NOTE: These transcripts are generated automatically, so there are plenty of mistakes.
Oliver: [00:00:00] Today I’m joined by Nick from Old School Pokemon. This guy might be a literal genius when it comes to selling cards on eBay and especially eBay Live, which we talk about in depth. We also talk about the Wizards best of game promos from 2003. Now Nick is the only person ever, like ever, to open up these old Pokemon League Battlezone kits on camera.
So he is a piece of Pokemon card history and we get into that. It’s, it’s a really good one. Please stick around and I hope you enjoy the show. So have you already done your, your eBay live for the day?
Nick: No eBay live today, which is nice. I get, I get Thursdays off. I’ll be, I’ll be back at it tomorrow.
Oliver: Cool.
Cool. And I’m sure we’ll get into that. Cause I’ve got a bunch of questions for you, but to get started, I want to hear basically your origin story. Like how did you. Get into Pokemon.
Nick: Yeah, so I’m uh, I’m a typical 90s kid. I’m [00:01:00] uh, 32 right now So grew up grew up in the 90s. I got into it from just my friends in school I remember back back 90 99 the anime had come out So, all my friends in school were watching it, talking about it, and that, that kind of got me into, into the show.
And started, started watching that. I feel like, I feel like I’m one of the only people who, who never got into the actual video games. Red, blue, yellow. I never, never had a Game Boy growing up, so. The only, the only time I would ever play the game was when I would go over to a friend’s house. Or when I would go over to my cousin’s house, we would, we would play it a little bit.
So for me, it was mainly, mainly the anime. And then when the, when the actual cards came out with, with base set, I was, I was, I was big into the cards. I really, really liked collecting the cards and just, just, just opening packs, building my binder. I never, never played the TCG. Still to this day, don’t know how to play the TCG.
So it was for me mainly collecting the [00:02:00] cards, trading cards with friends at school and stuff like that. And it, it, it, it, it more so just lasted. I remember base jungle fossil fairly, fairly vividly. And then I, my, one of my most vivid memories with Pokemon, which is kind of unfortunate was when a team rocket came out, I remember me and my mom were at Walmart.
I saw the Team Rocket packs on the shelf, it was the brand new set, and I begged my mom to buy me, buy me one of the Team Rocket packs so I could open it. And fortunately she did, but we got out to the car, opened the pack, and I just, I just remember seeing all these, all these weird looking Pokemon, all the dark Pokemon.
And it completely turned me off of Pokemon at that point. So that, that’s kind of the point where I got out of Pokemon back as a kid.
Oliver: That’s very interesting. Cause I mean, I think I speak for [00:03:00] most collectors when I say like the dark Pokemon were huge. That was really cool.
Nick: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Nowadays I do actually really like Team Rocket, but, but back then just, just leave.
How things were so different, they looked so different. I was, I was not a fan as a kid back then. For what, for whatever reason. So, it was, it was mainly, mainly because I based Jungle Fossil in my, in my childhood binder. Very little bit of Team Rocket, and then nothing, nothing past Team Rocket. That was, so that was, that was early, early 2000s.
And, I, I think part of it was, was because of Team Rocket. And then also another part is, that’s when, that’s when Yu Gi Oh! started kind of taking off and getting popular. And my friend group in school started getting into Yu Gi Oh! So I kinda, I kinda followed them, left Pokemon, which was, which was childish, and got into Yu Gi Oh!
Yu Gi Oh! was actually a game that I, not, not anything [00:04:00] seriously, but that, that was actually a game that I, I did play with my friends. Like at recesses, I would go to the local game store around me. On, on the weekends and actually, actually play the game there. So that, that was fun, but yeah, for Pokemon, it was, it was team rocket is when I, when I got on, got out of it and moved into, moved into other things.
Oliver: Do you still play Yu Gi Oh? You still into that?
Nick: I do not. I’ve been, I’ve been wanting to get back into Yu Gi Oh for, for a very long time. Mainly playing would be cool, but mainly like getting back into the cards, collecting some of the cards, buying and selling collections. For right now, Pokemon just takes up all of my time, and I don’t, I don’t want to, I don’t want to branch off too, too much, just because I already have so many other things going on.
Oliver: That’s fair, you, you do seem like a Pretty dedicated, but very busy person when it comes to business, so you know, you don’t want to [00:05:00] like, expand to Yu Gi Oh and then get caught up in Magic and, and all the other ones.
Nick: Yeah, exactly, exactly.
Oliver: So you, you’ve pretty much dropped out of Pokemon around Rocket, when did you come back?
Nick: So coming back was, was, it was fairly early on. I got back into it in two, 2009. And the, the, the kind of story behind that was, so 2009, I’m a, I believe I was a freshman, freshman or sophomore in high school. So I, I, I ha I wasn’t working. I was just going to school playing sports, and one day I was just cleaning out my bedroom and I stumbled upon my old childhood collection that I had back in the day.
And, uh, so, back, back then, like I said, not working. I was big into video games. Uh, there was some new video game that had just came out around this same time frame that I found my childhood collection. My mom and dad didn’t want to buy me that [00:06:00] game at the time. I, I completely forget what game it was. So, for whatever reason, I’m cleaning up my room one day.
Find my old childhood collection and think to myself, maybe, maybe these cards are worth money. Let me try selling them on eBay. Fortunately, I knew, I knew about eBay because my dad had a, my dad had a coin shop and he would, he would sell on eBay as well. So he had a, he had a fairly large eBay business himself.
