Enough Is Enough: Join the newly formed Facebook Group, The Etopps Watch Group

I posted the following on the etopps message board this evening:

In response to the first etopps telephone chat, Mark Sapir and I have worked together and reached agreement on the process to fight back against etopps sellers who continue to misrepresent the card's print runs.

We have also reached agreement on the wording of the email that will be sent to ebay to shut down their listing(s). The email will have contact information for several people in Topps, including their General Counsel.

I feel strongly that etoppers who are against these sellers should unite to show strength in numbers. You did this with me when I posted an ebay guide a few years back to warn ebayers about this. Though this guide hasn't done much and is not the first thing a potential buyer will go to if they want to purchase an etopps in-hand.

I've created a group in facebook called the Etopps Watch Group. Since ebay ids will be discussed, I don't think this MB is appropriate.

I'm not sure if this link will work because I'm still trying to get the hang of using facebook.

If you have trouble with the above link, email me through this message board and I will send you an invite to the facebook group.

Since I'm blocked from facebook at work, please be patient if I do not send you an invite until later in the day.

On facebook, I will provide more information about the group, the process of how etopps sellers will be stopped and together I hope we can find these listings/sellers to shut them down.

And yes, Mark has my support in this and I hope you will too.

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.

From Ebay: Etopps In-Port Auctions Are A Violation

After the last post, I phoned ebay in hopes of getting a hold of someone.

I got through and explained the situation, the difference between in-hand and in-port, that these are freakin' sports cards, that this will effect hundreds of people who sell these cards, that I have no control over the template for the listing.

It didn't matter.

Bottom line is these are digitally deliverable goods and should be listed as classified ads not as auctions according to their policy (which has been in effects for months).

So until etopps adjusts the template, I would end my listings if I were you. You can try to get away with not being detected until Sunday but I don't see what the gain is to being a sitting duck.

But there's a problem. No one is going to pay $9.95 to list an etopps card. While you can name your price and it's a buy-it-now. This listing fee is absurb.

So what's gong to happen? Will we be able to continue to list etopps cards as auctions? Will they be listed as classified ads? Is this the last straw between etopps and ebay? Or is it time for the Big Brown Truck?

As TO once said, "Bring your popcorn."

Sellers Beware: In-Port Ebay Listing Violation

I listed a bunch of in-port etopps cards for 7 days to end Saturday night. One of them is a 2008 Steve Slaton. It had bids since being listed last Saturday.

It was just pulled by ebay.

I got an email with the subject line: MC018 eBay Listing Removed: Miscategorization of Digitally Delivered Goods.

Here's what the email says:
You recently listed the following auction-style listing:

400004427345 - 1 - Steve Slaton 2008 - etopps


The listing was removed because it violated the eBay Miscategorization of Digitally Delivered Goods policy. The violation occurred when you included the following information in your listing:

This auction is for an in-portfolio card. This card will be transferred to your eTopps portfolio.






We notified members who placed bids on the item that the listing has been canceled.

To ensure that members can find what they're looking for quickly and easily, items need to be listed in the appropriate category. Sellers need to choose the category that most accurately describes their item.

*****Please read this important information to help you bring your future listings into compliance.

Digital goods are often reproduced at little to no cost to the seller. On eBay, this creates the potential for Feedback Manipulation. To preserve the integrity of the Feedback system, all goods that can be digitally downloaded or transferred electronically (including e-mail delivery) must be listed using the Classified Ad format in the Everything Else>Information Products category only.

Please note that if the appropriate changes are not made, it may lead to the indefinite suspension of your account.*****

For more information on the eBay policy, please visit:

http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/listing-categorization.html

Needless to say this is not a good sign. Anyone listing an in-port is a sitting duck. This reminds me of when people were getting notices of listing violations when cardtarget was listing cards for people's ebay/etopps accounts for CTM and people were getting suspended from ebay.

I forwarded this email to Mark Sapir and hopefully he'll be able to contact ebay or be able to make an adjustment to the listing category for etopps cards or something so no one else will have their listings pulled and get the slap on the hand that I got.

Strange how this pandora's box gets opened right before Halloween.

My Favorite Favorites For Etopps Autographs

I have found the best prices for etopps autographed cards by using certain search terms on ebay which you can save as a favorite and then get emailed if there are any new listings with these search terms for up to a year.

Here's my list of search terms for etopps autographs:

etopps auto
etopps autograph
etopps signed
etopps autographed
e-topps auto
e-topps autograph
e-topps autographed

Try them and see what comes up.

