Do Trading Card Mega-Sellers Need eBay More Than eBay Needs Them?
UPDATE 11-25-25
Just two weeks after launch, Snype will be shutting down indefinitely and Rick Probstein is heading back to eBay after massive failure to launch, technical issues, data breach and shill bidding allegations made new platform DOA.
Liz Morton
UPDATE 10-22-25
It's official, trading card mega-seller Rick Probstein has wound down his eBay business, ending a 20 year run with a single listing for a 1/1 custom bobblehead.
Probstein says his competing marketplace, Snype, will be up & running in November.
As eBay continues to consolidate their dominance in the collectible trading card market with acquisitions of Goldin and TCGPlayer, some mega-sellers on the platform are striking out on their own or moving to what they believe will be greener pastures on other sites.
The moves have raised eyebrows amongst investors who wonder if the loss of major players with millions of cards in their inventory will negatively impact eBay's performance in this key category but do these mega-sellers actually need eBay more than eBay needs them?
Burbank Sportscards made a splash at The National Sports Collectors Convention in July 2024, announcing an exclusive deal to move their inventory of ~40 Million cards off of eBay and on to Fanatics Collect, which had just launched days before.
Liz Morton
With over 20 years and more than 6.8 million sales on eBay at that time, the move was a huge risk for Burbank Sportscards, as owner Rob Veres revealed to Ben Burrows at Cllct that eBay was a major source of their revenue but in recent years it felt like they were bumping up against a glass ceiling on the platform:
Having a conversation that included exclusivity away from eBay, that's a terrifying thought. [eBay] is such a large part of our revenue, and there’s also the relationship that we built there over the years with just tremendous people. But sometimes you’ve got to take a leap of faith...
...I always feel that there’s a glass ceiling with any marketplace I’ve been on. You keep working, you keep pushing, you keep adding inventory and it doesn’t seem to move the needle in a lot of cases with some of the places that we’ve been. I feel for the first time that I have an unlimited opportunity on a platform.
That announcement rippled through not just the hobby, but also financial media as analysts wondered if it was warning of things to come, leading to Alex Hughes from Barclays asking eBay CEO Jamie Iannone about it in the Q&A section of the Q2 2024 earnings call.
Liz Morton
Looking at collectibles, news came out earlier this week that one of your trading card power sellers was moving to Fanatics in the next few months. Can you just give a little more color as to that situation and if the Goldin deal played a factor?
Jamie dodged the first part of the question and gave a vague answer to the second part, saying:
Yeah, I can't talk about any one seller. We have millions of sellers on the platform.
What I say about collectibles is that we feel really great about the innovation that we're driving in that business. Goldin coming on brings the world's most desirable inventory and collectibles onto the marketplace and new capabilities.
Fast forward over a year and the "unlimited opportunity" Burbank thought they saw in Fanatics Collect hasn't really worked out - they're still actively selling on eBay with over 80,000 items currently listed.
Rob Veres was asked about the deal on a recent interview with The Sports Card Dad, revealing that the move to Fanatics had proven to be much more complicated than they had originally planned for but is still in the works.
Dustin asked Veres:
I wanted to hit kind of right out of the gate because I thought back the first time I ever met you in person was the National last year...there was a big announcement about..the millions of cards that Burbank's going to move off of eBay over to Fanatics Collect.
I wanted to just get get an update from you there. I know that it's been a
process, so I thought we'd just kick it off with that topic.
Veres responded:
Yeah, process...we could use that word. It's a while. You know, Fanatics is basically building a whole new platform entirely working with Beckett. Their technology isn't exactly as up to date as I'd like. So, there's been a lot of work involved.
It is hitting the finish line now. We're very close and we'll be able to put 2.4 million different listings onto Fanatics Collect, Fanatics Proper, and we'll also be powering a lot of the league sites and other affiliate sites. So really excited about that.
You know, the showroom's been amazing, but I really can't wait to unleash the inventory across Fanatics. So, we're very close on that.
The rest of the interview went on to talk about other aspects of Burbank Sportscards' business including card shows and their brick and mortar shop but notably, nothing was mentioned about whether or not the Fanatics deal will still be exclusive once it is ready to launch and whether Burbank will be removing some or all inventory from eBay as a result.
Longtime mega-seller Rick Probstein made similar waves in February 2025 when he announced he was going to create his own site to compete directly against eBay in the trading card and collectibles space.
Originally slated to be called BYD, Probstein said his offering would be a live selling platform aimed directly at competing with eBay Live, Whatnot, Fanatics Collect while not committing to whether or not he would stay on eBay after his yearly agreement with them was up.
Liz Morton
At that time he said he was ~2 months away from having the site up and running with sellers being able to sell directly on the platform or consign with Probstein.
Obviously, things didn't work out as he had planned and Probstein is also still actively selling on eBay - though that could be coming to an end next month, according to reporting from Cllct.
Probstein now says his eBay alternative will be ready to launch in November, but is apparently going to be named Snype - I guess someone finally told him that BYD is actually a Chinese electrical vehicle manufacturer founded in 2003.
Snype will offer logistics solutions; commission fees of 5% on an item under $1,000 and 3% for an item over $1,000; no buyer fees; extended bidding on auctions and more.
Darren Rovell
Probstein say he will be leaving eBay, ending a 21 year run in which he sold almost 6 million sports collectibles and generated $925 million in sales, with his last day on the platform being October 23, 2025 - but time will tell.
Some collectors have likened the possibility of Probstein existing eBay to when PWCC was removed from the site (ostensibly over shill bidding accusations) and acquired by Fanatics in 2023.
Probstein is a somewhat controversial figure in the hobby himself, with many accusations of shill bidding lobbed against him as well, though he has largely dismissed the issue in the past by putting the responsibility for detecting shill bidding on eBay.
That of course has led some collectors to wonder how Probstein will address shill bidding concerns on Snype.
But even in the best case scenario, any new site is going to have difficult time taking on established giants in the industry and both buyers and sellers are rightfully asking - why would I want to go to a separate unknown new site instead of using eBay?
Establishing a strong buyer and seller base is the most difficult part of any marketplace endeavor and while eBay has had their own struggles in that regard over the years, there's no denying they're still the powerhouse in trading cards and collectibles.
Scrappy upstarts like Whatnot have come along in recent years and are making inroads - but it's taken significant funding to get there.
Liz Morton
And other large players like Walmart have also been trying to take market share in trading cards and collectibles - a move that is paying off in recent earnings reports thanks to a very intentional strategy of poaching ex-eBay talent.
Liz Morton
Walmart as also recently expanded their partnership with TalkShopLive to power a weekly Collector's Night featuring live box breaks, surprise giveaways, and exclusive drops from WeTheHobby.
talkshoplive
Will Probstein's Snype be able to carve out a place in an already very crowded field and how much does it hurt eBay when mega-sellers like him or Bankbank Sportscards leave? Drop your thoughts in the comments below!