So I, I had always known about eBay. And so I went to my dad and said, Hey, can we, can we try selling these cards, cards on eBay and see how they go? And so he helped me, uh, he helped me get the, get the listing up. At this point, I don’t know, hardly, I don’t remember much about Pokemon. So I kind of organized the binder the best as possible.
I put all the, all the shiny holo cards together and all the different colors together and try and try and make it a nice presentable binder. And we listed as a seven day auction. I remember coming home from school every single [00:07:00] day, logging onto the computer, Seeing how many people had viewed it, how many watchers there were, answering any questions, seeing what the price was up to.
And just kind of fell in love with the whole buying the whole selling process on eBay. So seven days later, the collection sells, it’s sold for like 25 bucks. It was not much at all. But that, that got me the, the, the reselling bug hit me from, from that sale. And so I started kind of going around my room, finding other things to sell.
Um, a few weeks after that. My dad and I went to, went to another coin shop that he would, he would kind of buy wholesale off of, and so I’m, I’m there with my dad and the coin shop owner actually has a, a two player starter deck. theme deck display case on the shelf. And so, seeing that he has this Pokemon stuff, I did, [00:08:00] quote unquote, well with my Pokemon sale.
I thought, hey, maybe I can give this a shot and see how, see how this goes. And like I said, I still, I still don’t know much about Pokemon. So, the two player starter deck, I thought, these each contain 60 cards. You’re getting a holographic in every, every deck. There’s eight decks total. I’ll have a whole bunch of different cards, a bunch of different holos that I can, that I can open and make into small lots and sell them that way.
So fortunately, I was able to buy that. So I bought that for, it was like 50 bucks. Bought that, opened all the themed decks, and very quickly realized that every single themed deck had the exact same cards in it. And most of those cards were Energies. But I was able to break them down, build small lots out of them.
Sell them that way. Worked really, really hard selling, selling all those small lots, doing auctions, doing buy it nows, and made a little bit of money actually doing that. Probably not worth the amount of time that I put into it, but made a little bit [00:09:00] of money doing that, and that just kind of solidified that I was gonna try and sell, sell Pokemon cards.
And so from there it was, it was going to flea markets, going to yard sales, looking for, looking for collections of cards to buy, kind of diving deeper into like the research, what, what cards are worth money, what cards aren’t worth money, what cards sell best. And, and for me back then, I was all about the cards that I grew up with as a kid.
So strictly base jungle fossil, I would eventually branch out into the rest of the, uh, the Wotsi era. Yeah. But for the longest time, it was, it was all Wotsy, and it just, just kind of snow, built up and snowballed from there. I would, I would buy collections, break them down in individual cards, smaller lots, and sell them that way.
And I did that pretty much, pretty much all through high school and getting into college. And then, uh, So this is, this is like 20, 2014 now, is when I’m, when I’m in college. [00:10:00] About halfway through college, I, I was really enjoying selling on eBay, doing the Pokemon stuff, but it still wasn’t something that was, that was making me a lot of money, or enough money to survive through college with.
So between going to school, working an actual part time job, and doing eBay on the side, It just got to be way too much for me to handle. So, the easiest thing to give up was the Pokemon. And so I gave that up. I figured, hey, I’m two years into college, I got two years left. Once I graduate from college, I’m gonna start working full time, probably never gonna get back into Pokemon again.
And so, gave that up, sold everything that I had, and never, quote unquote, never looked back until I graduated from college, started working full time. I was working on a Working on a cargo ship. So I would work three, four months and then come home three, four months, which sounds like an awesome job where you [00:11:00] have so much time off.
But after, after I got off the first ship that I was working on, I very quickly realized having all that time off was so boring because everyone else was working during the week. So I needed something to occupy my time during, during the week as, as more so a hobby. And so I kind of immediately got back into Pokemon.
I had a lot of money from, from just getting off the ship, spending four months away, not spending any money. So I went on a kind of a shopping spree on eBay, bought a whole bunch of big collections and restarted, restarted my eBay business from there. Um, and just kind of grew that over the years that that’s actually when I started collecting as well.
This, this is 20, 2016, not only was I buying and selling, but I was also collecting at that time. When I, when I first got into it back in high school, it was, it was strictly buying and selling. I wasn’t collecting. I was collecting a little bit, but [00:12:00] very, very minimally. And then 2016, when I got back into it, that’s when I started collecting.
And collecting, collecting mainly stuff that I remembered as a kid. All the Wonsei sets. And then I branched off and started doing booster packs and theme decks, and mainly focused around Wonsei still. Because that’s, that’s, that’s what I grew up with. That’s, that’s what I like the best. And so that’s, that’s kind of what I, what I stuck with.
Oliver: So this was in 2016. Um, did you just happen to get back into Pokemon or was this inspired by the Pokemon Go hype?
Nick: So this was, this was just, just inspired by me enjoying doing the Pokemon back in high school and college. This was, this was, it was, it was kind of the perfect timing because it was, it was January of 2016.
So it was, it was before the Pokemon Go hype is when I, when I got back into it and then Pokemon Go came out, um, and the cards, the cards [00:13:00] exploded in popularity, exploded in price, which was, it was nothing compared to 2020, but it was, it was a dramatic increase from pre, Pre Pokemon go up until up until then
Oliver: and so this this eBay account that you’re buying and selling on Is that old school Pokemon like is this the same account?
Nick: so when I was when I gave up Pokemon I had old school Pokemon and I actually, I deleted, I completely deleted that account because the only thing I used eBay for was, was Pokemon. And so when I, when I stopped, when I sold everything off, I deleted my account. And then when I got back into Pokemon in 2016, I restarted, made a new account and I tried to take old school Pokemon back again, but the username, someone else had, had taken my username.
