What's going on, everybody? Welcome back to Passion to Profession, sponsored by my good friends at eBay.

Excited for this conversation. Today, I'm joined by Steve. Steve runs Columbia Sports and More and Columbia Hobby. I guess that maybe that's a first question, Steve, is, maybe the branding behind, your operation.

We're gonna get into kind of the store itself and the online ecommerce, but how do you break it down just in terms of, from a brand perspective?

Well, I mean, we started off just as a Columbia Sports, and we started kinda pivoting and going into Pokemon and some of this other stuff.

And this was, say, ten, fifteen years ago, and I I think a lot of the gamers that were getting into that, they didn't wanna buy from a sports card shop per se because, you know, they would think we didn't really know what we were doing or whatnot.

So we kinda switched it over to Columbia Hobby at that point, just to kinda be a little more all encompassing.

And, actually, recently, we switched it back over to Columbia Sports Cards and More just to kinda, I yeah. Just kind of evolved a little bit.

So you what I've observed from your business is kinda you blend this local card shop vibe, having the storefront, and then you go you can go to your website or go to the eBay store, and you've got just, like, this robust ecom marketplace, style approach to your business.

I has that always been a part of your vision to to do the two, or has that kind of organically happened over time? I would say more organically. And we kinda did it a little backwards.

So we started on the ecom side. That was well, I mean, really, we started in my garage more or less. But, you know, as the ecom side grew, you know, the everybody wants to be the sports card shop owner.

So, you know, we have the staff. We have the space, and we're like, you know what? Let's let's break this off into the sports card shop and see if we can make that viable too.

And I kinda that's how we ended up kinda doing the dual thing with the ecom and the sports card. Have have you what have you learned maybe from the, starting on the ecom side and then, you know, doing the, local card shop, later?

Has there been any lessons or big surprises that you've learned from that approach? Grow your network. Listen to a lot of people. Nobody is going in with the answers, and it's not what you think it is.

Best thing you could do is really talk to other people, look at, what they've done right, what they've done wrong, learn from that and kinda clean off of what they say and make it your own.

That's it's interesting. I mean, you go in thinking, you know, a shop's gonna be one way. I just need to open the doors and some sports cards out there. People are gonna walk in. But, no.

It's way more than that. I mean, that's it you gotta create the experience. And, you know, how do you create the experience? Well, as a collector, you can walk into the shops with with one thing in mind, what it's supposed to look like.

But as a shop owner, you're looking at from a whole different perspective. And, you know, changing your mindset from a shop owner, the only way you're gonna get that is either from experience or learning from others.

We're we're gonna get into, this topic more, but, maybe before we get into the business, even further, I'd love to learn more about you, and just maybe overall collecting and how collecting sports cards entered your life and then maybe all the way through into how you how it helped influence kind of where you're at today?

No. No. For sure. I I've gosh. I've been a sports card collector since I was I can tell you exactly, since I was nine years old.

When I was, you know, back in 1979, my favorite uncle gave me a box of baseball cards, and I was, you know, I was a I was a baseball fan as a kid.

Opened them up, and I was hooked. That's it was simple as that. And and I've been collecting ever since. I mean, that hasn't stopped, but literally that to that day, I can I can pinpoint that's when I became a collector?

I it was just that one one time. What what maybe throughout the years in terms of, like, Steve the collector and and maybe is is it hard at this point to to kind of draw a line between Steve the collector and Steve the business owner?

And, I kinda would love to learn, though, like, what you have collected throughout this process.

Yeah. It's definitely evolved. One thing, especially when I first started the business and had the shop, you you kinda start to become a little jaded.

As a sports car shop owner, the stuff that excited you before when you were collecting didn't it doesn't excite you so much because you see it walking in the door all the time now in your store, people trying to sell it to you or or whatever.

So, I have a few favorite players that I collect. You know, I'm a Sandy Koufax, Tony Gwynn guy. But more of the obscure stuff, the stuff that's hard to find. That's that's really the stuff that kinda still gets me juice. And, Yeah.

I mean, that's really kind of what I'm just collecting, just the the weird stuff. I mean, I I I'll tell you a quick story. When I, was at the National a few years ago, this was not the last one in Cleveland, but the one before that.

