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Posted by: redwing40 Aug 19 2013, 07:46 PM

Upper Deck is looking for Certified Diamond Dealer partners who want to participate in the “Group Breaking” phenomenon for new trading card sales. The company says it plans to support an Authorized Group Breaker class of dealer.

Upper Deck Group Breaker logoA “Group Break” is where a dealer purchases a box or case of trading cards and sells off spots for the break giving collectors the opportunity to try a product at a much lower price than purchasing the box or case on their own. Typically, spots are randomly drawn by the breaker and cards pulled from the packs are distributed in that fashion. Spots are sometimes sold by team.

There is a community aspect to these breaks as members see what everyone is getting and discussions frequently take place live online. Group Breaks have been around for some time now, but over the past year have really increased in size, both with regard to the amount of participants and dealers who sell these spots.

Any Upper Deck Certified Diamond Dealer interested in becoming a part of Upper Deck’s Authorized Group Breaker program may apply to be part of the program. Additionally, Upper Deck says it is working on a program to provide incentives and special promotional items to Authorized Group Breakers throughout the course of the year.

“Upper Deck is again proud to take a leadership role in working with the top Certified Diamond Dealers doing ‘Group Breaks’ to help improve the experience for collectors, to make sure they are getting what they paid for and to provide a professional community of dealers dedicated to supporting these customer’s needs,” said Mike Phillips, Upper Deck’s Vice President of Sales.

Upper Deck will be accepting applications throughout August and will unveil the first list of Authorized Group Breakers in September. For questions on this program, email hobbypolicy@upperdeck.com.

Full Story:

http://www.sportscollectorsdaily.com/upper-deck-looks-to-add-authorized-group-breakers/

Posted by: northicehero99 Aug 20 2013, 05:19 AM

“Upper Deck is again proud to take a leadership role in working with the top Certified Diamond Dealers doing ‘Group Breaks’ to help improve the experience for collectors, to make sure they are getting what they paid for and to provide a professional community of dealers dedicated to supporting these customer’s needs,” said Mike Phillips, Upper Deck’s Vice President of Sales.

How does this improve the experience for collectors???? 30-32 slots for a box of 3-4 hits so 26 or more people won't get a hit! Group breaks are fun don't get me wrong, but they don't give collectors "what they paid for" unless you are one of the lucky few as most of the other stuff in the box carries very little value anymore unless you get a big rookie and in most products anymore they are short printed with gu or autos and are one of the main hits for the box.

If UD wants collectors to get "what they paid for" then add value and create stuff that gets collectors interested in collecting all the cards not just the hits or rookies. Make the base cards special and collectable again.

Posted by: urbanmonk Aug 20 2013, 09:46 AM

What they are trying to do Brian is make it so if you do a GB thru an Authorized GBer, then you have the ability to get damaged cards replaced and sounds like shorted hits taken care of from what I have heard so far. As currently only way to do that would be the Host pretend he opened them and go thru company as they have the receipt and the UPC codes (and video). Geoff kinda explained it in a vague way the other night as nothing was "official" and like yet, just he said the other day that UD was looking into doing that and trying to understand how a Group Break worked. Just the bigger places pretty much as they are stating in that article that they taking applications from their Diamond Dealers, and not all LCS are in that program. So won't help the GB clubs like we have here or the Ebay ones (those could go away and wouldn't hurt my feelings), be just a "title" like the "authorized internet dealer" pretty much. Least that is what I got out of what he had to say the other night.

Posted by: northicehero99 Aug 20 2013, 11:38 AM

What they are trying to do Brian is make it so if you do a GB thru an Authorized GBer, then you have the ability to get damaged cards replaced and sounds like shorted hits taken care of from what I have heard so far.  As currently only way to do that would be the Host pretend he opened them and go thru company as they have the receipt and the UPC codes (and video).  Geoff kinda explained it in a vague way the other night as nothing was "official" and like yet, just he said the other day that UD was looking into doing that and trying to understand how a Group Break worked.  Just the bigger places pretty much as they are stating in that article that they taking applications from their Diamond Dealers, and not all LCS are in that program.  So won't help the GB clubs like we have here or the Ebay ones (those could go away and wouldn't hurt my feelings), be just a "title" like the "authorized internet dealer" pretty much.  Least that is what I got out of what he had to say the other night.

Posted by: urbanmonk Aug 20 2013, 12:21 PM

The way it reads from the initial paragraph sounds like they are trying to "certify" breakers as a new "market" for their product as a way to get people who cannot buy boxes to be able to buy some of the product through an authorized group breaker.  Might be they are trying to satisfy some of the damage issues, but lets be honest this is Upper Deck and they are a business which is motivated to make more $$$$.  This will just give them another reason to deny replacement of damaged cards.  Just like the "on average" quote when you are shorted something in the box, the new one will be "You didn't buy it from a diamond dealer or diamond GBer, so sorry we can't help you."

Posted by: redwing40 Aug 20 2013, 12:57 PM

Yeah but it is already that way, if you don't have receipt for the box and the UPC codes you are SOL, as they don't know if you just bought the card on Ebay and it was damaged in shipping.  And you don't have those if you are in a Group Break, only the Breaker does.  I could be wrong but think they stating all that in the initial paragraph as they just using the reasons for GBs as explained to them by Geoff and others at the Summit in Vegas, as way he talked they didn't understand the concept at all (not surprising there, as doubt many that work at UD are even in the Hobby at all) and they had to explain the whole concept of it and how it works. 
That tells me that they can repeat what they were told by Dealers yet don't completely grasp the whole concept