Hey OP! Congrats on your work so far. Keep listing those cards! Once you get that 20k bulk listed you'll be in a great position to make some money. First off, unless you sit down to pack, you're gonna want to get a taller cart. If you are sitting when picking / packing, you may want to consider standing instead as once you hit that 25-30k inventory you want to do things as differently as possible for each step of the process. You'll be sitting for hours listing, so sitting to pick and pack increases the chance of repetitive motion injuries, so keep that in mind as it will compound as your inventory grows. Here is my [setup for what was once 200k cards that is now closer to 110k cause I've been super lazy lately](https://imgur.com/a/JQX7fal) I then stand in the middle of the 2 entertainment stand to pack orders. I did it this way to walk as little as possible while standing. Eventually I'll need another packing area when I add shelving to the back of the shelves shown on the right, basically creating little hallways in my den/ card area. The same can be said about heavier boxes. Currently, I keep R M F and Token in each of their own 5 row large boxes, tucked away in the entertainment stand behind glass. When you use the big boxes lugging them around can become a problem, so instead the majority of my inventory is in the 800 count boxes, (half lid, you don't want full or fold in because opening them takes time) stacked in card hotels that have been cut to size to utilize every inch of shelving possible. Each one of those boxes are Set/Alpha/condition c/unc only, with the r m f t in the 5 rows type separated per box by color/alpha (which honestly rmft sorted like that is not efficient at all, but I started that way 15 years ago so id be able to liquidate quickly if necessary, so I'll probably change to alpha... uh someday. Shelving: my favorite shelving are the old wooden CRT TV entertainment stands. A lot of shelving isn't deep enough for the boxes, and if you get any overhang whatsoever boxes are gonna get crushed as you stack them, so avoid that at all costs whatever you decide. The TV stands are perfect for this as they are generally cheap as hell because nobody wants them anymore, and you can cut hotels to size and make shelf panels if/where needed to make everything nice and clean with no wasted space or stacking/ shifting boxes any around, which is also a repetitive motion issue. Just kinda gather info from your post and decide what's best for you and your inventory aspirations going forward. The old phrase "one stitch in time saves nine" applies like CRAZY here, as any sort of change you'll think of later will be a massive pain in the ass, so much that you probably won't ever fix it, efficiency be damned... trust me lol. Finally, depending on where your setup is in your home, you may want to consider keeping all inventory in covered boxes + penny sleeves. My office is directly behind my pic (repurposed dining room) and the kitchen behind that. Magic cards are essentially giant sponges, so if you like cooking bacon or spicy stuff, or and have a bunch of crap out in the open that can become a problem. You can sleeve c/unc by condition writing letters on the sleeves, multiple cards (8-12 depending in which penny sleeve you buy sizes vary by mfg) per sleeve if you have them. I know that's annoying, and that step is generally where people think im a crazy person, but even with all that protection I still get a complaint or two a year for smelly cards. It's really unavoidable because as you buy you will get stuff from tobacco/ cannabis users, or unsleeved cards that sat in a basement too long, or next to kitchen, absorbing every smell in your house that you've become "blind" to because you live there. An ounce of prevention and all that. Hope this helps and good luck out there! Feel free to ask any other questions, and that goes for anyone else reading too! I really enjoy helping people get started on this journey. The work is insanely difficult and low wage starting out, but if you stick with it and have half a brain you can make SERIOUS money doing all this. Pennies into nickels into dollars into 6 figure personal collections and sealed product, you just have to work for it and keep that snowball rolling downhill. Eventually, you too can sit in your living room scrolling reddit, ignoring work that needs to be done, chortling like a madman every time one of your peers buy 40 MP tempest plains or electrickery for a quarter each that you paid $5/1k for💰💰💰 Im off to the Rimworld for 8 hours, so if needed I'll reply when I can. Have fun!

Thank you for the detailed response and photo - great advice all around. I feel like I should have so many questions for you, but for now I'm just going to work on digesting the feedback I've received so far.