And, talking to one of my friends that had that was running a show, and he pointed me out to the booth next to him, and he had a, the guy was when Tony Quinn's last year in baseball was he kinda did the, you know, every goes every goes every stadium, and they were kind of, you know, giving him gifts or whatnot.

So the Diamondbacks had these, on deck circles with the 19 on them, and Tony Gwynn autographed one of them.

And this guy was selling one of those. I'm thinking like, okay. How cool. But it's ginormous. How am I gonna get that home? Didn't buy it, and I've kicking myself ever since then.

I mean, I would've made it work. I mean, it would be literally sitting in my store right now on the floor or or whatever, you know, under plexy. Just it's it's weird stuff like that that that I'm chasing.

I love that. It Tony Gwynn is such a great example. Right? He had this insane career. You look at his analytics and statistics if you're a baseball nerd or junkie, and it's almost like, man, was there a better hitter than Tony Gwynn?

Like, I think that having that conversation is like a conversation you can really have. But it it's weird because he's one of those players that it just it doesn't feel like you find a ton of Tony Gwynn collectors out there.

Have you observed that? We when we collect cards, right, we try to understand who who our competition is or who the community of collectors is.

I mean, and I'm not a Gwyn collector, but that's just an observation I've made based on kinda his greatness. Maybe is that something you have observed as collecting his stuff over the course of time, or is it different?

No. No. I wouldn't agree. I I I think probably just until recently, people haven't really been given Gwen his due, I think. I would say an obvious reason for that is, you know, he spent his entire career in San Diego.

Back then, especially outside of San Diego, nobody paid attention to the Padres. And so I I just think not as many people were exposed to him as they would have been otherwise.

I mean, I guarantee if he was a Yankee, I mean, he would have a statue right now. I mean, he does in San Diego, but you know what I'm saying.

No doubt about it. So that's cool. I love that. I love Tony Gwynn getting a mention on the pod. Maybe what you what was the time frame and what where were you at in life when you decided, okay.

Like, let me try to roll this into something that I can do full time. It can be my livelihood. Like, what were you what was, the online ecom strategy?

Maybe just get into that side of it. Okay. So when I started out, like I mentioned, it was my garage. And, honestly so, you know, I had a career in banking and insurance up to that point. Spent fourteen years doing one or the other.

And just for a side gig, I'm like, you know, I wanna make some extra money. I'm gonna mess around on eBay in my garage. And, you know, I was a sports collector at the time, and I saw an opportunity to sell supplies.

So I got connected with a manufacturer and sold out of my garage. No big deal. At the time, we were living up in Washington state, and for family reasons, we had to move down to Southern California.

And I didn't wanna do what I was doing currently in Southern California. So my wife who was a was a nurse, she's like, you know what? She's like, I think you might have something here.

Why don't I go back to work full time, and why don't you see if you can just kinda build something? And and literally, that's how the business started. It's like, I quit my job, which was crazy.

You know? I'm 6 figures and four and a half weeks paid vacation. I finally got to that four and a half weeks paid vacation, just trashed it. And, spent a year just hustling, just trying to get the ecommerce business going.

You know, like I said, specializing on on eBay. There was really only, like, three supply sellers on eBay, and so there wasn't a lot of competition. And I didn't take a salary from it.

Just kept putting the money back into the business for a year, and it just kinda grew from, you know, the the garage to a storage unit to a small warehouse to and it just kind of, you know, exploded from there.

But that's you know, credit to my wife because I had never done that.

She's the one that gave me the green light, and it worked. That is incredible. Shout out to your wife, you know, going through the journey to building your own business.

I think having support, especially in your home, is is really, really important. How important has, you know, your wife, family, friends been to getting you obviously, you're a motivated guy.

You had a vision for what you wanna do, but how important is are those people around you throughout the process over the years to make it happen?

I mean, it's huge. So, you know, I mentioned I'm married and, you know, had a couple kids. You know, family's first and foremost for me.

I mean, if I had if my wife paused or questioned whether I should be doing it or, you know, if I should go back to a a job that gives a stable income or something like that, I would have dropped it and done it.

