Friday Marketwatch - March 13

As of today, March 13 the following are stats covering the last 7 days on ebay for etopps in-hands:

Quantity of etopps in-hands listings: 202
Sell-Through: 41.58%
Average starting price: $2.47
Average final price: $8.66

Highest Single Card Sale: Allen & Ginter Mickey Mantle, $29.99
Highest Mult-Card Sale: Allen & Ginter Presidents Set #35/999, $108.50
Highest Graded Sale: 2003 LeBron James BGS 9.5, $54.95
Highest Non-Graded Autograph Sale: 2002 Willie Mays, $213.50
Highest Graded Autograph Sale: None

Other best sellers:

* 2008 Allen and Ginter Hillary Clinton
* 2007 Kevin Durant
* 2007 LeBron James
* 2005 LeBron James

In-hand listing (not including graded or autographed) that received most bids that sold well: 2007 Ben Roethlisberger - 10 bids

Something About Myself

I posted this on my website blog about what happened to me in the summer of 1972.

Outside The Ebay Box

There are a lot of etopps in-hand sellers. How do you stand out from the pack? Customers have a lot of choices. What is it about you/your brand that makes them want to buy from you instead of them?

• Make a video for each year/sport
• Join sports collectibles discussion groups online
• Form a meet-up group to trade in-hands in your area
• Become an expert on etopps cards. Strive to be the go-to guy on the internet for etopps in-hands.
• Sell your etopps cards off ebay…like Amazon.

• Research a niche that incorporates etopps cards (team, sport, collectibles, player, year, encased cards)
• Have a contest to give away etopps cards. Idea: give away an etopps card in your town/city to the first person that has the same first name or last name as the player you’re giving away. Make the announcement each week (make sure it’s the day/time is consistent each week to help make it more viral)

• Show off/sell your etopps in-hands at your local street fair/festival
• Knock your customer’s socks off with customer service skills
• Create a business page on facebook
• Create a page on myspace and friend everyone in the sports/sports collectible industry on myspace and keep them informed of everything pertaining to you and etopps
  
• Post interesting tidbits about etopps on twitter.
• Have athletes sign your cards. If they say anything complimentary about their etopps card, ask to quote them on your website.

• Offer free shipping on single cards
• If you have web design skills/software, create new etopps designs and send them to Mark. Have your customers vote on which ones they like the most.
• Offer discounts on multiple card orders
• Idea: Get permission from Mark on this – using zazzle or café press, place the etopps image of your favorite or best-selling card on a t-shirt, (even cooler back of the card on the back of the shirt). If the player is active, go to a game that the player is in to promote it…don’t forget business cards if you do this.

There are a lot of things you can try. You may fail but don't let that discourage you. Just try something else from this list or come up with something on your own. Share it here if it works.

Friday Marketwatch - March 6

As of today, March 6 the following are stats covering the last 7 days on ebay for etopps in-hands:

Quantity of etopps in-hands listings: 159
Sell-Through: 60.38%
Average starting price: $3.11
Average final price: $8.42

Highest Single Card Sale: 2001 Albert Pujols, $36.89
Highest Mult-Card Sale: 2006 Mickey Mantle Set #001/999, $510.10
Highest Graded Sale: 2001 Albert Pujols BGS 9.5, $73.99
Highest Non-Graded Autograph Sale: 2007 Cameron Maybin /100, $71.31
Highest Graded Autograph Sale: None

Other best sellers:

* 2008 Matt Ryan
* 2008 Allen & Ginter Mickey Mantle
* 2008 Allen & Ginter Babe Ruth
* 2008 Steve Slaton

In-hand listing (not including graded or autographed) that received most bids that sold well: 2007-08 Kobe Bryant - 10 bids

Recipe For A Cool Etopps Promo

1. Go to the etopps website and save a bunch of classic baseball etopps images into a folder on your PC. And include a few Baseball Classic Event images.

2. Find and download .wav or other audio files in the same folder for theme music and for broadcasts of great baseball moments that correspond to the images you saved, especially the Baseball Classic Event images.

3. Using your installed movie editing software (Windows I think it’s moviemaking and for Apple it’s Garage Band), make a movie that just shows each of the images you saved. Show the image for the duration of the audio file. No more than 15 seconds so you’ll likely want to extract the most relevant snippet of the corresponding audio file (i.e. “I Can’t Believe What I Just Saw” to go with the Kirk Gibson Baseball Classic Event image, “It Gets Behind The Bag” to go with the Mookie Wilson Baseball Classic Event card).

4. You can also just get a cool baseball song to play while all the images are shown to cover the duration of the song. You may have to go to itunes for this. Few songs to consider:

• Centerfield by John Fogerty
• Take Me Out To The Ballgame
• Fanfare for the Common Man
• Music from the Ken Burns Baseball documentary soundtrack
• A cool instrumental or instrumental part of a song (my favorite sports-related instrumental is the opening theme to America’s Game from NFL Network)

5. Once the movie is complete. Post it on youtube and make sure to include tags such as baseball, topps, etopps, opening day.

6. Post what you've done on the etopps message board.