The Dilemma of Etopps In-Hands

When you sell etopps in-hands, it is only a matter of time until you will have to make a choice about two directions you can take.

The first one is about being the middle-man between etopps and your customers. You market yourself as an in-hand dealer. Anything online with etopps is about making the sale whether on ebay or another site where you can sell your in-hands. Off-line you do the same at card shows and/or elsewhere.

The second direction you can take is less about selling in-hands and more about being a guide about etopps. You are the go-to person to explain how the online platform works and how the etopps online cards become accessible as in-hands. You make reference to the etopps website and all that it offers - the IPOs, the rewards points and rewards catalog, cardtarget, the autograph offerings, the trade post, the fantasy games, etc. You are a teacher and a mentor and you earn credibility and trust.

Here lies the problem: the more you take the second direction, the more you will lose potential customers for your in-hand business. Once they "get it" they won't need you anymore.

But the more you take the first direction, the more you depend on the customer's shrinking ignorance. You are not telling your customers about how and when to take their online etopps cards delivered at a discount or for free with reward points. You are not trying to teach them how you are getting your inventory the way you do because essentially you're conveying to them you can do this too.

Sometimes it's better to hold some of your cards than to let the buyer see all that you're holding.

Through experience you will have to decide how much you will be telling your customers about etopps. It's just a matter of time before they want to know how the online platform works. It's up to you to decide how much you will tell them.

During card shows we would get this question asked as often as once every hour. And each time we would spend a considerable amount of time telling them about the different aspects of etopps. They'd stand there in front of our table and listen, arms folded. When we were done, more times than not they would thank us and walk away without buying a card from us. We also noticed that those who bought from us didn't really care about how the online program worked. They just wanted to know how much the card cost that they wanted to buy.

Sometimes it's a simple as this: you will have buyers who don't trust ebay or the internet for buying, who will want to see the cards in their hands before they buy them, who go to a hobby store as much for socializing as for buying.

While this is fine, these buyers are shrinking in size. The hobby, in a nutshell, has never been the same for card store owners since ebay started more than 10 years ago. More and more people are going online to do more than just use google to search or buy something cheaper than at a brick & mortar store (ie, web 1.0). These same old-school buyers are becoming more savy online and are less willing to spend than they did before our current economic crisis.

So how will you be an info-guru about etopps while selling these cards in-hand?

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.

My Other Project

Between these blog posts, selling on ebay, my full-time job and my family, I've been pretty busy these last six months transitioning from my current ecommerce website (nobrainerbargains.com) to a new one with a specific niche.

I've learned the hard way that opening a website store as an extension to ebay doesn't work. Nor does selling items on a website without a theme or niche (as you can get away with on ebay) work.

So if you're thinking of starting your own ecommerce website to include etopps cards, don't be like me. Instead, swim with the current and sell other sports-related items:

• Other sports cards
• Hobby boxes, cases
• Sports memorabilia by team and by sport
• Card stand for etopps cards
• Sports items that are hard to find online (and not on ebay)

You can even start a blog and let it be the horse to pull the cart of your store. Sell things that you can blog about so you'll have more credibility when selling. Make videos to demonstrate what you're selling. For example if you're selling display cases for sports memorabilia, make a video for how to hang the display case on the wall.

* * *

At the expense of this post sounding like a promotional plug, I just updated the Connections section on the right side area, adding my latest project - Simply Superheroes. It's not live yet but should be up by tomorrow evening.

This website store will offer superhero merchandise for kids: Spider-man, Batman, Superman, Iron Man, Hulk, X-Men, Fantastic Four, Captain America and Wonder Woman. I will be selling products such as t-shirts, pajamas, backpacks, posters, party supplies and books.

If you are interested or if you know someone who would be interested in shopping here, I'm offering a discount code for the first order and a free gift to go with the order. Enter FIRSTORDER at checkout to get 10% off.

