Topps “Dutch” Auction

[auctionjmm]

Originally Posted by hermanotarjeta

The breaker culture is willing to pay higher than anyone else in the hobby - why would any individual believe there is enough meat left on the bone to make a Dutch auction purchase worthwhile?

Originally Posted by Bob Ross

Exactly.

Originally Posted by hermanotarjeta

Folks are going to find out just exactly which leg of the K-shaped hobby that you reside on.

Box flipper bois - you are getting exactly what you asked for.

Why are you two ignoring Panini FOTL? We've already seen successful Dutch auctions in a breaker culture where the secondary price of the product STILL went up significantly after sellout. This isn't a new concept.

Also, breakers don't know what the sellout price will be. There is risk in them jumping in early with large orders. What if they guess wrong? Say Layton buys 10 cases at $2500 and the product sells out at $1800. Now he's $700 in the hole and has to wait to see if the price recovers or just run breaks to get his money out. Same with flippers.

Dutch auctions add a challenge of timing the market which is not present in other distribution models. There are nerves if you jump in too early and nerves if you wait too long. Those nerves keep people on the sidelines. Breakers would rather just wait it out and pay whatever the market rate is. They will profit regardless and don't have the anxiety of timing the market.

[ewokpelts]

Originally Posted by Americards

I think they can only do this when there is not a lot of different product out, But next year they will be dealing with 3 fully licensed sports and entertainment..
If there is like 1 or 2 products per week , they will not be able to hoard every product for top dollar. It is easy to do this when there is 1 product in 1 month, but when there is 5 or 6 a month, It will change and more product allocation will be released and prices will come down to normal (No more wave 2, wave 3, etc).

You mean like them”old days”’of shipments going out as fast as they can slap Labels on them?

[ewokpelts]

Originally Posted by auctionjmm

Why are you two ignoring Panini FOTL? We've already seen successful Dutch auctions in a breaker culture where the secondary price of the product STILL went up significantly after sellout. This isn't a new concept.

Also, breakers don't know what the sellout price will be. There is risk in them jumping in early with large orders. What if they guess wrong? Say Layton buys 10 cases at $2500 and the product sells out at $1800. Now he's $700 in the hole and has to wait to see if the price recovers or just run breaks to get his money out. Same with flippers.

Dutch auctions add a challenge of timing the market which is not present in other distribution models. There are nerves if you jump in too early and nerves if you wait too long. Those nerves keep people on the sidelines. Breakers would rather just wait it out and pay whatever the market rate is. They will profit regardless and don't have the anxiety of timing the market.

Do you think average Joe collectors give a #@#@#@#@ about a breaker’s “losses”?!

[auctionjmm]

Originally Posted by ewokpelts

Do you think average Joe collectors give a #@#@#@#@ about a breaker’s “losses”?!

Completely irrelevant to my post or the one I was responding to.

[ewokpelts]

Originally Posted by Americards

I think they can only do this when there is not a lot of different product out, But next year they will be dealing with 3 fully licensed sports and entertainment..
If there is like 1 or 2 products per week , they will not be able to hoard every product for top dollar. It is easy to do this when there is 1 product in 1 month, but when there is 5 or 6 a month, It will change and more product allocation will be released and prices will come down to normal (No more wave 2, wave 3, etc).

April will be insane as football will have a deluge of product and basketball will have high end and late season releases. And of course, Topps series one baseball will be full speed ahead

[ewokpelts]

Originally Posted by auctionjmm

Completely irrelevant to my post or the one I was responding to.

You’re crying about breakers buying too high.
And my first reaction is bleep them.

[auctionjmm]

Originally Posted by ewokpelts

You’re crying about breakers buying too high.
And my first reaction is bleep them.

Try re-reading that sequence. I was doing nothing of the sort lol.

[hermanotarjeta]

Originally Posted by auctionjmm

Why are you two ignoring Panini FOTL? We've already seen successful Dutch auctions in a breaker culture where the secondary price of the product STILL went up significantly after sellout. This isn't a new concept.

Also, breakers don't know what the sellout price will be. There is risk in them jumping in early with large orders. What if they guess wrong? Say Layton buys 10 cases at $2500 and the product sells out at $1800. Now he's $700 in the hole and has to wait to see if the price recovers or just run breaks to get his money out. Same with flippers.

Dutch auctions add a challenge of timing the market which is not present in other distribution models. There are nerves if you jump in too early and nerves if you wait too long. Those nerves keep people on the sidelines. Breakers would rather just wait it out and pay whatever the market rate is. They will profit regardless and don't have the anxiety of timing the market.

Panini left so much money on the table it’s ridiculous.

Fanatics is much smarter than that. They are eliminating the money tree prices to the public.

