Introducing New Policies to Make Sports Cards Transactions Safer
Whatnot was founded by collectors who were passionate about the products and communities they collected in, but couldn’t trust the traditional marketplaces where they transacted. Those roots continue to anchor how we operate and hold our users accountable on the platform today.
At the start, we were the only major marketplace to introduce rigorous seller verification and live onboarding to hold our sellers to higher standards. And since then, we’ve continued to evolve our product and our policies to protect our users in more ways based on trends we’re seeing and feedback from the community.
Our livestream shopping format introduced a completely new way to buy and sell sports cards, expanding the hobby by recreating the experience you’d get shopping in person at a shop or card show. While Whatnot was built to create a safe, welcoming space for people to share their passions with others, a few years ago we recognized that the Sports Card community presented unique trust and safety challenges that needed solving. That’s when we decided that if a high-value card gets pulled in a break and doesn’t reach the customer or gets damaged, we would make that buyer whole and reimburse the market value of the card — a first-of-its-kind policy in the industry.
Our unmatched High-Value Item Policy was born out of our desire to be at the forefront of safety and give buyers confidence in purchasing breaks, while protecting sellers from fraud. Similarly, we’ve implemented robust tracking of shipping, content, and commerce violations to make it easier to identify and weed out bad actors and maintain trust on our platform.
Recently, we made revisions to how we handle incidents of missing cards. These changes aim to (1) provide additional buyer protections and (2) help us identify patterns of seller fulfillment issues sooner.
Here are the new policies we’re introducing to safeguard our community of buyers and sellers:
Violation threshold — We have lowered the threshold for missing cards, allowing us to identify patterns sooner
Bill back — We’ll hold sellers financially responsible, by billing full market value, for a pattern of missing cards, where they are at fault
Response time — We will make impacted buyers whole within 24 hours through replacement card(s), Whatnot credit, or reimbursement
Growing our team — We have added a dedicated investigations team specialized in missing cards, enabling us to respond to and address issues more quickly
Signature required — Sellers are now required to add Signature Required to shipments containing over $1,000 via our seller dashboard, helping ensure cards safely land with buyers
Community Moderation — We know that the power of the community is critical in making the hobby safer. Soon, we’re introducing a pilot community moderator program to help do so.
We are also adding additional requirements for sellers who are suspended due to a pattern of missing cards. To return to Whatnot, they must implement more stringent fulfillment processes, including:
Improved operations — Re-training of employees on fulfillment requirements, with support from Whatnot
Better surveillance — Installation of overhead cameras at all breaking and fulfillment sites to ensure cards are packaged and sealed in the correct shipments
Probationary period — Limitations around expansion on Whatnot or permanent platform removal if they are unable to keep issue rates below expected thresholds
We’re excited to continue to invest in making the community safe and build the most trusted home of sports cards, but we know we can’t do that without the community’s input. We’d love your feedback on developing new processes and guidance. What best practices for breaking should we make sure all sellers are following? How do we ensure our sellers can scale their businesses while still delivering the right product on time to their buyers?
If you’re interested in developing the future of breaking with us — please reach out at trustblog@whatnot.com.
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