Leaf Trading Cards owner Brian Gray has jumped into the podcast fray. Here are thoughts on his first episode and where you can listen.
Redemption Cards
This featured his weakest arguments and underscored the fact that redemption cards are largely a Ponzi scheme for card companies.
My favorite part was when he "urged" card manufactures to pressure athletes to return cards "after the product comes out, after we collected the money." (10:25)
Appears to legitimately believe that sicker autographs are the way to go to eliminate redemption cards.
Not exactly "visionary" thoughts from Gray on redemption cards. LOL.
Bull Market - Gary Vee
Gray says he predicted the sports card bull market at the 2017 Industry Summit..... but can't find any video of it.
At least Gary Vee would have video of him predicting it BG!
Stick to your Beckett conference SCRUBS.
Sees buying opportunities in Andrew Benintendi and Jonathan India.
One thing I didn't like was Gray failed to mention he has a method to off his bad sports card investments. Through his repack products. You as a normal collector don't have the liquidation tools Gray does. Stop buying this repack garbage.
Believes the focus on Zion Williamson will be so great that other NBA players will be greatly undervalued in 2019-20. Probably his best point of the show but not exactly earth shattering.
Let’s set up a time for that chat on redemptions….. Heck, we could do it at the national!
We do NOT use redemptions to drive sales… We use them only when players do not live up to their contractual obligations and we work though it to not deprive consumers of these players who we have likely advertised as being in the release…
To be clear, I do NOT want an all-sticker autograph world…. I am merely saying that THAT is the only way to avoid redemptions unless of course we remove all autographs from the products, which would be the beginning of the end for the new card industry.
TRUST ME, I know where you guys are coming from. We 100% want to achieve as close to executional perfection possible, but we must do so while (1) not depriving customers of what they want and (2) spending our customers’ money (to which we are essentially the stewards) wisely when building products, as this increases value proposition.
BG
While I appreciate you tuning in, numerous statements you make above are clearly false.
On redemptions, i explain why they are necessary. It is really very simple. If we pulled guys out of sets that we advertised as being in there (because they didn’t return cards in time), that might be construed by some as unfair.
I actually offered the ONLY solution… all sticker autographs.
On my prediction , I clearly stated this during my speech at the industry summit in 2017. I would love a recording of it exists but 200 witnesses were there so feel free to ask around. Regardless, I made a prediction of the future. Gary Vee is merely reporting what we already know.
I am all about healthy discussion in the industry but I find your analysis on my redemption talk completely off base and I encourage people to the actual things I said rather than relying on a 3rd party’s analysis.
Maybe we should discuss redemptions together on air?
Glad we agree at least a little on the buying opportunity created by Zion.
BG
“If we pulled guys out of sets that we advertised as being in there (because they didn’t return cards in time), that might be construed by some as unfair.”
Trying to please everyone all the time is a surefire way for failure. Pretty sure someone really important once said that. I totally understand your point, and it’s a good one, but redemptions might cause your business more harm than drive sales. You probably have some insight into what Panini is paying to defend itself from a redemption lawsuit. If they get a tough ruling, what’s the potential cost of that? Even if they are victorious, what’s the cost of that?
Customers are always right, but not if they want to risk the viability of your business. I think if you provide real good visibility into your products, customers would respect that. In some instances, probably better to shoot customers $20 vouchers than chase down an auto you’ll need a redemption for.
“I actually offered the ONLY solution… all sticker autographs.”
Creating more sets where non-autos are the chase might be a better solution. Silver Prizms, Superfractors, Young Guns, etc all sell well with no autos. Create incentives to collect/chase the cards down if a non-license makes that hard. Make these guys track down all the base cards and send them to you in exchange for a hot Auto RC.
“On my prediction , I clearly stated this during my speech at the industry summit in 2017.‘
I don’t doubt it. I did a show in 2011 on this, so I got ya’ll beat.
Link: http://www.sportscardradio.com/show-83-sports-cards-boom-1011-black-box-basketball-a-more/
“Maybe we should discuss redemptions together on air?”
I’d love to.
– Colin