After you do a search for each one, there's a link next to the search term called Save This Search. You will be given the option to have the search results emailed to you and you can choose for how long. If you subscribe for six months, days before it expires you will get an email from ebay asking you to re-subscribe. It's a great little tool to have.

Idea For Serializing Autographs; Solution to Send & Run on Ebay

If there is a person at etopps who writes the serial number from the square sticker on the back of each autograph on the respective certificate of authenticity, why can't they also write "001/100" somewhere on the COA as well?

This would make the COA more valuable and create a little more demand for certain serial numbers (ie, the player's jersey number).

* * *

It happened again last night on ebay. A potential buyer for one of my buy-it-now/best offer listings emailed me via ebay. Minutes after receiving the email I emailed him back. More than 12 hours after I replied to his email, I haven't heard a word from him.

Similar to hit & run, this is send (email) & run. I'm convinced that ebay buyers assume sellers will not reply to an email until 24 hours after the email has been sent.

Couldn't ebay create an icon that shows up next to your ebay id that indicates logged onto ebay? It could be anything, as simple as a green traffic light so buyers can assume sellers will not return emails. I'm always surprised by how many buyers who do respond to an email I send them through ebay compliment me on how fast I respond.

Bottom line: customer service should not be perceived as optional. It should be a given.

How To Get 5-Star Ratings From Me For An In-Hand On Ebay

Thanks for voting in the poll about which is your favorite in-port baseball design. The clear winner was 2001.

From the message board over the years while in-port designs held certain opinions, there have been threads to descibe how well a particular year's design looks in-hand. What comes to mind is the 2004 design: some couldn't stand it as an in-port while others preferred how the design looked in-hand. Cast your vote in which is your favorite in-hand design by year.

***

For one penny, we are back up and running to list in-port cards starting officially as of 1pm est today. I can't believe it took this long to reach this solution but what do I know. It's a programming issue so building in a penny cost to the listing template could be like rocket science, especially if no one at etopps management has looked under the hood of the template since it was first built.

I listed some cards when it became available and noticed that the cards I listed were going up on ebay within 15 minute intervals. I also noticed they updated the optional picture gallery as being free rather than claiming the old cost of thirty-five cents.

***

I've focused a lot on selling in-hands on this blog. For a change, I want to give some kind of perspective for the other side of in-hands: buying them.

Here's what I expect when I buy an in-hand on ebay:

• The condition of the card is in genuine mint condition as stated in the listing. If not, the listing should clearly state if it is not and (possibly) for what reason.
  
• The cost of shipping is not ridiculous (i.e., over $3).
• The picture looks like the condition of the card I will be receiving, not a copy and paste job from cardtarget or etopps of the in-port picture of the card. In other words, I want to see what I'm getting.
  
• Feedback from the seller is given by the time the seller has packaged the card for shipment.
• Delivery confirmation is used via paypal so I know when the card is shipped.
• Shipping should be no more than 48 hours from the time I pay for the card and when it is shipped. Anything more than 48 hours without an explanation by the seller is inexcusable unless I purchase the card in the late afternoon on a Friday and the shipping is done the following Monday.
  
• An email from the seller acknowledging payment, when the card will be shipped and thanking me for their business. (Pet peeve is a seller who does not communicate anything)
• The card is shipped in a bubble-lined mailer
• If my mailing address is hand-written, I expect the mailer to write my address exactly as I have provided it through paypal (ie, mistaking the letter S for the number 5 in my street address).

When all of this goes well, I am happy to give the seller 5-star ratings for each category. Otherwise, I'm not going to be 100% satisfied.

If I forgot anything that you expect as a buyer of an in-hand on ebay, please add your comments.

Polls And Thoughts On The Listing Freeze

Thanks to all of you for contributing to the poll. Three choices stood out as blunders: allowing multiple ports, not realizing ebay's new shipping policy which we still experience as of today, and not publicizing in-hand quantity for each card taken for delivery.

Since 2008 Baseball IPOs are complete, I've created a new poll: which is your favorite in-port etopps baseball design from 2001 to 2008. From what I've read over from the message board over the years, it's apparent that opinions can differ between an in-port and an in-hand design for any given year.

While we continue to wait for etopps to fix the listing problem, one thing I've noticed is the number of people who have started threads about this issue on the message board who hardly ever post. They don't read the message board judging by how many have started threads, inquiring if anyone else is having the same problem they are having.