I mean, I'm not gonna override my family. I mean, that's the most important thing in my life.

Having her backing and she's going into this kind of blindly, you know, open minded, trusting that I know what the heck I'm doing, you know, it's huge. I mean, she she never questioned one thing that I did.

She's just kinda like, you know what? You take it. You run with it. I I will support the family for, you know, a year or whatever it was. And, yeah, it it it was ginormous, honestly.

In the in those early days of, you know, noticing opportunities with there being few suppliers selling through eBay or just finding those little, moments of, like, okay. I need to go all in here, or I can spend money over here.

What were some maybe early roadblocks that you encountered and that you had to maybe navigate through, and just maybe talk through those maybe some of those challenges, in the early days?

I mean, finances, definitely. We we didn't have a ton of money. I mean I mean, we did okay, but, again, you have a family. She's supporting the family.

I didn't really start the business with much money. It was it just kind of snowballed by reinvesting. To me, it didn't really seem like I had a lot of roadblocks and stuff on eBay because like I said, I didn't have much competition.

One of the advantages I felt that I had, in Southern California is the manufacturer I partnered with was down there.

So any other competitors, if they're getting the product, well, they have to, have the product shipped to them first, so it's cost them a little bit more.

I would actually take my truck down. I would go pick the stuff up so I'd get a better deal. So I I had a little bit of price advantage.

And the interesting about that and that kinda gave me a springboard going off was when I moved back up to Washington, there was one other eBay seller that also was picking stuff up down in Southern California, and I'm like, oh, crap.

I'm gonna lose this advantage now. I ended up convincing the manufacturer to, put all of his inventory up in Washington. I would manage it for free, and I gave him a deal he couldn't refuse. And, ultimately, that's what happened.

I mean, I'll be transparent. That was Carbor Gold. So Carbor Gold put their warehouse up in Washington, and I managed it at that point. And the entire motivation behind it is I wanted to keep my advantage over what anybody else had.

The oh, man. That's awesome. And great a great nugget in just some of the early decisions that you made in order to kinda, find your footing and find your positioning.

How how in and how important just on the manufacturing side? Like, obviously, you're in the business of selling, sealed product along with a bunch of other things.

How important has it been to manage and maintain those individual, like, people to people relationships with the suppliers, throughout the years?

Yeah. And we're actually manufacturing as well too. So but so I we we're kinda covering everything. I mean, I bought a company, ten years ago called Max Protection. I bought them for their factory access in the manufacturing wing.

So we're manufacturing, we're reselling, we're wholesaling, we're retailing, we're doing all of that. But to to go back to your question, it's networking is always what what it is.

I mean, you've got to I wouldn't be anywhere compared to, where I am right now if it wasn't for that. I mean, when it comes to, you know, wholesaling, I I've got a Rolodex of, say, 300 sports card shops that I can call at any time.

A lot of them are friends of mine. It's suppliers, manufacturers, factories. I mean, you have to have it all accessible.

You have to keep good relationships with all of them, because you just don't know what's gonna get thrown at you down the road. And there's been many times where my relationships have kind of kept the business going.

You know, I've asked favors, and people have asked favors of me, and it's it's really interesting in really interesting industry that we're in right now.

Just because things are always changing. Yeah. I wanna get into some of those changes, but maybe it will be good because I'm learning something just in our conversation.

But your business is, complex. It's unlike any other business that I've or business owner that I've talked to is running, and there might be similar or adjacent businesses like it, but maybe just break it down.

Like, how is how does it all work? What's the structure? What are all the service product lines? Like, maybe just get into the way, Columbia Sports is made up right now.

Yeah. I I think you're right. I I as far as being kind of a one of a kind business, I'm not familiar with any way that kind of does all levels like we're doing, which can be good and it can be bad.

But structure wise, I did split the business off into two a couple years ago.

The ecom and the store are running as two separate businesses now. I've got another thing too is, you know, you you hire good people. So I've got good people that are managing the ecomm business a little bit more.

I'll still go in with ideas and dabble a little bit, but I kinda try to empower the people in charge of that and let them kinda do their thing just because I'm I'm more about the fun now.