Make Google Your Friend

If you don't use Google by now beyond their search engine, you may be a little behind in what they can provide:

Google Base Store Connector: Synchronize your ebay store listings with Google Base (think craig's list) and get your ebay listings in their search more prominently.

Picasa: Google's free picture software program. It's so easy to use from uploading to cropping to organizing all of your photos (and videos) on your computer. They have this great button to help improve any photo you upload from your digital camera: "I'm Feeling Lucky."

Gmail: I've been using it for a few years. This helps you organize your emails in your inbox related to ebay for transactions by creating labels. I use terms such as payment pending, payment mailed, paid, priority mail, international, and (sparingly) refund. You can put these labels in different colors and different shading behind the font to make them stand out. Gmail just added tasks to their email so you can create an easy to-do list for your etopps auctions. Very easy to use and freakin' free.

iGoogle: with you Gmail account, you get to have a dashboard similar to My Yahoo in which you control which content appears on this page. You can include blog feeds (like this one ; ), the weather forecast, bookmarks and thousands of other widgets in the iGoogle Add Stuff link. Hopefully some day you'll be able to read Mark Sapir's etopps blog on iGoogle without having to look at the etopps website.

Alerts: Get emailed by Google whenever a search term you select appears in the news, in blogs, videos, or anywhere on the web. I use this, for example, to track the word etopps on the web.

Google Calendar: Keep up with what you have to do with this tool and customize your calendar for your favorite team's game schedule. A cool feature is setting up reminders on the calendar to your Gmail account. At 2pm every day, I remind myself to go to the post office if I need to ship a package.

Google Documents: If you want to keep track of your transactions, Google Documents is great for setting up Excel-like documents. If you are using an Excel spreadsheet, it's easy to upload it to this program and you can share your documents via email. When setting up the sell sheets and inventory for the last card show I did, I had set it up with Google Documents and sent it to the other sellers via email for them to review.

So what are you waiting for? Set up a google account and get these free tools to make your etopps in-hand business easier to manage.

Shipping Strategies

It looks like etopps will start offering autographs on Tuesdays now rather than Mondays and they will be offered on Fridays rather than Thursdays.

As predicted, the Bradshaw auto has turned out to be a tough sell for etopps based on the secondary market performance of the two Joes that were auto'ed out of this set, the quality of Bradshaw's signature, the ailing economy and the holiday buying season.

It's been awhile since I posted about the process of selling etopps cards on ebay. One area I did not include is third-party vendors to make the proces of sending out etopps cards to happy customers easier.

To me, the process of shipping out an etopps card from my home is one of the more tedious tasks as an ebay seller. The process of hand-writing the buyer's address on a shipping envelope, guestimating the postage and over-stamping the package drove me nuts at first. But over time, I've found ways to make it easier.

First off, if you haven't already you should find a reliable source for bubble-lined mailers for etopps cards, size #000. Because of my location, uline.com is a great vendor. They are loaded with everything imaginable for shipping and give you cool stuff if you order a lot at one time. U-Line comes in handy when you realize (all of a sudden) that you're low on mailers and you need them soon. When I order form this company, I usually get my order delivered UPS within two business days.

But if you can anticipate you'll need shipping supplies like mailers in the next week or so, I would recommend another company. Royalmailers.com is a company I first encountered at ebay live this year. They were giving out cool t-shirts and told me about their services. They said they can beat U-Line on price if you can wait a little longer than it takes from U-Line. And they're right. They offer free shipping, good selection and send via UPS from California which is why they take a little longer.

Another way to curb the tediousness of shipping is to process the shipping costs through paypal. On the payment email from paypal for an etopps card, click on the link to show you the details of the transaction online. On this landing page, scroll to the bottom of the page and click on the link that reads Print Shipping Label. You will go to a page that makes it so easy: a pull down menu for the type of shipping you'll use (most likely first class), the weight of the package and the date you'll be shipping the package.

An etopps card in a bubble-lined mailer is three ounces. You pay a few nickels more to cover the delivery confirmation expense which is well-worth the price in the long-run if you get someone saying they haven't received their package from you yet. When you plug in this information, you click a confirm button to get to the payment page and it tells you how much will be deducted from your paypal account for the shipping label.