Something else that's startling to me is the current moderator posting over the weekend and saying he has not been the one deleting threads.

I'm sure whoever is deleting threads is thinking of someone's best interest but I'm not exactly sure whose interest they have in mind. As posted in so many ways on the message board, not giving active participants a say in what gets deleted but instead moderating covertly is a step back in improving this message board.

Let's keep our fingers crossed that this will get fixed soon (and improved to include fixed-price as an option so we can take advantage of ebay's upcoming 30-day fixed price listings), the cardtarget/etopps merge is successful and the start of examining how to improve the message board and how etopps interacts with it current membership in a more timely and transparent manner.

Wish I Had Written This Blog Post

Ever find something written better than what you just did?

There's a blog about e-commerce and ebay by Randy Smythe called My Blog Utopia!

I recently read this post by Randy and afterwards wished I had written it myself.

It's about getting ready for the 4th financial quarter. Think etopps in-hands when he talks about getting your ducks in place for the upcoming holiday season and how to approach the new pricing structure on ebay.

Give it a read and let me know what you think.

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.

****

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.

****

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.

****

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.

What I Learned From Ebay Live

I'll break down this entry into three areas: the good, the bad, and the ugly.

First, the Good:

• In the vendor section, VeriSign was offering anyone with a paypal account an extra layer of protection for their account: https://idprotect.verisign.com for free. I chose the wallet card. After logging into your account, you will go to a page on paypal that asks you to enter your Verisign security code. And here's the kicker: you press a button on the card and the security code shows up. The next time you log in, you press the button on the card and the code disappears and another shows up. In other words: you're paypal account cannot be hacked into. While this service is not free online, I highly recommend it.
• I found what I was looking for. The information sessions I attended were helpful and insightful (blogging, law, taxes). One of the sessions inspired me about my ecommerce business model. The majority of the notes I took were either websites or email addresses.
  
• There were a lot of classes that offered everything from the basics of ebay to advanced practices. There was never a time slot that did not have something I wanted to attend. It was more about what to give up. In hindsight the one session I wish I had gone was the collectibles roundtable.
• In more than one session, I was warned about something that can be related to etopps: pricing. A great way to ruin your business selling etopps cards on ebay is lowering your price in reaction to another seller selling the same card 5 cents less than you. How many times have you lowered the price of your etopps in-hand listings based on your competition? What if you offered something else to go along with the in-hand like a free card stand or free shipping or a checklist of other cards you have for sale from the team of the player that the buyer bought? In other words, how do you stand out from the crowd?
  

Now, the Bad:

• Before the Keynote Address: this occurred Friday morning at 9AM in a giant room at the convention center. Ebay, a multi-billion dollar company offered measley donuts, coffee and pepsi beverages at tables in the back that felt more like a bone was thrown at those in attendance than breakfast.
  
• There was something too corporate about the loud PA system and jumbotron stimulation getting pumped into the room before the 9AM keynote address, like audio/visual coffee.
• During the Keynote Address there was a suspense in the air about what would be said--correction: I felt suspense. I wanted Lorrie to say whoever is in this room gets a listing fee discount for the rest of the year. That would have been cool. Instead, it was a lot of patting on the back to the community, how the DSRs are working and an extension of the changes that have already taken place. What I realized is ebay is a platform we pay to make money. What you may not realize is you are also paying for the privilege of having so much eyeball traffic. There are now 80 million registered users worldwide.
• Later that morning, I inquired about a line of people standing in front of one of the many ebay booths. The two head honchos of ebay were doing a meet and greet. Guess who didn't get in this line.

Last, the Ugly:

• There was a roped-off room that sold ebay merchandise: shirts, caps, ebay live exclusive clothing, backpacks, golf jackets and (my favorite) bobblehead dolls of the comic-book characters created for ebay live that were associated with the ebay live pins given out. It just didn't make sense no matter how many times I walked into this area to buy anything that said ebay on it: why help a multi-billion dollar company advertise?
• At almost every information session I attended, I heard the theme song from the Batman tv show from the 60s. This audio cue meant another ebay live pin was available that had not been available yet. And every time that song played, there were at least a few people who would rush out to get them while the song disrupted the lecture. In the hallways, I sensed frowns by ebay employees when I politely turned down pins that were handed to me.
  
• But the worst pins were the ones offered by a few vendors that had blinking lights on them. Some attendees insisted on wearing these seizure-inducing lapels on their lanyards. When I saw this, I knew this would probably be my last ebay live convention.

