His reason for this, is that the rare case when a card price shoots through the roof he would get cleaned out of that card on CardShark, but otherwise, stuff wouldn't move quickly enough. “I went through about 20-30 different versions of my business model over the first year and a half, until I found a system that worked for me.” Eventually, he stopped the CardShark portion all together, and sells his bulk on EBay in lots of 25 rares for $10, or 50 for $20. Ultimately, he found the fees and structure to make the most sense on EBay, while leaving bulk stuff listed on CardShark. He shied away from EBay, and used CardShark for a while. His first sale on EBay, the buyer filed a claim against him, and after all was said and done, he ended up losing money on the transaction. He ran into problems at every turn, in the early stages.
#Adam automailer full
During this time, he had a full time 9-6 customer service job, and thought he could supplement his income with this new venture. Early on, he tells me, some were profitable and some were not, but during this time he was really learning card values and sets that were released while he was away from the game. He still had never really found anyone to play the game with him again, but his interest in Magic was re-invigorated, and he persisted. He thought, that’s exactly what he’d do, and he’d take his $60 profit, to buy another collection that he could then have “free cards” to use and play with his friends.Īfter Sean was able to double his money on his first investment, he kept his eyes peeled on craigslist, scoping out collections whenever he could. Curious to find out what he ended up with, he looked at online buylists, and determined he could flip this collection for $110 right away. Having not looked at cards in over 7 years, he made a blind offer of $50, and took home a huge stack of cards. Sean took the initiative to scour craigslist to find someone selling a collection. Sean played Magic in his youth, but around Future Sight, he and an old friend wanted to relive some of the nostalgia of their youth. He may even have some cards you need in stock!
You can find his store here, and it may help to give you an idea of what his listings look like, and what sort of inventory he carries. Sean is a local Magic player and dealer here in the San Diego, CA area, and he lives off the money he makes through his EBay store (He’s also been known to top 8 every Legacy event I’ve seen him attend, playing NO Elves). I had initially planned to transcribe the interview verbatim, but as we are friends, there were far too many colloquialisms and references to specific people that would likely end up a bit confusing, so there will be some direct quotes, but for the most part I’m going to divide it up into sections, and highlight the main points that were discussed. Sean is a good friend of mine, and I really appreciate him taking the time to sit down and talk about his business with me. I really want to thank one of our readers, Sven, who came up with some great questions, most of which I wouldn’t have thought up on my own. He runs most of his sales through EBay, and I sat down with him and picked his brain about what it takes to be a successful dealer. As promised, I interviewed a local dealer that I work with regularly.