When you click the Pay button, another window pops open to print the label. After clicking print, you have yourself a shipping page that can be cut out with scissors and taped to the package. I highly recommend purchasing shipping label pages that has one label you can peel out per page rather than two labels per page because the print out also provides a receipt of the transaction including the delivery confirmation number which is good to have for your records.

I use internetfolks.com to provide me with these labels and you can buy them in quanitity of 100. Trust me: after using scissors and shipping tape to cut out and stick on these shipping labels a few dozen times, having the luxury of peeling off freshly-printed labels that saves you time is well worth the price of those labels.

When applying the label whether they are from shipping label pages or from plain paper, I recommend applying the label on top of where the mailer flap is sealed. It's an extra level of protection and let's the buyer know whether or not the shipment has been tampered with.

If you get a multiple-card order and the shipment weighs more than 13 ounces, you have to bring the shipment into a post office to mail it. You cannot just stick it in a mailbox. I made the mistake of waiting in line just to hand over shipments that I had paid the night before via paypal. Don't be like me: walk past the long holiday lines and tell the post office clerk what you have in your hands has been paid for already and they'll tell you where to place the packages.

So this is another advantage: by paying for the packages at home you don't have to wait in line at the post office.

In sum, shipping is the least exciting aspect of being an ebay seller but by following a few professional steps and saving time by printing out shipping labels via paypal, it's not such a bad thing and your buyers will notice this.

Gearing Up For The Holidays

Unless you live under a rock, you're aware that Black Friday and Cyber-Monday are approaching fast. The theory is retailers are poised to get out of the red while consumers are forming lines after sitting down for turkey to get the sweetest deals.

Online, Cyber-Monday (12/1) is supposed to be a reaction by consumers who will have searched high and low for deals from Friday through Sunday without finding what they're looking for, sleep off their frustration and wake up Monday morning to surf the internet and find better deals than their local brick-and-mortars.

Can you guess I'm not buying this either?

The whole Black-Friday/Cyber-Monday/holiday shopping thing has already started on ebay. Over the last two years I've had more sales on Thanksgiving than the day after or on the Monday after Thanksgiving.

In preparation for this time, here are a few questions to see if you're ready for this time period:

• Do your Buy-It-Now listings have best offers?
• Have you set parameters for your best offers?
• Are your margins enough for the prices you're asking (if you're using BINs)?
• Are you offering anything other than a lower price to buyers?
• Are you selling Obama?
• If you have more than one of a card in a BIN listing, does this match your inventory?
• Are you buying etopps Baseball?
• If you are using auction-format listings, are they ending on the right day and the right time of day?

Obama: Spike-Sleeper

If you haven't figured it out already, The Spikes of 2002 will never happen again.

If you haven't figured it out already, The Spikes of 2006 thanks to the fantasy games of baseball and football probably will most likely not happen again.

And if you haven't already figured it out, we're in a one-card spike right now: the Allen and Ginter Presidential Candidate Barack Obama.

Spikes do not happen that often anymore in etoppsland thanks to pumping and dumping and less seldomly, heavy ownership/accumulation by one or more etoppers.

I'm trying to recall when was the last time we had a one-card spike that occurred at least 6+ months afterwards (excluding cards of players that have been offered as an autograph).

I think it was the 2001 Albert Pujols. His spike did not occur until 2003.

There should be a name for this etopps phenomenon: spike-sleeper.

Which card will be next? It's either sleeping or it hasn't been issued yet.

Learn From This Ebay Seller: Waxpackcity

A few years ago in my search for picking up a Big Ben etopps auto before Super Bowl XL, I stumbled upon an ebay seller who had sold one of these autos for a decent price. I looked at his other listings but none of them were etopps autos. Instead they were high-end sports cards, all with buy-it-now prices and subtitles under the titles of all of the active listing. Almost every subtitle ended with the same words: Don't Wait.

