Your LCS: Sealed Boxes Vs. Singles

[jlai624]

Times have changed. If I was a shop owner - I would put 90% of my singles on ebay which is what my LCS does.

The singles he does have in store are near BV and a little higher for Canucks. But hey, business need to make money to!

[gremmett]

We have a couple of shops here in Minneapolis and they for the most part do not deal too much in singles becuase everyone that comes in right way wants half off of the book so they try to make it up on volume in the boxes they sell. One is old school and one is new school and the newer one uses Ebay and Beckett markplace and pretty much know what things sell for and are priced pretty well. When I was at Expo in Toronto last month I was amazed at the division so to speak between new school and old school. To me it appeared that a lot of the vitage, I will say 1989 OPC and earlier guys do not have any web presence and most do not have an eamil addres I believe. I was shocked at this. I am not sure if this is strictly localized to the hockey hobby or not. Like it or not the hobby has changed as most have said here and I believe that unless you have some flexibility in pricing you will not last. Now with that said, a lot of new hockey is going for dirt cheap below book because of the lockout I have noticed.

[canucksfan007]

Times have changed. If I was a shop owner - I would put 90% of my singles on ebay which is what my LCS does.

The singles he does have in store are near BV and a little higher for Canucks. But hey, business need to make money to!

We go to the same place! He does throw alot on ebay, but if you want something hes about to throw on ebay ....well lets just say Larry likes the idea of saving paypal / ebay fees along with shipping costs / risks

[jlai624]

We go to the same place! He does throw alot on ebay, but if you want something hes about to throw on ebay ....well lets just say Larry likes the idea of saving paypal / ebay fees along with shipping costs / risks

Yeah that is true. I've never bought any singles from him. Nothing against him or singles but just prefer to bust packs/boxes :)

[chakhae1]

Any LCS that sells singles in the Toronto area is GROSSLY over priced and in all honesty I don't think there's a market for them AT ALL with ebay where it is much cheaper to buy any single card you want. There are also card shows you can go to that have a larger variety of singles than your local LCS.

[jlai624]

Any LCS that sells singles in the Toronto area is GROSSLY over priced and in all honesty I don't think there's a market for them AT ALL with ebay where it is much cheaper to buy any single card you want. There are also card shows you can go to that have a larger variety of singles than your local LCS.

Yeah with eBay I think it kills the singles market big time. Plus I'm guessing most of us prefer to shop from the comfort of our own home or even on my phone then haggle with an LCS