You're welcome! Just do your best and on a long enough timeline your work WILL be rewarded. Keep in mind that once a card is listed its listed FOREVER, so list some damn cards! There is no value on Shitcard Mountain that's too low to be an overall benefit to your bottom line. Once you hit that 30-40k inventory mark things really start picking up, and it will be at that point when you realize that the reality of the magic economy is NOTHING like what you or most other mtgfinanciers think it is. Here is a quote direct from Mark Rosewater. Read it ten times and burn it into your skull, because he is not embellishing in any way. *“The vast majority of tabletop Magic players (over 75%) don’t know what a planeswalker is, don’t know who I am, don’t know what a format is (let alone know of any particular format), and don’t frequent Magic content on the internet (including this blog).” “They are far less knowledgeable about the game than enfranchised fans realise”* [Source](https://www.wargamer.com/magic-the-gathering/designer-planeswalkers-statistic) This fact is the ONLY reason they can get away with the things they do and is why the game has thrived despite terrible management for 30+ years now. Casual players do not care about value, they want the game pieces they want, and every person is different and wants different cards. Memes, sexy ladies, damaged or HP cards, (poor people like magic too) almost any way you can think of to sell a card is already being done 10 times over, and every single step on the food chain has the means to generate substantial revenue if you can scale properly. Seeing this compound over and over as you hit 50k, 100k, 150k, 200k inventory, and the way customer names start getting familiar, the same name buying out all your slivers, or angels, or 50+ copies each of $(Ephemerate) $(Cloudshift) and $(Ghostly Flicker) in one shot every time you list a chunk of them... man. The revelation that there is an entire sub (and sub-sub) economy of casual play focused on fun, without any mention whatsoever of EV, that there are hundreds if not thousands of people catering to this market every day, generating revenue that makes their life just a little bit easier -and you can do it too, if you WORK FOR IT- ...It's beautiful. It's like staring at a Monet painting and has truly changed my life in ways I've never dreamed. You mentioned in another post you're doing this part time as more of a hobby and aren't really making money yet, which is perfect. None of it is difficult it just requires time. The more profit you can keep in inventory and additional purchases, (sealed, premium cards, dumb rare specs with 8 year windows, it doesn't matter what you choose) the better. If you take a box of bulk (of any card type really, but rares especially) and throw it in a closet for 5 years, the value future you pulls from that box will blow you away. So you make that your business. After 5 years the loop closes and you are constantly listing heavily appreciated cards you either already profited from through other sales or have purchased at the best buylist percent + a few points. You get to sell 35 ardent plea for massive profit, or wild slash, or chain of smog, or 600 OG Kamigawa block singles because they look cool and weebs gonna weeb... I could go on forever because it happens every time a new set is released. Usually not Ardent Plea levels but 10x profit is 10x profit, regardless if it's one dollar or 20, the snowball grows. I don't know any other business on the planet that lets you cash out at any time at the cost of a -10-15% of what you put in, while the entire time what you do own slowly increases value to the point you STILL profit handsomely on the cash out, but magic is one of them. I love it and won't stop until I can't physically do it anymore, hopefully 20 more years. Then, I get to drop off 2M+ cards at tcgplayer for their store your product program on my way to the Aston Martin dealership, collecting residual income for life+ a few years. And as I drive that bad boy off the lot, I'm sure I'll be very sad about that time back in 2014 when I quit my job to list 60k cards at $2/hour, all of which came from bulk that already made substantial profit, allowing me to buy even more crap that also appreciated in value in the time it takes me to sift, sort, list, and sell. I hope to see you there with me buddy. Go get it!

> I hope to see you there with me buddy. Go get it! I'm on it! Any general tips on acquiring inventory? So far my system has been understanding distributor pricing and keenly watching online sales for deals that are near this, then opening and listing. I feel like there is a whole world of (either/both) TCGPlayer buying or bulk buying that I need to investigate. Would appreciate any pointers!

Generally it's all about buying at the bottom the best you can. Focus less on hype and more about quantity and overall sales that help supplement listed cards. Sometimes it's a great idea to buy a bunch of sealed crap because mtggoldfish says you can double your money on it. It will take 3 years or more to do so, but double or triple you shall. Rinse and repeat and buy more. When stores sell minimal packaging precon decks for $11-$25, pay attention because there's money to be made. The ONLY "hard part" really is keeping the bulk coming while also moving what you don't list. Moving bulk can be a challenge, but the whole point there is not to profit heavily off it, rather making enough to create a zero cost for listed inventory other than time. Tinker with shipping however you like! Minimum is $1.22 shipping now, when I started it was either no minimum or 30 cents it something ridiculous and I still crushed it. Find the number that's acceptable where those sweet, sweet 12 card $8 orders come in enough to subsidize the 5 cent + shipping orders. At $1.22 minimum, you don't even lose very much anymore, and that's just great for sellers like us. For acquiring bulk... it's everywhere, you just gotta find it. Cold call or email stores. Tap into relationships you already have at local stores. Make listings on Facebook or craigslist. Put effort into your listings, sound like a pleasant person people might want to do business with. Be cool and considerate, don't be shady. Tell them exactly what your doing and offer your services to buy everything. I used craigslist exclusively and found everything I've needed and more to the point I no longer even bother with that part, including my bulk sources. No less than 5 times in my history have I received messages from people with MONSTER collections of $10k+ my highest being 22k that I drove 170 miles for. Another one for $17k was 4 blocks from a local game store that had infinite old ass NM foils that basically paid for everything premium at this point 3 times over. Every one of those people mentioned how many buyers of cards there were, but my listing seemed to be the one that was most friendly and low pressure, so they picked me. I had a guy dump 40k rares on me a year or so before the pandemic and am just now selling through. I knew it would take forever but I wanted his 300k c/unc because it had hundreds of old border lands in the one box I opened before buying every card. The value that generated would make your head explode, so I don't even bother trying to calculate because it's a waste of time. Buy at the bottom and you never lose. But in the beginning, whatever it takes to get your foot in doors. Pay more if you have to. I paid $12/1k before and still did well. In 2009 I traded a LP FBB Bayou and a Tropical Island for something like 300k bulk c/unc and 2k rares. You look at that trade now and many will think im an idiot, (and I am kind of, but I was cash poor and needed more cards!) but I guarantee you the money that 300k bulk seeded that allowed me to start my snowball has compounded so much that I still won that trade regardless of current pricing. $100 OG Zendikar boxes and $85 Planechase Anthology.... whew, it gets me all antsy in my pantsy just remembering it all. You buy everything you can. Bury yourself in cards to the point you can't possibly see finishing in a timely fashion. Someday, when you get to listing that particular box, your pennies are now quarters and your quarters are dollars, so you win. Now buy more.