What made this seller's listings so appealing was the homework he did. He uses two third-party ebay search services that allows him to dig deep into ebay's completed listings - terapeak and price miner.

In the subtitle he will include what the card sold for in the past and his buy-it-now will be around 40-50% less. I keep this seller as one of my favorites because he gets to me even if the past sale of a card occurred 6-8 months ago. Without clicking on his listings, I can read the title and subtitle for all of his listings and there's usually one or two which tempt me.

I've saved him as a favorite all this time because even after two years, his business model works of ebay, he's successful and he's got a good source of inventory.

You don't have to look far to find his inventory source. It's ebay. He's nearing 5K 100% positive feedback. And this feedback is not from selling alone. What I do to sober up from a listing that looks tempting is I peruse his feedback from sellers who sold him the cards he's currently listing just to see what he paid for them.

When you do this, you can see who really bought the steals. You may have to go through a few pages of feedback to find the card you want but you'll see that the margins for this seller is there.

With all due respect to one particular etopps member who low-balls many listings, waxpackcity is a high-end moemule. They both do what they do well.

Got Barack?

We want to make money from etopps.

We want to buy the cards low and sell them high.

And now there's a card that can give you this.

Thanks to the election of our 44th President, Barack Obama.

If you have a Barack Obama in-hand card, now is the time to sell. At your (fixed) price and by offering free shipping you get the free subtitle below the listing title.

If you have the Barack Obama in-port, sell it as well but just be prepared if the buyer has no clue about etopps and just wants the card.

And kudos to all of you who took the risk of buying this card on the secondary market when it was under $40 in hopes of doubling your money. Because now you can.

Etopps 2.0, Prepping Your Inventory, Football and Ebay's Lastest Changes

I received an email from Mark, telling me that etopps will involve Topps' new Chief Digital Officer in the review of the etopps website for upgrading after completing the integration with cardtarget.

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I love this time of year: summer is waning, baseball's playoffs are getting closer and football season is less than two weeks away.

You already know full well which etopps baseball in-hands are selling. If those players aren't on a potential playoff team, I would limit my inventory on those players. If they are on a playoff team, stock extras in case one of them ends up the hero of a game or playoff series.

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Even though football is heating up but don't be suprised if not that much sells before the season except for Adrian Peterson. Trigger your listings to end Sunday either after the end of the second game or some time deep into Sunday Night's game.

A player's (rookie) card performs better in the off season if they had a great season than other cards and this lengthy selling opportunity ends when the new season starts, when all bets are off.

For example: Larry Johnson in 2006 and Adrian Peterson in 2007.

And sometimes a player's rookie card takes off after a great first game. I had 5 Carson Palmer rookie cards at the beginning of the 2006 football season. By the end of the first game, someone had bought all 5 due to Palmer's performance in that game.

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I would try to use the recent changes introduced by ebay to your advantage. They do not go into effect until September 16th, two weeks into the football season.

Whatever you have listed for store, shift to the flat 35 cent fixed price, even as lots, sets, graded or autographed in-hands. While you eat more fees at the end of the listings, you don't pay anything if your listings do not sell. Since the sell through rate on ebay for in-hands are not more than 40% (meaning the odds of selling an in-hand is less than 4 out of 10 times you list it), you're saving something if your cards do not sell the first time around.

If you're not getting some kind of discount for final value fees by now, something is wrong with the way you're selling whether it's high shipping fees, slow handling time or simply ignoring buyers other than their paypal emails.

While I like ebay's favor with fixed price, it puts auctions on the sidelines, the way of determining fair value for an item on ebay such as an in-hand. Maybe this is why etopps never gave us the option to sell in-port cards using Buy-It-Now or fixed.

Finding Your "On" Button, Poll Results, Topps Town

At each National I've been to, I have volunteered at the etopps booth to help sell in-hands. At each one, I have trained newbie volunteers who have never sold an etopps in-hand. I would give them a crash course, offering pointers and encouraging them to shadow me while I work with customers (in other words, I would make it look easy).