I think you are giving FOTL too much credit. A product like topps chrome sapphire will be a standalone product, not the same product with extra bonus hits like FOTL was. Dynasty prices are going to truly be nasty.

The challenge of timing the market is going to fall on the box flipper bois now. Breakers have so much more liquidity and have the advantage of back door deals with Fanatics. Box flipper bois don’t.

[ewokpelts]

Originally Posted by hermanotarjeta

Panini left so much money on the table it’s ridiculous.

Fanatics is much smarter than that. They are eliminating the money tree prices to the public.

I think you are giving FOTL too much credit. A product like topps chrome sapphire will be a standalone product, not the same product with extra bonus hits like FOTL was. Dynasty prices are going to truly be nasty.

The challenge of timing the market is going to fall on the box flipper bois now. Breakers have so much more liquidity and have the advantage of back door deals with Fanatics. Box flipper bois don’t.

Yeah, I don’t think many people know fanatics has direct accounts with breakers now.

[hermanotarjeta]

Originally Posted by ewokpelts

Yeah, I don’t think many people know fanatics has direct accounts with breakers now.

LOL, the most favored direct account that Fanatics has is with a company called Fanatics.

People forget that Fanatics wouldn’t mind eliminating all the breakers who do not have a business association with them either.

Box flipper bois will eventually be competing against Fanatics in Dutch auctions - good luck surviving in that environment!

[PumpnDumpling]

Originally Posted by auctionjmm

Try re-reading that sequence. I was doing nothing of the sort lol.

Yeah, i was like did you just read what i read lol

[oldgoldy97]

Fanatics is making the hobby cheaper by the day.

I save a lot of money not buying stuff.

[hermanotarjeta]

Originally Posted by oldgoldy97

Fanatics is making the hobby cheaper by the day.

I save a lot of money not buying stuff.

Fanatics promised they would make sports cards great again.

Now all we have is increasing prices due to “tarriffs” for individual box buyers.

RELEASE THE LEPSTEIN CARD!

[Bosoxfan5990]

Originally Posted by ewokpelts

You do realize shipping costs are the smallest part of the equation? Companies like fanatics have deal with the shippers for rock bottom shipping rates.

You do realize that they prefer to squeeze every little bit of profit they can?

It's much cheaper to ship to a small group of people in specific parts of the country compared to 1 box per person all across the country, regardless of how cheap their shipping costs are.

[Crosby 87]

Originally Posted by oldgoldy97

Fanatics is making the hobby cheaper by the day.

I save a lot of money not buying stuff.

Snap a picture and take notes Fanatics

[hermanotarjeta]

Originally Posted by Crosby 87

Snap a picture and take notes Fanatics

They are sick and tired of hearing about our complaints.

They want to blame us for being too poor to afford their products.

They want us to grind, go back to school, and get a better job so we can participate in the hobby.

They don’t value our input here.

It’s all our fault.

Fanatics is making sports cards great again.

[Osfan81]

Originally Posted by dodgerfanjohn

Why in the universe would they do that? They have an army of breakers willing to pay double what you are. Why would they not take advantage? Their CEO would be drawn and quartered by shareholders if he didn’t seek to maximize profit.

They are a privately held company. They won’t ever limit you on how much you can buy, I get that. But at this point, they really need to let everybody eat from the same pot. I get it though that they make more money this way. Current way increases FOMO by increasing artificial scarcity. However, at some point, a state AG will start to take notice of their manipulative practices.

[ewokpelts]

Originally Posted by Bosoxfan5990

You do realize that they prefer to squeeze every little bit of profit they can?

It's much cheaper to ship to a small group of people in specific parts of the country compared to 1 box per person all across the country, regardless of how cheap their shipping costs are.

Agree to disagree.

[Americards]

Originally Posted by Osfan81

They are a privately held company. They won’t ever limit you on how much you can buy, I get that. But at this point, they really need to let everybody eat from the same pot. I get it though that they make more money this way. Current way increases FOMO by increasing artificial scarcity. However, at some point, a state AG will start to take notice of their manipulative practices.

Look at the price of 2024 Heritage High Number Hobby Box on ebay $140 or less...
The last wave offered to dealers was $180 a box.
This is what having little amount of product, on the open market, at the same time, does to prices...

[mossoholic]

Originally Posted by ewokpelts

You do realize shipping costs are the smallest part of the equation? Companies like fanatics have deal with the shippers for rock bottom shipping rates.

You can buy a sealed case from Topps for thousands of dollars and they won't double box it. They probably can get those shipping boxes for $1-$2 a piece. They don't want to do that but are fine with sending thousands or tens of thousands of 1 and 2 box orders and having to pay shipping costs for every one of those? How does that make any sense?

[hermanotarjeta]

Originally Posted by Americards

Look at the price of 2024 Heritage High Number Hobby Box on ebay $140 or less...
The last wave offered to dealers was $180 a box.
This is what having little amount of product, on the open market, at the same time, does to prices...