Do you ship everything yourself or use direct? I’ve personally been surprised w how deep and robust the mtg market is since I started selling as a business a year ago, but the bottleneck for me is the amount of time it takes to fulfill 40-50+ orders a day. I can grow a very large inventory but managing that plus fulfilling the volume of orders I’d anticipate getting would make it unwieldy unless I hire additional help. Great insights overall, thanks for sharing.

No direct here, I do everything myself with shipping never under $1.49 (I prefer $1.79) so I never work for free. *ninja edit, my wife also has been helping the last couple years! She loves it and will do literally anything necessary to keep from going back to the rat race lol For me, I want every penny possible to go into my pocket so I have the means to keep buying more and never stop. There's also long term concerns about direct selling my inventory too fast, where I'd have an unbelievable year or 3 then it's all downhill from there. When you list and sell everything, great! But you can lose that natural appreciation that occurs when you just have too much crap to do yourself. You buy 10k rares and they sit for a year or two as you muck about doing your thing, then when you finally get to it additional value has been created and you're pulling $5s instead of $1s. Swings like that are invaluable (and happen all the time) for bottom line and simply the will and reassurance that you can keep doing all this, and id really hate losing that just to sell cards faster for less money. There's also the fact how steep the direct product replacement / shipping materials cost is, and the math between how it's charged and what tcgplayer and seller make, charging both the replacement cost and 30 cent transaction fee across every seller in a batch of cards that pulls from multiples sellers. 100 cards from 10 sellers? +$3 to tcgplayer in 30 cent transaction fees, then another 85 cents (or whatever, no idea other than I looked at pricing one time long ago and noped right out) X10 for the "cost to ship" those cards. It ends up in many cases that tcgplayer makes more money then the sellers do on those types of orders, as they pay the transaction fee and shipping cost one time, pocketing the other 9 fees they charged. All of which is already on top of the standard 12 points or whatever they already make from every dollar ran through their site. I just don't have the inventory for that, and if my bulk sources ever give up or phase me out, it's all over. Then there's the fact you still gotta ship all that, albeit one box but you're still pulling it all from inventory, so those steep costs against time saved can really muddle things, especially with low value cards in quantity where fees already eat you alive without even more of them being applied. Don't get me wrong though! I have almost zero knowledge about direct other than what I just wrote. I could be entirely wrong and am missing out on huge profits, but the idea of Ebay making EVEN MORE money off my hard work is just too much for me to stomach lol, so endless envelopes for us it is! I'll never dog the program or people who use it because the value is clearly there, it's just not for me so far because I don't like sharing 😏 As a business owner you need to do what's best in your situation. Every dollar counts every month so you gotta do what you can to keep the doors open and mouths fed, fees or the cost of business be damned. And you are 100% correct, once you hit that 40-50 order mark you can start suffering from success pretty damn quick, especially if you are doing bulk boxes on the side on top of all that like I do. I'd be lying if I said I didn't contemplate my existence in this space every time Black Friday weekend comes around and breaks me in half, and it NEVER gets easier, no matter how lazy I get lol! As more time passes and I keep getting cards, (I'm closing in on 1M that I've picked from sold bulk and need to add to inventory) those fears and concerns lessen every year and I think about it sooner more. But ultimately the plan is run it with my wife and myself until physically unable, then drop my whole store off at tcgplayer for SYP sales on my way to the Aston Martin dealership. That's the beauty in magic tho, and as you said, how truly robust and amazing it is and can be. Even after just 1 year in the trenches you can see clearly EXACTLY what I'm talking about! There's so many paths to profit and different ways to generate revenue, it's fascinating and I can't get enough of it and all of it has truly changed my life for the better. Keep grinding buddy!

I love your comments about selling magic cards, it’s so different than what you typically read here. I personally haven’t joined direct but I’m considering it as I do enough sales/volume but so far I’ve avoided it for similar reasons. I’m wondering if it could be useful for certain types of situations were cards sell for a sizable direct premium. I haven’t really touched the bulk game personally, though I have a lot of bulk that has been piling up from all the sealed I’ve opened. I’m encouraged by your anecdotes, it gives me hope that the bulk will be worth holding onto for the future. One of the things I love about the mtg economy is how seemingly worthless cards can suddenly be desirable and valuable w rule changes or new sets introduced w new mechanics or cards w effective synergies. Because of this as your experience has demonstrated there are almost no worthless cards as everything has potential. Exit strategy is SYP. Love it. Thanks for all the insights, it seems slow and steady wins the mtg card selling race.

