Question for my fellow Canadians about shipping

[Leafsman]

Fellow Canadians: I'm curious to know - what does it cost you to send within Canada and what does it cost you to send to the US?

I ask because I'm trying to understand why trading is all but dead these days (maybe the issue in my case is that people don't like my traders, I don't know. Living on a fixed income and living 270 kilometers away from my "local" hobby shop doesn't help).

It costs me $2.20 to send anywhere in Canada. It costs me approximately $7.00 to send to the US. I don't think that's very prohibitive to trading at all. I know that Americans are forced to pay WAY too much for shipping across the border and that lowers their desire to trade with Canadians. That's understandable.

I'll be honest - for me, buying and selling isn't much fun. I love trading. I get to interact with people from around the world. Since I don't get out much, it also gives me an opportunity to get out of the house and gives me a sense of excitement and anticipation to check my mail.

Canadians, what say you?

[canucksfan007]

$1.90 + tax for under 100G in Canada in a Bubble Mailer

$3.12 + tax for under 100G to USA in a Bubble Mailer

You are being overcharged for your shipping to the US. Even 100G + in a Bubble Mailers to the USA only cost me about $5.85


There are quite a few reasons as to why trading is dead, and in all honesty I dont think shipping cost is the main one:

1 - Less $150+ boxes are broken for the sole purpose of trading, or keeping what they like and trading the rest. The higher end boxes are more so seen as a gamble, where someone is looking to hit big to increase their hobby budget.

2 - The one pack boxes provide less cards for people. Less cards = Less trades.

3 - Possibly not a popular opinion, but only "low end" collections trade. I would think the only cards that frequently trade hands are OPC, Upper Deck S1 and S2, Canadian Tire and Tim Hortons. Set collectors are not the norm now a days, we can see that by the shrinking amount of Base Sets there are to collect.

4 - Its hard to put a value on low end "crap", unless being moved for similar low end "crap". I told a member here I could give $1-$3 per card in trade for a stack of parallels, nothing high end. I was promptly told I was an idiot and trying to rip him off and have been blocked ever since. Trade YGs for YGs, BV makes sense. Trade Franchise Duos for Franchise Duos .... sure that works too. Once you get into a slightly higher end market, BVs dont make sense.

5 - People who usually trade on forums ( the older generation ), like to use BV. Majority of my generation does not. More than majority of the generation under me does not. When the oldest generation stops collecting, we will see the end of the Beckett. So I guess this point it - People cannot agree on similar guidelines to asses the value of their cards

6 - Upper Deck has increased the amount of middle tier cards, the community has pushed them down to low end. Before, there used to be a ton of cards in the middle value range. There are only "high end" cards or "low end cards" now. How many more numbered auto rookies are out every year? How many auto patches, low numbered patches or multi player swatches are in every garbage "high end product". The high end cost to break products like SPx, Black Diamond, SP Game Used ..... and the garbage the boxes usually produce has taken away the middle tier.

7 - Its just easier for me to sell what I have, to buy what I want then to hope someone has what I want, and wants something that I have.

8 - There is so many more autos / patches / rookies every year, that I can be a lot more picky on what I grab. Everyone wants the staples, but not many people want any of the 10x different numbered parallels from SPGU, 10x tiers of auto rookies to come out of trilogy, to go along with the 10x tiers of non auto rookies ..... Black Diamond and their parallels used to have a following, those manufactured diamond rookie cards are terrible.

9 - Flipping / prospecting has become one of the biggest aspects of the hobby. 95% of what I buy is to flip / prospect to make money to buy the bigger stuff I want or as a small source of income for my family.

[Leafsman]

$1.90 + tax for under 100G in Canada in a Bubble Mailer

$3.12 + tax for under 100G to USA in a Bubble Mailer

You are being overcharged for your shipping to the US. Even 100G + in a Bubble Mailers to the USA only cost me about $5.85


There are quite a few reasons as to why trading is dead, and in all honesty I dont think shipping cost is the main one:

1 - Less $150+ boxes are broken for the sole purpose of trading, or keeping what they like and trading the rest. The higher end boxes are more so seen as a gamble, where someone is looking to hit big to increase their hobby budget.

2 - The one pack boxes provide less cards for people. Less cards = Less trades.

3 - Possibly not a popular opinion, but only "low end" collections trade. I would think the only cards that frequently trade hands are OPC, Upper Deck S1 and S2, Canadian Tire and Tim Hortons. Set collectors are not the norm now a days, we can see that by the shrinking amount of Base Sets there are to collect.

