Heystack’s Store Connect Is Changing How Card Shops Buy From Collectors

Every card shop owner knows how it goes. It is a Saturday afternoon, the store is packed, and someone walks in with a large stack of cards asking if you buy. You do. But you also have a line at the register, a customer asking about grading submissions, and a break starting in twenty minutes. Sitting down to sort through a potential customer's collection right now is not happening. So you either turn away potential inventory or you make everyone else wait.

Heystack, the AI-powered card imaging, recognition, and listing platform, built Store Connect to solve exactly this problem. It is a self-serve buying kiosk that lets collectors show a shop their cards without the shop having to stop everything to look at them.

How Store Connect Works

A Heystack kiosk sits in the store with a Heystack One imaging device. When a collector
comes in with cards to sell, the process runs like this:

1. The seller scans a QR code at the kiosk and signs in.
2. They receive a verification code, and once entered, a QR code is texted to their phone.
3. They place that QR code inside the Heystack One, and their session begins.
4. They image the front and back of every card they want to sell.

That is it for the seller's part. Once the cards are imaged, they are free to look through the
shop's selection of singles, browse the wax on the wall, or grab lunch down the street while they
wait for their offers.

On the shop's side, Heystack's imaging technology crops, rotates, and identifies each card
automatically. The store reviews the session on its own time and can make a cash offer, a store
credit offer, or no offer at all on the cards. When the review is done, the seller gets a text
message with the results and can accept or reject the offers. If they accept, they come back to
the store and finish the deal in person. Nothing is final until the seller says yes.

Chris Galloway from Top Dog Comics & Cards said, "Heystack Store Connect has given us a more efficient option for customers who either don't have time to wait for their cash or trade offer, or who don't want to leave their cards with us for appraisal. It has also helped our buying team quickly identify different parallels and provide faster responses on offers."

Why Shops are Paying Attention

The time savings are the obvious win. During busy hours, going through a collection card by
card is one of the hardest things for a shop to staff. Store Connect turns that process into something a seller can do themselves while the shop keeps running.

The less obvious win is the awkward conversation it removes. Every shop owner has flipped
through a binder knowing there is nothing in it they want, then had to deliver that news face to
face. With Store Connect, a “no offer” response arrives by text. The seller gets a clear answer,
the shop keeps the relationship intact, and nobody stands at the counter feeling uncomfortable.

Built on Speed to Liquidity

Collectors got a look at where this thinking leads with Show Connect, a version of the same
engine pointed at live events. Attendees image their cards at a Heystack kiosk, and approved
show dealers send cash offers straight to the card owner’s phones. Show Connect debuted at
the West Coast Card Show and ran at full scale at the 46th National Sports Collectors
Convention in Rosemont, Illinois.

Store Connect brings that same model home to the local card shop, where most of the hobby's
buying and selling still happens. Whether it is a dealer on the National floor or a shop owner
reviewing a session between customers, the pattern is the same. Image the cards once, let the
offers follow.

Tim from Lake Country Cards said, “Show Connect has been absolutely amazing. We’ve purchased about 10 cards through the platform so far, including a Tiger Woods/Michael Jordan dual autograph that we purchased through Show Connect and have already resold for an undisclosed amount. It brings people directly to our booth and gives us the opportunity to buy cards that we may not have otherwise had access to.”

The Bottom Line

Heystack Store Connect — Heystack at The National | Heystack

Buying collections has always been one of the best ways for a shop to build inventory and one
of the hardest things to do well during business hours. Store Connect gives shops a way to say
“yes” to every walk-in collection without sacrificing the customer in front of them, and gives
sellers a faster, lower-pressure way to get a real answer on their cards. For more from Heystack.

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