TCGplayer will begin offering comics and graphic novels to consumers on October 24, the company has announced, which will allow comic retailers to join TCG and sports card retailers as active sellers on the platform. At launch the platform will support sales of comics and graphic novels from Marvel Comics and DC Comics, with 150,000 different items in its database, including comics from all periods and variant types. The item database will include “special edition covers, Newsstand editions and Direct variants,” a spokesperson told us.
Retailers have been able to upload comic inventory since October 3, with special offers for retailers that complete uploads of at least 1000 comics by launch day. “Hundreds” of retailers have uploaded their comic inventory to date, according to the company.
We asked TCGplayer how it put together its Marvel and DC databases. “Our TCG catalog is known to be one of the most exhaustive in the industry and our goal is to offer this same comprehensive experience to comic book hobbyists,” the spokesperson said, declining to answer directly. “More information will be shared on our site in the coming days.” The company plans to add comics from additional publishers to its database in the coming months.
Graded comics are currently supported with a Listings with Photos feature; plans are in place for optimizing all platform features for graded comics. The company will use its own conditioning standards as a guide for selling comics on its platform.
We asked how TCGplayer would bring customers in this new category to its platform. “We are taking the same approach that made us so successful with TCGs and applying it to this new vertical: Delighting hobbyists with our industry-leading tools, buyer safeguards and the ability to shop from their favorite local stores on one convenient platform,” the spokesperson told us.
TCGplayer announced a deal to acquire ChannelFireball and BinderPOS in July (see “TCGplayer to Acquire CFB and BinderPOS“). And in August, TCGplayer and eBay announced that they had reached a definitive agreement for TCGplayer to be acquired by eBay, with TCGplayer continuing to operate as a separate company (see “eBay Acquiring TCGplayer“). The transaction will likely close in 2023.
Source: ICv2