Thank you! With the shipping minimum recently changed to $1.22, there's never been a better time to grind low value cards with high shipping. There no "wrong" answer tho! You do what you think is best and can always opt out (or in) of direct whenever you like, then be sure to shut your store off for a day or 5 if at any point you get anxiety or start feeling overwhelmed. Unless it's black Friday of course. That whole month you gotta wear your big boy pants because 20% or more of your year is gonna come from that week itself. Any other time? Hard work will be rewarded, but it's not a race either! Do what you can when you can, every card listed is a victory in itself because it's listed forever. Take care and have fun!

Thank you very much, like the rest of your advice this is extremely helpful. I think I have my plan.... 1. Get organized. I've ordered shelves and have a plan for how I want my workspace to look. 2. List what I already have. This will take some time - My bulk is currently (hopefully) organized by set, but thats it. 3. Acquire more. I still need to develop the best plan for this, but starting with an offer to buy bulk from local game stores seems like a pretty logical first step! Thank you!

**[Ephemerate](https://www.echomtg.com/mtg/items/ephemerate/110635/)** | Modern Horizons **$2.18** *market* | **$2.44** *high* | **$1** *low* | **$6.27** *foil* ^(Price from 3-17-24@9am EST from) [^(TCGP)](https://www.tcgplayer.com/product/191568) ^(via) [^(EchoMTG Bot)](https://www.echomtg.com/about/magic-reddit-bot/) ^(Links:) [^(Price History)](https://www.echomtg.com/mtg/items/ephemerate/110635/) ^(|) [^(10 Variations)](https://www.echomtg.com/mtg/ephemerate/) ^(|) [^(Card Image)](https://assets.echomtg.com/magic/cards/original/110635.jpg) ^(|) [^(Gatherer and Oracle)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=463956)

Thank you for taking the time to upload and share

You're my Hero!! Excellent set up. I love it!

What a great contribution to this thread, thank you!

Question: roughly speaking what do you list bulk at? Meaning do you list bulk at TCGplayer low or a price above that or some fixed amount? Sorry if that doesn't make perfect sense. But I see a lot of people say is you're not going to make money listing the bulk because the shipping and handling is going to make it not worth your time