4 - Its hard to put a value on low end "crap", unless being moved for similar low end "crap". I told a member here I could give $1-$3 per card in trade for a stack of parallels, nothing high end. I was promptly told I was an idiot and trying to rip him off and have been blocked ever since. Trade YGs for YGs, BV makes sense. Trade Franchise Duos for Franchise Duos .... sure that works too. Once you get into a slightly higher end market, BVs dont make sense.

5 - People who usually trade on forums ( the older generation ), like to use BV. Majority of my generation does not. More than majority of the generation under me does not. When the oldest generation stops collecting, we will see the end of the Beckett. So I guess this point it - People cannot agree on similar guidelines to asses the value of their cards

6 - Upper Deck has increased the amount of middle tier cards, the community has pushed them down to low end. Before, there used to be a ton of cards in the middle value range. There are only "high end" cards or "low end cards" now. How many more numbered auto rookies are out every year? How many auto patches, low numbered patches or multi player swatches are in every garbage "high end product". The high end cost to break products like SPx, Black Diamond, SP Game Used ..... and the garbage the boxes usually produce has taken away the middle tier.

7 - Its just easier for me to sell what I have, to buy what I want then to hope someone has what I want, and wants something that I have.

8 - There is so many more autos / patches / rookies every year, that I can be a lot more picky on what I grab. Everyone wants the staples, but not many people want any of the 10x different numbered parallels from SPGU, 10x tiers of auto rookies to come out of trilogy, to go along with the 10x tiers of non auto rookies ..... Black Diamond and their parallels used to have a following, those manufactured diamond rookie cards are terrible.

9 - Flipping / prospecting has become one of the biggest aspects of the hobby. 95% of what I buy is to flip / prospect to make money to buy the bigger stuff I want or as a small source of income for my family.

1. Canada post tells me that the cost is higher for me because I'm in a rural location. That's BS but whatever...

2. I'm in a different situation than most.

I don't have a wife and children. I am considered unemployable because my disability makes employers nervous. "My insurance costs will be high" they tell me. Definitely discrimination, but I cannot afford to move to another location. I am on a fixed income and cannot have a credit card or PayPal. Buying cards is a rare occurrence for me. I'm in this for fun. Maybe I do not belong anymore and the best option is to sell everything and get the hell out.

3. You mentioned high end products. How popular are products like SPx, Black Diamond, and SP Game Used? I don't see a lot of people on here or ebay selling those cards. I guess I am wondering why people continue to buy cases/boxes of those products if they are largely hit or miss. Why don't people send Upper Deck a message and stop buying those? Why drop thousands of dollars for the risk/reward? Sure, you might end up with a sweet card of McDavid, Kucherov, Laine, or even Bobby Orr etc. but it is most likely you will not. You truly have thrown away your hard-earned money. If people live for the rush of that risk and the possible fortune they can make if they do hit something, that's addiction and they need help. It's as simple as that.

I have to be honest, with some exceptions, if a rookie has a print run of 100 or less, I'm simply not interested because I know I could never afford it, especially if it is a superstar like Nikita Kucherov or Connor McDavid. Also, what do you consider SP Authentic to be? High end? I always considered it a "middle of the road" product. I thought The Cup, Ultimate Collection, and Upper Deck Ice were higher end products because those rookies tend to have shorter print runs. Am I wrong?

4. I have a couple autographed jersey cards, but I don't generally collect patch/jersey cards or inserts. Zero time for those. I'm strictly a rookie card collector and I try to avoid ARPs. I don't understand the appeal. For the amount of money those premium cards go for, the buyer might as well buy a replica jersey and they can have the entire patch, and then you can get that player to sign the jersey LOL

5. I know your PC is Roberto Luongo cards. However, if 95% of what you buy is used to flip/sell, I don't consider you or those people who do this to be "collectors". Collectors have a list, gather them, and keep them. You gather them with the sole purpose to sell them for profit, so that means you are profiteers. There's nothing wrong with that whatsoever, but it ruins the fun for people like me LOL.

6. I'm a little older than you and yes, I'm generally a BV person, but you know very well that BV/SV is not as big a deal for me as for others. You and I have made a number of trades. I still have the BGS 9.5 Mrazek, Rask, Monahan, Markstrom, and Sutter FWAs by the way. It's nice to have those guys in my collection! Hope we can deal again in the future. I have made deals with others based on SV as well.

7. Why don't collectors kick up and force Upper Deck to put more cards in a pack and more packs in their boxes? Without the people, they are nothing. Yes, they have an exclusive agreement, but that doesn't excuse their practices, lack of effort in their products, or greed. The answer is simple: Collectors are sheep.

[kraken]

3 - Possibly not a popular opinion, but only "low end" collections trade. I would think the only cards that frequently trade hands are OPC, Upper Deck S1 and S2, Canadian Tire and Tim Hortons. Set collectors are not the norm now a days, we can see that by the shrinking amount of Base Sets there are to collect.

