Find out the best ways to sell your Pokemon TCG cards online via eBay, TCGPlayer, and other online marketplaces.
Becoming a seller is a simple process, you only have to find a listing for the card you want to sell, add your listing, and then prepare your card for post before taking it to a local post office or shipping point.
Selling your Pokemon cards is a great way to raise funds for a rainy day, especially if you have a valuable collection.
Contents
- Before you start selling
- What you’ll need to sell Pokemon cards
- Where to sell Pokemon TCG cards
- Trading card selling fees
- Selling trading cards on Facebook groups and other socials
Before you start selling
First, you need to decide if you want to sell singles, or in bulk. The questions you should ask yourself are:
- How committed can I be to selling cards? Will this be a full-time job, a side hustle, or something you dip in and out of from time to time?
- If you’re just looking to make some money selling cards easily, you’ll want to opt for a level 1-4 marketplace account on TCGplayer, an individual eBay account, or to sell via Cardmarket. To qualify for bigger accounts, you need to be making a lot of sales every month. If you’re three months down the line and find yourself consistently earning over $1000 a month, then it is worth looking into higher price tiers.
- How expensive are the cards I want to sell?
- If you just want to sell expensive cards once in a while, a basic account is more than enough. You’ll want to track your order and protect it well, and opt for signed-for or registered delivery services.
- You can search for your card using the serial number on TCGPlayer.com to find out its market price.
- How will I keep track of my sales and profits?
- First place your card into a penny sleeve, then a binder or well-organised deck boxes so you can easily sort through what you’ll be selling. Then chuck their name and code into an Excel spreadsheet along with their current market price — and update once you’ve sold the cards.
For more experienced sellers, you may want to consider opening up a store on a marketplace like TCGPlayer.com. Beginners will be better off starting with an entry-level account – don’t need to worry about the other options yet.
What you’ll need to sell Pokemon cards
- Penny sleeves and/or soft sleeves
- Card pull tabs
- Top loaders
- Bubble mailers
- A couple of pieces of cardboard to sandwich the loader, as an extra safety measure
- A label printer, unless you are going to take them to a DHL / FedEx etc. to get your labels printed
- Stamps – depending on how you’re going to mail it.
When it comes to reputation, having nice packaging can do wonders. That means not using bent or damaged bubble mailers, sleeves, or anything else, for that matter.
You could even opt for Pokemon stickers to seal packaging or use deck loaders from Elite Trainer Boxes or other Pokemon-branded sleeves. Buyers will appreciate you going the extra mile for them.
Where to sell Pokemon TCG cards
For selling single Pokemon cards, your best bets are CardMarket and eBay. If you have a lot of cards and don’t mind multiple post office trips a day, you could consider registering to sell on TCGPlayer.
In most cases for singles worth under $10, a first-class stamp and envelope is preferable as it will save you money on shipping fees. The failure rate for these will be low enough to make this worthwhile in the long term.
Trading card sellers fees
Different sellers vary in their fees for listing and selling cards, we’ve listed the main three marketplaces for trading cards that we recommend.
eBay
The costs to sellers on eBay are made up of insertion fees and final value fees.
eBay offers new sellers 250 free listings per month, and $0.35 for each listing over that total as an insertion fee.
In addition, eBay deducts 13.25% of sales on items up to $7,500, plus $0.30 per order in final value fees.
So, if you were to sell a $5 card and post it with the standard envelope service you would $3.74.
On eBay, you typically want to make your life easier and go for the Standard Envelope Service for most single cards and piles worth over $10.
TCGPlayer
TCGPlayer gives the below example of costs for new sellers on their platform.
Marketplace Commission: 10.25% of Subtotal $66.30
- (10.25%) * $66.30 = $6.80
PayPal/Credit Card Processing Fee: 2.5% + $0.30 of Order Total $70.78
- $0.30 + (2.5% * $70.78) = $2.07
Total Marketplace Sale (Level 1-4 Seller) Fees = Marketplace Commission + Total PayPal/Credit Card Fees
An example of sales costs for a level 1-4 marketplace account holder on TCGPlayer.com
- $6.80 + $2.07 = $8.87
Cardmarket
Cardmarket ship to the USA and are the main go-to for sellers and buyers of singles in the UK and Europe.
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They take a 5% commission on sales of single cards and multiples, as well as 3% to convert currency for payments. CardMarket don’t charge listing fees and you can ship the card in whichever way you like.
So, if you sold a $5 card, you would receive $4.75, not including the costs of shipping.
You can learn more about Cardmarket’s fees here, they also offer a comprehensive sellers guide here.
Local card shops and trade fairs
If you prefer to sell your cards in person, then a simple ‘near me’ search on Google for card shops in your area is a good starting point. You then want to learn about the market price of your cards and estimate their condition.
Once you know more or less what you can expect for your card, visit your local card shop and ask them what they’re willing to pay for it.
It’s also worth considering card markets and trade fairs, typically these move around so you’ll have to track down when the next card expo or Pokemon event near you is. Then bring some cards along and see who is willing to trade or buy them.
Selling trading cards on Facebook groups and other socials
Take care when buying on Facebook groups and other socials as you may get scammed, although Facebook at least has seller protection.
Selling on Facebook market groups can be especially difficult as sometimes buyers will try to haggle you down below market price, or ask to pay you outside of the website. Never accept buyers who offer to pay you directly, via third-party apps like CashApp.
You can find seller groups either in your area or nationwide by searching for ‘Pokemon card buy and sell’ groups. We recommend seeking out well-moderated and active groups.
The same goes for TikTok marketplace, Instagram, and Discord. You can find some unique cards, and cards from other countries, like Korean Pokemon cards or Japanese cards that you wouldn’t find elsewhere. We don’t recommend it, however, as you might get sold fake Pokemon cards or get scammed outright.
Learn how to spot fake Pokemon cards with our guide.
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