Fanatics Auction vs Z&G Auction (eBay)

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Recently I have decided to liquidate a large portion of my graded collection.
I absolutely hate packing and shipping things myself and I don’t want to deal with the large quantity of packages associated with an auction on my own eBay account.

I rounded my options down to two businesses, Fanatics Collect Auctions (formerly PWCC) and Z and G Emporium eBay auctions.

Their associated fee break down is below, directly from their website.

Fanatics:

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Z&G:
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I created an excel document that specifically makes the comparison between these auction houses, including their fee structure.

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Excel Formulas

Fanatics Post Fee Earnings Formula:
=IF(A3-A3/1.2<3,A3-3,A3/1.2*(IF(A3/1.2<=49,1,IF(A3/1.2<=99,1.02,IF(A3/1.2<=999,1.04,IF(A3/1.2<=4999,1.06,IF(A3/1.2<=9999,1.08,IF(A3/1.2<=249999,1.1,IF(A3/1.2<=999999,1.125,IF(A3/1.2>=1000000,1.15,“NA”))))))))))

Z&G Post Fee Earnings Formula:
=A4*(IF(A4<=999,0.88,IF(A4<=2999,0.93,IF(A4>=3000,0.95,“NA”))))-IF(A4<100,5,0)

I tried to pick some sales figures that might be close to the value of most graded cards. Feel free to create your own sheet and estimate your total values or just average all estimated values.

Although it seems Z&G is an advantage for anyone with a card worth more than $100, there are more things to consider:

  • Z&G/eBay has shipping fees visible which any buyer will incorporate into the final sale value.
  • Fanatics has extended bidding which can result in a bidding war on certain cards. (credit @jackson)
  • Fanatics’ buyers premium may be missed by some buyers resulting in a higher sale.
  • Fanatics and eBay both have a vault system that may be more beneficial to certain collectors (I don’t know anything on this topic but it might influence someone’s decision).
  • % of non paying buyers is not known, but would also play a significance (if someone else has data on this they could add it). (credit @rtas)
  • Z&G has the easiest submission process I have ever seen.
  • Z&G has a quick payout whereas I have heard of delays from Fanatics/PWCC in the past.

I encourage anyone else to let me know their thoughts!
Also @jcincy101 figured I’d tag you perhaps if you wanted to disclose stuff like % of non paying buyers :wink:

Edit: I originally had the formula for Fanatics incorrect, I have since adjusted them to represent the actual values.

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there are certain stuff that will sell better on ebay auction vs pwcc and vice versa. for items like <1k the difference is prolly negligible

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Depending on the value of your items, I can probably get you a better rate than the standard fanatics fees.

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Very true. High end/rare items will likely benefit from the Fanatics reach rather than getting lost in a random ebay auction

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In all honesty, fees are close enough / auctions are volatile enough / both marketplaces are liquid enough where in the end it’s probably very similar. As much as I’d like to shill ZandG, it’s probably about the same. We are about 7% cancel rate but that’s just an average…like we had a consignor have 10/30 slabs unpaid this week and a guy who went 50/50 so it’s all volatile.

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7% cancel rate really demonstrates the state of the hobby today. Ebay buyers can be so frustrating.

Even with PWCC/fanatics I’ve had a pretty annoying rate of non-buyers

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EBay has and probably will always be the worst for non-paying buyers. They have the lowest barrier to entry. Just had a cancellation today, not even on an auction item. :headstone:

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Currently waiting for someone who did a best offer last night to pay… 80% sure they won’t

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z&g has that cancel rate? dam getting pretty bad out there :dizzy_face:

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Wow! Thanks for being so transparent and sharing!

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Yeah I mean it’s usually one different guy every week who buys 30 slabs internationally who doesn’t want to pay VAT once he checks out so if you threw out international people it would def be lower

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They are all the same person! :pikawink:

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Ive heard from them internally and seen myself through my own sales and consignments closer to ~3 to 4% unpaid rates on Fanatics.

They give up to two weeks for buyers to pay in certain instances which can be annoying but does come with a higher total payment rate.

Auctions have so much variance as James said, its impossible to perfectly optimize what cards to send where. Very generally I have found mid to higher end to do better at fanatics auctions. No sniping is good for the seller. Low to mid end does best at ebay as a single end time for the tens of thousands of more bulk things make things easier to slip through the cracks imo.

Myself and other services have some Fanatics rates that fairly drastically beat what you can do for yourself with public rates.

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Almost all of my items are still the 2 week pay window, which definitely helps payouts. I have people every month wait until the last day. 3-4% confirms my gut feeling on unpaid being half eBay.

I also agree with your value range results.

The biggest value is the no hassle. Not having to worry about item not described or received is a godsend!

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If I’m not mistaken the total PWCC fees are a little lower than your summary, as an overall percentage.

For example a $1,000 sale value, isn’t an applied 14% total fee, but 14% out of the 20% additional buyers premium (i.e. 14/120 = 11.7% of the final value)

Same applies to all tiers, just in case that sways your opinion

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Imagine needing to do math more advanced than what Togepi is studying in order to figure out your payout.

Ebay as a regular seller is that way since we pay the 13.25% on sales tax and VAT, both variable depending on the buyer

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Thanks for checking my math!
I don’t fully follow your logic but perhaps it would make sense if I clarified that the column ‘Sales Price USD’ is the total sale including buyers premium.

I assumed that if a card is worth $1000 it would not sell for $1000 + 20% but rather 833 + 20% ≈ 1000 on Fanatics. So that column already has the 20% included.

Now that I’m rethinking it, the way I have it set up would drop this sale to the $100-$999 range raising the commission.

So I’ll see if I can rework my formula to account for this and I’ll post an update.

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yeah your formula might be a bit wonky coz the normal pwcc payout rate is according to the hammer price then they add a “seller bonus” depending on how much it sells for. your 1st column should be the pwcc sale price + bp if you wanna calculate it in the payout rate way (e.g. 1000 should be 1200 instead and the payout is 106/120 of that) then add in the payout for z&g normally

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What he’s saying is the fee on PWCC/Fanatics needs to be out of total 120% rather than the 100% on eBay due to the 20% premium.

If something sells for a final sale price of $1,000 on Fanatics, then it sold for a hammer price of $833.33.

The payout would be $833.33×1.04 which would be $866.66. This means the effective fee percentage is 13.33% (16%/120%). Not 16% which it may seem like from the 20% premium structure.

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Thank you @magikarpflail, @tidaldreams, and @A.P.Speeze for calling me out on my bad math.

I have corrected my formula to account for this and have updated the original post!
The fee’s are actually much closer than I originally thought from $100 - $999 with this new adjustment.

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Excel Formulas

Fanatics Post Fee Earnings Formula:
=IF(A3-A3/1.2<3,A3-3,A3/1.2*(IF(A3/1.2<=49,1,IF(A3/1.2<=99,1.02,IF(A3/1.2<=999,1.04,IF(A3/1.2<=4999,1.06,IF(A3/1.2<=9999,1.08,IF(A3/1.2<=249999,1.1,IF(A3/1.2<=999999,1.125,IF(A3/1.2>=1000000,1.15,“NA”))))))))))

Z&G Post Fee Earnings Formula:
=A4*(IF(A4<=999,0.88,IF(A4<=2999,0.93,IF(A4>=3000,0.95,“NA”))))-IF(A4<100,5,0)

Something I did not consider into this original post was Fanatics various affiliates including @smpratte and @gottaketchumall.
The advertising that these platforms provide can really influence the traffic these items have on the auction block. Fees from affiliates may also be better for certain value cards.
Just wanted to acknowledge that.

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