Within and Without Ebay

I had a situation on ebay recently in which the winning bidder of a live auction had emailed me through ebay, saying in so many words that they had made a mistake, bidding on my item by accident and didn't want it. I wrote back saying all they needed to do was retract their bid and I included the link on ebay to do so. The real problem was the bid was placed within 12 hours of the end of the listing and the bidder couldn't retract the bid. There were already about 10 bids placed so I didn't think it was wise to pull the auction.

When the auction ended, this bidder won the auction. I emailed asking the bidder to pay at least my final value fee since I was the one paying for their mistake. But I didn't receive a response.

I thought about giving the person negative feedback. I considered opening up a dispute to give them a strike. I waited for their response. A day passed and and still no reply, as if their apology meant they were off the hook and could move on.

I came close to sending them a "now-you-lookie-here" toned email. But instead, I decided to open up a dispute, wait the required seven days and then close it to get my final value fee and they would get a strike against them.

I went to the dispute link and drilled down to what I was looking for with all of the options they had. I decided to go exploring and to see if I could find something else that would be helpful.

And I did. I discovered I could easily close the transaction if the buyer and I decide not to move forward. The option is called "the buyer and I mutually agree not to complete the transaction." I closed the transaction this way and the winning bidder got an email from ebay so they could confirm this was true, giving reason why they didn't want the item and I got my fees refunded.

****

The best alternative to ebay for selling etopps in-hands is not online. With some diligence, planning and salesmanship, selling in-hands at card shows can be quite successful.

In the upcoming weeks, I will cover the many aspects to executing a profitable (and fun) card show selling experience.

You Can Learn A Lot From The Fine Print

Store this link as a reference or as a favorite:
http://pages.ebay.com/help/contact_us/_base/index_4.html?item=&topic=index_4&continue=Continue+%3E

It is for reporting a listing violation on ebay.

It takes a few clicks on ebay to drill down to this link but it'll be worthwhile.

Over the weekend I saw quite a few listing violations. What surprised me from the drop-down list was being able to report a seller for copying the text or photographs from your listing. What surprised me even more was someone had done this to one of my lisitings. When reporting this kind of issue, you have to show word for word how your listing text was used (which is just a matter of copy and paste).

I had no idea about all of the possible listing violations on ebay until I went through this drop down menu.

So in case you don't know, here's rundown of some of them (and I'm sure you've seen a few of these)

Copying of your listings
Report your picture or description was copied or linked without permission
Someone copied text or pictures from another website or ebay user

Counterfeits and copyright violations
Potential trademark infringements
Bootleg and counterfeit media
Mod chips, game enhancers, and boot discs
Enabling duplication of copy-protected materials
Items or descriptions that encourage infringement
Other potential infringement
Ebay item infringes on your intellectual property rights
Fraudulent listings

Prohibited or Banned Items
(too many to list)

Listing Policy Violations
Circumvention of ebay fees (ie, offering merchandise for sale outside ebay)
Compilation and informational media (ie, pyramid schemes)
Excessive shipping and handling
Featured Listings (online auction enhancement software, weight loss products or services)
Feedback Related (offering to sell or purchase feedback)
Inappropriate Links and Credits
Inappropriate Seller Terms (Item listed for pre-sale that does not meet ebay guidelines)
Item Location Misrepresentation
Keyword spamming (Inappropriate or excessive use of terms not relevant to the item)
Misleading title (Intentionally misleading or deceptive titles - ie, using cardtarget voluntary stats for # of inhands available to the public)
No item offered for sale (invisible or intangible items, item description includes comments not relevant to the item or sale)

Other Listing Policy Violations
My favorites of the eight sub-types:
Miscategorized items
Listing more than 15 identical items
Hateful, discriminatory, or racial language in an item description

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?

Ebay Selling Strategies - React or The Long Tail

So many in-hands ... so little time to figure out which ones will give you maximum profits. By the time the card is ready for delivery, the player's "it" factor has died down, it's that player's off-season and you'll be selling in a buyer's market.

So what's the point? Why bother? Keep your cards in a monster box under your bed for x months before the season starts again, right? Nothing will sell. Waste of money with all those listing fees, right?

This is exactly what your competition wants you to think: inside the box.

The famous writer James Joyce was once asked what it takes to be a writer. He said exile, patience and cunning.

If you have the latter two, you will find a way out of this box.