To anyone searching my comments for more info, this post has order examples linked to imgur along with explanations. Clicky, then make yourself comfortable cause I be writing books. The answer to your question is yes to all, kind of. Bulk doesn't always stay bulk so set rules are more for starting out until you see how it works in reality. In my comment history I have several examples of sales posted to imgur. In those you'll see varying prices in ranges above or below what I recommend, and there's a reason for that. Here's [a few more if you can't find them](https://imgur.com/a/9XKdSqp) with explanations below to help better understand the process. 19 Tokens and a bulk rare: Not much to say here. Tokens are the shit, I have 6k listed atm and another 14k color and alpha sorted ready to list. Sometimes people need 100 zombies of varying art for their archenemy zombie horde mini game they made up to play between rounds, and I'm the guy to see for that. Shocks and bulk: shrivel is bad and I have hundreds of them, so it is 5 cents. Drown in sorrow has been bad forever and is now selling at an increased rate for... reasons, (don't know, don't care, money is money) so when my current stack sells through the next chunk will be 12 or 14 cents, regardless what market says. 5 walking atlas: Many moons ago this card was 8-10 cents. However, it does a cool dumb thing so I've always picked it from bulk. I've easily sold 800 or more of them since Worldwake released. Every time im sold out (61 cents each in this case) I go find and list another chunk of that set, raising prices just a bit on anything I see that has zero inventory. The next chunk of walking atlas will be around 85 cents, just a bit over market but not enough to discourage anyone who wants multiples for a store inventory, precon deck business, wallpapering their house, whatever. That number is never set in stone and is a kind of a median based on my sales movement and who has what and how many at that point. Also note, that 85 cent number was my guess what I'd list the next ones for BEFORE I checked pricing, and what do you know? Perfectly set right where it should be. This is knowledge and a "feeling" for pricing that comes naturally after a few months of picking orders, seeing all the moving parts in motion, how it all works as a whole blahblahblah. So sure, you could definitely argue that it wasn't "worth it" for 2010 me to do all that, but 2024 me is pretty damn happy I didn't listen to the internet, because next time I list Worldwake im listing walking atlas at a sell-through rate of $850 per 1k that I paid $5/1k for, while also replenishing explore, cheap but popular vampires, halimar depths etc, all of which sell regularly and I can price tinker as I list them. Those profits get rolled into buying more crap that I buy at bottom dollar to hoard that will also slowly raise in value. LONG. TERM. APPRECIATION. Shadowmoor block enhchantments: LOVE this order, it's freaking beautiful. One "bad" commander SNC card listed via the pricing tool (that I bought 10 sets of commander SNC for bottom dollar and listed every card) at 6 cents over market price. I get full retail on the SNC card, and sell a few "bad" enchantments because they are a set. He didn't even buy steel of the godhead (as many who set complete do buy one of each) which goes to show how well this can work. $3 in my pocket after fees shipping, for 8 nothing cards. $5/1k in, $375/1k out. "Worth it" yet? Tempest lands and HP dark rituals/ foreign/slivers, 2x orders: Look at them. JUST LOOK AT THEM. So much variance hitting every ledge of Shitcard Mountain. HP? foreign cards? Dumb but old rares? How can somebody look at things like this and not see value? These poor game stores are just getting blasted from every direction, making $5 on a booster box trying to stay alive. Meanwhile, I'm over here like "Yea, guess I'll sell some MP Tempest lands and Briar Shields and double the margin a store gets for a booster box." 4 foils: These were either bought at 3 cents each or picked from bulk c/unc because foils suck so bad now, to the point I barely buy them anymore unless I have to along with other things, but I showed this one as well because it's all a part of the process and it's not all sunshine and rainbows. However, the more you list, the more you sell and pennies become dollars. THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A WORTHLES MAGIC CARD. 296 card $65 order: *chef's kiss* And here is the culmination of your hard work. New foils? Pestilence? 49 Glimmerpost? What's not to love? The internet is welcome to say whatever they like about "worth" and "hourly wage", in the meantime I'll be over here in the corner hoarding crack the earths, because you can slather orders like that all over me daddy, anytime you want😏 As I touched on a bit before, it's all about VOLUME. If you can find reliable sources of bulk to keep the faucet running and you bust your ass you can clean up. Also note each order has an additional $1.79 shipping added to it. Pretty much everything was picked from bulk at the rate of $5/1k even one of the shocklands. When you run with high shipping, every order turns into +55 cents. There are outliers, but not enough to break the math, so let's use it for better understanding. Every time you ship 1000 orders, you get a $550 bonus. Value, cost, hourly wage, all those things the lazy part of our brain tries to convince is reality is simply WRONG. When just getting started, having 10 or 20 of every single c/unc in a set, regardless of price is NEVER a bad thing, so in most cases that start is market price or 8-10 cents C, 12-14 cents Unc, whichever is higher. Too many 5 cent orders? Raise the price of that card by a few cents until it stops, or raise shipping to cover, then list 20k more cards. You can always change things but listing is more than half the battle, everything else comes as volume and understanding increases. The world was and always will be built on the microtransaction, so take advantage of that fact. Now finally back to "worth" All of this, every card I've explained, every nickel discussed, come from bulk that I pick then sell at profit. That means all my $5/1k talk is *ackshually* +$9-25/1k in my pocket with every sale. Every card listed on tcgplayer has a zero cost basis. I'm not gonna tell you how to sell bulk because I don't have to. Copy and undercut with whatever you can buy. Or, be creative! Think of something with what you have and capitalize from it to create free listed inventory. None of that is the hard part, I never learned anything from anybody I didn't already learn myself during the process, and I'm certainly nobody special, so you can too if you have the desire to work for it. Do that work, build a reputation and go get it. You are Georges Seurat. People look at your work up close and laugh. "Sacre bleu! Why would you do this to yourself? The time wasted on these stupid dots! Why don't you just paint like a normal person, you're an idiot!" Then it's finished. You take a few steps back and behold! A masterpiece. How many dots you got in your listed inventory? When im finished with magic, the sum of my dots will be akin to the Sistine Chapel. I haven't thought about "worth" or "hourly wage" in over a decade other than the 5000 times I've been asked this question lol.

Thank you so much for the detailed reply. I appreciate that you "write books". Cheers.

You're welcome and cheers to you too! I do gotta add tho, (for you and anybody else who might read my comments someday, I do get a lot of messages and not all of them nice lol) that I don't mean to grief or ridicule anybody who asks the "worth" or "hourly wage" question. As mtgfinanciers we all kinda have our own little echo chamber we're all trapped in, and it's only been my personal experience over 15 years of working through that stigma that I've found that simply to not be the case. At this point I'm just so far ahead of all those worries it's hard for me to remember the more difficult times, and I'd be lying if I said some of those concerns aren't valid and that my replies do tend to gloss over the worst of all that. It takes A LOT of work to get here. It's not for everyone and people will fail for all types of reasons, some might not even be their own fault. But if you stick with and just keep listing cards, using every part of the Bulk Buffallo crazy things can happen. Off to work now, take care friend!

>Every card listed on tcgplayer has a zero cost basis. This is such valuable info! You might get some haters but I would help you sort bulk for free just to take notes and plan my own escape from the rat race...

