The most common question working sellers get, more than any other, is some version of "I sold 30 cards for $8, and after tracking I made nothing, how does anyone profit doing this?" The honest answer has two parts: a floor price that makes the order worth packing in the first place (covered in is selling bulk actually worth it), and knowing exactly how many cards fit in the cheapest shipping option before reaching for a more expensive one.
For single orders: the plain envelope hack
A plain white windowed envelope with a couple of extra ounce stamps holds more cards than it looks like it should. The method, demonstrated by sellers who've shipped over 15,000 TCGplayer transactions this way: split the order into three roughly even stacks, drop each stack unsleeved into a small team bag, tape all three bags directly to the folded packing slip so nothing shifts, and slide the whole thing into the envelope with the address showing through the window.
- 30 cards, unsleeved, in three stacks: weighs in around 2.6 ounces, covered by one regular stamp plus two additional-ounce stamps
- Pushing to the 4-ounce limit with two additional-ounce stamps gets close to 38 cards in one envelope
- No sleeves needed for this method. Pokémon packs themselves ship unsleeved in a plastic bag and arrive fine
- Orders over that count just get split across two printed packing slips and two envelopes rather than forced into a bubble mailer
This only works with a real floor price behind it. A 30-card order priced at 20 cents a card and up clears $6 before the extra stamps, which still leaves something after supplies. The same 30 cards priced at a nickel each barely covers postage.
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30 unsleeved cards, weight
Three stacks of 10, taped to the packing slip.
oz2.6
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Max realistic count, one envelope
Pushing the 4 oz limit with extra postage.
cards~38
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Minimum floor to make it worth it
Below this, stamps eat too much of the order.
¢20+
For selling a whole lot at once: the flat rate box
Not everyone wants to sort and list bulk one card at a time, and there's a real market for selling an unsorted lot directly to another buyer. A large flat rate box packed correctly holds roughly 6,500 cards. The packing order that keeps thousands of cards from shifting and arriving damaged: bubble wrap lining the bottom, cards packed in tight rows with no gaps (any loose space gets filled with more cards, not left empty), a second layer of rows running the opposite direction on top, then bubble wrap folded over before sealing. The box gets taped heavily, three strips across each seam, with extra reinforcement on the one corner that isn't factory-sealed, since that's where a 30-pound box of cards is most likely to fail in transit.
This method works for Pokémon, Magic or any other card game, though thicker cardstock (One Piece, for example) fits fewer cards per box. It's the shipping side of selling bulk as a lot instead of sorting and listing every card individually, useful once a backlog gets big enough that sorting all of it isn't worth the time (more on that tradeoff in how to sort bulk).
See the exact supplies we use → Read the full step-by-step guide →