No idea why it was. [00:14:00] It was a very. Low feedback account. And so I was, I was so bummed about that. So I came up with some stupid regular name and I tried reaching out to the guy who had old school Pokemon. I reached out to him multiple times over the course of a couple of months. And finally he saw one of my messages, got back to me and I basically told him, Hey, I used to have this username.
I’d love to have it back. Anyway, you can change your name. And I finally, finally made a deal with him where I paid him 50 bucks. He got rid of his name, waited the 30 days, because you have to, you have to wait 30 days where you can take, take a name and waited 30 days, got old school Pokemon back and have been, have been old school Pokemon since, which is, which is awesome to have, get that name back.
I was, I was so happy about that.
Oliver: So you can actually change your name on eBay. I didn’t know that.
Nick: Yeah, yep, yep, you can change your username. Oh,
Oliver: [00:15:00] okay.
Nick: You can only, you can only do it once every 30 days, and then your old username remains kind of in limbo for that 30 days. So nobody, nobody can take that old username for 30 days.
Oliver: I’m going to have to jump on that because I’ve had an eBay account, just my personal buying one since 2008. It’s got tons of feedback. And then I just made a new one earlier this year for buying and selling because I didn’t just want to use my personal name. But now that I know that I might, I might have to do that.
That’s cool.
Nick: Yeah, exactly. Exactly.
Oliver: So. I found you because I was researching the best of game promos from Wizards back in 2003 and you have the only, I’m pretty sure the only video on the internet of Opening those original kits that came to the battle zone events. So first of all, congratulations on like actually being a part of Pokemon card history, cause that’s just insanely cool.[00:16:00]
But I want to know, can you, can you tell us how you acquired these kits? Like how you found them and, and why you decided to pull the trigger on these?
Nick: So these were, these were on heritage. I, I should have gone back and looked, I forget when this was. I think this was 2021. It was the, the, these were an auction on Heritage, and Heritage did a really, a really bad job of kind of labeling these and describing these.
The, the pi, the main picture that they used was just all of the, all of the manila envelopes and the, the, the manila envelopes just have stickers on them. They’re just white stickers that say, say the month and what it, what it actually is. And so when I saw that, I, I, I knew what they were because Pokirev actually had a listing of one of them up in his eBay store.
And he had it for [00:17:00] a really high price. So I knew, I wasn’t able to justify that price. But I kind of kept that in the back of my mind, knowing that I really, really wanted one of these at some point. Because I, I love that, that whole kind of That whole kind of like, like, league material, promotional type of stuff in, in Pokemon.
This, the kind of stuff that you, that you like, don’t see every day. Like the cards, the packs, the themed decks, that stuff you see all the time. But this type of stuff you really don’t see very often. So I just happened to see that on Heritage. And when I saw that, I thought it was going to go for a really good price.
Because I figured nobody else knew what this was. Nobody else would pay attention to just like, vanilla envelopes. But as it turned out, Rusty, TCA Gaming, he also saw that on Heritage and he knew what it was as well. And so I got into a bidding war with him on that. And fortunately, I beat him out on that one, which was, which was awesome.
So I bought him off of Heritage [00:18:00] and was able to, was able to beat out Rusty. But I think I ended up paying, I should have gone back. I think it was 6, 000, 5, 500 or 6, 000 with the buyer’s premium. So I definitely, definitely paid up for them, but it was something, it was something that I really had wanted for, for quite a while after seeing PokéRev’s eBay listing for, for my own, my own personal collection.
Oliver: That’s really cool. Rusty is not the opponent I would want on that. If he didn’t see them, you, you potentially could have really lucked out, but.
Nick: Yes, yes, but
Oliver: no, I’m pretty sure that guy’s probably a hawk with these kinds of things.
Nick: Yeah, exactly And it was funny. I didn’t know I didn’t know I was bidding against him until after the auction ended I posted posted an Instagram story saying saying that I had won these and he actually responded that saying I was I was What something like I was wondering it was bidding against me feeding me up on these things [00:19:00] So that was that was cool to beat him out on something one of one of the few things that I’ve been able to beat him out
Oliver: That’s cool.
One of the things that I, I think I’m most interested in is the documentation that like that original photocopied paper that, that came in those kits. So the January kit, which I believe was the second kit, correct? It,
Nick: yep. Cause you had, you had the holiday, the
Oliver: holiday kit was the holiday. It was a November, December split, right?
Nick: Yes. Yep.
Oliver: So the January kit came with a Pikachu world collection.
Nick: Yes!
Oliver: Which, I mean, you were clearly surprised in the video. I didn’t see anything anywhere else claiming that the Pikachu world collection came in these kits. Was there any kind of documentation explaining why it was in there?
Nick: There was not, which I was, I was kind of surprised by all the, all the documentation is, is basically it’s the [00:20:00] same readout on, on every single one of the kids.
So that, that same, that same file that that’s uploaded on Pokeyumon, that that’s the same information in every single kit. So there, there was really no, no rhyme or reason as to why, why that kit got the, got the Pikachu world collection. But, but yeah, when I, when I opened that and saw that, I was, I was really surprised.
I was, I was not expecting that whatsoever.
Oliver: My theory is that they just had too many, right?
Nick: I, I would, it, it’s got, it, it had to have been something like that. They just, they just had them, they just had them in their, in their warehouse and figured why not, why not throw these in there as well.