So and the shop is what gets me juice. So I spend a little more time on the shop side of things. And then, of course, all the the trips and the conferences and stuff like that and, again, growing those relationships.

But, yeah, that's kind of the setup. We have two separate locations. I've got the shop location, and then we've got a the ecommerce across town.

And, yeah, they're they're running separately, but together. You know? With the two separate businesses and the online and physical location, what's what's inventory management look like?

Like, how do you and I know it sounds like you've got a team of some really smart people who you rely on, but how do you make the decisions on kinda what ends up where?

Talk us through that. So I guess a relationship between the two, we try to you know, I mentioned we wholesale a lot in, you know, all the shops in the area, and we have a lot of shops across country that we wholesale to.

I try to treat our shop as a wholesale customer to Columbia Hobby more or less. So we run the stores on its own if it needs supplies or whatever else.

It purchases purchases from from the ecom warehouse. When it comes to the sports cards themselves, you know, we have a separate, you know, eBay account and then a separate website, actually, that runs a lot of the cards out of the shop.

And so that's that is separate from the ecom warehouse. So, really, when it comes to the sports cards and everything but supplies, we run everything off of our columbiasportsyard.

Com or through eBay. And then, when it comes to the bulk supplies and that, that goes through the the econ warehouse.

Is is there anything that you've learned from, you know, being a local card shop owner in Vancouver, Washington and interacting with the individuals who you build relationships with, your customers who are coming in, buying product, having conversations.

Is there anything you learned from those, one to one conversations that influences maybe what happens on the ecom side or or vice versa?

Do they influence each other at all? Yeah. And and I think that's what's really cool about the model that we have.

So, you know, I'm obviously, we're talking to people all the time in the shop. And so I can we have our our our finger on the pulse as far as what the collector wants.

You know, interacting with them, we can see what their needs are, what they want. There's a lot of things that they know that I don't or connections that they have that I don't have too, and they can bring it in.

And, you know, some of the stuff translates into products that we'll manufacture, and I'll bring those online.

It's really interesting. So being, again, a manufacturer, when you think about the other big manufacturers that we have in our industry, I don't think any of them have a shock.

So if they wanna get some feedback, they have to, you know, hit up the stores or send a survey out or whatever the heck they're doing. I've got my feedback straight in my store right there.

And, you know, we're living the feedback. So it's, it gives us a a bit of a leg up on some of the stuff. And, you know, again, some of the products I've created came directly from those conversations.

How how important is, customer service to you and creating a customer experience where individuals, whether it's coming back to your store or coming back to your online shop or eBay store, you know, just continue to come back?

Like, how do you think about, that side of the business? I mean, bottom line, we integrity. You know, the shop's integrity, the business's integrity.

You know, there's some stereotypes in our business where, you know, people see a lot of sharks or they're seeing a lot of things that are underhanded being done and stuff like that.

So I think when people walk into a shop first time, a lot of times they'll deal with a little bit of trepidation. You know, is this guy gonna rip me off or is he telling me the truth?

And, you know, we get the same thing online, you know, people asking me the questions. And, you know, that's a stigma I don't even wanna get into. You know, we're, you know, we're we're we're collectors.

We're real people. And, you you know, if you be genuine with people and, you know, you run your business with integrity, I mean, that's ultimately just where we're at. I mean, everything else just kinda follow suit from there.

I wanna spend a second talking about, like, the industry and the shifts and the changes that are happening. Obviously, with your unique business, you're probably seeing, touching, talking to almost every side of it.

Obviously, you've got, you know, new manufacturer license changing. That changes it. The type profile of collector is changing rapidly every day. Maybe, like, current state of what's happening in the hobby right now.

What what what interests you? What is fascinating? Maybe what is if there's anything that's causing you to maybe take a deep breath and reconsider, like, anything there from an industry perspective.

Yeah. That's, I mean, that could be a whole can of worms that you just throw up in the right area. Let's hear it. It's you know, you have to go in with an open mind.

You have to be willing to pivot or ready to pivot at any time. I mean, you know, as a shop, we have certain expectations by, you know, certain companies and manufacturers that we have to maintain that it's different than any industry.

