The Limitations of TCGLow As a Buy/Sell Metric and What to Do About It

TCGLow is king when it comes to the most universally accepted and competitive buy/sell metric when doing business on platforms like Facebook. However, there are many limitations and imperfections of TCGLow. However, if you want to be successful in the buy/sell Facebook space, learning to use TCGLow to your advantage is key; knowing when to leave TCGLow for a better metric will also benefit you. This article aims to arm buyers and sellers alike when this metric should be ignored for something more accurate.

TCGLow in the TCGPlayer App is Flawed, Ignores Condition and Shipping

Perhaps the largest flaw with the TCGPlayer mobile app is that it cannot display a TCGLow price based on the card’s condition. If you change the condition to DMG, HP, MP, LP, or NM the price will remain the same. This will vastly overprice or underprice cards, especially cards over $50 or $100. The more expensive the card, the worst the TCGPlayer app can be for determining TCGLow.

Another large flaw with the TCGPlayer App is that it ignores shipping costs when displaying the cheapest sale price. Buyers will naturally include shipping costs in their valuation of what the best deal is. One example that I recently saw was for a Revised Demonic Tutor, wherein the TCGPlayer app was displaying $39 as TCGLow. However, when looking at the card on the website, I saw that there was in fact no copies available at this price. As far as your wallet is concerned, a $43 Revised Demonic Tutor with free shipping is cheaper than a $39 version with $5.99 shipping. However, the TCGPlayer app will display the TCGLow as $39. This is why when selling singles, one will need to make the decision on whether they are selling based on TCGLow displayed in the app versus TCGLow displayed on the website. The latter is the more accurate measurement. For some cards, the difference will be nominal. However, imagine if you are selling 30 cards like the example above. At this point, the app will be underpriced $4 per card, for a total of $120. Now, it is totally fine to buy and sell based on the TCGLow in the app, however, it is hard to argue that the app should ever be used over the website if the seller’s prerogative is to base their prices on the true TCGLow (cheapest version available at that time).

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Over my years of buying and selling I have seen some distinctions between when to expect TCGLow to be based on app or website. When I see posts by sellers who are committed to making profit and who are clearly selling regularly, I expect the TCGLow in the app to be ignored and prices to be based on the website. I’m never going to enter into an argument of, “well, the app says this . . .” and I would suggest that you don’t either unless you are open to admitting that in fact that the app isn’t super accurate. In the same vein, if someone comes to me with that argument and I know they are going to resell the card(s) for profit, I am not going to hold that against them. That’s because I most likely purchased the cards using the TCGPlayer app and it’s TCGLow metric. So, am I a dirty little hypocrite? In my defense, I’d say no. If I am going to purchase a Chandra or Liliana for my personal collection, I will pay TCGLow or 10% off of TCGLow based on the higher website price. That is me shopping as a collector. However, if I am buying a full list of cards – 20, 200, or 2000 cards, the app becomes easier and widely accepted as a fair price point. I mean, who has the time to go into the website and look up hundreds or thousands of cards. I don’t. If the seller has put in that time though I will certainly honor that and base my offer on the website TCGLow. It should be noted that TCGPlayer does offer sellers of certain levels ands statuses pricing and listing tools that allows for more accurate TCGLow pricing in the way of a CSV file export of their collection with prices based on website TCGLow that accounts for shipping. This is often how regular sellers can price their cards according to “true website TCGLow” without having to look up cards one by one.

TCGLow and Low Sale Price – What’s the Difference and What Price Point Should You Use?

Recently, the Facebook MTG buy/sell community brought us a great case study in the difference between TCGLow and Low Sale Price. At the time of writing this the very pretty confetti foil anime Smothering Tithe has a TCGLow of $1000. However, the same card lists a Low Sale Price of $389. In fact, the High Sale Price doesn’t crack $700. Informed speculation suggests that cheaper versions of the card were purchased by one seller who hopes to capitalize on the higher priced cards becoming the new norm and being able to sell what was previously a $500 card for $1000 a pop.

As the terms suggest, Low and High Sale Price are price points that reflect a copy of the card that was actually sold on TCGPlayer.com. Low Sale Price and High Sale Price inform and contribute to Market Price but are different than TCGLow, TCGMarket and TCGMid.

So, what should this card be sold for right now as we speak? That’s tough to answer for sure, but it surely matters why you are buying it. Are you buying to resell for profit? Buying to get a knockout deal? Or, are you a devout collector that doesn’t mind paying premium for a specialty collector card?

Who knows who will be the next to sell this specific card on TCGPlayer? I don’t think that anyone with this card should automatically sell for $450-$500, even if that is what the Market Price is. Afterall, who knows when another $400 version of the card will show up, if ever? At the same time, buying at $1000 seems foolish.  

From the perspective of a reseller, I would not buy based on the current TCGLow of $1000 until there was evidence that the confetti Tithe isn’t going to return to a $400-$600 TCGLow. If I was buying this now to resell, I would base my offer on the trends over the last few months from eBay and TCGPlayer and ignore such a new price hike. This is where TCG Market and past sales data proves to be the most accurate for buying and selling.

From the perspective of a collector if I wanted the card and wasn’t trying to make a profit, I wouldn’t expect a seller on Facebook to just sell this for $500 now. I’d count myself lucky if someone was to sell at that rate. While I don’t follow trends of these buyout cards with price gouging all that much, it just seems like these specialty collector foil cards will indeed have larger swings, much like serialized cards. A collector who wants this card for their collection should probably wait to see what happens over the next few months and where the Market Price and TCGLow prices are at after buyers and sellers have a chance to respond to the insane spike on this card.

It should also be noted that at the time of editing this article for publication, a $700, $800, and $900 listing have become available, none of which have sold. The TCGLow would be $700, and the current Low Sale Price is still under $700.

Multiple Copies of Cards Often Incurs A Lot of Shipping Costs on TCGPlayer

What if you’re in search of 30 lightly played snow lands from a single set and printing? Most often, no single seller on TCGPlayer will have all 30, and even after cart optimization, you’d likely still be looking at five or six packages with their individual shipping costs. And, most likely, the single lands would begin to increase in price significantly as you bought from more and more sellers to fulfill your wish for all 30.

Now, what if you find a collector/seller on Facebook who had all 30 – would you expect them to sell them all to you at the standard 10% off TCGLow or at TCGLow?

One could make the argument that wanting to buy or sell at this rate is fair, however, the seller would indeed be selling for much less than what one would pay for on TCGPlater. While it isn’t common for sellers should sell based on a live TCGPlayer shopping cart, however, in this situation I think it is more than fair to use that as a tool to discover the accurate lowest price would be.

The bottom line – if you’re buying and selling many, many copies of a single card, it is probably best not to sell all copies at TCGLow. The buyer and seller should work towards a deal that feels fair and good for both.