Oliver: I was reading stories of, of people going to Gen Con 2003 and just walking away with like, Halls of booster boxes.
Cause wizards knew their contract was coming to an end and they’re just giving [00:21:00] stuff out. And I was even looking at old chat logs where they’re saying like, Hey guys, Show up to the Pokemon leagues. Cause like we’re giving stuff away. So I, I don’t think that’s much of a stretch to say they just had extra stuff and they threw it in there.
And I wouldn’t be surprised if some other battle zone kits somewhere out there had other things in them.
Nick: I wouldn’t be surprised by that either. Especially like the, when you get into the later, later months for sure. Cause, cause yeah, that, that like, I don’t know if you know, echo, echo base collectibles.
Um, but he, he was big into Pokemon back, back during the transition. And he was actually, he was actually part of, part, like a, like a judge for, for tournaments and stuff. And he was, he, he’s, he’s always said that, that during that time frame, Wizards would just give, give insane prizes. Which would, back then they weren’t insane.
But he was, he was, he was saying like, they would give cases of Sky Ridge boxes. [00:22:00] Which is to think about that now is absurd, but back then it wasn’t, it wasn’t as crazy.
Oliver: Yeah. And I can’t even imagine just, just, you know, a few packs of Sky Ridge in 2024. So I want to know what, what did you do with all those cards? I think I did see a video where you said that you graded some best of game promos were these, those promos.
Nick: Yeah, so the, I, I, I was so torn on what to do with this.
When I, when I originally bought it, I, I kind of knew I wanted to open it. So I knew I wanted to open them for sure. So that, that was kind of the first thing. So I opened them all, looked, looked at what everything was. And then from there, I really didn’t know what to do with it. So for, for a little while, I just had them, I just put them back in the envelope and I had them there.
And then, after, after a little while of that, I decided, Well, I really like these posters. So I want to, I want to get these [00:23:00] posters framed up. So I got all the posters framed up and then I hung those, hung those in my room. Still have those, which is, which is really, really cool. And then after that, the kits are kind of incomplete at this point.
So then it was, then it was a little bit easier for me to say, well, okay, I don’t need these, I don’t need these sealed packs of cards anymore. Let me, let me open the sealed packs because the, the Mewtwo. Which was in the last kit, though the Winter Stamp Mewtwo is a very, very tough card to get in a PSA 10.
And so, I was dying to know if any of my, if any of my copies had, had a shot for a PSA 10. So I opened that one. Unfortunately, mine were riddled with print lines. So, I opened that one. There was not a single one that could get a 10 in there. So I sent those cards off to PSA and then once those ones were opened, I opened the rest of them and sent, sent everything off to PSA and I ended up keeping, [00:24:00] keeping one of each graded copy.
So I kept, I kept the highest grade that I got and then sold off, sold off the remainder of them and then basically just kept the, kept the Pikachu world collection, have the posters framed and then kept the, kept the manila envelopes with all of the, all the documentation in there as well.
Oliver: So you opened all of them, correct?
Nick: Yes. Yep.
Oliver: You couldn’t save one because there was one for each season, right?
Nick: Yeah. So you had, you had one, one for each season. And I, I wanted to, I wanted to see what was in each one. Because you, you had a little bit, there really wasn’t any type of like, like research that had been done on these. So you had a little bit of knowledge from, like I said, Pokirev had an eBay listing up.
But I wasn’t sure. Was his complete or was there things missing from that or what was the what was the story behind that? So I want I wanted to open them all to see to see exactly what was [00:25:00] inside of them all and I’m I am I Am glad I did that because I I I would be I would be forever curious exactly what was inside of it I know I talked to talk to Charlie Charlie collects on Instagram and He was saying I needed to keep him sealed just because you know You, you really don’t see those anywhere available that are sealed.
So who knows how many, how many more are out there? But yeah, that was, it was, it was just, was not going to happen for me. Like the curiosity got the best of me on those ones.
Oliver: It’s totally understandable. What about the jumbos? Did you sell those off? Did you keep them?
Nick: So the jumbos, I sent those off to be graded and I held onto those as well.
Luckily, I’m, I’m a very, I’m a very OCD collector. So if they, if they were mixed grades, I wouldn’t have liked it as much. But luckily they all came back as PSA 9. So that, that’s, that’s actually really cool. [00:26:00] So I, I, I sent all those off and I have all those still got a nice, got a nice nine set sequential sequential cert numbers.
Oliver: Did that one not have like a dent in it or something?
Nick: So the, there was one of them that did have. I forget which one it was now. There was one of them that did have a dent and you can, you can visibly see that it has a dent, but somebody missed that at PSA. So I’m not, I’m not complaining there.
Oliver: I remember in your video though, you said like it was very visible on screen, but you couldn’t feel it with your thumb.
It was kind of weird. Wasn’t it?
Nick: Yes, it was. It was, it was, it’s it’s, it was visibly there. But you’ve got normal indents. You kind of, you can feel it this one. You could not, so I don’t know. I don’t know if that played a factor in with the, with the grading or what, but it definitely looks [00:27:00] like it’s there.
Oliver: Well, you got lucky, I guess. I’ll take it. I’ll take it. I hope you’re enjoying the show. I just wanted to remind you that I have an email newsletter. That’s completely free to sign up. Link is in the description. And if you have signed up for email newsletters in the past. This isn’t like that, okay? There’s, um, no spam in your inbox, I promise.