I've I've never seen an industry where, you know, you have manufacturers saying you have to be this way or else, you know, you may not get product or something like that.

And, you know, that presents a challenge. I mean, has it made our shop experience better? Sure. It's has it encouraged me to make a kick ass shop?

Yeah. But, you know, some of that stuff as a business owner, you'd think it'd be because you you were doing it and it was your control and, you know, now you're being told what to do. So that, you know, that's a bit of a challenge.

Obviously, we've got a lot of companies getting into a lot of different levels that, you know, Columbia is currently in, you know, the manufacturing and the wholesaling and distributing and all that sort of thing.

So it yeah. It's, like I said, I feel like we're pivoting all the time right now.

I mean, this last year, it's like, we'll do something one month and all of a sudden something goes down and we have to look at it at a different angle. I mean, at the same time though, I love the challenge.

I mean, that's really what it is. I love the challenge. This is fun for me. And as long as it's fun, you know, I'm just gonna keep doing it. There is, I'm sure, like, in terms of, like, per performance of the market and the industry.

Right? You can just, like, look at the bottom lines of your businesses, and it'll tell you it'll probably give you a a pretty good health score of what's happening.

How do you take maybe what's happening with your businesses in consideration? And then also look at, like, what's happening outside of your business.

And, like, how would you assess, like, the current state 2025? Like, how are we doing in the hobby? Like, what's what's the report card? Like, what would you what would you give the the industry right now?

Okay. So, yeah, I mean, we're extremely mindful of what everybody else is doing too. I mean, I probably know some other people's businesses better than they know them themselves.

Again, that's kinda what I have to do. You have to kinda know what I don't wanna say what your competition is doing, but what other people in the business are doing.

As a hobby as a whole, what's our health? Hobby kicks ass right now. I mean, we're it's it's so much fun. I mean, there's so many different facets of the hobby right now, and there's such there's not just one kind of collector.

There's a whole bunch of different types of collectors. It's so easy for just about anybody to get into it and find something that they're interested in.

And so, yeah, it's it's a lot different than what it was ten years ago. Ten years ago was a little more pigeonholed. It was a little more niche.

It's not niche anymore. So I I've I just by hearing you say, like, you're studying your competition, right, I would imagine you're studying the individuals that are coming into your store and, you know, buying product, asking questions.

Those like, there are different profiles or there are different labels that we give the individuals doing certain things in the hobby, whether it's, like, collector, investor, flipper.

Like, there are all these labels, and they all have overlap.

Right? They're not, like, mutually exclusive. What what would what would you say just in terms of, like, the types of personas or the things that individuals in the hobby are doing?

Like, what is something that you're seeing right now that you think is, like, really good, really sustainable, and, like, are the building blocks of kind of the future of where we're going in this industry?

That's a good question. Because I still think some of this depends on what's gonna happen with our manufacturers going forward too.

And I don't think necessarily what I I don't think it's as obvious as it looks. I mean, what what people think is gonna happen, I I I would not be shocked if something completely happens down the road that's different than that.

So I I think that comes into play a little bit. I mean, the investors right now, yeah, I obviously, they're driving the hobby.

I mean, the hobbies you know, I I was looking at some of your podcasts, and I was I was watching your your or listening to your crack interview, and you mentioned the gamble and the hobby.

There's definitely a lot of that going on, and that's that's driving a lot of the finances. Mhmm. And, you know, it it does.

It gets, people juice, you know, opening the packs and not knowing what you're gonna get and if you can sell it for, you know is it a $10 car? Is it a $10,000 car? Or do you have a 6 figure card that just came out?

Is is it sustainable? You know, I think the card companies have a lot of say in that, on what they're producing. You still gotta produce value. You still gotta, produce stuff that's gonna do well in the secondary market.

I don't know. The I mean, the gambling thing is just not my thing, but like I said, that's driving a lot of that stuff. I mean, I'm more about the collector and nurturing that sort of thing.

I mean, it doesn't have a a huge financial implication like the gambling. No. But it can. I mean, you do a good job in your niche, you can do well. That was the whole thing that got me in it to begin with.