I think this is right. That's primarily what I collect. I'm an old school set collector who focuses on the OPC and Tim Hortons sets. It's hard to find others to trade with, and I think you're right that there is both a smaller pool of set collectors and people tend not to look to trade the lower end cards; rather, they just buy what they need. Unfortunately, I think trading is going away.

[canucksfan007]

1 - Never heard of a Rural price increase, may be wrong

2 - I know youre situation is different from most, but many people dont have hundreds of disposable income per month for cards. It doesnt matter why your disposable income is where it is, you fall into a certain category for disposable hockey card income, same with myself and everyone else here.

3 - SPx / Black Diamond / SPGU I would consider high end based on their pack price. They are garbage cards tho. Upper Deck doesnt need to listen to the masses. They simply need someone like CnC saying "we like the one pack for $200 products because its fast and easy to break". You can tell which products arnt selling well because if they arnt staples, they end up on epack.

SPA is lower end in cost than the 3 listed above, and actually has a following. Majority of Ice /99s are not even high end cards anymore, I understand this is a steal, but I grabbed a Sam Bennett /99 BGS 9.5 for $10CAD at the show last weekend. The /99 rookies in Ultimate and Ice are dropping. especially the mid - lower end ones. Again, Upper Deck / Community killing the mid tier market. Sure, Matthews / McDavid / Marner / Eichel / Pettersson will all command big money for those cards, but the mid tier guys can be had for the price of a box or 2, and the low end guys you'd be happy to get $50 for.

4 - We collect cards, we dont collect jerseys or memorabilia. Ive had very nice memorabilia offered to me.
A - its harder to store
B - its harder to move
C - I collect cards, not jerseys / sticks / masks

5 - I could randomly pick someone else to collect, but if as a collector, I am only in it for Luongo or Young Canucks .... why would I spend my hard earned money on something I dont really want for myself. Ive watched Hockey / collected Hockey Cards since I was 5. I know the sport, and more importantly I know the hobby very well. If I want to stay more involved in the hobby, but the hobby only gives me so much to collect .... then the only way I can be more involved is to break a lot (which is a terrible option) or prospect who I think will be good in a few months / years / whenever and try and turn a profit. If the self proclaimed "true" collectors in the hobby of said player / team / set would put their money where their mouth is, I wouldnt currently own your card with zero attachment to it. And no, I wont sell it to you for less than I want because you think it should be in your PC. I wont even sell it to you for 20% more than I paid unless ive had ample time to see my investment through. Ive found a lot of people in the card hobbies are very entitled.

6 - Yes, we are an example of how BV vs SV can work. Its mainly easier because our deals consist of similar cards ( example FW for FW ). BV / SV is fine when comparing apples to applies. Once someone wants to trade a 40BV ($2) UD S1 jersey, for a 40BV ($20) SPA FW, thats where I cannot deal.

7 - Because the average every day collector doesnt want more cards. What is the average person going to do if every product had as many inserts as UD1, base set collecting is all but dead, what are we going to do with all the base cards? And worse yet, if UD has to print base cards for every set like they do UD1 / OPC, their prices will go up even more due to their costs increasing. My theory is its cheaper for them to produce the one pack products, with a big price tag, to try and create a high end market for wax and knock out the middle tier. Also, the huge breakers dont want to sit and open 20/24 base or insert packs to see the hits. Opening dead packs is a waste of time and money. The majority of collectors dont want the low end garbage, and neither do the breakers. Watch how quickly CnC opens a case of any 1 pack / box product, VS how they open a case of UD1 or UD2, now take into consideration how much more money they are making from the higher end wax.

[canucksfan007]

I think this is right. That's primarily what I collect. I'm an old school set collector who focuses on the OPC and Tim Hortons sets. It's hard to find others to trade with, and I think you're right that there is both a smaller pool of set collectors and people tend not to look to trade the lower end cards; rather, they just buy what they need. Unfortunately, I think trading is going away.

Ive been active on this site for almost 15 years, trading is for sure slowly leaving the online community. I made trade as a dealer at the show this last weekend, mainly traded my Tim Hortons / Canadian Tire stuff. It easy to make a trade when youre face to face. Im not too thrilled about making a deal for cards I dont want / cards that ill throw into a $1 box if I have to spend money to acquire them

[sports4-ever]

Hey Tony:
My local post office provided me with a pamphlet listing all prices I will pay to ship in Canada , the USA or over seas . They list weight limitations and envelope sizes. Always best to downsize on the envelope and use bigger top-loaders which allow you to insert more cards and keep the weight down .... I even made myself a slot template to ensure that my packages fit through their size slots ...... Hope this helps :)