Calling all trading card enthusiasts! eBay has been dominating the trading card space this year by establishing new ways for fans to protect and sell their cards. The online marketplace took to New York Comic Con (NYCC) to highlight its partnerships with Funko and OneOf; familiarize fans with the eBay vault; and showcase the new, eBay-exclusive Shuri Funko Pop!, inspired by Marvel’s upcoming movie, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. The Pop Insider spoke with Bob Means — director of trading cards at eBay —to learn more about the company’s newest ventures. Check it out below!
The Pop Insider: eBay has been making big moves in the collectibles space this year — can you tell us a little bit about the brand’s presence online and at NYCC? What can fans expect to see this weekend?
Bob Means: First, we’re super excited to be here. Comics are a huge part of our business, as well as everything that seems to come along with comics. I see art out there, I see games out there. As a whole, the collectible industry is just an important part of the eBay business. So we’re super excited to be here. We’re also excited to bring some things that are on theme.
We’ve got some NFTs for sale right now on the site, which is an exciting new technology for us to be involved with. It’s a super easy way of buying a piece and works just like an eBay checkout. It’s all about Slam Girl, and we’ve got the creators here to teach us all about it. We’ve also got some exclusive Funko Pops! that we’ve been giving out. They’ve been going very quickly, so if anyone’s gonna get those, get here early. We’ve also got some exclusive New York Comic Con comic books that we’re selling. There’s two Thor variants and two Spider-Man variants. The Spider-Man ones are really neat because it’s like a three-way collaboration between us, Marvel, and Funko. It’s Spider Gwen and the Black Panther, both in kind of a Funko-looking finish. It’s a lot of fun!
PI: eBay recently made updates to its eBay vault, where trading card fans can buy and sell cards worth $350+ securely. Can you explain a little more about this project?
BM: The eBay vault is an exciting move forward for us. Again, we think of it ultimately as a big piece of the collectible business. What it effectively does is let you [safely] put your cards in there. So I have a couple in there that I don’t intend to sell — I’ve got ’em in there just for storage reasons. But should I want to sell them with a click of a button, I can turn them on and now they’re sellable. If someone wants to buy them, it can stay in the vault and we can just pull it out of the vault. So there’s some benefits to that. We see a world in the future where comics could be in there, art could be in there, anything could be in there! It’s just a way to fix some problems that people might be having from a storage perspective. The security is there, the temperature control is there, and it’s a great place to store your cards as your collections get bigger and bigger. No more taking over the garage and the closets as collections tend to do. We’re super excited about the vault right now, and again, we’re working on it with trading cards. For the future, who knows, but comics seems like a logical place to go, as well as art.
PI: How can trading card buyers and sellers best utilize this platform?
BM: I’ll talk about the seller’s side first. I think it’s great for sellers to really take their listing seriously, give good, factual information. Of course, make sure to have great pictures, and also make sure the person knows the exact quality that they’re getting. That’s probably the most important thing that you can do from a buying side.
New York Comic Con is interesting because there’s such an opportunity to get all types of merchandise. I’ve walked the floor already, I found art, I found cosplay, I found cards, I found games. That’s very hard to do [in the outside world]. And here in New York City, yes, there are some game stores and card stores and comic book stores that are still doing fine. But if you’re in a more rural part of America, eBay gets you all that inventory. You can chase your passion for whatever that may be. So, if you’re into anime or something, eBay’s got it. If you’re into specific comics, eBay has it. And that’s the niche that we see ourselves filling. We help the brick and mortar stores stay in business by expanding the audience that they can sell to.
PI: eBay is embarking on partnerships with OneOf and Funko. Can you talk a bit about why eBay is entering these partnerships? What can fans expect to see from these collaborations?
BM: Well, OneOf is all about NFTs. We’ve got a couple NFTs live on the site right now. And what’s fun about the OneOf relationship is that the transaction’s really easy for people who haven’t messed around in the NFT space. It’s an eBay checkout and then you get an email that says, “go here to activate your [NFT].” And then OneOf takes care of all the hard work of creating the blockchain and the token for you. We really like that relationship. Funko is just in our blood. Funko has been an important part of eBay. It’s a perfect item for eBay. And we think that the relationship with Funko just helps us bring even more collectible Funko to the market faster.
PI: With all the changes to non-fungible tokens, how is eBay working to change the NFT space?
BM: We want to make NFTs easy to understand. We want to make it be something that anybody can do and get engaged with in the NFT space. We think NFTs are important. We think the physical and the digital world can coexist and we want to get people more comfortable with that. We believe in digital-only merchandise. We believe in physical-only merchandise — and we believe that physical and digital can be stacked together and make a really cool moment. So our goal is to bring NFTs to everybody and make it really easy for people to understand the process, understand where they own them, and understand how they can trade them in the future.
PI: Can you comment on the state of the collectibles market in general? What’s new and what can fans expect to see in the next few months?
BM: Collectibles are as strong as they’ve ever been. We continue to see a lot of energy and enthusiasm in various parts of the business. There are [still] new collectibles showing up. I was telling somebody the other day that I was trying to find the BMX bike that I had when I was a kid. Pristine BMX bikes from my childhood are now worth 10 times what they would’ve been worth when I was a kid. They’re rare, scarce, nostalgic, and fun. So there are emerging markets and niche markets all across the collectible spectrum at all times. But yeah, comics are doing great sports cards and great collectible card games. It’s the reason why we’ve entered into a relationship with Funko. I mean, Funko is awesome and more and more people are learning about them.
PI: Anything else you’d like to add?
BM: I’m just so happy that eBay can be here at New York Comic Con, and if anybody hears this in the next four days before we leave and you have a problem with your account, come down and see us. If you have questions about anything, we’d love to get the feedback. We’d love to talk to you.
Editor’s note: This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
