Magic the Gathering Where to Sell Cards
If you have MTG cards to sell, it can be hard to get a reliable buyer who will pay you well. In the article, we offer you options where you can sell those Magic cards that you found in the basement, or a set of Beta cards that you are sure are worth a lot of money. To get the most out of your money, separate the valuable rare cards that you might have and sell these individually. You can then sell the rest in bulk.
The available options include:
- Trading
There is an option where you can trade your cards to a friend or over the internet. The best thing about trading the cards is that you will get almost the full retail price for these cards. It will be in SCG prices, TCG prices or any other metric that you and the trading partner decide to use. It does not often happen when you sell the cards for real money.
The disadvantage of trading is that you will be accumulating more cards rather than real cash. If you are using an online platform, transaction costs will play a role, and it can be challenging to trade low-value cards for high-value cards.
- Sell to local buyers
You can sell your card to local collectors, stores, or players. It is a profitable way to market your cards. Unfortunately, it can be hard to move large volumes of cards unless you know someone who owns a store or a professional outlet that needs to buy the cards. It can be hard to sell many cards at once, even while using sites such as Facebook and Craigslist
Sale to local players works best when you have a few cards to sell. However, if you have a local store such as the MTG Lion that can buy the cards, this might be your best option. It is convenient, and you get paid quickly. However, the store might offer you less than you get from other avenues but this is worth it considering some options where you will have to pay shipping costs among additional fees. Some stores might not agree to buy old commons and uncommon as they might have too many of such cards
- Buylist
The greatest advantage of buy listing is that you will get your money instantly. You will not have to wait until a buyer shows interest. Additionally, if you are selling near mint cards, you will get 100 percent of the quoted value, and you get to ship all of them at once. It is the only cost that you will incur, as there are no additional fees. The other benefit is that you will get your money, as you will be dealing with a well-known firm rather than a random stranger.
The major disadvantage of this platform is that prices can be very low in some cases. If you are selling common and some uncommon, low end rare, oddities, hard to move cards you might get very low prices. This platform is not the best if you want to sell lower rarities unless they are bulk or high-end tournament staples.
- eBay
The greatest advantage of eBay is that you have a huge market to sell. The site has many users, and there is even a market just for MTG cards. Listing the cards is also not difficult. However, the downside of this site comes in two ways.
First, you have to deal with shipping costs and fees. There is a 10% flat-final value fee on each of the items you sell. Paypal, the only payment option on this platform, further gets 2.9% flat fee and $0.30 transaction fee for every transaction. There is also a listing fee or insertion fee depending on the set up of your account. In total, you can expect to pay around 15 to 13% of the total cost of your item in fees and shipping charges when you choose to use eBay.
The other challenge with eBay is fraud. If you ship your cards without tracking, a buyer may claim that they never received the cards shipped to them. The worst thing is that eBay is known to side with the buyer especially if you send your goods without tracking. In the end, it will cost you much more money. Even if you choose to use tracking, you might not get any value, as the shipping cost will be too high.
Further, the feedback system on eBay favors the buyer as it allows buyers to leave negative feedback to sellers and not vice versa. Some buyers will use this ability to blackmail sellers to give them what they want. If you do not comply, your account might be downgraded or closed due to negative feedback.
- TCGPlayer
It is a popular online site for selling your MTG cards. It is similar to eBay although it has restrictions on the number of cards you can list when you are new. As a new seller, you might also be at a disadvantage, as you have to price your cards at the TCG price or below it to get any sellers, as most buyers will prefer an established brand to a new and random seller.
The main disadvantage of the platform just like on eBay is fees. TCGPlayer will take 8.5% of the total value as fee while PayPal will take 2.5%. There is also a flat fee of $0.50 for credit card processing for each order. If you are selling expensive cards, this might not seem like a significant loss. However, for other sellers, this might not be the best platform to sell their cards.
If you are seeking to sell your MTG cards, visit us at MTG Lion as we buy cards both locally and online.