The the, I love this track, and I just wanna follow-up with a question where I totally agree, investor someone coming in wanting the big hits that a lot of that activity is driving the front end of the hobby right now.

And I think, ultimately, like, we as an industry want those individuals to continue to participate in the hobby and then mature in the hobby and be here forever. How do you think about it from, like, your a store owner perspective?

Like, what role do you think you can play in maybe helping the individual who's just coming in, who saw a YouTube video about box breaks and wants to do a box breaks, but box box break, but you're looking at it as, like, I wanna make this individual a customer for life.

So, like, what are the types of things that you you think about in order to make sure these individuals are educated and they're here for the long long haul?

No. And and you said the key right there. It it's educating them. You know, as a store, we're not about the quick buck.

I mean, we've seen some people come in with a lot of money and go for the dream, and then next thing you know, ten, twenty, thirty thousand dollars later, they come away with nothing.

And that's not what we're about at all. I'm not gonna chase the quick dollar in the store.

We're we're gonna educate people on I'm more than happy to share experience with my with myself, with the customers to kinda show, you know, what could or couldn't happen or you know, you just want the you want the people to really know what they're getting into if that's the angle that they're gonna take.

Again, we kinda nurture the collector more than we do the the I don't wanna say gambler, but okay, gambler.

I mean, we don't do a a ton of breaking in the store. It's it's more about a kind of an experience. I've, you know, I've got a shop where, you know, you can sit down and open product and people can hang out.

And I've got five TVs in the store, well, with a different sports game. I mean, that's kinda what we are. It's more of a community thing than it is a you know, it's not a slot machine, let's say. I love it.

I always like to spend part of this con these conversations talking about cards, specifically anything that's for sale or on eBay, through the store, at the shop, just cards in general, or they could be cards that, have sold but might have a good story associated with them.

So are there are there any cards, currently for sale or that have just sold that have cool stories that you wanna talk about? I mean, we don't necessarily have something that has a cool story in the shopper recently listed.

There was something that was kind of fun. It was a few years ago, though. Actually, well, let's say pre pandemic before everything got really crazy and and we had social media in every corner of our hobby or whatnot.

But, you know, at the time, we were actually running online breaks. Right? And, you know, so I was doing some of the breaking, and nobody was breaking any baseball. They were breaking a bunch of other stuff.

They were all just personal box breaks. And so for kicks, I'm like, you know, I'm just gonna grab this box, National Treasures, throw it into the pile, and I will just break it break it for myself.

I don't even care. I ended up breaking it. We're and, of course, we're live streaming on YouTube too.

Ended up pulling, Babe Ruth Lou Gehrig dual tech. And I'm just like, okay. This is, this is pretty crazy. And, you know, that was, again, when you weren't seeing this stuff very often too.

So that, that that was pretty fun. And so then, you know, to take it a step further, what this card did for us is, so my wait. I'll bring my wife back into the story too.

So she was, she was adopted. And she had, a year prior to that, just discovered she had a sister living in Fort Lauderdale. And, you know, so the and she had just met her, for the first time at the Opera Deck conference.

So but, again, we're across the country, so there wasn't much else going on. Well, the I ended up selling the card because my daughter was going to college and I needed to somehow pay for it.

Well, the person that sold it was pitching for the Marlins at the time. And so as part of the deal, we got to have him fly us out to Florida.

We'll go onto the field, and then the the sister's family as well as our family, you know, were down there on the batting cages before the game just kinda hanging out with again, it's just the crazy things that card can cards can kinda do, you know, and impact your life.

You know, I paid for part of my daughter's college.

My wife got to see her sister again. We all got to hang out at the Marlins game, have cool memories. You know? It's, yeah, kind of a wild story. You know? That's that's incredible. The things, cards can do for us.

I appreciate you sharing that. A lot of people that are listening, to these shows are, you know, obviously collectors, but, you know, some of them have aspirations of maybe leaving their nine to five and do this full time.

A lot of people are hitting the show circuit regularly on the weekends.

Maybe what sort of advice if for anyone out there listening do you have in terms of whether it's your experience, or just current observations and things you're seeing of anyone who wants to jump in and and whether it's, you know, become a full time dealer or open their own shop or, you know, expand more time on their eBay store?

