Episode 38 Why Your Cards Sell for Less (Auction vs BIN Breakdown)

Released: January 26, 2026 | Duration: 22:17

Prefer audio-only? slabnomics podcast spotify linkapple podcasts slabnomics link

About This Episode

The Problem/Question: You listed your card on eBay. A week later it sold – but for less than you expected. Was it the timing? The format? The opening bid? The data says the format matters more than most sellers realize. A Stanford research study comparing auction versus Buy It Now prices across millions of eBay transactions found that auctions close at 14.4% less than Buy It Now listings – and that gap has been widening since 2003.

The Framework/Solution: This episode covers the full selling strategy toolkit for sports cards in 2026: the MLD valuation framework for knowing what your card is actually worth before you list, the velocity of money principle for managing capital cycles, and the specific decision rules for when to use auction versus Buy It Now – including the one scenario where Best Offer creates the worst outcome of all three options.

What You’ll Learn: By the end of this episode, you’ll understand how to identify demand windows, how attention cycles compress and expand card values, why starting auctions at a dollar is psychologically and algorithmically important, and how to think about the time value of money when your capital is sitting in unsold inventory.

Topics Covered

  • The velocity of money principle: why capital sitting in unsold cards works against you
  • Speculation vs. investment: how to differentiate your buying intent before you purchase
  • Stanford research findings: auctions average 14.4% less than Buy It Now on eBay
  • Why the auction-to-BIN spread widened from 4.7% in 2003 to 16.5% in 2009
  • The Lambda variable: how the attention economy killed auction excitement
  • Two scenarios where auctions win: illiquid markets and fast capital cycles
  • Why starting auctions at one dollar matters algorithmically and psychologically
  • Best Offer: why it performs worse than both auctions and straight Buy It Now
  • MLD Framework recap: Market, Legacy, and Design as the three pillars of card valuation
  • Demand windows explained: riding attention cycles to maximize selling timing

Full Transcript Summary

oday’s episode is a little bit of a review. I’m going to go over some fundamentals, talk about what’s been going on on my Instagram, and then cover something a lot of you have asked about: auction versus Buy It Now – which one is actually going to put more money in your pocket.

Before we dive in, I want to note that the PSA 9 is Dead post on Instagram crossed a million views. If you haven’t seen the supporting data on that, go follow me at Slabnomics and you’ll find it there.

The MLD Framework: Market, Legacy, and Design

If you’ve been listening to Slabnomics for a while, you already know that I value cards using three pillars: Market, Legacy, and Design.

Market is the player’s market. How large is it? Is it growing? Could it grow? What happens if he gets traded, retires, or gets catapulted into the GOAT conversation?

Legacy is the player archetype. What kind of player is he? What kind of arc does his career appear to be on? Is his legacy strengthening or fading?

Design is the specific card in question. What set does it live within? A set is the container that shapes how high the card can go. Not all sets are investment-grade. But every card within a set has the same ceiling defined by that set.

When you think in these terms, you stop making purely comp-based decisions – where someone else’s last sale determines what you pay or what you sell for. Comps are important, but they’re directionally correct at best. They can miss a lot. MLD gives you the foundation.

You don’t need a spreadsheet. You don’t need 20 tabs open. Three questions, 60 seconds. Is this player’s market getting bigger or smaller? Is the legacy strengthening or eroding? Is this set undervalued in a way most people don’t recognize?

Velocity of Money: Fast Nickels vs. Slow Dimes

There’s a saying in finance: better a fast nickel than a slow dime.

The minute you press purchase on a card, the clock starts. Every day that card sits in your collection without appreciating or without selling is a day your capital isn’t working. In finance, we call this the time value of money – capital that’s deployed but not working for you is technically working against you.

This is especially relevant in illiquid markets like soccer, where a card might not move for months. You can be right about the player and still lose because you’re waiting for a buyer who might not arrive on your timeline.

That’s why you need an investment timeline before you buy. Not after. Before. Ask yourself: am I buying this as speculation or as an investment?

Speculation means you think something specific is about to happen – a big season, a World Cup, a media moment – and you’re positioning to sell into that catalyst. Timeframe: weeks to months.

Investment means you believe the market fundamentally undervalues this player or this set, and you’re willing to wait one to five years for that value to get recognized. Timeframe: years.

These are different bets. Keep them separate mentally. Different exit criteria, different risk tolerance, different sizing.

