Ethics. It's a tough subject for anyone with the power to influence others by their words and actions. It's certainly something that comes to mind these days when we see how some of the athletes we look up to act both on and off the playing field. It's also something that anyone who writes for a newspaper or a magazine (or even a web site) has to think about. When I write a review of a new product, I'm always careful not to allow anything affect what I'm writing. I simply open the packs/boxes (which I always buy with my own money) and report on what I think and what I see. My readers rely on this objectivity and I won't have it any other way.
What kind of ethics are needed to produce a successful price guide? The question comes up this week as Beckett announces its new Transaction Services. To sum it up, Beckett is providing a service to sellers and buyers where they will become the intermediary in their transaction. The seller sends the card(s) to Beckett and the buyer sends the funds. When both are received then Beckett sends payment to the seller and the card(s) to the buyer. Sounds good so far. I mean this business of online buying and selling can be risky and it looks like Beckett was trying to do something to make it safer.
While this started out sounding like a revolutionary idea, it quickly becomes questionable as you read down the page. Needless to say no one can offer this service for free, but Beckett decided to charge both the buyer and the seller 10% of the sale price! That means 20% of the sale goes right to Beckett. I started fielding emails about the plan only hours after the mass-mailing announcing the service. At first I was just shocked by the outrageous price. Who was going to be willing to give up 20% of a deal to a transaction service?
Over this past weekend a few new emails and a thread on rec.collecting.cards.discuss brought up the ethics of this service and made me look at it from a new angle. Beckett is currently the most respected price guide by buyers and sellers. Even if you believe their pricing is not always correct, most people still use them in one way or another to come up with a fair price for their transaction. By charging a percentage of the sale price for their transaction service, Beckett has put their own ethics in serious doubt. If prices on certain popular selling cards start sliding upward it would be easy to construe this as a means of maximizing their return from the transaction service.
Let's use the Kobe Bryant Chrome rookie card as a good recent example. No one could question the hype on this product and card brought its price up to the current $400 level we see in April's Beckett Basketball Monthly. Likewise, anyone watching the auctions and newsgroups these days knows that the boon is coming to a close and prices are settling down. From what I see, the proper price for this card might be $300 to $350 and should be adjusted downward next month. What if it isn't? If Beckett leaves the card at $400 or even raises it, will it be because they didn't follow the market properly this month, or because they realize that by lowering the price of this hot-selling single they'll chance losing as much as $20 each time one is sold through their transaction service?
I know that one example makes this seem like a minor ethics breach, but what if you take my Kobe Chrome example and extend it to every popular card out there. Each time you read a Beckett you'll have to wonder if the prices you see are an actual representation of what the card is selling for or what Beckett would like to see it sell for by people using their transaction service. In writing this I'm not accusing Beckett of bad ethics. I'm simply making the point that if people can even question your ethics then you have a problem.
I hope someone at Beckett takes a look at this and realizes the potential
for disaster. The transaction
service isn't a bad idea and it's not too late to think it over and
come up with a new plan. I would think that a flat rate transaction
fee would make better sense. Charge the seller a fee based on what
they need to make a profit (possibly around $5 per sale). Then charge
the buyer a fee based on shipping and handling. I would be happy
to suggest people use this service to insure their own safety in online
transactions, but not if it means I have to question the ethics of
this hobby's most used pricing publication.
CHAT