Following a record-breaking year for the trading card industry, eBay announces today the introduction of Price Guide and Collection tools for trading cards. The new features provide a single destination for enthusiasts to view, manage, and track the value of their trading card portfolios.
Launching today in beta on Android, desktop, and in the latest version of the app in the Apple App Store, the new tools make it easier for users to actively collect and sell trading cards, with the ability to monitor the real-time market valuation changes of their portfolios, and list items directly from their collections. eBay is leveraging its extensive data catalog to provide a holistic view of a collection’s past and present value, offering unprecedented assessment, evaluation, and tracking capabilities.
“Trading card enthusiasts have been waiting for a tool to understand the real-time value of their collections, and manage their inventory as part of a portfolio,” said Nicole Colombo, General Manager of Collectibles & Trading Cards at eBay. “We’ve created a more streamlined collecting experience that provides the crucial context collectors need to be able to assess opportunities, driven by eBay’s unparalleled trading card inventory and data.”
To many collectors, pricing data is often the most important piece of information in making crucial buying, selling, and trading decisions - though, accurate pricing data is either hard to come by or is not presented in an easily digestible and transparent manner. Price Guide seeks to rectify this issue by using eBay’s extensive data stores to provide the most accurate and comprehensive data from the past year, presented in an easy-to-understand form factor. Users can access Price Guide beta by typing in a trading card query in search to access the entry point that will lead them into the new experience. Price Guide is designed for on-the-go use through eBay’s mobile app.
Meanwhile, many enthusiasts have large collections that they want to track and manage, but the majority of tools available either provide insufficient information on market value calculations, have a narrow focus on specific sub-categories, or don’t emphasize portfolio management. Collection was designed to scale to other categories and puts Price Guide at the core of the experience - providing accurate and transparent data while allowing users to view, manage, track the value of, buy and list items, all on one platform. During beta launch, Collection will support baseball, basketball, football, golf, ice hockey, soccer, Magic the Gathering, Pokémon, and Yu-Gi-Oh! cards. Users can easily add items to their Collection via their purchase history or by uploading a CSV file in order to track the value of individual items, categories, or their full collection over time. They also have the ability to quickly list items in their collection for sale. Mobile users can enjoy full Collection functionality through the eBay app, while desktop users can access CSV uploads.
How to Access Collection:
- Under the MyeBay menu tab, click “Collection beta” in the drop down
- Collector will be prompted to upload collection manually or from past eBay purchases
- Select one of the options below in the Collection Hub to view portfolio:
- Portfolio view
- Category view
- Item view
These easy-to-use, intuitive tools enable customers to discover and track the value of a card over time, informing when to buy and sell, with advanced filtering capabilities helping collectors trade smarter and more successfully. Backed by eBay historical data from the past year, including volume of transactions and the underlying transaction data, it’s the industry’s most powerful guide for determining market values.
In addition to the rollout of Price Guide & Collection, eBay continues to actively listen to its growing community of collectors and is investing in new enhancements to provide a more holistic experience for trading card sellers and buyers:
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Improving Auction Integrity
- As of June 2021, in order to maintain eBay’s commitment to a fair marketplace and to help improve the integrity of trading card auctions, buyers will need to contact the seller via messaging on eBay and request a bid retraction. The seller, at their sole discretion, will be able to accept or decline the retraction request.
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Industry Standard Returns
- Effective today, July 29, 2021, eBay has implemented changes to the eBay Money Back Guarantee policy for trading cards and will limit the window for returns when an item doesn’t match the listing. For listings that do not offer returns, the buyer must request a return within 3 calendar days after delivery. If the seller does offer returns, the buyer must request a return within the seller's return window as stated in the listing.
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Sell with Ease
- eBay’s image scan listing feature now supports Magic the Gathering, Pokémon and Yu-Gi-Oh cards - allowing sellers to create single card listings up to 50% faster, with plans to expand to sports cards in the future.
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Ship with Confidence
- eBay Standard Envelope provides an affordable and trackable shipping service for raw trading cards up to $20 for less than $1.
Both new and seasoned collectors who want to get in on the action can head to ebay.com/tradinghub for the latest and greatest tools and find that next great addition for their collection.
eBay Trading Cards By The Numbers
- During Q1 2021, Trading Cards GMV in the U.S. was over $1 billion and active buyers in the category doubled.
- In Q1 2021, more than 20 million new trading card listings were created in the category.
- Nearly 18 million trading cards were sold in Q1 2021 with an average of 139 cards sold per minute.
Top GMV Growth Trading Card by Categories
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Tennis - 5,157%
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Pokémon - 1,046%
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Soccer - 1,588%
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Marvel - 764%
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Football - 367%
Source: Numbers based on eBay U.S. Jan-March 2021 sales data.