A little more than a month after announcing the complete rebrand of trading card marketplace PWCC, Fanatics officially launched its replacement, Fanatics Collect, on Tuesday afternoon.
Available on web, iOS and Android, Fanatics Collect takes over all services previously provided by PWCC while launching a new fixed-price Buy Now marketplace.
Fanatics acquired the distressed marketplace and its vaulting service in May 2023 for an undisclosed amount and has since spent months rebuilding the apps and website based on feedback from collectors.
According to Fanatics Collect CEO Nick Bell, the intention was always to rebrand PWCC, but Fanatics intended to wait until major improvements were made before attaching its name to the product. Collectors previously felt the overall PWCC app experience was subpar, and basic functionality such as listing cards or simply searching for items wasn’t good enough.
Anchored by the Buy Now marketplace, Fanatics Collect will launch with what it believes are competitive seller fees of just 6 percent for cards under $120 — eBay, the largest marketplace for collectibles, charges 13.25 percent seller fees for trading cards up to $7,500.
Bell says collector feedback showed PWCC had a good range of cards, but prices were simply too high in many cases. Better seller fees should bring in better cards, and that, paired with improved functionality, should help the new marketplace compete.
“The better the inventory, the more people that are going to come and browse,” Bell told cllct. “The more people that come and browse, the more people that are going to list inventory. So, I think we've been thinking a lot about how to stimulate both parts of that loop, and that's been a big focus for us.”
All cards listed for sale will either be authenticated and sold raw or graded through deals with PSA, SGC, CGC and BGS. Collectors will have access to preferred grading prices in some cases, while a new pilot program between CGC and Fanatics Collect aims to cut turnaround times from several weeks to just 24 hours.
Though not available at launch, Bell says sealed wax sales and live selling and breaking will come to the marketplace in the future. Currently its own standalone app, it’s unclear if Fanatics Live will eventually be rolled into Fanatics Collect or remain separate.
Hobbyists will also have the ability to use a single profile across Topps.com, Fanatics Collect and Fanatics Live.
“We think connecting those ecosystems makes a ton of sense long-term for collectors,” Bell said. “And it's all about just how we remove friction in those collecting journeys.”
Weekly and monthly auctions that collectors have been accustomed to with PWCC will continue as Fanatics aims to compete in the high-end space. A series of high-end trading cards auctions, in partnership with Sotheby’s, was announced last month as part of the PWCC rebrand. That partnership will feature cards valued $100,000 and above, as well as up to four physical exhibitions per year.
While the launch of Fanatics Collect focuses on the marketplace and auctions, Bell says the app plans to expand and hopes to offer better tools for users to manage their collection. Additional features weren’t immediately revealed, though peer-to-peer trading could be coming in the future.
Collectors have speculated that a do-it-all app would be created since Fanatics’ entrance into the trading card space. Fanatics Collect isn’t quite that, but the roadmap might lead there.
“I think the wrong thing to do is try and launch with a very wide, all-encompassing product that tries to solve every single problem,” Bell said. “From Day 1, I think you’re going to miss. And if you’re six degrees off on all of those bets, then you’re going to miss pretty widely. So, I think for us, it’s about making sure that we start with the foundations. Make sure the foundations are really, really strong.”
According to Bell, Fanatics Collect launches with features that were considered priorities by the people they connected with in recent months. Fanatics wanted to avoid bombarding users with too many features early, and with this launch, it believes the app can grow alongside hobbyists on their collecting journey.
It’s not an all-in-one experience right now, but Bell says there’s much more to come.
“I think there's been a lack of innovation and underinvestment in the collector space,” Bell said. “And we're obviously very, very long on trading cards. With the licenses that we hold, we think that there's a huge opportunity to improve the collector experience in many different areas.
"But this is not going to be a quick launch of a super app and then move on to the next thing. This is where we're in this for hopefully decades and decades after this. And we're going to continue investing.”
Ben Burrows is a reporter and editor for cllct.