Whatnot & PSA Expand Partnership To Grade Funko Pops

Liz Morton
Liz Morton


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Live shopping platform Whatnot is expanding their partnership with Professional Sports Authenticator (PSA) to offer grading for Funko POPS! sold on the marketplace.

PSA & Whatnot Expand Strategic Partnership to Offer Grading Services for Funko POPS!
Professional Sports Authenticator (PSA) and leading livestream shopping platform Whatnot announce an expanded strategic partnership to offer authentic

JERSEY CITY, N.J.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Professional Sports Authenticator (PSA) and leading livestream shopping platform Whatnot announce an expanded strategic partnership to offer authentication and grading services for the massively popular Funko Pops!. Individuals who buy Pops! through Whatnot can now have them authenticated and graded by PSA with just a few taps, all before the Pop! is shipped to the collector. The new offering is announced as global demand for collectible items across categories and enthusiasm for live shopping continues to grow.

In 2022, PSA and Whatnot announced the initial launch of their partnership to provide authentication and grading services for trading cards bought on the live shopping platform. The expansion into Pops! is reflective of customer enthusiasm for PSA’s services and the explosive popularity of Whatnot. Over the last several years, Whatnot has captured the excitement of the live shopping experience while focusing on community to create a welcoming space for like-minded people to share their passions.

“Collectors are always looking for new ways to get their hands on desirable items. Whatnot enables everyone to shop for and bid on collectible items with an incredible live auction experience all from the comfort of their homes,” said PSA president Ryan Hoge. “With Pops! often selling for thousands on the secondary market, offering our authentication and grading services for them is a true value-add for any collector.”

“By expanding our partnership with PSA, Pops! buyers have peace of mind that the items they are getting are real and authentic which is incredibly important,” said Whatnot CEO and co-founder Grant Lafontaine. “Interest in live shopping and collecting continue to grow and with Whatnot and PSA, buyers can seamlessly have their Pops! and trading cards authenticated and graded right when they purchase their product.”

"The ability to have the ever increasing amount of fake Pops!, sticker swaps, and inconsistent subjective advertised condition of Funko Pops! eliminated through PSA's authentication and grading service is the future of the hobby," said owner of TOY CABAL Darius DiMartino. "PSA is leading the charge of my favorite category of collectibles and bringing sound investment potential for Pops! collectors."

Last year, PSA added authentication and grading of Pops! to rave reviews from the Funko Pops! collecting community, thereby bringing its industry-leading services to collectible toys. Since then, PSA has received thousands of direct submissions from customers and dealers. When individuals select to add PSA’s services to their Pops! through Whatnot, their items will automatically be authenticated, graded and encapsulated before being shipped back to the buyer.

Whatnot originally announced PSA would be providing trading card grading services as an optional add on in December 2022, so this expansion is not a surprise.

Whatnot Partners With PSA On Trading Card Grading Service
Livestream shopping app Whatnot announces partnership with PSA to offer grading for trading card purchases.

These moves are a clear shot across the bow aimed directly at eBay, who worked out a deal to be the "preferred" secondary marketplace for Funko Pops as part of a consortium taking a 25% stake in the company.

eBay To Be Preferred Secondary Marketplace For Funko Pop!
eBay set to be preferred secondary marketplace for Funko as part of consortium acquiring 25% stake in company.

It's a good reminder that just because you may be the "preferred" marketplace on paper doesn't mean you are preferred in the hearts and minds of buyers and sellers.

eBay's own livestream shopping initiative has lagged far behind Whatnot - it does not support auction format (only buy it now) and is still only open to a very select number of pre-approved, curated sellers, not the wider general selling base.

Whatnot & eBay To Go Head To Head Live From The National
Both Whatnot & eBay will stream live shopping events from The National Sports Collectors Convention July 27-31.

eBay has some serious catching up to do if they hope to keep the scrappy up and comer from taking even more market share in their precious vertical focus categories.

Whatnot

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Liz Morton is a 17 year ecommerce pro turned indie investigative journalist providing ad-free deep dives on eBay, Amazon, Etsy & more, championing sellers & advocating for corporate accountability.


Recent Comments
Avatar Placeholdermarks30471 hour ago
Hi, I have a friend who had an interesting experience recently that fell under this issue. They sold an item, packed and dispatched to the UK Ebay hub, this was midway through the period as the pause occurred. They then received a message from the buyer that they had checked tracking and discovered that the item had disappeared on ebay, no advice. It then turned out that the tracking had been fudged and the package was with them but not forwarded on to the USA. A few hours of to and fro to get the answer that it was due to the tariff dilemma. NO fault of the buyer(who had paid) or the seller ((who had been paid) and a strange response that the item could not be delivered. The buyer would be refunded in full, the seller would keep payment and the item would not be returned. Strange, Ebay must be hurting paying our both sides of the deal+
Avatar PlaceholdercwiYesterday
  1. Start building out the brand and promoting the heck out of Canadian sellers to our domestic market. Work with Federal/Provincial level governments in the push to build a strong presence here in Canada.

  2. Add other calculated shipping options than Canada Post UPS/FedEx for domestic shipping - partner with couriers nationwide, leverage agreements and software integrations with courier reseller platforms such as Stallion Express. Build out a crowd sourced network using national/regional retail locations as drop points for rural regions, leveraging transport networks to move packages to courier pickup points, akin to the UK courier model but adapted to the Canadian realities.

  3. Create a centralized international shipping clearing house to aide micro businesses with affordable shipping rates and customs clearance to avoid pitfalls and complexities (akin to US eIS).

  4. Bring features forward to the platform from other localizations, such as prepaid best offer acceptance, etc.

Avatar PlaceholderMotif1234Yesterday
Great article. I believe I have been caught up in this situation. I bought a small item on ebay from a private seller and paid £2.70 postage. They used the ebay labels system. It was tracked through royal mail. I was then asked by royal mail to pay an extra £3.50. I did this, as I wanted the goods and thought maybe the seller had forgotten the postage- human error, which i could get back. It wasn't the sellers fault or mine, but something between ebay and royal mail. Never had that problem in 4 years on ebay with 100 per cent positive feedback for myself. This happened between the 27th April and 7th May 2025. I asked for a refund for postage from ebay, offering all the details and they have refused. To add to the insult, I paid buyer protection, which is useless.