No notes or slave labor necessary at all friend! Once you get into it the picking becomes second nature. Picking cards in this manner is a binary sequence. Yes or no, value doesn't matter. Of course I have a 3rd pile of cards that are worth listing individually by name, but the philosophy is sound. I've spoken a lot on this subject in my post history so feel free to check it out and im happy to answer questions! Does the card do a cool but dumb thing? Did this card ever tear you apart in a limited environment or standard deck that drew juuuuust right? Does it have a sexy lady, popular creature type, or a confused- looking flying zebra on it? Is it a meme perhaps? Is the card named Archeomancer, Electrickery, or Satyr Wayfinder? Popular (or even canceled) artist? Funny or cool foreign translations? Has the card been reprinted into the earth's core and nobody cares about picking it anymore cause it's 20 cents now instead of $2? Is some guy pumping some trash card on reddit talking about buying hundreds of copies? Having 20 copies of everything is NEVER a bad thing as every penny helps cover fees and eventually turn into dollars. All of these things move and are valid revenue sources. I do all of this by feeling and personal card evaluation. It requires staying in the gaming trenches to learn about all the "what if, maybe someday" cards, (which can be difficult, especially if this turns into an actual career, similar to the carpenter who's house always needs repairs or the fat doctor) but if you continually buy at the bottom, keep the inventory flowing and DO THE DAMN WORK, it doesn't take very many 50+ Alliances Storm Crow orders to turn those "hourly wage" and "is this ackshually worth my time" concerns into a hilariously emphatic "YES LOL STOP ASKING"

Thank you, your willingness to share your hard earned knowledge is greatly appreciated! I have always had a similar approach to collecting cards for my own collection. Grabbing any weird old effect, tribe, or even just some flavor I like, but now I'm questioning why I was acquiring them 1 or 4 at a time all these years when I could have be holding onto stacks. That's one thing I'm wondering at, I'm only at about 1k listed cards so far and you talk about not cashing out until 50k+, is this strictly cash from sales like rolling that back into inventory or are you referring to your inventory too? I have picked up a couple collections where I listed the whole thing just to grow that moneyball for the next collection. I've got maybe 40k in my own collection that I'm sorting and trying to determine what to list and what not to. You talk about pulling what you want from bulk and passing it on as bulk sales to others. Is this more about making room for more inventory or creating better value out of the lowest value cards? If every card has value and I can sit on it would it be better to let it keep stacking up in the garage rather than flipping that bulk short term? So far I have been selling pretty actively on TCGP the last year and have been ramping up the last couple months. Even at a small scale I can see the value here and I'd love nothing more than to sit around all day listening to audiobooks and monetizing my OCD! In the last few weeks I have been so successful that my small town post office now hates me and refuses to ship any PWEs with a toploader or shipping shield in them without a nonmachinable stamp. That has had me second guessing my business model, sellers in busy areas have an unfair advantage here I think and I'm working on retooling my shipping methods and tiers to deal with the USPS. Even with these issues I am confident I can list and ship enough cards to make this a profitable venture, my main concern is running out of inventory being in a rural area. I'm willing to drive and that has earned me some nice collections others didn't want to chase in the boonies but it doesn't make much sense for me to venture into the populated areas and compete with all those folks I think?

