Software for a Magic Shop: Holding the Singles Stock
Tens of thousands of singles, several languages and printings, sealed product and buybacks: what software must handle to run a Magic: The Gathering shop.
By the Echo TCG team — software editor, working hand in hand with card shops.
Magic: The Gathering is the game where management bites hardest. Not because of sealed product, which behaves as elsewhere, but because of singles: a shop selling Magic singles quickly passes tens of thousands of references. Here is what that requires.
One card, several prices
The same card exists in forms that share neither demand nor value. Software carrying only a name field and a price field will cost you money both ways: priced too high it sits, priced too low you give it away.
- Condition: NM, LP, MP, HP, DMG.
- Language: English, French, Japanese and others differ in demand.
- Printing: a card has often been reprinted several times, at very different values.
- Treatment: normal, foil, extended art, borderless.
- Grading, which makes it a product of its own.
Formats set the price
Demand for a card depends on the format it is playable in. A card rotating out of Standard loses its tournament demand; a Commander staple sells all year to a different crowd. This is why a reference price kept up to date beats a price decided once.
The sound habit is to lean on a consultable market price, refreshed regularly, and leave the final call to the seller — they know their customers.
Buybacks, and volume
On Magic, buybacks often arrive in bulk: a whole collection, binders, loose boxes. Two French obligations apply.
- The police register: every purchase from a private seller is recorded, with their identity.
- Margin VAT (art. 297 A) on second-hand resale.
Software must let you process a batch without typing five hundred lines by hand, while keeping the traceability the law requires.
Tournaments
Sanctioned events go through EventLink, Wizards of the Coast's tool, which exposes no API. Shop software does not stand in for it: it handles sign-ups, entry fees, prizes, and exporting the player list.
Compliance
As for any French retailer, POS software must be NF525 compliant: tamper-proof sales, chaining, daily Z closing.
Echo TCG was designed and studied for card shops only: built-in Magic catalogue with images and Cardmarket prices, conditions, languages and printings, buybacks with a police register and automatic margin VAT.
Frequently asked questions
- What software for a Magic: The Gathering shop?
- Software able to hold tens of thousands of singles with condition, language and printing, plus sealed product, buybacks with a police register and margin VAT, and NF525 compliant like any POS software in France.
- How do I manage a Magic singles stock without losing my evenings?
- Start from a filled catalogue rather than manual entry: search the card, pick condition and language, the reference price is already there. Free-text entry does not scale to Magic.
- Does Echo TCG run sanctioned Magic tournaments?
- No. Official results go through EventLink, Wizards of the Coast's tool, which exposes no API. Echo TCG handles sign-ups, entry fees and prizes, then exports the lists as CSV.
Echo TCG: the all-in-one software for card shops.