Hi !

Sign In

← Back to Seller's Guide

Sportlots Seller’s Guide

Page 2: Orders, Shipping, Payments & Fees
Aligned to User Agreement Effective: December 18, 2025

Orders and Statuses

Once a buyer completes checkout (or wins an auction), the purchase becomes an order. Orders move through a series of stages depending on the shipping method selected.

Pending Payment

These are orders that have been created but have not yet been paid for. This status is most commonly used for auction orders.

  • Orders must be paid within 17 days (or 21 days for Canadian buyers) from the date they were created or they will be canceled and returned to seller inventory.
  • If an order is canceled due to non-payment, the items become available for sale again.

Being Filled

These are orders that have been paid for, but you have not yet marked the order as filled.

  • Sellers are expected to fill orders within 5 days after being paid for.
  • Sportlots provides a maximum of 10 days before the system will cancel and refund the order (where appropriate) and take enforcement action.
  • If this occurs, the system will also cancel and refund (where appropriate) any other Being Filled and Pending Payment orders that the buyer has with the same seller.

Shipped

These are orders that have been marked filled by the seller and are in transit to the buyer.

  • Buyers are expected to receive the order within 10 days after it is marked filled.
  • For Canada sellers, the expected delivery window is extended to account for cross-border transit times.
  • Buyers can contact the seller by clicking the blue “?” icon next to the seller ID.
  • Buyers can file an Order Not Received issue 10 days (17 days for Canada sellers) after the seller has marked the order filled.
  • Buyers can also file an Order Not as Described issue if the order arrived but there is a problem with the contents.

Archived

Archived orders are older orders that can be referenced if needed. These orders have passed the time period where formal issues can be filed, but buyers can still contact the seller if required.

Feedback

Feedback is the final stage in the order lifecycle. Buyers can leave feedback once the order is completed.


Box Shipping (Seller Overview)

Box Shipping allows buyers to consolidate multiple orders into a single shipment from Sportlots. This saves sellers postage and creates an easier fulfillment process, allowing them to pass this savings on to the buyer.

For Box orders, you will see the same early statuses (Pending Payment and Being Filled). After you mark a Box order filled, it moves into Box-related stages such as En Route to Box and In Box while Sportlots receives and processes the shipment.

Timing note: Buyers may see Box orders stay in “En Route to Box” longer than Direct orders because sellers often accumulate multiple Box orders before sending a package to Sportlots.

Seller Payments & Fees

Fees

Sportlots fixed priced fees are based solely on the total sales the seller generates each month. There are no listing fees, so the seller can load as many cards as they like to the site. If no cards sell, there will be no charges. Sales are defined as the selling price of the card (minus loot applied). Postage rates are also not part of this calculation and sellers receive 100% of the postage they charge.

Sportlots uses a tiered percentage of total sales for the following reasons:

  • To provide incentive for sellers to quickly get their inventory loaded to Sportlots. The quicker a seller gets their inventory loaded, the faster they will achieve maximum monthly sales, thus reducing the percentage of fees being paid to Sportlots.
  • To provide breaks for volume business and Sportlots largest sellers who provide most of the business for our customers.
  • Unfortunately, there is a certain amount of administrative cost for every seller on the site. This includes responding to questions, helping to resolve issues, processing monthly payments, etc. Generally, smaller sellers incur the higher administrative costs because chances are they are less familiar with the website and are more likely to abandon their inventory causing additional work clearing out inventory and refunding buyers for unfilled orders.
  • Sportlots encourages smaller sellers to use the Sportlots Auction format to sell cards. This is a great format to quickly turnaround cards that are no longer needed. Fixed prices stores format is generally used for larger sellers looking to consistently make monthly sales over a long period of time.

If a potential seller has a question whether their collection is large enough to sell long-term in Sportlots fixed priced format, feel free to use the "Contact Sportlots" link provided on Sportlots.com. Be sure to include as much information about the cards to be sold and Sportlots may be able to help provide some insight into whether or not the fixed price format is worth the effort. There are many factors including the type, quantity, quality, price and customer service that can be provided. So it's always difficult to know exactly how well a particular seller will do. But Sportlots may be able to provide some insights and help the potential seller make that determination. The last thing Sportlots wants anyone to do is spend a lot of time and effort loading cards just to find out it wasn't worth the effort. Selling in the fixed priced format is a large commitment and some thought should be taken before starting.

Here is the Sportlots Fixed Priced Fee Structure:

Monthly Fee Schedule

Low Amt High Amt Fee Pct.
$0.00$4.9975%
$5.00$24.9950%
$25.00$49.9935%
$50.00$99.9927%
$100.00$199.9923%
$200.00$299.9920%
$300.00$499.9918%
$500.00$999.9917%
$1000.00$1499.9916%
$1500.00Above15%

To encourage the sale of higher valued cards, Sportlots only applies a portion of the sale of these higher priced cards toward the above fee schedule. Cards with selling prices between $5 and $15 will only have 50% of the sale price above $5.00 applied to the above fee schedule. While cards selling above $15.00 will only have 25% of the sale price above $15.00 applied to the above table.