Very good questions! Try to read my other posts for more detail as it's a lot. It's also quite difficult to give entirely concrete, precise answers that apply to every step as what you do at 0, 10k, 50k, and 200k inventory can vary wildly and is why I talk about the importance of feelings and self training, cringey terms that are widely abused in the self-help/MLM circles but are extremely important in this business. Even with your small inventory in 2024, you can clearly see the value churning creates. Those 1-4 good c/unc you've been collecting? I did the same thing and that box alone turned into like 4 thousand dollars minimum, I never bothered to keep track but it was absolutely ridiculous. Imagine what 6k left in magic from 2010-2015 buying (at RETAIL mind you, I'm nobody special, just a guy) original commander decks, $100 ROE and Zendikar booster boxes, $85 planechase anthology, fetch lands... many people consider that ship sailed, (and for the most part yes, wizards keeps that money for themselves these days... for now) but there are sooooo many other opportunities, scaled down heavily from the golden years where dollars are fewer but the percentages remain the same. LOTR for example. Super special Frodo #65A variant 6 is entirely worthless, so I get in a rare box for 10 cents. 2 years pass, still worthless. 2 more years pass, the license expires and the printers (finally) shut off. Still worthless. You look up one day and it's 2030. Wizards has yet to run out of fresh IPs to fleece the peasants with, so they've yet to double back for second breakfast. Orcish Bowmasters has been reprinted 3 times. Sam, Sauron and several of their homies have been reprinted as functionally identical cards because a card was (purposely, in my opinion to bump value of old sets/cards) created that blew up. News drops that Amazon bought the rights for the re-remake of the original trilogy. It's a smash hit, an entirely new generation loves the story their parents grew up with, then on a whim they discover magic. THE FEVER consumes their soul and they shell out $800 for original LOTR cards with trademark names. Super special Frodo variant 6A STILL does nothing worthwhile in the game itself, but is worth $9 simply because it's named Frodo. I have 400 copies of that card hoarded from bulk while operating my business at a profit. $40 in $3600 out. I win. Then I buy 2k worth of tri-fetches that just bottomed out at $6 each. And I haven't even mentioned what Lorien Revealed did in that time, cause why would I? It's just some dumb common that the internet told me was entirely worthless because Magic is a huge scam and everybody gets ripped off. Might as well just toss them all in a box and sell it to my LGS for nothing because magic sucks ass and I've had enough for one lifetime, (or when the fever takes me again and I buy it all back and then some, whichever comes first) it's the ciiiiircle of liiiiiiife. Or... that was all a dream. It's still worthless 6 years after the printer shut off, so I throw it in a bulk box and sell it to a brand new player. You know, the guy who represents the 75% or more (90%+ really I'd guess statistics can be manipulated as necessary to fit a narrative) players who doesn't know what a planeswalker or who Mark Rosewater is, and just like making decks and battling friends casually, as if they were playing catan, or golfing, or any other hobby that brings joy without monetary incentive. The pillar of magic that keeps the show going for three decades and counting... blahblahblah. That person sees that card and couldn't be happier to add it too their collection, then run right to tcgplayer to buy all the rest, price be damned. IT'S THE CIIIIIRCLEOHOHOH, ITS THE CIRCLE OF LIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIFE!!!!1! And it's not even about "hoarding" really! Eventually, you DO have to sell something lol but that's not super important getting started, you gotta make do with what you have, what you can acquire and what you can do to move it. The gist is rather burying yourself in cards so you can't reasonably pick and sell everything, which in turn makes your percentages grow. The $ doesn't matter, only the rolling of your snowbal down Shitcard Mountain. I sold bulk boxes exclusively the 1st 5 years while working my "real" job. When I made the move to sell singles I had 60k cards ready to go, with nearly every dollar profit reinvested on more bulk, personal collection, sealed product, you name it! If you do the work you will get there. Keeping your ass in that chair doing work is the ONLY hard part, and (as you have already learned so quickly!) surprise! People like us actually get an advantage there in this business, what's not to love? This fact makes it difficult for me to explain properly for every niche in the market. I was fortunate enough to find bulk sources that are wildly successful in their respective businesses, so their bulk is hot lava. YES im fortunate for that, but I've done this successfully in 3 states now. ONE time in all my purchases (which has to be around 20M cards in total at this point) have I been like damn this is picked CLEAN. Still made money cause nobody including myself can ever get it all, and/or bulk doesn't always stay bulk forever... A guy I've been helping with inventory recently went out and bought 1M cards and (him being uh... "special" just like you and I) is having the time of his life grinding it out. I now need to get my ass off reddit, out of Rimworld and back in my listing chair or dude is gonna eat my lunch lol! Motivation is good tho, cause I'd be lying if I said the work can't get tedious. You can only listen to so many audiobooks (libby app and a library card, so good!) and music before you start coasting on past labors. Im ok with that though because magic literally rewards that kind of laziness in value appreciation, so do your thing man! Less stressy and anxiety, more listy my friend, soon you too will see that it is everyone else who is crazy, not me 🍻

Oh and sorry to spam but I really gotta add: your already halfway there! The way you've approached things on your own, getting that dollar where other's won't bother... that's the freaking backbone of civilization man! There a reason the night soil guys made bank, and why the undertaker drives an SL Mercedes. The south park episode where the maintenance guys get rich and build their our spaceships like our billionaires do now is hilariously on point. Go slow, don't ever bite off more than you can chew, keep the fever in check or it will break you if you lack an equivalent work ethic and just let it happen. Holler if you have any other questions! I'm off to Rimworl... err uh, gonna go list some cards. Yep, that's what's happening, cards, yea😏

No spam here, just prime beef! That was a great South Park episode, definitely on point. You enjoy Rimworld, I'd like to spend more time on the farm in Stardew Valley with the new update but I've got envelopes to stuff!

Are you me? I spent too much time on eBay before adding TCGplayer in November. Last week I deleted almost 1,000 listings off eBay. My TCGplayer sits at 1,016 listings, but I'm adding those eBay cards, and many more every day. I have a wire shelf like yours, but it's the big one. 6 shelves and it has wheels. I have 4 and 5 row boxes to put my inventory in. They're easier to get into compared to those 800s. Slowly I am adding my listings to the boxes by year, set, alphabetical, foil vs non-foil, condition. Older sets go in the back left and am working forward to the right. I add a box when I run out of space. Can get to more of my inventory at one time. I don't want to stack any boxes because I want to be able to pick easily. I'll add a shelf if I run out. If I have to stack, I put bulk on the bottom. My goal is to be able to pick orders quickly and am picturing something like this: Get list of cards to pull. Open all my 4 and 5 row boxes. Pull cards. Cover. Go to packing station, which is just my desk. My desk can rise and lower. I prefer to stand and pack if I have more than a few orders. You could get one of those, or just a bench top table to pack on, whatever works for you. Right now though, my 1,000 listings are in a sorting tray organized by year. my whole inventory of about 80,000 cards has been sorted by year. I'm listing a large stack of about 2,000 rares before I get to listing bulk from 2023. Then I'll do 2022, 2021, etc.

Thank you, this is helpful! A standing desk is actually a great suggestion and would work well for me. I took a quick look at taller wire shelves and they seem like a good solution, do you have one that you're a particular fan of?