Some of the easy ways of knowing on-line what to sell when are:

• ebay's completed listings search engine - here you get a good idea of what's selling over the past two weeks. But remember, just because it's not listed doesn't mean it won't sell. If you find listings that didn't sell of the card you want to list, look at these listings and look at each one to see why they didn't sell - poor listing quality, low seller feedback rating, etc.
• Beckett.com's home page - they list the top ten selling players in the sports card industry. It changes each week and will give you an idea of who is selling. Of course not all of those players will be what you can sell but it is a good starting-off point.
• Read other message boards, get outside the etopps bubble and see what is selling.
• Follow the sports of the players you have in-hands. How well are they performing? Pick the best three and see if they sell.
• Significant event - Is someone breaking a record? Track that player and list when they are about to break it. The more significant the record the better(...unless they are alleged to be using steroids!). Also if a player is retiring, watch their cards spike. We saw this recently with Brett Favre cards.
  
• Playoffs & Finals - a player's performance will get more recognition and interest can peak for a player depending on how well they do. The MVP of a Sports' Finals is a sure-thing when it comes to selling their card as well as players who will awards for their performance.
• Follow the Hype machine - especially before a season of a sport begins, there's focus on who can/will be good in the upcoming season.
  

All of these ways have one thing in common: you are reacting to what the latest demand is. If you time your core listings right, you can do well but if you miss, you can see listing fees go up without anything to counter them. While watching the Super Bowl in 2005, for instance, I sold a bunch of Steelers in-hands during the fourth quarter and right after the game.

Another approach to take I call the low road: set up a wide enough net to appeal to just about anyone interested in the sports that you are selling cards.

In my ebay store, for instance, I have set up categories for each team in baseball and football so the buyer can easily maneuver through the left-side navigation area to find cards of their favorite team.

While the low road will cost more up-front to get a net as wide as you want, you will not need as much energy to keep up with all the trends going on in sports and sports collecting. Since etopps cards in-port are mostly cheap between 2002-2005, you can cast a very wide net to cover fan favorites of these years. You may not get many sales of one particular card but you can get accumulate sales from many different cards over time. In e-commerce, this is referred to as "The Long Tail." (click this term for the wikipedia explanation)

This is a lot easier with an ebay store now that ebay charges 3 cents per listing.

Probably the best way of selling in-hands is a combination of these two strategies.

Designing & Critiquing An Ebay Listing: Pricing

I'll break this up into two parts: pricing of the cards in the listing and shipping charges. For both, the choices you make will have an impact on how successful you will be in selling etopps cards on ebay.

For the listings, I'll break this down to three types of listings: auctions, fixed price and store.

Auction - you've got two approaches, the low road and the high road. If you want to make a profit, starting an auction listing at .99 is both risky and rewarding. You may not get the final price that will give you a profit from what you paid for the card at cost but you pay less upfront (now 15 cents) and your listing could attract more bidders than the same card starting at a higher asking price. It's something that is worth testing to see what works best for you.

Another good approach is using the Buy-It-Now offer. The bigger the discrepancy between the starting bid and the BIN offer, the more likely the potential buyer will take the low road which kills the BIN. A good combo may be a $9.99 starting bid with a $14.99 BIN. A nice incentive would be to have a subtitle offering free shipping if the buyer takes the BIN.

Fixed price - this is a good move especially when adding the Best Offer feature. I've made many sales this way. What's nice now is you can set the floor on offers to the price you want and automatically accept an offer over a certain price. For instance, I have a Mickey Mantle 1952 reprint at $150 fixed price with Best Offer. I can set a minimum for me to consider the offer for $100 and automatically accept any offer over $125. This is a great way to sell higher priced cards as well as autographed cards. Only downside to this is not all bidders are experienced with this method of buying and may not want the commitment of waiting for the seller to decide whether to take up their offer.

Another great part to the Best Offer option is Counter Offering. If I'm not happy with the offer, I can submit a counter offer. And in return, the buyer can submit a counter offer to my counter offer. In addition to both parties reaching an agreement in this haggling/negotiating process, going through this process is fun. I've had buyers who have gone through several series of counter-offers email me afterwards thanking me for negotiating with them.

Another good thing about Best Offer is setting the price of a newly-available in-hand. Rather than starting the auction at .99, why not start from the top with best offer. Ask for (half of) the sky and see how many offers you get. You have 48 hours to consider an offer so you can weigh in on which is the best.