After a certain point, the trainee would try to work with customers on their own. While I would keep a grin on my face as I shadowed the volunteer, occasionally I would cringe inside knowing all too well what's it like to do this for the first time and seeing how nervous the volunteer would be with customers.

If you're not used to working with the public, it can be nerve-wracking. It's not supposed to be easy. If it is to you, consider yourself lucky. Give yourself time and be patient with yourself.

When selling in-hands or doing anything with the public, it helps if you can find (and press) your "on" button or be wearing your game face. The challenge is to find this within you when you're in a situation you may not be comfortable in.

Those new volunteers at the National would show signs of relief with their own selling by their third customer and seem more confident by the fifth customers.

If you're doing this for the first time and you're as nervous with your first customer as your tenth, don't continue. This may not be your thing to do, after all. If there are others around you who are selling etopps cards (like at the National), I would recommend asking them to critique what you're doing.

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Poll Results

Thanks if you voted in the autograph polls.

Each poll had landslide results:
Best Autograph Offering: Tim Lincecum
Biggest Surprise: Allen & Ginter Prince Fielder
Worst Autograph Offering: Fred Lewis

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Finally, Topps is promoting their online platform to kids as "Topps Town."

I noticed at the All-Star Game Fanfest, the Topps booth was called Topps Town.

I wonder if Michael Eisner had something to do with this.

Here is info about the site from the "about Topps Town" link.

ToppsTown™ is a virtual sports-themed world where children can play games, collect and trade virtual Topps cards.

How does it work?

ToppsTown™ is a world fueled by players entering codes, receiving virtual cards, trading and playing games. No material cards or money are used in ToppsTown™. Players create an Avatar and are assigned their own Clubhouse. Players acquire codes, either through new packs of Topps trading cards, or through promotional avenues such as advertisements, sporting events or food packaging materials. They then enter the codes on the ToppsTown™ website, where they receive a set amount of virtual cards. These cards will be used to trade, collect and play games.

Trading Cards – Players can trade any card they like. They can offer up cards for trade, or request players they'd like. It's up to the individual trader to accept or deny trades. No money or material goods are involved.

Collecting Cards – Trading cards are collected and stored online in a virtual Binder. They can be viewed at any time, front or back. They will be saved in the Binder until the next card season of the particular sport starts.

Playing Games – In several games you can select a particular player to help you. For example, when playing Extreme Batting Practice, picking a player with a better bat control will increase your chances of scoring more points.

ToppsPoints – Are used to purchase additional items for Avatars and participants' Clubhouses.

Who is ToppsTown™ for?

ToppsTown™ is designed for all ages 6-up.

Why ToppsTown™?

ToppsTown™ was created to gets kids more involved in the safe and fun world of trading cards. Over the years, collecting and trading cards has diminished. We're hoping that our new generation of "cyberkids" can carry on the tradition, whether online or with actual cards.

Is it safe?

Yes. Names are all made up. There is no direct contact between players. Trading is a yes-or-no proposition.

Does it cost anything to join ToppsTown™?

ToppsTown™ is free to play, although collecting more codes through the purchase of actual cards will enable players to collect and trade more virtual cards.

Ebay Selling Strategies - After Getting Paid

I added a couple of links in the right column, one for the secondary market options and one under Connections.

Ioffer.com is a website that's been around since 2002. They have a "make me an offer" negotiating format. Think ebay's fixed price with best offer. You have the choice of having an asking price or simply ask for an offer. There are no listing fees but the site takes a small percentage out of completed sales. I checked out the site and typed in the word "etopps." I was surprised there are quite a few in-hands listed.

I have been reading The Brill Report for at least a couple of years now. I consider this blog the pulse of the hobby, covering new releases, new products, significant changes with manufacturers in the hobby and deals to be had online. When he issued his report on Thursdays, he would usually have a blurb about the upcoming etopps autograph offerings. But now that he posts only once a week (Mondays), he no longer gives any mention to etopps. Earlier today, I emailed him about this etopps blog and offered to provide him any updates for his weekly report to keep his readership in the know.