It’s Once a month, I’m not trying to sell you anything. I’m not trying to get you to click on any links other than maybe a YouTube video. But it’s just me, and I’m writing about what I’m doing, and I’m just trying to connect with my audience. So if that sounds like something you might be interested in, please consider it, and bye!
Let’s get back to the show. So you sold a lot of those off. You, you must grade a lot of cards. Hey, a lot of cards.
Nick: Yeah. Between, between, between PSA and CDC. Yes, yes, for sure. But yeah, I sold, I kept one of each, one of each different one. And then sold, [00:28:00] sold the remainder off and the, they, they sold pretty well.
They sold slowly because it is because it is a niche thing, but they did sell pretty well. I don’t, I don’t think it was. It definitely wasn’t a profitable purchase for me, but just having, having the experience, being able to keep the jumbos, being able to keep the posters and then having all the, all the extra stuff that goes along with it.
For basically free, I would say it was definitely worth it.
Oliver: Well, your sacrifice is appreciated in that case.
Nick: At least, at least we got some extra information out of it.
Oliver: Yeah, we, we really did. I want to hear a little more about your buying process though. Do you, do you, do you still buy like full collections and where do you source this kind of stuff from?
Nick: Yeah, so that, that whole part hasn’t, hasn’t changed much. I’m, I’m still, I still buy, buy big [00:29:00] collections, break them down into individual cards and sell them, sell them off. It, it, it has, it has changed a little bit from the, from the beginning where back, back in the beginning, up until just last year actually, I would, I would sell everything individually.
So all your commons, uncommons, rares, non holos, stuff like that. All that would be sold individually. Nowadays, I’m on eBay Live. That’s becoming a bigger and bigger part of my eBay business. And so, that kind of stuff doesn’t do as well. I’m not as focused on that type of stuff. So now, I’m, I’m mainly, I’m a little bit more particular on going after, like, higher value cards.
Like, only, only buying 5 and above cards. But yeah, for, for the most part, it’s still, it’s still the same as how I started. Bye, Big Collections. Constantly looking on. eBay used to be a really, really good avenue for me. Nowadays, it’s, it’s, there’s still a little bit of [00:30:00] opportunity on eBay. I’ve been finding most of my deals on like the, the Pokemon Facebook group.
So, so I just, I just searched sell Pokemon on Facebook and joined hundreds of groups, any, any group that had any type of daily activity, I would join. So I’ve been constantly looking on Facebook, finding, finding collections that way. Now that, now that I have some type of social media presence on, on YouTube, on Instagram, people, people reaching out to me is, is another one that’s, that’s really nice.
And then now that I’m, now that I’m doing these eBay lives and selling, selling a lot more cards, I’m kind of working, kind of working on lower margins, but my sell through rate is a lot higher. So now even going to conventions and Buying cards at conventions is another, another way that I can source cards.
Oliver: That’s [00:31:00] really interesting. Buying cards from conventions. Hey, so you’re buying single cards from conventions.
Nick: Yes. And so, so for most people that wouldn’t work very well because most, most vendors, they’re, they’re not going to want to go. They’re not going to want 60, 70%, which is kind of the margin that you would need to.
typically make money. But for, for me, if I can, if I can go there and buy five, 10 cards of really popular Pokemon that I know we’re going to do well in the live stream and then lot those cards together, I’m able to sell for a little bit over market. So I can pay 80, I like to pay 80 to 85%. I don’t like to go above that.
I can pay 80 to 85 percent and still make a little bit of margin on that. So that, that’s actually something that I want to start doing a little bit more of is, is those in person [00:32:00] conventions. For one, you get to kind of pick and choose exactly what type of cards you want. And then number two, they’re, they’re a lot of fun to go to as well.
So it’s, it’s kind of, kind of a win win scenario in, in that case.
Oliver: So, I was watching your videos on eBay Live, and all I’m seeing is like, opportunity, opportunity. But, can you tell the audience, as well as myself, what the heck eBay Live is? Because it’s still in beta, correct? And I’m pretty sure it’s not in Canada.
Because I cannot, I can’t access it.
Nick: Yes, so right so right now it is it is still in beta. They’ve been in beta for they they got they launched it the end of May last year. So it’s just over a year that it’s been in beta. They still have a long ways to go before it’s completely rolled out. Right now it is just available in the U.
- Which is a little bit unfortunate for anyone living [00:33:00] outside the U. S. But if you’re familiar with Whatnot, It’s similar to Whatnot, where it’s a live selling platform. Um Unlike Whatnot, where Whatnot has all those, like the gambling aspects, the mystery aspects and stuff like that. eBay, eBay is not, not wanting to put up with that type of stuff.
So it’s strictly, it’s, it’s like if Whatnot was a good platform. I’m, I’m not a big fan of Whatnot because of all that extra stuff. So it’s like if Whatnot was a good platform where it was just strictly, you know, Selling cards through auction, ripping packs for people on the stream, and none of that extra stuff to go along with it.
So I, I really like it. Obviously getting in early was, was really nice. But even, even now there’s, there’s, they’re, they’re kind of strict about who they, who they let on there. So it’s not, it’s not a ton of sellers on there. There’s a limited amount of [00:34:00] sellers on the platform. So even if you’re just starting out as a seller on there, there’s You can still build up an audience because you don’t have so much competition.
Like for, for Pokemon in particular, which is what we care about, there’s, there’s only, there’s three, four, five, there’s six Pokemon sellers on the, on the platform that do, that do Pokemon. So there’s really not many other, other Pokemon sellers on there. And so it’s, it’s, it’s really nice for me because I kind of have a, a captive audience, if you will.