Store - if you don't have a store, the short and long of this is it's similar to fixed price except the listings are below the core (auction, fixed price) on a search results page but the listing fee is quite cheap - 3 cents if listed below $25.

Over the last few years, more and more in-hand sellers have opened ebay stores to sell their cards and compete with one another on price. Just do a search for Derek Jeter's 2006 card. The difference sometimes between listings can be as slim as a penny.

There are also low-ball store listings prices for cards that hove a penny or more above CT's 7 day average. I used to scoop these up to replenish my inventory and get a sense of my competition's shipping process.

What I have noticed with low-ball store listing offers are less conscientiousness from these sellers. They don't communicate with the buyer even when I as the buyer inquiring about when the card was shipped because they take their sweet time shipping the card.

Ebay buyers are finicky. These low-ball offerings work only to a certain extent if the rest of the buying experience is less than desired. Buyers will look at the feedback and see how much of this feedback is from repeat customers.

As for shipping, your choice determines how you'll do.
The facts:

• The lower your shipping cost the slimmer your margins (between gross and cost)
• The lower your shipping cost, the more attractive will be your listing compared to another with the exact same asking price and higher shipping.
• The higher your shipping cost, the higher your margins but the lower your sales based on another card at the same asking price.
• To add to this, the higher your shipping cost, the lower will be the shipping Detailed Seller Rating on ebay's feedback which will eventually prevent you from getting a 5% Final Value Fee discount from ebay.

Find a cost for shipping somewhere in between and stick with it. Give a nice discount for multiple items to encourage in-hand shopping sprees. You can also give options for shipping both first-class and priority mail in case someone is buying an in-hand for a gift.

For autographed in-hands with the COA, I would charge a little extra than a regular in-hand because the weight is a little more. One in-hand weighs a little less than 3 ounces while the auto in-hand w/ COA is more than 3 and will be charged as 4 ounces.

If I left out something with pricing, please feel free to add your insight in the comments section below.

Designing & Critiquing An Ebay Listing: Item Description

As important as having a picture in a listing, having a quality item description is key to selling these cards. Even if you do not sell often, it is important to develop a handy template so it won't feel like you're "re-inventing the wheel" each time you set up a listing

A good way to develop one is to do a little research. Look at ebay listings. See which ones are selling. Read over their descriptions. Those who sell more than a few etopps in-hands already have the same language in each in-hand listing.

A good rule of thumb is your template should cover about 80% of your description so you would only have to adjust the remaining 20% for each listing.

In the 80%, your listing can stand out with a template design from Auctiva. It would be wise to describe what makes etopps cards special, their quality, their availability as well as other basics like your shipping and return policy. My policy is simple: 100% satisfaction guaranteed.

You may consider having a template for different sports or years. If you sell 2005 cards, for example, a template would make sense for to describe the Certificate of Issuance that are included with each card or 2004 cards with their total print run stamped on the back.

In summary, the template should be versatile enough to apply to most of your in-hands to save you time but it should have some thought behind it so it doesn't appear that it was slapped together.

The downside to templates is you run the risk of overlooking a typo or mispelling and having to go back to every listing you used with that template to correct the mistake. (I've been there. It sucks.)

Just remember, how you write your template will reflect what kind of seller you are. Will you give off a professional impression? Will you seem clueless? Friendly? Boring or asleep at the wheel? I love finding the ones who are asleep, the ones who list their in-hand(s) at 3AM on a Friday night after coming home from partying. That's how I won a BGS 10 LeBron rookie card for $40.

I think the impression you want to give is you're selling something that you like and believe the buyer will like as well.

Some of the best descriptions I've read for etopps in-hands start with one word that can set this tone: Wow! And that's what we want buyers of etopps in-hands to feel when they open the package we sent them. It's the feeling customers get at the National when they put an in-hand card in their hand. It's that expression on an 8-year old boy's face at a card show when they discover your table of in-hands and yell for their parent to come over.

The other 20% is where you plug in the player's name, year of the card, and possibly the total print run or serialized number. It may be helpful to place this information in a different colored font or in bold for buyers who are going through a few of your listings, making it easier on their eyes rather than having to read through your template each time to get the info they want.

Let's take a look now at the Ken Griffey Jr. listing's item description:

This is a card from 2006 Etopps of Ken Griffey Jr.. The card is #13 in the set. This card is serialed #/999 with the majority of them being in online portfolios. The card is also uncirculated and comes in the factory case and a baggy that is sent with the card from Etopps to keep the case from scratching.