They wanted $250 a box on day 1!

[FatButcher]

Late stage Panini FOTL showed the breakers work together to buy up enough at the higher prices that it doesn't drop enough to push "losses" onto them.

The artificial price gets set in stone and the subsequent non-FOTL versions price would get inflated in turn as well. Real fun system towards to end.

[mossoholic]

Originally Posted by auctionjmm

Why are you two ignoring Panini FOTL? We've already seen successful Dutch auctions in a breaker culture where the secondary price of the product STILL went up significantly after sellout. This isn't a new concept.

Also, breakers don't know what the sellout price will be. There is risk in them jumping in early with large orders. What if they guess wrong? Say Layton buys 10 cases at $2500 and the product sells out at $1800. Now he's $700 in the hole and has to wait to see if the price recovers or just run breaks to get his money out. Same with flippers.

Dutch auctions add a challenge of timing the market which is not present in other distribution models. There are nerves if you jump in too early and nerves if you wait too long. Those nerves keep people on the sidelines. Breakers would rather just wait it out and pay whatever the market rate is. They will profit regardless and don't have the anxiety of timing the market.

The 2 you are trying to have a reasonable conversation with there is no point.

The one it's the never ending argument. You could show him factual proof he is wrong and he will still argue he is right. Unless you give up it's the never ending argument.

The other one if you make good points to him he will just not respond to it because he doesn't have a good answer. Then with later responses asks like he never read anything about why he was wrong and just keeps spouting bs.

They are also arguing for what they want. Not what is best for the vast majority of buyers, Topps, and the long term health/growth of the hobby. They both want to only buy products at prices way below market value and never take any risks.

The amount of people that are either very stupid, are misinformed by others, or just do not know is clearly pretty vast. Just look at the comments in this thread. You would think most of these people would know there is a 6 year and hundreds of products auction history with Panini auctions. Yet people still are making comments that make no sense based on how we have seen auctions have gone in the hobby.

Originally Posted by hermanotarjeta

The breaker culture is willing to pay higher than anyone else in the hobby - why would any individual believe there is enough meat left on the bone to make a Dutch auction purchase worthwhile?

Originally Posted by Bob Ross

Exactly.

I don't know if they are saying this to try to convince others because auctions aren't in these two's best interest. If not, are they actually this stupid? Lol 6 years of history and they are going to act like no auction is ever worthwhile?!? What a crock!

Even since Panini has run manipulated auctions there have been great buys. I'm sure these two have bought none or close to none of them. Yet they try to claim to everyone else it doesn't exist. Just because you didn't buy it because you will never take risks doesn't mean it didn't happen.

[mossoholic]

Originally Posted by hermanotarjeta

Your hobby may have been selling sealed boxes and cases to breakers for profit.

Now you will be buying at what the breakers pay.

With EQL you actually had a chance.

Now it’s an even playing field.

Who can you flip to now when the new MSRP is the breaker rate?

He literally admits it's an even playing field now with auctions and acts like that's a bad thing. Hilarious. How is it a bad thing exactly? Now any person can buy any product and any amount they want directly from Topps. You are no longer having to hope to beat bots or a lottery system in the hopes of buying an in demand product a few boxes or maybe 1-2 cases if you hit a needle in a haystack. You no longer have to worry about bots if the starting price is high enough. Bot users have proven for 6 years with Panini auctions they will not take risks.

Obviously we don't know for sure right how much product will be made available during the auctions and if any will be backdoored. If a bunch was going to be backdoored why was this all presented to Topps direct account members? Is it not a safe assumption to say it's because Topps is showing these guys this to show how they have to buy these products in the future too? There will be no direct account presale buys to products that are auctioned. Except for the small percent held back for promotional purposes, errors, or shipment issues like Panini would hold back in 2019-2021. Why would Topps switch to the auction format if they are not going to be at least somewhat if not completely on the up and up? If it is shenanigans it's just going to drive away more people and hurt the long term hobby. Which Fanatics seems to now care about. They hold the long term licenses.

To top that off let's say certain people still think Im wrong on everything. I asked earlier in this thread for all the people that don't agree with Topps going to an auction format give your better idea instead.

What is a realistic way for Topps to sell these products that is in the best interest of Topps, the average buyer, and the long term health/growth of the hobby? How many people have given their realistic idea? Or for that matter any idea? The answer is zero. How many have just complained mostly with misinformation? A pretty high number. Think the 2 geniuses will give a realistic better sales method? Not a chance. They will just continue to complain with what serves their best interest. The interest of the vast minority.

[fabiani12333]

One thing is for certain -- private equity will squeeze every last cent they can out of a company they invest in. If the Fanatics investors don't cash in from an IPO, they'll do it operationally by maximizing profits.