And then I’m able to, I’m able to continuously grow my following. So that way, when, if, when eBay live does get out of beta and they start allowing more and more sellers on there, I’ll already, I’ll already have a, a foundation that I’ve built of, of a following, which is, which is the biggest thing. The biggest thing for live selling.
You need to, you need to have those active viewers in, in the stream in order to, in order to be, be [00:35:00] successful.
Oliver: So hopefully, I mean, they’ll probably gradually roll it out when they do. Right. Instead of just opening up the gates.
Nick: Yeah, I would, I would imagine they, they will definitely, they’ll, they’ll definitely gradually, gradually roll it out and they’ll, they’ll, they’ll be pretty selective with who they, who they let on.
I can’t see. I can’t see a world where they just let anyone on, on like the live streaming aspect. I, I imagine it will always be some type of, some type of selection process. But yeah, they, they still, they still have, I really like it, but they still have a long ways to go of, of fine tuning it and working out, working out these bugs and glitches.
And it can be frustrating at times because you, you look at WhatNot and WhatNot has, has things set up so perfectly. eBay is so far from that right now, but they’re, they’re moving in the right direction. Sales are going well for me so far. So I’m, I’m definitely [00:36:00] all in on, on eBay live and definitely, definitely going to continue, continue in that direction.
Oliver: And I know you’re actually ripping packs on there too. So is that like a rip and ship model?
Nick: Yes, I, I kind of set my streams up where I’ll go, I’ll go live five nights a week. The first two hours of the stream will be between 80 and 100 auctions. And then after that, I’ll get into the pack ripping, where I’ll list the packs, buy it now.
And people can, people can buy the packs. They have the option to have them shipped sealed. Obviously, if you’re, if you’re buying the packs through the livestream, you’re, you’re, most people are opening the packs in the livestream as well. So, they’ll, they’ll buy the packs and, uh, have them opened in the livestream.
Which is, it’s actually becoming a, a fairly, fairly big part of, of the lives. Which is something that I, I never thought would happen.
Oliver: Wow, yeah. So, that’s [00:37:00] That’s really interesting to me. And it’s really cool to hear that eBay is going in this direction because they’ve been kind of, I don’t want to say like outdated or behind, but they haven’t really been on like the cutting edge lately.
Nick: Yeah. Yeah. Which is, yeah, it’s seeing like, like being, being involved with the eBay live stuff, it’s a little frustrating because of like how, how slowly things move there, but then on the flip side, looking at it from eBay’s perspective, They are such a massive corporation that every, every little change has to get approved by multiple different people before it actually goes through.
So yeah, they, they do move very, very slowly, but it is, it is really nice to see that they are, they are kind of getting into this live selling aspect. And I, I think it’s, I think it’s really important for them, for them to, to get into live selling. Because. [00:38:00] Particularly in like collectibles, Pokemon in particular.
I do think that is a, that is a, a, a, a huge market that a lot of people are interested in. Obviously for, for, for more serious collectors, it doesn’t, it might not make a lot of sense having to spend hours and hours in this live stream, waiting for one particular card that you want, but the, the majority of people that are going into these streams are more so.
More so the casual collectors or people who are just wanting to interact with the hobby. There’s, there’s plenty of people who go into the live streams and just, just interact with the chat and have a, have a good time. It’s, it’s not all people just there to, just there to buy cards. So you really, you really do get that, get to like build up a, like a, like a, like a YouTube community on eBay.
There’s people who hop in all like the YouTube lives and watch those. It’s, it’s very similar to that. You really do get to build up a community of people who [00:39:00] tune in multiple times a week, every single night. So it’s, it’s a lot of fun in that, in that regard.
Oliver: And I can vouch for those people that just come in and hang out.
Cause recently I was on Fanatics. They, they don’t even ship to Canada, but I was just hanging out in the live streams and I like seeing other people. Get their packs opened and stuff like that. Right. So that community aspect is it’s huge. Like it’s a big deal. And you know, when fanatics does decide to ship to this like forgotten country way up here, then, then maybe I’ll buy something, you know?
Nick: Yup. Yup. Exactly.
Oliver: So are there other sectors on eBay live outside of collectibles?
Nick: So they do, it’s a lot of collectibles. Like I said, Pokemon there, we got six sellers. Coins and bullion is another, it’s another fairly big, big category. They do a sports cards, comics, and [00:40:00] then even outside of like the collectible stuff, jewelry and purses and fashion there, there’s people who do do those, those types of streams on there, which is that, that is something interesting to me.
I never, I never thought. Like who’s who’s buying clothes on on a live stream now, that’s one thing that I I don’t understand But they they probably think the same thing about us who’s who’s buying cards on a live stream But yeah, no, so there there is a few different categories It is it is mainly focused around collectibles.
Like I said pokemon sports comics coins Those are those are kind of the four biggest categories And then they have, they have the fashion. Sneakers is another big one on there. People, people buying sneakers on there as well.
Oliver: Can you give us some beginner or novice tips on, on getting started on an eBay store?
If, if someone wants to start flipping Pokemon cards, for example.
Nick: So as far as getting started on eBay in general, I would, so I would [00:41:00] say pictures is one of the biggest thing. Making sure to Making sure to have good pictures, good angles. If you’re selling your, especially if you’re selling single cards, rated cards is a little bit easier, but if you’re selling single cards, take pictures of different angles, uh, highlight any damage that’s on the card, be fully transparent with people through, through the pictures.