Shipping

$2.25 for the first item and 50 cents each additional item.

Insurance

$50 coverage: $1.65

$100 coverage: $2.05

$150 coverage: $2.45

Insurance is optional on this item but I am not responsible for any uninsured packages.

Payments are to be received within 7 days of auctions closing. Failure to do so will result in negative feedback being given.

It covers most of the basic information you would cover in a template with the card information, shipping, insurance and payment policy spelled out pretty well in four sentences at the top. He shows he's going to ship this with its baggie and tells you why it will be included which is a nice touch.

Three things caught my eye besides the mispelling of serialized:

1. Writing what the number of the card is on the back doesn't really do much for the listing. I know this is standard for cardboard but not etopps listings. Anyone trying to collect the 2006 Baseball set will probably try to collect the online cards than the in-hands on ebay.
   
2. The card does not come in a factory case. This implies the case can be opened but should not. The word "factory" in a hobby listing refers to being sealed by the manufacturer and usually implies a case of something like hobby/retail boxes of cards or a hobby/retail box rather than an acrylic casing.
   
3. The seller gives a warning - payment in 7 days or negative feedback. As a buyer, I'm not keen on a seller that gives me ultimatums in their listings no matter how many times they've been burned in the past. Just mentioning negative feedback in a listing is threatening and pretty soon will be superfluous when ebay begins their no negative feedback to buyers policy in the near future.
   

The seller could probably do a lot more for the description to sell the card so I'm grading his description a B.

It would probably take him 5-10 minutes to beef it up a little based on the suggestions I've made. If I was selling this card I would say that Ken Griffey Jr.'s 2006 card is his best etopps card because of the photo of him with his baseball cap turned around: while he's all grown up, he's still a kid at heart. Wouldn't this be something the buyer could relate to?

To conclude, selling in-hands on ebay is competitive and by expecting the picture to sell your card for you as good as this one is not enough.

Give the buyer reason to do business with you besides pricing which is what I will cover next.

Designing & Critiquing An Ebay Listing: Picture(s)

To continue where I left off in designing and critiquing an ebay listing, it's time to focus on one of the most important aspects of listing on ebay and especially for etopps.

You're not going to go far selling etopps cards on ebay without having a picture of the card. I hate, when re-listing, I don't realize (for some reason) the picture for the listing doesn't show up so the card goes pictureless until I look at it (at the end of the listing) to see why it didn't have any bids.

Kudos to all of those ebayers over the years who have emailed me to tell me I've screwed up something in one of my listings to get them corrected.

Plain and simple you need to have a good picture for the listing. The encasements for in-hands are the worst thing about photographing them. It's probably a lot easier to have one scanned. But you cannot just use a cheap scanner like the one I have. If you do, you end up getting a blurry picture of the card while the hologram etopps sticker is in focus. For the Ken Griffey, Jr. listing, the seller gets an A+ for the quality of the scan.


The whole picture is in focus and shows what the card looks like with a high-quality scan.

If you're like me and choose to photograph the card with a digital camera, I highly recommend using Google's free software Picasa. It's very easy to use like most photography editing software.

The main problem with photographing an etopps card is the camera flash. All etopps in-hand cards have a refractor-like finish so adding additional light to the mix is challenging.

For any etopps card, you will probably need to take at least five pictures. Once you see them on the computer, you may need to go back and take more photos of the card to get it right. Oftentimes I check the viewing screen after the photo is taken to see how it looks. Many times I delete the photo, knowing already too much light from the flash bounces back.

Here are a few tips:

• Background: use a couch or someplace where you can have the card stand up straight on its own. Having anything around the card or any color pattern other than a solid color is distracting. You also don't want a background that will reflect light, rather you want something that will absorb the light.
• Lighting: have an overhead light or a floor lamp off to the side. The higher the wattage the better. You may see this light reflect in the card. If so, move around so you loose that reflection.
• Camera approach: take the picture on an angle. Why? If you take it straight on, the flash will be reflected in the card. Also, take the photo on the side of the picture rather than in the middle. Even if the card is on the right or left side of the picture, cropping will center it in your picture.
  
• Distance: take it about two feet away. Too close and the flash will overexpose the card; too far away and even the best cropping won't help the card look anything but small.

In the above picture, the card is on an angle and I took it to the right of the card. By cropping it becomes this:

Notice that light still reflects off this team card. It's hard to avoid this but at least it captures what the card is supposed to look like if you held it in your hand. Since when you hold an etopps card in your hand, it's hard not to see light reflecting in it anyway.

