Operations
PSA paused Value tier submissions on June 2nd. Here's what I saw, why it's worse than it looks, and what you should do about it.
I visited several card shops in the Los Angeles area last week. The line was out the door at a large retail operation, everyone racing to submit before the deadline. Another store owner spent the weekend finishing his last submission batch and told me he wasn't too worried because he still had income on the way.
He's right, for now, but the clock is ticking.
The pain is deferred
Shops running a PSA Value submission service often get paid when the slabs come back, not when the cards go in. That means the revenue hit isn't visible yet.
PSA estimated the Value tiers reopening in roughly four months, call it October 1. With the surge in submissions between the announcement and the pause, the math suggests something closer to December 1. A conservative estimate puts it at March 1, 2027.
In the October scenario, a shop running $750/week in submissions faces something like $8,000 in lost revenue during the dead zone between their last payout and when new submissions start coming back. In the March scenario that number is closer to $24,000.
We built a simple tool to help you run these numbers against your own situation.
The alternatives aren't a perfect solution
Every affordable grading option has hit the same wall:
TAG has closed all tiers except Priority ($149/card) and Walkthrough ($299/card)
CGC is running 65-120 business days across all tiers and is hiring to cope
BGS is at 75+ days on base tier
SGC, now a boutique operation under Collectors Holdings, has seen volume drop 73% since its acquisition and would be unlikely to handle overflow demand for grading
A six month wait at CGC beats eleven months waiting for PSA to start paying again, but only if CGC can maintain capacity. These are already-strained pipelines that need to absorb overflow from the largest grader in the market. CGC is hiring people. Nobody is talking about $200 million in capacity investments like PSA. The fallback is real but fragile.
It's also worth understanding that the dealer programs at these alternatives look more like consumer loyalty tiers, not B2B partnerships. PSA built real dealer infrastructure with volume pricing, dedicated account managers, and priority intake. A shop pivoting to CGC is starting as a retail customer at retail rates.
What to actually do
Three things worth moving on now, in order of urgency:
First, use the tool linked earlier to model your exposure. Figure out what your dead zone will actually cost you before you decide how hard to act on it.
Second, diversify your foot traffic drivers and expand your online presence. Submissions brought customers through your door who might also buy. That traffic motive may be gone for a while. Self-hosted events, shows, Whatnot, eBay, etc will help. None of these will solve your problems overnight, but the results compound over time. The shops that come out ahead will be the ones that started building those channels while they have time before the dead zone gets deep.
Third, consider adding an alternative grader. Making CGC or BGS available to your customers gives a grading option. But don't build your recovery plan solely around the alternative because the pipeline is stressed and the economics are different.
We can help
Pulltrader was built to help card shops solve business problems so you can spend more time on the parts of the business you actually love. If you want to go deeper on the financial modeling, navigating the PSA pause, or how Pulltrader can help you build a more resilient operation, reach out directly to steven@pulltrader.app.