Um, most, most people buying on eBay aren’t reading the description, which is super annoying as a seller sometimes, but. It’s, it’s, it’s just, it’s just a fact that most people don’t read the description. It’s kind of interesting along the lines of descriptions. I forget where you can find this, but somewhere in your like seller metrics, you can see how many people are buying from you through the eBay app versus desktop.
And for me, it’s like, but before eBay live, which is mobile, before eBay live, it was like 75 percent of people are buying through the [00:42:00] mobile app versus desktop. And on the mobile app in order to find the item description, it, they make it next to impossible. So it makes sense that people aren’t reading the descriptions.
So pictures is a big one. Titling is another really, really big one. Obviously that’s, that’s how people are going to find your listing on eBay. So making sure you have as many keywords as possible. I like to go with very generic to most specific. So for me, most generic is going to be Pokemon. Pokemon is always the first word in the title.
And then I’ll go with the actual set, the card name, the card number, and then finally the condition. So just figure out, figure out your kind of template for titling and keep everything, everything uniform. All your listings have the same kind of title format. And then the, the other one that I more recently realized was, was really important was the item [00:43:00] specifics.
That’s becoming really, really important. The more items, yes, the more items specifics you can add onto a listing, the, the better off you’re going to be. The quicker, the quicker it’s going to sell. I don’t know exactly how the backend of eBay works, but I think item specifics is something that they look for.
In order to kind of, kind of boost your listing in the, in the search results. So the more item specifics you can add in, the better off you’re going to be. Obviously leave it, leave it pertinent to the actual card. Don’t just make up stuff to have the item specifics. But yes, those, those are actually becoming really, really important.
I, I, it was, it was, it was funny. Actually. I had, I had a, a ton of single cards listed in my store. And they, they really weren’t selling. And so when I, I, I actually hired my first employee who works with me now. And so back when [00:44:00] I, when I hired him and he went through my, some of my listings in my store and we kind of revamped the singles and basically all he did was he, he changed some of the title, some, some portions of the title, and then he added all the item specifics because before.
All I had was the required specifics. And so he went through and added all the items, specifics, and there was a dramatic increase in sales just by revising the listing and adding those items specifics. So yeah, that’s, that’s really important right there. And then that, that kind of stuff’s important. And then also I would say just, just building, building a good brand, good customer service.
Reputation is everything in this hobby. Pokemon is, it’s a, it’s a gigantic media franchise, but like the collectibles market in Pokemon is [00:45:00] very, very small. So if you, if you’re scamming people, worst case scenario, if you’re scamming people, other people in the hobby are going to very quickly find out about that and very quickly stop buying from you.
End. Building, building up those relationships is, is really important because you never know when those relationships are going to come in, come in useful, whether that be if you just look, just having like a question about a certain card or a certain set that you don’t know much about, or buying, buying from different people in the hobby, selling to different people in the hobby, all that type of stuff, reputation is, is really, really important.
Oliver: Yeah, that’s, that’s well said. I think that’s good advice. The item specifics is just kind of Stuck in my mind right now. I’ve never, I’ve never filled that out. So I’m definitely going to do that. But I have observed that the more you, [00:46:00] the more you do on eBay, like the more you interact with your listings and the more tools you use, and especially like actually publishing listings, the more traffic you get, have you seen that as well?
Nick: Yes, that, that, that is another thing. Collectibles last year, he was doing this where he would list, he would list a five or 10 items every single day in order to, in order to kind of, kind of show eBay that he’s listing stuff in order to get that additional traffic. And that definitely works. I don’t think you necessarily have to go that hard and list up every single day.
I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t go to the extent of like, like he would, he would schedule listings out. So that he was only listing five or ten items every single day And new items would appear every single day. I wouldn’t necessarily go that far, but I would say if you’re listing like a few days a week, once a week, definitely, definitely be consistent about that.
The more [00:47:00] consistency that you can get, the better off you’re going to be. Even, even like answering messages, getting back to buyers, answering best offers, sending out offers to buyers on, on your listings, all, all of that stuff is, is, is going to help your store. And the, the, the more, the more sales that you get I, the more eBay is going to promote you because you’re, you’re essentially making them money by, by selling stuff.
Oliver: Okay. That’s yeah. I’ve done a similar strategy where I take all my pictures beforehand and then I’ve just got a stack on my desk. And I’ve been doing like one a day, just when I need a break, it takes what? Like less than five minutes to list a card. So I quickly whip one up just to sort of have that like drip feed.
So eBay knows that like, Hey, I’m, I’m alive. You know, I might not be getting sales, but I’m here.
Nick: Exactly, exactly, exactly. No, that, that, that is a, that is a good strategy for [00:48:00] sure. I, I think the consistency is the biggest thing. So, so doing something like you do, where, where you’re, if you have, if you have a few minute break, getting something listed, really, really good idea.
I, I, I wouldn’t necessarily go as far as like, if you just get a return back. Only list a few cards every day, if you have the time to list everything together. If you have the time to list everything together, just go for it. I wouldn’t live or die by that. I need to get one listing, I need to get five listings up every single day.
But yeah, being consistent, getting new inventory listed, and then even going back and refreshing old listings. Lowering the price, adding new pictures, adjusting the title, adding item specifics is, is another really good strategy from, from what I’ve, what I’ve read and heard after I forget the exact terminology, but after, after 60 days of something being listed on eBay, it, [00:49:00] it, it becomes, it goes further and further down the search results.
And then after 90 days of something being listed on eBay. It becomes almost like a dormant listing where it’s, it’s almost at the bottom of the search results. So your, your window to sell is, is really day one through day 60. And so after that, uh, go every, every once in a while, try and go through your old listings and create a sales event or lower your pricing or add new pictures or do, do something to revise your listing.
