Welcome back, readers and fellow speculators!

Today's article is one I've wanted to do for awhile. I fear it isn't the most exciting topic, but one that is vital to understanding MTG finance as a whole. Part 1 will focus on the costs a part time MTG financier (like myself) must consider and keep track of. Part 2 will focus on the costs of being an actual online store and part 3 will focus on the costs of being a B&M store.

I will apologize up front that this article is focused on costs found in the US (as that's what I know) so it may be less applicable to our non-US members, but I hope they can still glean some useful information.

Shipping Costs

This one is the most obvious but one that should be explained in detail as sometimes there are factors people don't consider.

The most basic shipping (in the US) is a good ol' plain white envelope (or PWE). The cost of shipping one anywhere in the US is dependent on the weight of the overall envelope. The total cost includes envelope itself, stamp, all items inside envelope and ink.

This table shows you the costs up to 3 ounces (see here for more shipping cost information).

Now the next important thing to know is that a typical non-foil MTG card weighs 0.064 ounces (according to WoTC).

The next important thing to keep in mind is that since the only thing that really matters to the USPS in this pricing structure is the weight, it benefits the person shipping cards to use the smallest envelope possible as the envelope's weight is part of your price limit. The #6 envelope (3.625" x 6.5") is one of the smallest available that will also hold a MTG card easily. The good news is these are also typically the cheapest (you can get 100 for less than $3 at most large retail stores, the ones I use are $2.28 per 100). So this means that any cards I ship out will cost me at least $0.49+ ($2.28/100) or $0.5128.

This does not include the supplies used to protect the cards. Remember that the USPS has been moving to automate as much of their process as possible. This means that your mail will be handled by machines, which don't differentiate between a fragile/bendable MTG card and say a postcard. This means we need to protect the cards we're shipping.

One of the easiest/best ways to protect the cards is in a hard plastic top loader (though the "hard" part is rather subjective). You can buy them in bulk online here or you can also buy them from your local large retail store. There they'll probably cost twice as much (on a per unit cost) but you don't have to buy a bunch all at once (typically $3 for 35 or $0.084 per top loader). It's also common practice (and it provides additional protection to keep the cards from banging around inside the top loaders) to ship them in a penny sleeve or deck sleeve (if you have a bunch of spares that are partially ripped/torn/don't match/etc). Penny sleeves can be purchased from large retail stores at $1 per 100 (or $0.01 per).

Last but not least we typically want to put a small band of tape over the open end of the top loader once the penny sleeve and cards are in it to keep the penny sleeve from falling out. Typically you can buy the clear tape for around $2 per 300 inches (and you might use about 1/2-1 inch of tape per shipment).

So now our total shipping cost is: $0.49 (stamp) + $0.0228 (envelope) + $0.084 (top loader) + $0.01 (penny sleeve) + 0.00066 (tape) = $0.6134 or 61 cents.

However, this only applies to shipments that are less than 1 ounce in total weight. Typically you can get four cards, a top loader, a penny sleeve, and the tape to hold the penny sleeve in the top loader into a stamped envelope and keep the weight under 1 ounce. There are different types of top loaders and you might be able to get another card or two in (though you could risk damaging the cards trying to squeeze them into the top loader) and still fall under the 1 ounce requirement, but I've never had an issue with four cards. It is possible to get Delivery Confirmation with a regular letter-sized envelope at an additional cost of around $1.44.

The next step up from a PWE is a bubble mailer. These can also be purchased online in bulk or from a local retail store. The cost of buying them in small batches (like at a retail store) comes to around $0.4-$0.75 each (depending on which store you use). The cost of shipping these can be seen below:

Bubble mailers are what we typically see the larger MTG stores shipping their orders out in as they provide good protection and you can fit more cards into them. The cost of adding tracking to these packages is currently $1.05 per item (though if you print your postage it can be as low as $0.23 per package).

Paypal Shipping

Another option when you're shipping bubble mailers is to use PayPal shipping (which you can use even if your sale isn't through eBay). You have to print off your own labels, but it's very easy to use and comes with tracking (it's my preferred method when dealing with bubble mailers).

Pitfalls of Delivery Confirmation & Tracking

If you're selling on some sites they may require you to ship with tracking or delivery confirmation if the sale is over a certain dollar amount.

While you might think this provides you (the seller) with some protection it is minimal at best. If you're trying to decide on whether to pay for it, QS's own Jedi Jules was kind enough to do a quick pricing breakdown based on how often your post office "loses mail".

The formula is simply the additional cost of adding tracking $1.44 divided by the likelihood your mail will go missing (one can't pull hard numbers but this is based on your own experience with your local Post Office).

The point here is that if you aren't required to add tracking and you're doing a lot of sales which require mailing cards out, the "break even" point to when it's worthwhile to invest tracking is actually pretty high. I've probably shipped out close to 300 "packages" of cards (whether through bubble mailers or PWE) and I've had only one go missing at a cost of about $15 to me.

Selling Fees

The two easiest outlets for selling cards online at close to retail value are eBay and TCG Player. Each out has their own merits though at this point in time I honestly can't imagine that TCG Player doesn't have a larger "buyer base" when it comes specifically to Magic the Gathering cards. The percentage structure of fees is related to your final value sale price, which in layman's terms is simply the price you sell your item for.

TCGPlayer Selling Fees

With that, we will start with TCG Player's fee structure (full details can be found here). Since this article is focused on the people who sell smaller amounts they are far more likely to manually input their stock. So their fee structure is:

TCGPlayer Fee: 8.5%

Credit Card Processing Fee: 2.5% + $0.5

So your total sales fees are 8.5% + 2.5% + $0.5 or 11% + $0.5.

eBay Selling Fees

eBay works a little bit differently in that they charge "insertion fees" if you're listing over 50 items a month (though in our case MTG cards can fall under the "collectible or toys/hobbies, which allows you up to 100 items a month without an insertion fee). Otherwise your fee structure is:

Auction Style: 10%

Paypal fee: 2.9% + $0.3

So your total fees with eBay are 10% + 2.9% + $0.3 or 12.9% + $0.3.

More information on eBay fees can be found here. And more information regarding PayPal fees can be found here.

So in order to determine which out will cost you the least amount of money on an item it's best to figure out the "even point" in which both sites would charge you the same total amount of money. The equation is:

****EDIT****

0.11 * x + 0.5 = 0.129 * x + 0.3

Solving for x puts the value at $10.5, which means that anything over $10.5 is cheaper to sell on TCG Player .

****EDIT****

Conclusion

I hope that I've covered the two main costs associated with selling MTG cards online with the focus on the small-time seller. The two main concerns for this seller are shipping costs and the actual fees associated with the selling process. If I've forgotten anything please let me know and I'll add an addendum.

****EDIT**** corrects the equation. Special thanks to Yousi for pointing out the mistake.