Selling for cash/store credit to stores: Fair market value%?

[Col. Khaddafi]

So I have some stuff I would be interested in selling to stores for cash or store credit (depending on whether they have what I am looking for).

I have been looking for opinions on the web on what would be a "fair" going rates in terms of market value, but could find none.

Ofc stores are business with fixed assets/cost (personnel wages/rent/electricity/etc...) so it is not expected that they would buy close to market value, otherwise they would go out of business, so I'm asking here because I'm not expecting to have the retardation from idiots like on MTGS, crying about how stores/StarcityGames/etc... ripoff magic players.

Mostly, I would be interested in knowing what are the good practices regarding this, because some stores I contacted in the past would ask me to make an offer and I wouldn't know what to realistically ask.

I'm not expecting
to have an answer like "you should sell for 56.25% market price" because this is a highly situational question (are you selling singles? bulk cards? sealed product? high demand or low demand cards? etc...) but since many of us have made this kind of deals, I'd like to hear from other people's experiences/recommendations.

Thanks for contributing!

[wilmheath]

I think it depends on what type of store you are talking about. A store that has their singles online should of course have a public buylist or some way to view that buylist. What a lot of stores do that do not have online inventory is they will say "we buy cards for XX% of what so and so pays. Some stores just straight up match SCG's or some will pay XX% of what SCG's would pay.

The one thing I do not like is a store that says "make me an offer". Unless you are selling something really high end that seems really pawnshopish and a bad practice IMO. Your buylist should not fluctuate based on the customer. I should be paying the same buy price to the mom that knows nothing about cards and found some in her attic as I would to the 30 year old that plays every week.

[Col. Khaddafi]

Hey, thanks for answering on your first post no less! Actually I'm in the EU and for some reason most brick&mortar/online stores do not maintain a detailed buylist like most of the biggest online sites.

Admittedly the trade I was looking forward was something a tad off the beaten tracks: I had a sealed M10 and Innistrad boxes, plus some older sealed Duel Decks and Premium Series boxes that were collecting dust at my place and that I wanted to put forward as store credit towards a Tabernacle, so I went to see the starting prices on MKM, but the deal didn't went through because I simply couldn't think of what percentage to ask for.

There ends up being some corner cases in which you will know the going price for a specific card/product (ebay/TCGPlayer/MKM/etc...) but you won't know what a fair value would realistically be for a store.Among other factors,
it can depend on the liquidity, rarity, etc... for example, if you want to sell your Gem Mint Juzam Djinn you have a very rare/valuable card, but you should be asking much less than its market value, since otherwise it won't be worth it for the store risking getting a card that might be collecting dust for ages. Compare it with a foil Marchesa which is very liquid at this moment and where it might be fair to sell it at a significant % of its market price.

I guess I'm essentially answering my own question in that YMMV depending on what you are selling/getting store credit for, but I guess I would like to have a ballpark % value for the more common cases.

[Checkbox]

In general, I am comfortable buying/selling things at 60% of SCG value. Take from that what you will.

[Checkbox]

Stores tend to take things in for credit at 50%. So any percentage you can get that is higher than that is a "good deal" in that case.

[Col. Khaddafi]

Thanks for the input Checkbox. As for the "liquidity" of what you are selling/trading for store credit, how much would you say it would affect your average value of 50%?

[Kaitscralt]

I sell everything to CFB

[Azrael]

Is it substantially more difficult to offload your cards on ebay or Amazon in your location? If you don't mind taking the extra time, you can easily get a MUCH better return than 50%. That, or trading online. But on-topic, yeah, 50% isn't too uncommon, with maybe a 10% bonus if you take store credit instead.

[Col. Khaddafi]

In the EU its generally not worth the trouble to sell to Amazon/eBay because shipping to the US will be expensive and someone (seller/buyer) will have to pay custom taxes. Generally people just buy/sell in MagicCardMarket.

My question stemmed from the fact that I have many older sealed stuff taking place and collecting dust at home and I wish to get rid of that. At the same time I have a few high-end cards I'm looking to buy, so selling for store credit seems the perfect plan instead of going through the hassle of selling and paying the corresponding fees, then buying. Of course, I would make a better deal if I went this route, but the convenience of trading for store credit offsets the lesser return, specially since you might end up waiting for a while if you are trying to sell at market value. For example, although its an out-of-print item, its not like my sealed M10 box is gonna sell immediately at market value if I put
it on eBay/Amazon/MKM.

Anyway: 50% cash/60% store credit with a few minor adjustments depending on the liquidity of what you are selling/looking to buy is in the ballpark of what I was assuming. I just wanted to make sure other people agreed.

[Kaitscralt]

I might be able to help out depending what you're looking to unload

[Col. Khaddafi]

Nah, it wouldn't be worth the shipping costs, the things I'm looking to unload aren't very hot anyway, except maybe my Innistrad box (what I'm looking to convert in store credit is: 1 Booster box M10, 1 Booster box Innistrad, 3 Duel Decks Elspeth Vs. Tezzeret, 2 Fire and Lightning, 1 Planechase Strike Force, all in English). This is why I have been thinking about selling for store credit, since I often travel to the main cities in the EU for work, I figured I could contact the main stores there on a case-by-case basis and unload this stuff, honestly I'm chiefly concerned about making room at home, I have went in full neckbeard mode for too long, with rows and rows of my shelf with MTG products and its time to streamline.

[conSeeDed]

As far as that M10 box runs, the Ebay/Amazon price is ~$170 whereas the actual value if opened averages about $110. The Innistrad is ~$220 and average open value is ~$100 (of course there is always the chance for a foil Liliana, Snapcaster, or Geist). I would see what you can get from stores in the area and then if you're not happy with the prices, you can use these values to determine if it is worth it to open the box. Alternatively, at these prices it may be worth it to sell on Amazon/Ebay even taking the hit for shipping. The F/L and DD are both ~$40-50 online.

Speaking to the credit you can get, it really depends upon the store. Large stores in my area give 50-60% SCG price, but I have seen good trades at smaller stores getting up to 90% (5 ~$10 Standard legal rares + $20 cash for a Wasteland), so you should really shop around as much as possible.

[Checkbox]

Nah, it wouldn't be worth the shipping costs, the things I'm looking to unload aren't very hot anyway, except maybe my Innistrad box (what I'm looking to convert in store credit is: 1 Booster box M10, 1 Booster box Innistrad, 3 Duel Decks Elspeth Vs. Tezzeret, 2 Fire and Lightning, 1 Planechase Strike Force, all in English). This is why I have been thinking about selling for store credit, since I often travel to the main cities in the EU for work, I figured I could contact the main stores there on a case-by-case basis and unload this stuff, honestly I'm chiefly concerned about making room at home, I have went in full neckbeard mode for too long, with rows and rows of my shelf with MTG products and its time to streamline.

not sure what mtg
events you can attend, but getting rid of that at a GP or something might yield better results if you do your research beforehand

[Checkbox]

To a vendor, I mean

[Col. Khaddafi]

Yeah its not a bad idea. Since I am in no rush for offloading these I believe the best route is to store them on one of those big Tupperware boxes with some desiccant and leave them to lie in my basement.They will get more value and I can always see if I can strike a deal with a store depending on my travels, or even once a GP comes to town. 50% cash 60% store credit is a good ballpark value, I'll know how to make reasonable offers / if I am getting reasonable offers.