The Research: Auction vs. Buy It Now Pricing

Here’s the data. I ran a deep research report and found a standout paper from Stanford – “Auctions versus Posted Prices in Online Markets” by Liran Einav, Chiara Farronato, Jonathan Levin, and Neel Sundaresan. They compared the same objects sold via auction and Buy It Now on eBay from 2003 to 2009.

In 2003, the gap between auction prices and Buy It Now prices was 4.7%. Nearly negligible. In 2009, that spread had widened to 16.5%.

Why the change? The attention economy.

In 2003, winning an auction was fun. The internet was new. eBay was one of the only places people were buying and selling online. You could go to a local auction, find things that nobody there could look up – because how do you look something up? eBay – and flip them for massive returns. The excitement was real and it drove auction participation.

By 2009, everything changed. The internet exploded. Our attention got pulled in every direction. The study names this the Lambda variable – the hassle factor. To win an auction today, you have to show up at the right time, or use a sniping tool, or just hope. Meanwhile, Instagram is in your pocket. Netflix is on the TV. The auction is competing against everything, and it’s losing that competition for attention. So auction participation dropped, and prices followed.

The data as of today likely shows an even wider gap than 16.5%.

When Auctions Win

Despite the math working against auctions, there are two situations where you should auction every time.

First: when the market doesn’t have a recent comp. I run into this constantly with soccer cards. If a card hasn’t sold in a year, nobody knows what to pay for it. Put out a Buy It Now and it just sits there. Buyers need a comp to know what’s fair, and when there isn’t one, they freeze. But an auction gives them a starting point and the thrill of competition. It creates discovery pricing. And the competitive psychology of not wanting to lose to another bidder often pushes the final price above where a cautious BIN would have sat.

Second: when you need liquidity on a timeline. If you need that capital back within eight to ten days, auction it. A properly listed auction will sell. Buy It Now might not. If you’re cycling inventory – buying, listing, selling, reinvesting – auctions let you plan your cash flow with more precision.

The Dollar Opening Bid

Always start your auctions at one dollar. This matters for two reasons.

Algorithmically, eBay sees bids coming in on that item and reads it as a signal: this is an item people want to see. Your visibility increases. You get promoted to buyers who weren’t looking for you.

Psychologically, a bidder who puts in early at two or three dollars is now emotionally invested. They’ve staked a claim. When someone outbids them, they respond. This is the competitive bidding dynamic that gets you above the reserve you thought you’d set.

Starting at $50 when you want $100 cuts off the early engagement. Starting at $1 builds the audience.

Best Offer: The Worst of Both Worlds

The research found something interesting about listings with Buy It Now plus Best Offer. They close at 18.2% less than a straight Buy It Now – worse than a standalone auction.

Here’s why. Buyers feel like they should negotiate on Best Offer listings. They’ll come in at 70 or 75 cents on the dollar because they assume there’s room. And then sellers often have aggressive auto-decline thresholds set, which creates frustration and causes buyers to walk entirely.

If you’re going to use Best Offer, set a reasonable decline floor – 10 to 15% below your asking price. That signals you’re a good-faith seller. If someone comes in at 50% of your ask, you’re probably not converting them anyway.

And be careful about sellers who use Best Offer just to fish for information about where the market is. It’s a tactic. If you’re a buyer and the auto-decline kicks in at 97% of ask, they were never really selling.

Riding Demand Windows

All of this selling strategy is downstream of one bigger concept: demand windows.

Markets cycle. Kabooms got hot, then Colorblast got hot when Kabooms felt too expensive. Messi ran, then Ronaldo caught a bid because he looked cheap by comparison. Same with Topps Chrome Year 1 after Prizm Year 1 ran.

These cycles are the current that demand flows through. Your job as a seller is to understand where you are in that cycle – not just for the sport, but for the specific player and the specific tier.

If your player is mid-season, mid-controversy, mid-hype – that’s when you want to sell. The demand window is open. If your player just had a bad playoff, it’s the offseason, and the cards are flat – that’s when you hold. Or if you have to sell, prepare for significant discounts.

Capital that is working is capital that’s cycling. Capital sitting in cards nobody’s searching for isn’t working. It’s not even resting – it’s quietly eroding, because the opportunity cost of that money not being deployed elsewhere is real.

Know when the window is open. Know when it’s closed. Sell when demand is high, be patient when it isn’t, and never mistake illiquidity for value.

Related Episodes