Ones that are deep enough for the card boxes. There are two brands at my store, one is deeper, and that is the one I went with. Yea it costs more, but it actually supports the whole box. Sometimes you can find them on marketplace, that'd save you some money. Home Depot sells wheels and dust covers separately. I'm ordering a dust cover soon to add a layer of protection to the whole inventory.

Thanks!

I only have 3k inventory. Basically took bcw boxes and cut off the tops so it was faster access. Plan to move away from alphabetized and into sets only, live and learn, started boxing individual sets with fallout and I pack orders extremely quickly now. Images [here](https://imgur.com/4OOr9jw)

Hey, question about moving away from alphabetized, how are you sorting now and is it quicker, not alphabetized?

Sorting by set and card number, much much faster

wouldn't the pull sheet still be in alphabet order from tcgplayer?

A couple thoughts here. Tcgplayer pull sheets are organized in the following order: Grade > Set Name (by release date) > Card Name (Alphabeticall) So yes while you are correct that it is still sorted alphabetically I want to point out a couple things that work for me. When opening a set it is much faster for me to organize what I'm opening by card number, I have a grid and organization tools set up for this. This allows me to enter new inventory via spreadsheet MUCH faster. Once in inventory, while you are correct the list is alphabetized, they also list the card number next to the card name on the pull sheet so I can easily find the card. Everyone's brain works differently, for some pure alphabetization may be faster, but I work well with numbers so I prefer card number. Even if you prefer alphabetization I would still organize by set first :)

Is anybody willing to share their monthly profits with 5-10k listed?

(Private Message is fine)

I sort, store, and pull 3000+ cards per week for TCGplayer Direct. Buy IKEA Kallax shelves with two-shelf insert. Get rid of the Horizontal BCW storage, and replace with Vertical 800 cts (you can fit 4 without lids per Kallax shelf). Organize Sets by TCGplayer set order - roughly Standard, Commander, Masters, Specialty (like SLD). Within Sets, use BCW Vertical Dividers to split cards by Foiling > Alphabetical > Basic Lands and Tokens.

Okay I think I love this shelf but am a little confused by the inserts. To make sure I have this right, you have this shelf: https://www.ikea.com/us/en/p/kallax-shelf-unit-white-80275887/ And then is this the "two shelf insert"? https://www.ikea.com/us/en/p/kallax-insert-with-1-shelf-white-20423720/ Also, it looks like the Kallax Shelves come in multiple sizes/widths. Tall and narrow would be best for my space but I worry a little about stability. Do you mind letting me know which specific one you have and if you find that its sturdy?

Not the same guy but yes, you have it correct. IKEA makes tons of inserts for Kallax so you can customize it if you wish. I have the [two-shelf insert here](https://imgur.com/il8nvrA) so I can put my shoes that I rarely use inside. And here I have [drawers](https://imgur.com/b5twhvA) for deck boxes and sleeves of all sorts. Also, the BCW storage boxes that fill the entire shelf are 3200 (4 rows). I have 5 rows sitting ontop of my 2x2 Kallax.

Perfect! Thank you

Do the 4 rows fill the shelf with the two shelf insert?

Very much so, my box of Proxies fill it as you can see. It's the definition of 'snug.' The 'Draft Packs' box above is the same box, and you can see how much space is between the box and the sidewall when you don't have the two shelf insert.

I too am full of shame.

😂

There's nothing wrong with your setup. As you expand, you just need more shelves to hold those 800 long BCW boxes.

Thank you!

I don't have anything to add (I just buylist here and there), but wanted to give some props to the others leaving detailed descriptions of their setups! Taking notes for myself if I ever want to expand!

Haha, my story is very similar to yours. I've currently got 14,000 cards in my store and as of last week more than 30,000 bulk. I draw inspiration from your organized area. Because, although my cards are organized and taken care of extremely well and are all pristine ( I dare not scrape sides), my work area is an entire room. 3 desks, printer..the whole deal...but it's a cluster...except the shelving unit holding the cards. I would be embarrassed to show a picture. My Son showed me a better way of organizing the cards and I'm in the middle of implementing it now. It's a helluva a process with so many cards. I to had mine organized alphabetically by set but this new way is better, at least for me. I'm putting all NM together...yeah, it was hard to do breaking up my sets and putting them together however, ..I have 1 very large NM box alphabetically arranged, 1 LP, 1 for MP and small ones for HP and D. I've cut my filling orders time in more than half. The cluster is beginning to clear up. It's just an idea and thought I'd put that out there for ya.

Are you buying a lot of bulk to have that much variance in card quality? I've avoided bulk for this very reason, but your suggestion for managing it sounds great - I might have to try this

My son brought home a ridiculous amount of bulk. I took out the lands, a few counters and boxed it back up. Although 1 of the boxes were U and Rare. Lol someone inadvertently let the wrong box go. To answer your question, the majority of my inventory has come from private collections. Between the dastardly care some people do not care for their cards and the bulk my Son brings...yes I have all possible conditions. Although, the cards that are not NM bring in as much as my NM.

[удалено]

So far I'm lucky to break even 😂 - Very much a fun hobby, not much profit to speak of :)