First off, bravo for you for offering free shipping and still using a bubble mailer. Good for you if you can make it work.

Anyway, your single card packaging with top loader in between cardboard in bubble mailer is perfect. Just make sure you account for the $1.65 you pay the post office when you set your opening/BIN price so you can still make a profit. And DON"T buy your bubble mailers from walmart, office depot, or wherever. Find a local office suply company, they can get you bubble mailers for as low as about 10 cents each, instead of aprox 75 cents at retail. That extra 65 cents over 1000 sales a year is a savings of $650 for you.

For sets I prefer to use the USPS flat rate boxes. They are either 5, 10, or $15 depending on size. Small size will hold aprox 50 cards in top loaders for $5. Medium is my favorite for sets/lots as the box will easily hold 2 600 count boxes and still have space left over for $10. Large box runs $15 and can easily hold thousands of cards if packaged well. Just keep in mind neither the medium or large can fit an 800 count box, so make sure you have 600 count bozes handy for sets.

Me personally, I'm not a big fan of offering free shipping on lots/sets, it's just too risky if the final price is too low. Of course some will say if you are selling a higher priced set, free shipping helps. I say no just because higher priced usually means higher demand, so a buyer is willing to pay for shipping on an item they really want.

Lastly, I'd say don't use the 3x3 sleeves, too easy for the cards to slip out during shipping and get damaged. Use a team bag in between cardboard, or snap tights work well, but cost a little more.

Hope this helps, best of luck on ebay.

We always ship single and up to 9 cards, in a 9 card UltraPro page, folded up to 3 cards across, then placed in a sealed plain white business envelope, between 2 pieces of sturdy cardboard (from the priority mail boxes).

We then cut up the tyvek envelopes for priority mail or express mail and turn it inside out so its only white and then wrap the cardboard with it.  This makes the package not only sturdy, but completely water tight too.  1st class shipping cost for this up to 9 cards with delivery conf is $1.65 to $2.00 depending on the overall weight.

Where Every Card Brings New Excitement!

Detroit

The best way to find true value of your cards is by searching completed listings on ebay to see what the cards typically sell for.

However, if most of what you have is in that era of late 80's to early 90's odds are you won't have much in resale value since those years were very, very overproduced. Most serious collectors don't even bother with 99% of the cards that came out from 1987-1992ish.

Pick up a current version of the Beckett sports card price guide. This will give you an idea of what the market is like.

you're kidding, right?

the prices in Beckett are so far removed from reality, that they're no longer taken seriously in the sports card community.. great reference for card numbers and stuff like that, but the prices have been a joke, ever since the advent of the internet..

"completed items" research on ebay is far and away the most accurate indication of the value of most sports cards..

Oasis Trading Post, formerly Diamond Sports Gems