You can use the light that shows up in the card to your advantage too. I'll use the set of three photos of Big Ben as an example. In the left photo, you will notice that a ray of light slices across Ben's torso. This did not look cool to me. But in the middle photo, the light is aligned with Ben throwing the football. I thought that was cool so I chose this one over the left one. The right photo is what the middle one looks like after I cropped it.

Another lesson I've learned is how you hold the cards prior to having them photographed. Just as the encasements are sensitive to light, they are the same way with fingerprints. Either hold the cards on the edges (like a photograph) or remember to wipe off the card with a piece of cloth.
Most recently I purchased a shadow box with lighting so the cards would look better in the lighting. It's not perfect but I didn't have to worry as much about the lighting as I did before. Here's a picture:
I know there's a legitimate focus on portraying the front of an etopps card but what about its back? I have hardly ever sold an etopps card at a card show in which the customer does not look at the back of the card as well. Isn't the back of the card part of the experience of getting to know a card? You would think the back of the Etopps Classics sets with the re-reprint of the player's rookie card would add something to an ebay listing. I know that more photos mean more upfront const per photo after the first one.

If you're concerned about this extra expense for an etopps in-hand listing, I would recommend using the website Auctiva. Whenever I want to sell something requiring more than one photograph, I use this website to list multi-picture listings because you can use up to 20 photographs for a listing without having to pay extra.

Designing & Critiquing An Ebay Listing: Categories & Item Specifics

After choosing a title, there a couple of things in an ebay listing to take care of before getting into the item description and picture.

When choosing a category to list an etopps in-hand, it's quite easy to find a home: Sports Mem, Cards & Fan Shop -> Cards -> Sport of the Card. Then you have a choice of Rookies, Singles, or Lot if you're selling a bunch. After the first two, you then drill-down to Range of Years (such as 2000-Present) and finally the year of the card. In the Ken Griffey Jr. listing, this is shown at the top of the listing and it's more-or-less a no-brainer. But what about the etopps baseball rookie card? It's not considered a rookie card in the traditional cardboard collecting world. An etopps rookie card is a player's first year card the year they are called up.

There are only a few etopps rookie cards that are considered "true" rookie cards. To name a few of the more well-known ones:
2001 Albert Pujols
2001 Ichiro Suzuki
2003 Jeremy Bonderman
2003 Hideki Matsui
2004 Brandon Webb
2004 Kaz Matsui
2006 Dice-K

You may get a few cardboard collectors asking you (via ebay or at a card show) why you would call a 2003 Miguel Cabrera his rookie card while his real rookie card is from 2000. I would recommend explaining that etopps qualifies a rookie card when they have their first major league at-bat or pitch rather than when they are in the minor leagues. This won't be too unfamiliar to them since the rookie card designation for cardboard has taken this approach since 2006.

The biggest mistake that's made with categories is the failure to change the category if needed for each card you list. I have seen etopps cards listed under other collectibles and for categories that have nothing to do with sports memorabilia because the seller forgets to change the category from the last listing they had made. I am quite guilty of this myself. Too many times I have gone back to listings after they have started to change their categories.

You may not care about categories but it does make a difference. No one is going to search for etopps cards in a category for webkinz stuffed animals or music memorabilia. These are actually good buying opportunities to take advantage of the mistakes of sellers who forget where they are listing an in-hand.

Now that there is something called Item Specifics, there are even more search choices (and more erroneous listings of etopps cards). The item specifics helps buyers drill-down more of what they're looking for. In the Ken Griffey Jr. listing, the seller made selections for the cards' item specifics:
Original/Reproduction: left blank
Card Type: "Single"
Year/Season: "2006"
Card Manufacturer: left blank
Card Attributes: left blank
Professionally Graded: No

I was surprised he left three item specifics blank. You've got nothing to lose by saying its an original card manufactured by Topps. In the Card Attributes, there's a set of check-off boxes (so you can have more than one) consisting of Autograph, Rookie, Piece of Authentic, and Serial Numbered. Since this card is serial numbered, I was surprised this seller did not pick the Serial Numbered choice.

Worse, the seller missed the best Card Type pull-down menu choice: there's one for etopps!

Like with the quality of the title, I would give the item specifics a B+ because he has room for improvement. He nailed the Category choice which is an easy A if you don't forget to change it for each etopps listing (that is, if you're listing multiple, single cards one after the other).