Pokémon TCG: Sword and Shield—Brilliant Stars

How to use the Guide (using Mary's Request as an example)

PokePop

PokePop

Administrator
Staff member
If I priced my Mary's Request at 50cents I would sell them all in less than a day.
Click to expand...

The above statement shows that we need to explain a bit better how the price guide is supposed to be read and used. Let's start by looking at the prices we have listed for Mary's Request in our price guide:

Reg: Low= $0.50; Med= $1.00; High= $2.00; Trade=$1.00
Alt Holo: Low= $1.00; Med= $2.00; High= $3.00; Trade=$2.00

So, looking at these prices, what should you expect to pay if you want to buy a single Mary's Request from a seller on eBay?

50 cents? No. That's the low value. That is what you would expect to either sell it to a store or buy a large number of them for, in a lot.

$1.00 is the price that you should expect to pay.

Here, let's take a look at some recent sales on eBay. We're only going to look at closed, successful auctions. It doesn't really matter if a seller lists Mary's Request for a certain price, say $1.44, if no one has bought any at that price. We only factor in prices for cards that were actually bought.

Recent ebay sales of Mary's Request

Since the above link will change with time, here is the data it brings you to as of this writing:

These are all sales for 4XPOKEMON EX UNSEEN FORCES MARY'S REQUEST 86/115
Price $1.28 Shipping: $2.00 Nov-01 07:32
Price $1.56 Shipping: $2.00 Oct-28 17:36
Price $2.53 Shipping: $2.00 Oct-26 21:05
Price $1.50 Shipping: $1.95 Oct-22 17:09
Price $1.54 Shipping: $2.00 Oct-22 07:27

So, we get an average price of $1.68 for a set of 4 with shipping of $2.00
The question comes in now to consider how much to factor in the cost of shipping into the cost of the cards. After all, S&H is a real cost, but some sellers do use it to pad their sale price without having to pay as much commission to ebay. For 4 cards, $2.00 is reasonable, taking into account packing and toploaders. One could argue this point, but at least $1.00 must be given to shipping costs.

Now, $1.68 divided by 4 gives us a per card cost of $0.42. If we insist on counting half of the shipping cost as "profit", that still only gives us a cost of $0.67 per card.
We used $0.50 in our Guide. A reasonable compromise.

But what about a single price? The above was for bulk purchases. Well, to be frank, we don't have any data. Here is where we need help on our guide. We are able to use data from our Guide reporters. Each and everyone of them are very active traders and sellers, both here and on online sites. Their experience has helped fill in gaps like these. Also, simple knowledge of economics fills in these holes.
If 4 of an item sells for $0.50 each, $1.00 is reasonable for just one of thse items.

How about the retail (high) price? Lets look at a couple of online retail site:
www.shuffleandcut.com (Scott, you owe me a T-shirt now! :tongue: ): Reg for $1.99 and the AH version for $0.79(!!) I don't understand the rational for the upsidedown pricing here, but that's Scott's business.

www.collectorscache.com : Reg $2.50, the AH version is $6.00

So, our high price is close to S&Cs and a bit below CCs. It's also in line with our Medium price and so we are comfortable with that price as well, based on this.

As for the AH price, we have a blend of these prices since they vary so much.

Is our medium price 100% accurate? Maybe it should be adjusted slightly. Maybe up to $1.25. But we need sales data for this. We don't have it. Bear in mind, today is the opening day of the guide. As time goes on and people report data, we'll be more than happy to blend it in.

Thanks
Pop

Hopefully this has helped understand where the pricing comes from and how to use them.
 
According to this set up of a price guide I have to make some remarks.
There are several ways to calculate the value of a card, the one used is comparing auctioned cards.
Which in my opinion is so difficult the keep updated, those prices go up and down during a season.
At least that's my experience, overhere there is what we call a card season, which starts early March and ends when Summer Holiday starts. After Summer the whole market will fall down and raise again next years March.
Sometimes there is a little upward move in Sept/Okt.

