maybe it is a massive update and I'm just being impatient.
this almost makes direct not even worth it.
as an example my last ri had 53 orders in it totaling to 279 sales over 3 weeks and my payout is 186 nearly a 35% cut most of the cards in this ri were not bulk and that direct fee was more than my shipping would have been by a fair margin.
i have 40k cards on inventory i only see a pickup in sales when i add near mint cards above 5$ the other 40k+ bulk cards split between pokemon magic and yugioh barely moves so much so ive stopped focusing on uploading bulk leading to even more decrease in sales.
It's a self-fulfilling prophecy almost, it just seems like they are killing the bulk side of Direct ;_;
I’m at 8500 inventory and I barely get sales. I must be doing something very wrong. Currently doing Pokemon at market prices.
Consider that it's possible that the system isn't what it should be. I'm not going to say for sure you aren't doing something wrong (lol), but there are forces outside our control affecting this, and that's what is really driving me
Chances are if you have 8500 cards something will be in demand in your inventory. But then again a lot of your inventory may not be. Even when it is you may not have enough of an inventory mix to fulfill a full cart out in a way that ultimately gets the sale. (At least as far as non-direct orders go since your particular inventory's ability to match 100% of a cart would matter less through Direct itself).
TLDR just because you have a lot listed doesn't mean it's what the customer wants. That's probably one of the toughest parts about being a seller.
Hey I just found your channel and I have recently got into complete/ master sets is there anyway you can make a video on how we could basically binder fill from your website would we have to look at individual post or make a big buy list that we can buy all at once from your personal store or Tcg player page. Much appreciated
Hey there! Yeah, I can look into such a video. What features would you desire for this purpose? I can see about adding on anything that makes it easier for people to purchase from TCG Bulk Kings~~~
@@TCGBulkKings well I have every set separated and just a easy way to add all the cards in a buy list or just to see from all sets of you happen to have them. And video kinda explaining the best way to find cards on your shops would be great.
TCG Player has been a rough marketplace in general for me when it comes to being a buyer. The last 7/8 cards that I have ordered that were supposed to be NM were MP at best. Thats EVEN the replacements being sent to me. And these arent cheap cards either... Im talking dents and deep scratches, actual damage to the corners, food and water marks/stains. Even had one seller try to tell me that a fingernail dent makes it still NM.
Gosh, I'm sorry that's happened to you, I can't imagine saying that to a customer of mine
I’ve honestly never sold bulk on direct. Magic seller only 5$ and above and never had an issue with tcg in anyway. I just realized bulk was in the channel name. Why not just drop the bulk and invest more in higher tier inventory?
I mean, why doesn't Walmart sell only Gucci and Rolex?
@@TCGBulkKings but like in your example Walmart in doing this would enter a niche market that wouldn’t sell very well. where as changing your inventory from bulk to not bulk cardboard you are doing the opposite to create a better sell thru rate, generate more value for your time.
I left TCGplayer and haven’t missed it at all. 160,000 cards all pulled in April. Total scam.
Where did you end up going, if I may ask?
They should reimburse you for your time
Are you surprised that the summer sales on TCG drop dead...this happens every year, it is worse in game stores. Folks prioritize family, life and work in the summer. Not games. That has been a fact for the last four decades I have been selling in this industry. And often times, there are more of a "rare" card than there are for a penny common on TCG because one might sell, the other will never sell. lol. Anyone selling on TCG just be aware that it is not a business, it is TCGs business, and you, (WE) are just tools in their business. They are not a tool in our businesses. But that is just my opinion. Keep crunching!
What is happening now is not a typical summer sales drop
@@TCGBulkKings Been moving Cards for the last 34 years...and looking at my numbers...Summer +/- 8 weeks based on release schedules is always my slow down period. Glad you found a way around it. Best of luck. Sorry you disagree.
I can't even buy cards for some reason 😭
What do you mean?
@@TCGBulkKings location settings are buggy, I think for some folks
Zip code keeps triggering for me, and I know I'm entering it right.
@@braydenparis4401 just to be clear - is this a problem with TCGplayer or with my site? 😂
@@TCGBulkKings the site
That hair line, those glasses you know this dudes votes Harris
You don't HAVE to look this good to vote for Harris, but it does help the confidence level
TCG sucks.
aww poor baby got some sunburn
Very nearly went to the hospital for it, was severe 2nd degree burns on my legs
Okay, you claim to be big on business protocol. Ask yourself what you are going to do with this information. What did you gain from spending days on analysis over just heads down listing?
I'm gonna assume the answer is "cause direct". Now ask yourself, why do you need direct. Cause from this video and others, I KNOW you do not understand how TCGP works. Try setting shipping to 4.99 and go as wide as possible. You think you'll get no sales, how is that different from what you're currently doing (according to you). Do it and report back in a video.
I'm sorry, what evidence from this video do you have that I don't understand how TCGplayer works? I mean, I'm specifically reporting on how TCGplayer Direct doesn't work like it has for years, and giving evidence of that.
I explain what I'm going to do with this information. I explain what I was trying to do with the information I was given access to, and how the decisions I was making were ultimately doomed to fail. And how I can't use that information anymore. Did you watch the whole video? I also talk about how I default to assuming I'm doing something wrong and I need to adjust, but to properly adjust, I need information to provide direction.
I could have spent that time just listing more cards, and I'm sure I would have sold more cards. But where in the past there was a direct linear (or even better than linear) correlation between the number of cards I would list and the number of cards I would sell, that correlation has disappeared. Heads down listing wasn't working like it used to. What I gained from analysis was a hypothesis of what I can do to "heads up" list, as it were. That also didn't work, from which I further directed my analysis to determine the information was bad. So now I'm going to go in a different direction. I will report back about what I do.
Why do I need Direct? I don't. But I have come to rely on Direct as a solid base of sales that I didn't have to think about very much. And that has disappeared. So what I need is to modify what I'm doing - the evidence points to it not working anymore.
A final thought: I don't understand how having $4.99 shipping and going as wide as possible will sell more cards than $1.27 shipping and going wide as possible. I've never said I would get no sales, I'm sure there would be sales. But I am fairly sure that my sales volume will be reduced by more than a factor of 4, which will more than offset the gains from overcharging people for shipping.
Thanks for your feedback
Did you intend for this to sound so hostile and condescending? Jeez, man.
Get some skills and a generative income.
Kay
lots of curous things with all of tcgplayer backend since ebay bought them, im betting this is intigration transitions with announce q4