The following is what I do after I get paid. It's just a guideline based on my experience. There are plenty of other ways but this is what has worked for me.

More times than not I receive payment for an in-hand (or a set of in-hands) via paypal. I usually send the card the following business day in a bubble-mailer. I already have printed out sheets of labels that have my return address information on them and with a sharpie pen I scribble the buyer's name on the mailer.

If I get payment via money order or check, I track the time the buyer's email that indicates they will mail their payment. If I do not receive payment after a week or so (more if from Canada), I will email the buyer again.

If I do not hear from them after at least a day or if payment hasn't been received via paypal after 7 days, I will file an unpaid dispute on ebay for the etopps card. Sometimes this works and the buyer pays pretty fast. After 7 days if I still do not have payment, I close the dispute, get my final value fee for the card credited to my account, put the bidder on my blocked list and the bidder gets a "strike" against them from ebay (two strikes and they're out).

For the bubble mailer, I usually use size #000 which fits up to three etopps cards snuggly. If I am printing out a shipping label via paypal for the transaction, I apply at least part of the label where the mailer is sealed, ensuring (optimistically) that the package will not be opened while in transit.

I also email the buyer, clicking the reply button for the payment receipt email from paypal that reads:
Your payment has been received.

Thank you very much for your business.

No Brainer Bargains strives to ensure customer satisfaction with timely communication, fast shipping and satisfaction guaranteed.

Your item will be shipped tomorrow and we will leave you feedback shortly.

Please visit our website for clothing, collectibles and consumer electronic components.

Best regards,
Derek
No Brainer Bargains

More times than not I receive positive feedback from the buyer.

Recently I received an email from someone who purchased an etopps in-hand card from me. He said he had not received the card. The card sold for about $10 with shipping. It sold near the beginning of this month and the buyer did not email me until more than 2 weeks after making payment via paypal.

My rule of thumb is if an item I sell on ebay goes for at least $15, I will print out a shipping label via paypal to cover delivery confirmation. If it's under $15, I will hand-write the buyer's mailing address on a bubble-mailer and will put the stamps on myself. I decided on $15 as the line-in-the-sand because that's as much as I'm willing to eat if the buyer claims they never got the card.

To get labels specifically for paypal, just do a search on ebay and you can find at least a few sellers who offer half-page sticker labels designed for shipping via paypal. Buying these will save you a lot of time that you will otherwise have to use in cutting out the label from the print-out and taping this paper label to the packaging.

I keep the remaining part of the label in a shoebox near my in-hands and write the name of the item I shipped so in case I have to refer back to a shipment, I can always look through my pile to get all the details needed for the buyer.

Back to the buyer who emailed me: I told them to wait another five days just in case the mail was slow getting to its destination. The buyer agreed to wait and I emailed them again on the day I would check back with them. The buyer said the card never arrived so I refunded them fully.

Luckily this has happened no more than a few times a year. Rarely do I have someone inform me they have never received what I sent them and even rarer when I'm in this situation without a tracking number.

At what price point do you print out a shipping label for delivery confirmation?

Super Bowl XLII: Upset Schmupset - Take Advantage of the Market Reaction

After an upset as big as last night's Super Bowl, it's easy to see how the market is reacting to these two teams. Now is the time to do a few things: sell Giants, buy Patriots and get ready for baseball.

That's right, buy Patriots.

Why? Because I think a team that was undefeated during the regular season and had one of the best statistical seasons of any NFL team is a team worth collecting even if it did not win the big one. Take advantage of the dumping that's happening right now ( read buy low) for March when all 2007 football playoff cards are available for delivery.

Sell Giants if you still have them. It was the most watched Super Bowl ever. Think of all the kids (like my 5-year old son) who have decided that the Giants are now their favorite team and now their parents are shopping on ebay right now for what to buy them.