A basic price (med) is set, according to what you get out of a box. Then for retail stores there has to be profit on it so those prices are always much higher. But still there is a general way to calculate.
Commons are common, so 0,10-0,20 is max, for any seller. (5 in a booster)
Uncommons are harder to find so prices will be some more than double 0.50, but in case an uncommon is playable it will go up to 1,00 and in rare circumstances 2,00. (2 in a booster)
Rare's start at 1,00 again harder to find and playable ones will go up to 2,00 in some cases up to 3,00. (1 in a booster)
Holo rare average 1 out of 3 boosters, so the correct price should be 3x boosterprice minus rare price makes 4 dollar each.
EX Pokemon depending on which set, While R/S, Sandstorm, Dragon had 6 EX, 6 Holo Rare as "randomness" series after used 9 Holo Rare, 3 EX.
For those first 3 series the price of an EX pokemon should be equal to the Holo Rare price say 4 dollar, the series after (untill UF) EX Pokemon at least doubled in price, while the Holo Rares went down a bit so avarage 3 dollar holo 8 dollar EX.
This would be correct if al EX pokemon and Holo's could be found in the same amount out of XX boxes.
But it doesn't always. While from some series if you open a case (6boxes) you wil get 2 complete series (HOLO + EX), and other series some Holo's or EX pokemon are so hard to find.
There is were the price is going up again.
Then you also have to take in account if a card is playable (high demand) this will also raise the price. Not only because of this demand, but more because for collectors it's hard to get a MINT one. The price of such cards will stay high, even years later.

I'm writing this from a collector /seller perspective, which I am, but I'm also a player.
Most I'm saying about prices will fall under the Med guide. But I noticed Holo's being in the list for 2 dollar each.
This is not reasonable, there are many people selling their left overs to get rid of them and in my opinion these prices are to much taken into account to set the prices for the guide.
Also due to the outrageous prices given for EX and * Pokemon, professional sellers were able to lower the prices of the "common" Holo's, but they spoiled the market this way.
This is going to have it's impact right now, Delta Species is out and no EX pokemon to compensate, so prices for Holo's must go up. Or EX Pokemon become so expensive less people can affort them.

I would suggest to make the MED table, the way cards are "random' inserted in the boxes and a playable more value taken in account. But not a Lugia Neo 1 for 35 dollar, it's simply not worth it, even if people are paying it.

I hope I explained correctly what I mean. on the long term most prices will stablize at the level I tried to explain above. Making a priceguide for a just released set is not reflecting reality.
I know in any market prices go up if the demand is large, but for a refence guide it;s in my opinion not the way to work.
Look at Nidoqueen, price was around 3 dollar and then after worlds it raised up to 6 and now it's going down again? Sorry but the amount of Nidoqueens in circulation are still the same, the Mint ones are more rare, but it's not enough to double a price. The temporarily high demand on that card is not enough to make such difference.

For the reverses/alternate holo's I might write something later this week.
I know some sellers will hate me for writing this, but it's just my opinion about prices and how I think they should be put into a guide.
 
The example is flawed, however, because "completed auctions" doesn't show store inventory items.
As you can see, just yesterday I sold 2x Mary's Request @ $1.44 http://offer.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewBidsLogin&item=6001296945

While the price of this particular card varies little from the example, how can you base any one the three price range targets when only taking into account half or less of the marketplace? That doesn't seem like a very responsible action to me.

I bring this up not to be critical, but because its important for all leadership of the 'Gym to understand that this "price guide" has the potential to seriously impact the marketplace. That impact could have a very serious effect on retailers, and I don't think that is something which should be treated lightly. I'm not making any accusations, but there is the potential that this guide will create, at least within the OP community, a false market ceiling. And I'm worried, because it doesn't appear that management has really considered that fact, nor, does it appear to me, that they have considered the implications associated therein.

All of the transactions used in the example given are based on a seller who repeatedly under performs the market. So when factoring price, and passing on that information, are you going to post a disclaimer stating that should you choose to value the card at that level, you'll end up waiting 3 weeks or more to receive it? When you apply values to such nominal things (which you most definatly can do) that raises the average price of each card considerably.

