When he got started in the sports cards business 30 years ago, Scott Pierce said he was only selling cards as a part-time side business in Southlake.
But after 10 years, he said he decided to take his business full-time and move into a shop on Northwest Highway in Grapevine. He has been there for the past 20 years.
Jim Gibbs, who has come to SMP Sports Cards Plus for about a decade, was one of the customers looking through the shop’s merchandise on an afternoon in May. Gibbs, who said he prefers vintage cards, was looking at some Mickey Mantle baseball cards.
He lives in Grand Prairie, but he comes to the shop because Pierce “has the best prices, and he’s always fair,” Gibbs said.
“It’s well-worth the drive to come over, though,” he said. “There are not a lot of card shops around anymore.”
Although other card shops have gone out of business or struggled to make money, Pierce said he has striven to adjust to the times and maintain his relationships with his customers to keep bringing in profits.
“The internet really hasn’t hurt our business because I am so customer service-oriented that people will come in here, and even if they have to pay me a little bit more [for the card], they will just because of our bond.”
Part of why Pierce said many other shops have had difficulty remaining in business is because they have stopped catering to the children who want to get into the card-trading hobby.