Here's an example of how this works. In this example, let's say a seller sells a $50.00 card.

First / Next Applied to the fee schedule Applied
First $5.00100% applied to the above fee schedule$5.00
Next $10.0050% applied to the above fee schedule$5.00
Next $35.0025% applied to the above fee schedule$8.75

In this example, the seller only had $18.75 of the total $50.00 applied to the fee schedule above, giving this seller $31.25 in sales with no fees that applied.

At the end of the month, it is possible (but unlikely) that the "Applied Sales" could have a negative impact on the total fees paid. If this occurs, Sportlots will revert to not applying this feature to insure that the seller will always pay the lower fee.

Payment Processing Fees (PayPal / Credit Card)

Sellers are also required to pay any PayPal/Credit Card transaction fees that are incurred when buyers pay with PayPal or Credit Card.

  • The flat transaction fee is spread out between each of the sellers involved in the transaction. So for example if three sellers sold cards within one order, the PayPal/Credit Card flat fee is split up between each of the sellers.
  • PayPal/Credit Card also charges a percentage of the total purchase price including postage costs. This PayPal/Credit Card transaction percentage is also subtracted from the sellers earnings.
  • See PayPal/Credit Card’s website for their latest fees.

All Paypal fees are not reversed if the buyer is refunded for any reason. Refunds to the buyer are not refunded back to the buyers PayPal account, instead the refund is given back to the buyer in the form of a credit that can be reused back on the site for additional purchases. Therefore, PayPal fees are not recovered.

One important point to note is that, in rare situations that the Paypal fees could be a significant portion of the sale, especially when a buyer is purchasing just a couple common cards from a single seller. There is no good solution to this situation for the seller when this occurs. Here's why:

  • It is against Paypal policy (and against the law in many states) to add a surcharge to credit card payments. So adding a fee to Paypal payments to cover the Paypal costs is not an option. The only way around this is to add a processing fee on to EVERY order. This is not a good option.
  • Not allowing Paypal payments on small orders. This is not a good option because many of our best buyers on Sportlots started out with small orders until they have gained confidence in Sportlots and our sellers. By not allowing Paypal payments on smaller orders may discourage these potential customers from ever using Sportlots from the start.
  • Our solution is to allow Paypal payments on all orders, but if buyers continue to use Paypal for consistently small orders over time, the Paypal option will be removed for them until their average sales increase. Then the Paypal option will be restored for them.

We know that giving Paypal all of the sales for a small order is a tough pill to swallow. What we ask is that sellers look at the Paypal transactions fees as a monthly cost of doing business instead of looking at these fees on an order by order basis. In most cases, these fees will then look less significant and more acceptable with the knowledge that about 80% of our sales come through Paypal.

Small Orders and Minimum Value Fee (Under $5.00)

As of the December 18th release, Sportlots applies a $1.50 Minimum Value Fee (buyer-facing) to orders under $5.00. This helps cover payment processing costs on very small orders.

  • This reduces situations where processing fees consume a large portion of very small orders.
  • Buyers can often avoid the Minimum Value Fee by adding Sportlots credit (a $25 minimum) and using credit on eligible small orders.
  • Note: using credit can reduce (but does not always eliminate) payment processing costs overall. Larger credit deposits help reduce the impact of flat transaction fees across many purchases.

Payment Timing

Seller payouts are processed on a monthly schedule based on the payment method you selected in Seller Preferences.

  • PayPal sellers: monthly earnings are paid automatically on the 1st of each month to your Sportlots registered email address.
  • Credit sellers: monthly earnings are added to your Sportlots Credit balance. Credit withdrawals are manually processed and may take up to 7 days.

Payment Holds

In certain situations, Sportlots may place a temporary hold on seller payouts (or a portion of payouts) to protect the marketplace and ensure buyers are made whole when required. Holds are typically associated with unresolved issues, repeated fulfillment problems, or account enforcement actions.

Seller Expectations

  • Fill paid orders within Sportlots required timeframes.
  • Mark orders filled only after the package has been prepared for shipment.
  • Use accurate packaging and addressing to reduce delivery problems.
  • Respond to buyer questions and issue-related requests promptly when contacted through Sportlots.

Last updated: December 2025

Search Inventory

By Set

By Player

Seller History

By Set

By Player

Twitter/X You Tube Instagram

© 1999-2026, Sportlots, LLC. All rights reserved. Privacy Policy. Use of Sportlots' website constitutes acceptance of our Agreement Terms.