I guess my main beef here is that not only are you not surveying the whole marketplace, you're not even surveying a reasonable proportion of the marketplace, nor are you using the resources right here at your doorstep in order to be as accurate as possible.

I don't think there's any malice intended; but I think you underestimate the influence of anything posted on this website.
 
PS: The main point you are missing is that we are asking for ongoing price feedback.
We're not saying "It's $1.00. Take it or leave it".
And note that you keep focusing on the low end. There are 5 auctions at that price. How can we ignore that?

Now, do you know of a way to search by final sales from stores? Because I certainly want to include that data!
 
It's odd. I did an Advanced Search on stores and I am pulling Store sales, just not yours. Is that because the sale is still active and not completed yet?
 
PokePop said:
PS: The main point you are missing is that we are asking for ongoing price feedback.
We're not saying "It's $1.00. Take it or leave it".
And note that you keep focusing on the low end. There are 5 auctions at that price. How can we ignore that?
Click to expand...

I'm not saying ignore it, I'm saying look at it in context.
Two people at a fruit market.
Both selling small baskets of peaches.
Seller A: $6.00 per basket, 8 peaches
Seller B: $3.00 per basket, 6 peaches

Alright, so, seller B is considerably cheaper.
But his peaches are bruised, and the bottom one is rotten.
If you're taking a survey of the market price of peaches, how much weight should seller B have in the equation? If he sells twice as many peaches as seller A, but 9% of his customers complain as opposed to .5% of his competitor's customers, how do you factor that into the value of peaches?

Listen, don't take my comments the wrong way. I'm not angry and I admire what you guys are trying to do. I mean that. I think that often people take my comments as PS just liking to argue, and while I certainly do enjoy a good debate, that's not the case most of the time.

And, I'm not missing the fact that you're asking for ongoing data - I do, however, seriously doubt the willingness of the community as a whole to objectively and continuously report accurate market data. And that creates a problem, because if you're only relying on the closed sales of NTDCC to determine the price of trainers (as an example), you're creating a false market ceiling for those items.

As soon as you put something on the 'Gym, it might as well be official. We all know its not, but in practicality, it might as well be. The prices you list in that guide will become the law of the land as far as the OP community is concerned. IMO, that's not something to play around with (and I'm not saying that you are doing so).
 
PokePop said:
It's odd. I did an Advanced Search on stores and I am pulling Store sales, just not yours. Is that because the sale is still active and not completed yet?
Click to expand...

Hmmm...that's very possible.
That too create a problem, then - because that would eliminate the ability to search for any sold items which are stocked in continuous inventory. (I.e. they never "complete" because more are always added).
That doesn't mean that they are out of the market.
So, I guess what I'm saying is that the way the surveys are currently conducted, we're going to proportionately more low end reports and than high end, thus driving both the low and high end artificially down.

I'm not sure if I explained that very well...
 
Of course you are also missing the point that it is a Guide. It is not the be all and end all. It is simply a Guide.

If i buy from seller A for $1 instead of seller B for $2, if i am curious about the intangibles like service, that is what eBay feedback is for. And it that intangible really cannot be factored into a price. Just like trading with someone. Trader A and B both have many refs. Except Trader B always uses padded envelopes, top loaders, and tracking. Trader A uses top loaders but some times uses padded envelopes and sometimes uses regular envelopes. Who will you trade with? Does those intangibles really mean anything? Could but for the most part they don't.
 
The fruit is not exactly a valid example.
From what you are saying, he ships late, not that he ships shoddy merchandise.
And how exactly would I factor that in?

Again, bear in mind, his sales (in this example) represent the low end. Even if we up the Med price to your sale price ($1.44), I have news for you, the low end is still going to be about half the med price. That's the nature of how these ranges work. Remember, our guide indicates that the low end is th bargain price, the bulk price, or the price they could they could sell their cards to a shop for. Are you disputing that $0.50 is about right for that definition?
 
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