Like, what would some advice you would give them, today? So okay. If they wanna open a shop, I would say get connected with other shops.

I I I mean, the so we have, we actually have a Facebook group, that is nothing but shop owners. It's a it's a a private group, but we've got probably 500 shops in there. And then we're bouncing ideas off each other, asking questions.

I mean, it's it's it's really cool because the community outside of you know, every now and then, you might have a shop across town that you feel like is a competitor or whatever, which, again, is kinda stupid because if you're a collector, you're going to every store.

But, we're always willing to give advice. We're always willing to bounce things off or share, you know, allocations or, hey. Is this a good buy? Is this isn't a good buy? You know, get yourself connected into the shop community.

I think that's if if you're going to it solo, it's tough because there's a lot of lessons that you would learn that maybe you wouldn't have to learn otherwise if you're you're connected.

It's the network. You know, we're as a shop owner, we we're embracing everybody. If somebody wants to come and open a shop, we're happy to help.

So, yeah, first and foremost, just go in and ask questions. Don't don't go into a blindly because it's tough. There's there's challenges out there. I mean, the allocations are tough.

Obviously, you get online, that's a different story. Online's a little more cutthroat. So, you know, do your homework. I mean, it's it's fun, but it it's a business too. You you've gotta run you gotta run it as it's a business.

I mean, you know, you can't be, you know, say, opening a shop or opening something online and then just be busting away your product all the time because, you know, that's also a temptation, but you're not gonna get very far if you do that.

It sounds like, maybe a little hobby shop owner therapy getting 500 of you altogether and sharing kind of what you're working on.

Do you do you find, like, just in that group example, do you find that, no matter where you're at across the country, like, everyone's pretty much facing the same sort of obstacles and challenges?

Yeah. I mean, stereotypically. I mean, again, allocations are always an issue. You know, we live in an or we have an industry right now where, you know, breakers are getting more product than the shops.

And so the shops have to be a little more creative in how or innovative in how they're able to run their business and, you know, earn the allocations.

That's really kind of what things are about right now. We're all in that same boat. All the shops are doing that. What do you think separates maybe a good seller or a good business from a great one in 2025?

It's the experience you give to the customer. But, I mean, it's all about the experience. The product you know, if it was really just based on selling the product, you know, you could go to eBay. You can go to Amazon.

You can buy it and bust it at home. You know? But if you're providing something else to the customer, you know, the experience, the feedback, you know, as a store, are we buying the cards back if you know, the ones that you don't want?

You know? Do do I have really cool employees in the store that, you know, if you're opening a box, do I have two or three of them that are standing around you and cheering you on?

Yeah. Absolutely. You know, online, you know, are you a trusted person? You know? Am I giving you the correct information, or am I trying to steal your money?

I mean, I you know, you gotta put that out there too. Again, it's a customer experience. You don't want them looking over their shoulder. This this industry is fun. You know? It's gotta stay fun, And and that's the difference.

What what maybe as we round this out, what keeps you, the business owner who's constantly evolving and innovating and doing new and exciting things, what keeps you the most excited about this work after all these years?

It's always changing. There is no sitting you know, I've been I've shop's 25 old or I've been doing the business for twenty five years, let's say.

I'm not doing the same thing I was twenty years ago. I I mean, it it's it's a challenge. It's a different job. That's what I wake up to every day.

It's great. But at the same time, I'm playing with cards too. So you know? It it it's fun. I mean, again, I get to meet some really cool people. I get to meet some cool athletes. You know? I deal with tops and Canadian whatever else.

I have a great network of friends across the country. And like you said, you know, I'm going into Philadelphia and Boston next week. You know? I'll I'll run into some card shops that people I already know that I've never been to.

It's you know? It keeps life interesting. This was Steve from Columbia Sports Cards and More. We will put the link to the eBay online store and information about his store.

Definitely, if you're in Washington State, Pacific Northwest, make sure you stop by. Steve, this was a ton of fun learning from you. Thanks so much for your time. Yeah. For sure. I appreciate the time too.