Regarding the changes that will be introduced on ebay, while some of the changes are hard to swallow at first, the one thing that seems to be overlooked is free gallery. Statistically, this helps the sell-through rate for any item. In other words, you'll get more eyeballs and the more gallery listings of in-hands, the more newbies to in-hands.

Since most etopps cards do not sell that high, having a higher final value fee is not going to take that much coin out of your net. Focus more on buying low than the fees.

I'm glad there will be feedback changes. I have no problem with it. If you sell in-hands and do the following, your feedback should go up as well your Detailed Seller Ratings (DSR):

• Charge reasonable shipping. If shipping is your lowest DSR, offer free shipping and watch it go up. If you offer a card at a fixed price with best offer and it's over $50, I would recommend free shipping to sweeten the deal.
  
• Always give positive feedback after receiving payment.
  
• Ship the in-hand no later than the day after receiving payment in a bubble-lined mailer.
  
• Email the buyer after receiving payment to cover the following: acknowledge payment, thank them for choosing you as a seller, let them know the card will be sent tomorrow and positive feedback will be given. (I also encourage them to visit my ebay store for in-hands relevant to what they just bought from me. In marketing, this is the up-sell.)
  

On another note, recently I received emails in response to this blog asking me how to sell an in-hand set. The first place I would try is the etopps message board and sell it in the "Sales" category. It's easy to register on this MB if you're not yet. You can get a lot of information about etopps from this board and it can be quite entertaining.

When posting a for-sale thread, start at a price you're willing to accept at a minimum and give parameters: payment method (most likely paypal), how long you will accept offers, your email address (since some bidders may not want to reveal what they're offering and would prefer to remain anonymous since it is nobody's business). It will be your job to post the highest offer to keep others informed.

If this doesn't work for you, there's always ebay. If not ebay you can try a few other auction sites: overstock, onlineauction, and blujay. The last two have very low fees (if any).

What Are You Buying Now?

If you're selling etopps in-hands of New England Patriots and New York Giants, what are you doing with the money you're making?

If you plan to buy more in-port and get them delivered from etopps prior to the Super Bowl, the window of time to get the cards via UPS Ground is closing depending on where you live from Delaware. I'm lucky that I live in the same zone as their warehouse so UPS Ground means 2 days max delivery time for me.

If you haven't yet, buy baseball right now while the Super Bowl hype is building.

You can still get good prices on 2007 Baseball because once the Super Bowl is over, pitchers and catchers start reporting to Spring Training within two weeks. This is not a lot of time to get all of your baseball ducks in place.

So who do you buy? Since performance is one of the main factors that drives demand for a player, it's tempting to think this demand starts in April on Opening Day. In reality, demand during the off-season is based on performance of the previous season.

For example, in 2006 Nomar Garciaparra had a good year in his first year with the Dodgers. I bought one of his cards under $5 around this time last year. I listed his card in the beginning of March and sold it within 24 hours for $25. In fact, the off-season is ripe to sell players who had a good previous season until Opening Day (unless they get injured during spring training).

There's a degree of risk if you buy players you or anyone predicts will have a good year. I'm tempted to conclude that Albert Pujols will have a good year after what happened last season, paralleling A-Rod's stats between 2006 and 2007. At least this is what my crystal ball tells me.

Sell Giants Football Cards Now

Now is the time to sell any New York Giants etopps in-hand cards.

Anyone who sells Patriots cards have been doing this since before they beat the Giants in the last regular-season game. But now is the time to react to the newest trend: New York Giants football. I already listed their 2004 team card and Eli Manning's rookie card. I will probably list other Giants non-etopps cards and sports memorabilia.

So the question you may be asking is do you sell asap or wait to list so it ends right before the Super Bowl? My advice is to sell asap: there will always be those who will want to flip whatever they buy right now of the Giants. Your sell-through rate (chance of selling) will be higher now before the hype machine starts with the Patriots being the best team in NFL history (which they may well be). To be on the safe side, you can try both ways. Let me know which worked better for you.