I’ve read a number of online threads over the years in which people have wondered why there aren’t any commercially available trading card sorting machines, despite an obvious demand for them [1], [2]. I often wondered the same, but figured the answer was purely technical in nature: it’s a difficult thing to design and engineer – end of story. While it’s certainly true that a card sorter is not easy to create (requiring both complex hardware and software which need to accurately detect and handle delicate objects without damage), there is so much more that goes into the production of a commercial product that people are not aware of. Case in point, and the title reference of today’s blog post: product testing and certification! For a little background, all manufactured products which will be placed in public environments need to be product tested, and at the completion of this testing (assuming your product complies with all the applicable standards) you may affix the product label sticker to your product.
What a roller coaster product testing turned out to be. I won’t bore you with every detail, but I’ll illuminate just one of the many “Are you flippin’ serious?” moments we encountered. It’s early February, all of our product testing was finished, I had just paid the project costs (~$20,000) via wire transfer, and literally the following morning I received an email from one of our vendors that our power supply unit (PSU) was being discontinued. The PSU is central to any electrical device, and product certification has very stringent rules about not allowing substitutions for critical components – the PSU being one of those components. So, for a horrifying few days, it looked as if we may have to completely redo all of our product testing. That was an upsetting time. Luckily, our chosen certifying body was willing to work with us and recertify with an alternate PSU without scrapping the whole project.
As of April 29th, we officially completed all necessary product testing for our PhyzBatch-9000 robotic card sorter, and we are now clear to operate our products in Canada and the US. While this was a great milestone, looking back on the associated costs is absolutely jaw-dropping. Here is a quick breakdown:
Fifty-thousand dollars!?!?! We could have bought a Tesla Model 3, or an artist-signed PSA Gem Mint holo Venosaur [3]! It’s becoming a little clearer now why more commercial card sorting products haven’t entered the market. Who the heck has $50K laying around for stickers!? Oh, but it gets better. Beyond the one-time costs detailed above, there are ongoing “surveillance surcharges”, “annual license fees”, and “follow-up inspections” totalling an additional $6,000 per year – forever! So, by no means the whole picture, but perhaps a little light has been shed behind the curtain of product development and commercialization.
What is the cost of the physical stickers themselves, you may ask? They’re about $3 per sticker.
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