That way, that way it kind of, it kind of, eBay sees, okay. Something changed on this listing. Let’s let’s start promoting it a little bit more. It’s trying to train, get a sale.
Oliver: So we want to, we want to make sure they have a heartbeat and they don’t go away. Right?
Nick: Yes, exactly. Exactly.
Oliver: So we’re coming up on an hour here, but I did want to ask you something that kind of, I guess, kind of [00:50:00] stuck out to me when I was watching your videos, I think it was.
September last year, you got a PSA submission back. You decided to crack open some of your binders from your personal collection and grade those cards. So I just want to know, like, was that, was that a difficult thing to do for you?
Nick: Yes and no. So I had gone full time, full time with Pokemon and I, I kind of knew at the time that I.
I wasn’t going to be able to keep as much. Obviously when you’re, when you’re working and selling on the side, the, the extra money that you get from cards is, is nice, but it’s not, it’s, it’s not going to be like a, like a necessity almost. So you can still, you can still buy for your collection and, and use, use the money that you’re selling cards to buy new cards for your own personal [00:51:00] collection and all that stuff.
So when I, when I went full time Pokemon. That obviously changed because now I have no outside income coming in all my income is coming from from Pokemon So I need to be a lot more careful about what I’m what am I buying for myself? What am I buying for the business? What am I buying for the business and I decide oh, this is actually a really cool card when I get it in Let me hold on to this instead And so, when I went full time, I knew that I was going to have to, I knew that I was going to have to slowly sell off portions of my collection.
In order to, kind of like, raise capital to buy more collections and kind of grow the business, grow the business quicker. And so, I kind of went through my collection and said, Okay, what do I, what do I really, really enjoy? And, for me, those were themed decks, themed deck display cases, themed I have a booster pack collection, and I collect no damage nightingales.
[00:52:00] Those three items are kind of like my three primary collections. Stuff that I, that I really, really enjoy, and that I don’t want to, I don’t want to sell until a long ways down the road. Everything outside of that, I, I also enjoyed, but it didn’t mean as much to me. So I started off selling Poncho Pikachu boxes.
I had, I had the whole set of those. I sold those off. And then I started selling at some of my just like miscellaneous graded cards. Started selling those off and then, then I got to the binders. The binders were the, the next thing. And the binders that I had built were really cool. I did enjoy them, but I really never, I never really looked at them.
They were just kind of sitting, sitting on a bookshelf. So I decided with, with, with the way pricing had increased, When I, when I put the binders together, it was, this was like 2016 through 2018. I put all these, these mint first edition [00:53:00] WOTC sets together. And when I put those binders together, the cards weren’t worth, they were worth a little bit, but they weren’t worth as much as they were after 2020.
And so I was able to build near mint, mint condition sets because pricing was so low back then. 2020 happened, that pricing absolutely exploded. And so my logic was, I have all these mint condition sets, they’re sitting in binders, why don’t I break these binders up? And if I want to go back at some point, I can, I can go back and buy, buy played condition copies of these cards since they’re just sitting in binders.
And so, so that’s what I did. I broke all the binders up. I actually, I, I kept all the non holo because I figured my start to the business was A lot of bulky singles, the 99 cent commons and uncommons. So I kept all those sets, uh, to have kind of one of each common and uncommon card. [00:54:00] And I still have those, but all the hollows I sent off to PSA for grading.
And I eventually sold those off, which I’m, I am glad I did that because it added. It added a lot of money into the business that I could use to buy, buy other collections and, and kind of, kind of make that snowball grow, grow bigger at a, at a quicker pace. Obviously you could, you could still do it by just buying and selling what you have, but in order to kind of, uh, make that process go quicker, you got to add extra cash into, into the equation.
And so it was a little bit tough to break those up, but I am, I am glad that I actually did that.
Oliver: Congratulations on going full time. That’s pretty serious. That’s really cool.
Nick: Oh yeah. No, I’m, I’m, I’m loving it. It, it, it’s definitely tough in some regards, not, not being able to, to collect as much anymore, but my, the stuff that I do collect means, means more to me [00:55:00] now.
And for me personally, I, I enjoy the business aspect a lot more than I enjoy, enjoy collecting. I like, I like to see, see the growth in the business and looking through different collections. I love, still to this day, love sorting through new collections. Sorting through cards, looking at all these new cards.
Figuring out the best way to, to sell, sell all these cards and all that stuff. So that that’s where I get my enjoyment from is the more so than the business aspect of things.
Oliver: Awesome. Well, can you please tell my audience where they can find you? Your, your eBay, your Instagram, YouTube, everything.
Nick: Yeah, so I’m, I’m old school Pokemon on all those platforms right now.
I, I do have a YouTube channel that’s kind of dormant right now. I’d love to get back into YouTube at some point. I’m active on Instagram, trying and trying to post every couple of days on Instagram. So that’d be, that’d be the best place to follow right now. [00:56:00] eBay, old school Pokemon, doing, doing eBay lives five nights a week.
But yeah, no, feel free, feel free. If any guys have any questions on anything, feel free to reach out on Instagram. I’m, I’m always on there. So, Any questions, feel free to reach out.
Oliver: So if you want to follow OldSchoolPokemon, I will link everything in the description. Just scroll down and give him a follow.
And Nick, thank you so much for coming on today. This was a really good one.
Nick: Yeah, thanks for having me on. I really do appreciate it.