Global commerce leader eBay launched a price guide and a collection tool for trading cards on Thursday that streamlines the process of buying and selling the items that have seen a resurgence in popularity.
“Trading card enthusiasts have been waiting for a tool to understand the real-time value of their collections, and manage their inventory as part of a portfolio,” said Nicole Colombo, general manager of collectibles and trading cards at the San Jose-based company.
“We’ve created a more streamlined collecting experience that provides the crucial context collectors need to be able to assess opportunities, driven by eBay’s unparalleled trading card inventory and data.”
Colombo said users have long looked to eBay for price valuations but that process can be time-consuming as users search the site to see what certain cards sold for.
The new tools can do that work for them.
“They’re basically searching, kind of like putting it together themselves and looking at sold items. And so, we’re providing that service in a transparent, streamlined way,” Colombo said. “We also heard feedback that people don’t have a great way of tracking their own collection. And so we wanted to provide a service there, as well.”
The price guide allows for real-time valuation of both graded and ungraded cards and the collection tool allows users to track their card collections much like stockholders track their portfolios.
“And so those two things combined are meant to provide transparency into the market and to enable users to make decisions about buying, selling, trading, investing,” Colombo said.
The price guide and collection tools were launched in beta on Android, desktop and in the latest version of eBay’s app in the Apple App store.
“Both are meant to be mobile-first tools” and are beta versions because eBay is seeking feedback to enhance the platform, Colombo said.
During the beta launch, the collection tool will support baseball, basketball, football, golf, ice hockey, soccer, Magic the Gathering, Pokémon and Yu-Gi-Oh! cards.
Users can add items to their collection via their purchase history on eBay or by uploading a CSV file in order to track the value of individual items, categories or their full collection.
Colombo said eBay has seen “explosive growth” in the trading card industry over the last five years but especially during the pandemic.
She said in the first quarter of 2021, the gross merchandise volume of trading cards at eBay was over $1 billion with 20 million new listings and an average of 139 cards sold per minute in the marketplace.
Colombo said trading cards from all categories are seeing significant growth, especially Pokémon and basketball cards.
She said the tools will eventually be expanded to other eBay categories such as collectables, fashions and electronics.
