Trading cards keep powering eBay as Q3 sales top $23 billion

eBay said collectibles, led by sports cards and collectible card games, were again its biggest growth driver in the third quarter, when gross merchandise volume rose 15% to $23.2 billion. Executives also warned that growth will “naturally moderate” next year.

The marketplace reported results Wednesday, Oct. 28. Revenue rose 14% to $3.2 billion. U.S. GMV jumped 27% to $12.5 billion, according to the company’s earnings release. CEO Jamie Iannone told analysts that “Collectibles remained our largest growth contributor,” and that trading cards held strong GMV growth “even as we lapped increasingly difficult year over year comparisons.”

Cards, Pokémon and the sports calendar

On the earnings call, Iannone credited both sides of the hobby. He said “Pokemon’s 30th anniversary releases supported continued growth in collectible card games,” while “major summer events and the fall sports calendar drove healthy demand for sports trading cards,” according to the call transcript published by The Motley Fool.

CFO Peggy Alford said the growth was “broad based across multiple sports and collectible card game genres,” and pointed to coins, comics and sports memorabilia as other healthy categories. She also noted that U.S. collectibles growth “decelerated moderately” as eBay lapped last year’s surge.

eBay’s “Focus Categories,” a group that includes collectibles, grew 24%, Value Added Resource reported.

Goldin, TCGplayer and eBay Live

• Goldin, eBay’s auction subsidiary, had a record GMV quarter. Its America’s 250th sale included a $3.65 million Declaration of Independence broadside, per eBay’s release.
• TCGplayer passed $1 billion in trailing-12-month GMV for the first time and began onboarding sellers in the U.K. and Canada.
• eBay Live, the company’s live-selling platform and a direct rival to Whatnot in card breaks and auctions, posted another record quarter. Iannone said it is running at a “multi billion dollar annualized run rate,” and Alford said it grew “well into the triple digits.” Iannone also said live buyers spend 70% more than comparable buyers.

Authentication reaches cheaper cards

eBay lowered the price thresholds for mandatory trading card authentication in the U.S. and U.K. Iannone said the change raised the number of U.S. sold items eligible for Authenticity Guarantee by more than 20%. It also opened those cards up to grading add-ons and vault storage through eBay’s PSA partnership. eBay’s AI card-scanning tool has passed 130 million scans, he said.

Why it matters

eBay is still the hobby’s biggest secondary market, so its numbers show the health of the whole card economy. The message this quarter was mixed. Demand is strong and spread across sports and TCGs, but management is already planning for a slowdown. Alford said 2027 planning “assumes growth will naturally moderate as we lap the extraordinary levels we experienced in 2026.” Her Q4 outlook also flagged tough comparisons “due in part to trading cards and bullion strength” a year ago.

In our view, that’s a public company telling investors 2026 may be a high-water mark for card growth, not that the market is collapsing.

By the numbers

• $23.2 billion: Q3 GMV, up 15%
• 27%: U.S. GMV growth
• 24%: Focus Category GMV growth
• $1 billion+: TCGplayer trailing-12-month GMV
• 130 million+: card scans in eBay’s app
• $23.7–$24.1 billion: Q4 GMV guidance

Sources: eBay Inc. (Oct. 28, 2026); The Motley Fool, Q3 earnings call transcript (Oct. 29, 2026); Value Added Resource (Oct. 28, 2026)

Featured image: Photo: EBay Silicon Valley Headquarters in Willow Glen, San Jose, California 1934.jpg by Cristiano Tomás, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons