The Bad News
Due to the snow storm in Seattle and because we were already shorthanded due to our move, we have to temporarily increase the packaging times required to get out Standard & Bulk orders.
Standard orders will take 7-10 days for us to package them, so it will take 10-14 days for them to get delivered in the US.
Bulk orders will take 2-3 weeks for us to package them, so it will take 3-4 weeks for them to be delivered in the US.
The Good News
We have added two new shipping options, Rapid & Registered.
Rapid
Rapid is just like Standard, only we will package it in 1 business day. It only costs $1.99 + $0.10/card extra for this option.
This is a service that we have been testing out for all of our Amazon orders. It has been working very well.
Registered
Registered Mail is now available for very expensive orders. It is sent via USPS Priority Mail with the Registered Mail service. The fee is $12.50 more than our existing Priority Mail option.
How about you give a discount or store credit for everyone that has a package that is going to be late? Seems only fair given that $3.00 for the first card and 0.25 for each additional is already high.
If you placed an order this year and it arrived late, call our customer service and we will give you $2 store credit.
That’s awesome! Totally unnecessary, in my opinion, but very nice of you guys.
I don’t agree with Wikipediablackout’s request completely. Your package is going to be late due to horrendous weather conditions…tough S. Deal with it. Betcha don’t live in the Northwest.
Think the rates are, “already high”? Go to to an auction site and try to pick up your cards there. I’ve purchased 256 cards since I registered with this site and the shipping hasn’t even put a dent in my wallet. Wonder how much shipping would have cost for all those cards…
256 cards…perhaps 4 cards a shipment (multiple listings by the same seller) on auction site “E”…2-3 dollars shipping…yup that’s 64 total shipments at 2-3 dollars a pop…128-192 dollars on shipping!
There are so many benefits to this site that I won’t continue to mention.
Don’t mean for this to be a rant, just want to show some support.
Would love for other COMC users to reply to this entry and offer support/words of encouragement.
If I lived in Seattle, I’d grab a buddy, pick up a snow shovel, and help these guys out. But, I live too far away. So instead, I’ll pick up my beer and continue searching for cards…
Keep up the good work Tim!
That’s crap Wiki. Once every 20 years blizzard and you are looking for a discount. Act of God. Put on a helmet.
Woah! Is that 2″ of snow???
Kidding.
I agree with Japanese!!!
I agree with Japanese also, best customer service on the planet, and I find all your rates fair, being able to buy many cards all in one place and ship a bunch at a time saves a ton of money versus buying 2 or 3 at a time some various sellers on Fleebay.
Many businesses would just be late, and not communicate about the shipping.
Customers who think $3 for the first card and a quarter for each additional is “high” are obviously not buying cards anywhere else online. I don’t just sell, I also collect, and every time I have COMC ship me cards I always use Priority shipping, which costs considerably more than standard ($13.50 for the first card, 50 cents each additional). Then, I laugh maniacally when Mr. Holland has my cards in my hands in two or three days. COMC’s shipping options are a BARGAIN! Not to mention how reliable the shipping team is.
During the holidays I had to buy some pretty rare cards off an auction site that I won’t name (rhymes with FEEBAY) for a customer that is working on a couple of sets where every card is numbered to 25 copies made. I bought from 6 separate sellers, which turned out to be about $24 total in shipping fees for 9 cards. 4 of the sellers sent right away, and two of the four of them sent cards they failed to mention were seriously damaged (major creases that were not evident in their listings). Another seller, who got paid December 28th, shipped January 9th. Another seller, who also got paid December 28th, waited until I filed a claim January 13th, then shipped the 2 cards I’d bought from him, and he’d charged me $5 shipping for those 2 cards. Worst of all, I will still take “that” site over some of the customer experiences I’ve had with other serious card buying sites I also shouldn’t name (rhymes with THROWOUT and D&A’s HARDWORLD, respectively). I don’t fully understand SOPA but I hope my speaking freely here isn’t the kind of thing that could get COMC shut down in the future. I guess customers who want to are always going to find excuses to complain. But serious collectors who do a lot of buying online understand COMC’s shipping practices are the MOST AFFORDABLE and MOST RELIABLE online! Keep up the great work, team COMC!
Hi Tim,
I’m just wondering how the weather will affect packages that have been sent to COMC for consignment.
We are still getting FedEx, UPS, and USPS deliveries. It might take a couple days longer to get to us. The forecast is for rain tomorrow afternoon. I have never been so excited for 44 degrees and rainy. Basically this entire week got shot. We have been running at about 25% capacity because it hasn’t been safe to drive. Even buses are getting stranded on the side of the roads.
To provide some context, a submission I sent Saturday Priority Mail was finally received yesterday. It is what it is. Just glad everyone is safe.
Hmmmm ….discount because of a snow storm. SAY WHAT!!! Hope when some snowflakes fall your way they are electrified to zap some cheapness out of you. That’s just lowwwww. 🙁
Going to complain to get $2 bucks …..oh brother.
That’s why Tim said to call in to get the discount. Pretty savvy.
I would be more interested in a discount for how long it takes to post ads.
In all honesty I am not sure I agree that shipping charges here are all that fair. You don’t notice it much when you are getting 5-20 cards but 100 cards costs over $25? You can fit $100 cards packed safely in a 400 count box for under $8. Insurance is the wild card but lets say $5 if you have a few hundred dollars. I get s small handling fee but $13? There are other marketplaces out there that offer FREE shipping on orders $50 or more and on hated FEEbay you could not get away with charging $25 to ship 100 cards. I get the whole “compared to buying from 10 different sellers”. But you AREN’T buying from 100 sellers. Also taking 3 weeks to mail cards that you are charging that much to ship? Guys I urge you to rethink some of this.
I say this as both a full time retailer and a buyer. If shipping rates get too far out of hand you are going to lose buyers which will eventually lead to a loss of sellers. I appreciate everything COMC has to offer and don’t begrudge you making a profit. That’s why I stomach losing 20% everytime I get a check mailed along with the processing fee. But making a killing off of shipping may not be the best way to go.
Perhaps offer some sort of a CAP on max shipping? Are you really charging someone over $100 to get an 800 count box filled with 500 cards mailed?
you should check out the eTopps shipping rates right now…$12.95 for the first card and $1.75 each additional or something…
Yep. If the fees here are dropped then they will just be increased somewhere else. COMC is very transparent with their operating costs. What I mean by that is things that cost COMC more cost you more.
Complaining about cashout fees and shipping fees is disingenuous. How do you expect them to make money?
Please show where I complained about cashout fees. I stated very clearly we stomach those fees along with the processing fees.
I am going to hold my ground on our opinion that shipping fees here are getting to the dangerous point of being high enough to scare off some buyers.
I can tell you it will prevent us from buying lower end material here for our local customers.
Notice…Etopps is belly up in part because of those fees.
wish we could edit posts here as I would have combined them.
I am STILL waiting for the answer to my question…are these permanent changes? I suppose if COMC sees people are willing to pay these new charges they would have little incentive to lower them again.
Shipping charges bring out almost as many different opinions as politics. We all have to decide what we are willing to pay and what we are willing to live with as both sellers and buyers.
I am speaking from a perspective of someone who has NEVER sold on Ebay, and only one limited buying there because we won’t use Paypal, someone who has been full time retail and mail order since 1991 and someone who has spent a long time on the Beckett Marketplace where we had nearly 300,000 unique items and anyone who spent $50 got their cards shipped free.
Our transition to being on Amazon full time and here part time will probably get us looking at things differently eventually.
I inferred “stomaching” to mean “complaining.” If it’s not complaining, then I apologize for accusing you of it.
I’m sure that the shipping fees do scare off some buyers. The “sweet spot” for shipping rates is beyond me. Maybe they could go even higher and still result in more profits. COMC has the data. They’ll do what’s right for them, which makes the most sense to me, because when it comes down to it, they are the ones who have to keep the lights on.
This isn’t the best site for buying low-end stuff. I mean, sure, I sell a ton of low-end stuff, but the overhead involved if they had to ship thousands of commons every day couldn’t be covered by a reduced shipping rate. It’s like how I tip the cocktail server in Vegas the same amount whether it’s a bottle of water or beer. They both weigh the same.
etopps only recently changed their shipping fees to that amount after they made the announcement that they were ceasing operations. That said, the rates, the way they were, were much higher than they are here. Their rates were always ridiculous. The difference is that they wanted to discourage people from taking their cards in hand. Honestly, I’m not sure whether COMC prefers people to flip or take delivery of their cards. Maybe they don’t care. The shipping rate they charge is a reflection of the labor cost involved.
I’d like to know whether the changes are permanent as well. I’d guess they’re as permanent as any other changes any business makes. “Until further notice” blah blah blah. The only constant in business is change.
I guess “stomach” was a poor choice of words. No…we have no issue with those fees. The only two things that have given me “angst” are the fee for condition notes because they seem to be very arbitrary as you can look at a group of vintage cards that all have corner wear..some get the notes and some don’t and many look almost identical in the amount of wear…
And the shipping charges for the reasons I have already explained. I know coming from where we did there is no way we would or could have charged $100 to ship 500 cards and when we had 300,000 items on Beckett we got large orders on an almost daily basis. We also got the occasional order for a 25 cent common where the customer wanted priority mail or insurance…so go figure trying to understand this stuff.
The low end stuff I was talking about wasn’t commons as much as $3-$5 book value stuff that I want to get in my customers hands for no more than $1.
I spoke with Jeremy awhile back and he said they were interested in getting as many cards in the hands of collectors as possible. But they get “paid” either way either via storage fees or shipping.
I am putting alot of faith in this place to carry us forward. There are five people working here that voted unanimously to leave Beckett behind and COMC wasa big reason for it. We are here for the long run. Between using Amazon for our higher end cards plus our coins and stamps and COMC helping us sell some of our mid end stuff, we think we are going to be much better off.
–Thanks for the new shipping options,
— I am impressed with the precise and quick shipping & that’s just at the standard shipping! I can only imagine how fast he new options are.
–Thank You for this site and services
–Great job To All at COMC! Keep up the great work!!!!!!!!
Minor note… The Rapid option was only intended for small orders, but as soon as I released the option someone placed a 440 card shipment request that bogged down our rapid channel. To discourage this, we have added an extra $0.10/card surcharge making the per card fee for the Rapid option $0.35.
Another fee increase?
How about instead of hammering everyone make a 50 card limit for Rapid Shipping?
What the h=ll I put in a shipping request on 1/13 it hasn’t even been sent yet, yet you feel the need to fill rapid 440 card orders. How about you guys give all the people that have been waiting for there cards the rapid option. Take care of old bussiness first.
If you need your cards for some event, please give us a call and we can try to expedite the shipment. We are working as hard as possible to get orders out quickly, but due to the snow storm in Seattle 75% of our employees have not been able to get to work this entire week. So shipping speeds this week are quite an anomaly.
I bought 27 cards on this site last week for a customer who collects long beach state players.The total spent was around $25.00 for all 27 cards.The shipping was $9.50 to have all of them sent to me.I have not liked $0.25 for each card sent.I think it discourages people from spending alot of money on the site with a quarter a card.There are other websites you can buy large amounts of cards and be charged a flat fee shipping or even free shipping. Another thing that discourages me on this website is selling cards i have a card shop and would like to send in over 100,000 + cards for processing but everyone i have talked to who sells on here has a problem with the storage fees on 50,000 + cards there fees 80% of the time are more than there sales on here which means they would be losing money every month.I think there needs to be a cap on storage fees per a month.
I agree 100% with EVERYTHING JapaneseCards says. The customer service that COMC and the crews provides to both buyers and sellers is unmatched. I have never had a better experience anywhere I have shopped online or from a brick and mortar shop.The shipping costs are very low in comparison to other site. I know the crew works hard everyday to keep the business going and growing. In this environment that can not be easy. I know other longtime users of this service have to agree. Tim I am sure is on call 24/7 and is always in touch with what is going on. They got hit with a bad snowstorm cut them a break Wiki! As Dr. Denis Leary would say to you “You need a dose of shut the BLEEP up”!
Tim do not mistake anything I am saying here as a complaint about the service or professional way COMC does things. We’ve done plenty of buying and selling and have another batch of cards coming to you.
In fact we closed our Beckett Marketplace storefront last month after a 6 year run there and a large portion of the remaining inventory of cards booking $5 and up is being slated to come here over the next few months to a year.
Believe me I understand all about costs of doing business, costs of hiring quality employees, costs of having a quality office/storage facility in a good neighborhood and doing things the right way. Like anything else the customers will tell you when things aren’t being done right. Reading these boards it appears folks will be willing to accept just about anything fee wise. You’ll know both via the written word and if overall traffic and card movement drops if the fees become too excessive for a larger portion of the site users. Just out of question…when you ran the shipping discount promotion…can you share what that did as far as cards purchased during that time period versus a typical month? I know we bought more than.
For us right now as long as processing fees don’t increase we’ll be happy.
I am trying to understand…are these fee increases temporary??
Thanks for reading my two books here. I’ll try to shorten my posts in the future 😉
I think COMC is doing the right thing by offering the partial refund for shipping. Yes there was a snow storm, an unfortuanate circumstance by far, however, the timeline for orders specifically states the timeframe for delivery. I believe in customer service & by COMC offering this small refund it seems to me that this business does care about the customer & our satisfaction. I know the shipping company I work for has only closed once in my 15 year employment due to…..ice. Some of our businesses may miss delivery/pickup due to driver jugdement as to road conditions. However, our workforce is expected to attend, unless we are closed. Does my bulk order placed on last Sunday have priority over an express order placed next Monday? What has priorities? All orders placed this past week or future priority orders? This is why I feel the refund is called for. Now orders will take twice as long as expected, maybe longer. By COMC taking the initiative to inform us of the circumstances involved with the shipping problems, should further credit this company with the integrity & honesty that other sites, companies, & sellers envy. This gesture alone should merit our trust & confidence to give them our business.
I use COMC to purchase cards due to the shipping rates, variety of cards, most importantly all cards are from one place. How many of us have gone to auction sites & paid $3.00 for a card in a toploader in a business envelope (not bubble mailer) with just a stamp on it? I just bought a card from a collecting website not mentioned here & paid $3 shipping for a card purchased for $1.25 that came just like I stated. Yes the $.25/ $.15 each additional card can add up but do you want to try to find the same seller that has all 30-50 cards you are purchasing or different sellers for $2-$3 shipping/card. Have you ever had a dispute with an auction company & tried there customer resolution team….yeah what a joke. With COMC you call & speak w/a live person & your problem gets fixed quickly & efficiently. I love COMC & will continue to use them. Depending on the time frame of receiving my bulk order, I may or may not seek the partial refund. I appreciate the honesty & communication, your company has always taken care of any issues I’ve had & I Thank You for doing so.
Yoo guys in the states got nothing better to do then complain about shipping.I live in Germany my orders take 4-6 weeks I get to run to customs pay extra money and waste 4 hours of my day.But at least I know the cards were sent.And one day they will be mine!!!
FPCARDS is right. But i suspect COMC rather have cards stay in inventory and receive the .01 storage fee for …ever? They are a business and the bottom line is the #1 factor. I can buy 20,000 lots on ebay and get free shipping. so choosing your comparisons are ridiculous. It is too expensive for big/bulk orders.
see ya.
I don’t think the storage fee is really a profit center for them. Those who abandon their accounts will accrue a negative balance because of storage fees if their prices are too high, but if they never come back, all COMC has is their cards.
Well…. that negative balance is a “phantom” cost… someone abandons 30 cards because their costs are too high…and over a year rack up a negative balance of $3.60
At whatever point COMC gets to seize the cards due to an abandoned account they in theory would be free to sell those cards themselves. What are the chances the 30 cards can be sold for more than $3.60? Even let’s say 10 cards?
I totally agree with the fee for condition notes.Ever since they started to give pretty much every vintage(pre 1972) card a condition note ,it is now .45 cents (.20 + .25) for for processing which makes it totally unaffordable to sell vintage here..i would think 4 or 5 cents would suffice to type in the words edge wear or corner wear
I think it’s to encourage people not to send VG/G/F/P cards to the site. If the scanning is automated (something is patent pending after all, it might be this), then the condition note is separate manual labor. Pure speculation on my part.
I sent in 100 cards in which 52 were vintage,out of the 52 i received 51 condition notes which i was charged $12.75 along with the usual $23. These cards probably graded somewhere around Exc, none had creasing notes,pinholes writing or paper loss. two months ago before they started this about 7 or 8 would have received condition notes. I am not complaining about the notes itself just saying that it is unaffordable to send vintage in and quite unfair that cards are .20 cents if post 1975 and .45 cents pre 1975……….I love comc and they have always been fair and honest I would hope that this is not being done to increase revenue….I have 500 cards pending and you would agree that $225 to process them is way too high
Thank you for the feedback. We normally review the condition notes fee carefully and use some judgment about how much to charge, but we have been in a hurry to just get stuff deposited because we have been so shorthanded this week. I have reduced your condition notes fee from $12.75 to $5.00.
Also, just this week we revamped our whole condition note process. It should be much better from here on out. We will also be able to revisit how much we charge for condition notes. First we need to measure how much time we are saving with the new process, and then we will recalculate the fees accordingly. I am sure we will write up a blog post about this once things have settled down a bit.
You may be right on discouraging lower grades but I think that would be a mistake by COMC. Again going back to where I used to sell, lower grade vintage especially of pre 1969 issues were one of our biggest sellers. The ability to sell a raw 1965 topps card anywhere from $1.50 to 30 cents was huge for us. No way to sell for 30 cents here with the fees. So we are left to bulk them into lots of 10 different and sell them on Amazon. I’d love to be able to do lots here though if they charged “per card” on those we’d be no better off.
Thanks Tim, much obliged
Pingback: Something for all you COMC sellers to think about. - Page 3 - Blowout Cards Forums
Tim thanks for the comments on condition notes. We have stacks here of 1940 Playball and other prewar issues here that we’ll ship in once we know how the condition notes process will work.
I also agree that a fee for condition notes hurts the site’s availability of vintage cards. I would prefer a separate fee for vintage cards, or maybe a longer processing time. Perhaps 25 cents or 30 cents to submit a vintage card and/or a 6 week turnaround time.
Now that you’re selling on Amazon, I think that condition notes are more necessary than they were before. When all sales were on COMC, it was easy enough to tell folks to look at the large clear scans and tell them to make up their own mind about condition. On Amazon, the default setting seems to be “USED – LIKE NEW”, even when a card is damaged. And the pics you’re uploading to Amazon are so small, I can’t even tell what the card is supposed to look like.
Some suggestions:
* Make the default condition on Amazon for pre-1980 (or so) cards “Used-Good” by default. If someone gets a card that’s much nicer than that, then they’ll get a thrill. But they won’t be buying a low to mid-grade card thinking that it’s pack fresh. Buyers on Amazon are different from buyers on eBay or Checkoutmycards. They aren’t as condition sensitive – meaning that they don’t require an item to have a heavy discount if it’s not in perfect condition, but they also hate to receive items that are not in the condition described. If you say something is “Like New” it better be “Like New” according to Amazon standards. But if an item is $10 in “Like New Condition” and $9.99 in “Good” condition, they might still buy the “Good” condition item.
* Put “some wear possible” or some such phrase, by default, into the Amazon description of vintage cards.
* Try to figure out a way to load large clear pics to Amazon. You might consider listing some/all items as “Collectible”, because then you can load actual pics of each card you are offering, and you can list several of the same item in the same condition per Amazon’s rules. It may be necessary to edit the pics so that your Checkoutmycards.com watermark does not appear on the images.
On the postage front, I wouldn’t mind if there was some way that the person who submits the cards could pay for the packing fee in advance, as a courtesy to their buyer. And then the card might say “No Handling Fee” or something, and theoretically sell for more money.
For instance, if I could pay an extra $50 or $100 when submitting a batch of 500 cards, I would consider it. At least, for certain cards. It might also be intriguing if paying the fee meant that the card was never subject to storage fees, even if the card was flipped. Then you could have an icon that says “Fee Free” next to the card.
I don’t know how practical any of that is, or how many people would use it, but it is worth thinking about.
I don’t think it would be in my top 10 changes that I’d like to see. #1 would definitely be the ability to tag players / sets / individual cards with team names, all-star / hall-of-fame, memorabilia / autograph information.
Here’s a novel idea: how about people stop sending low-grade vintage into the site? As a collector, if I had my way, any vintage card that merited a condition note would just not be put on the site. Just sayin’.
That Does’nt make any sense…Cards from the 1950’s which would grade a PSA 5(EXC) or PSA 6 (EX-MT) that get condition notes from comc if the corners are not razor sharp are far from low-grade vintage. I would consider that a lot closer to high end. COMC is putting the notes on there due to covering their bases with buyers here as well as the poor picture on Amazon which makes sense, but to say any card that merits a condition note should not be on the site is absurd to say the least.
But isn’t that one of the problems inherent with how vintage works on the site? One person’s low-grade is another person’s high-end. I’m not saying there shouldn’t be vintage on the site.
I’m saying that as a collector I hate wading through scans of cards that look like a dog chewed the card up, spit it back out, and then it got hit by a lawnmower and was picked up, dusted off, and sent to this site to be priced at a third of high book. I don’t feel like I’ve seen too many cards that might grade a 5 or 6 with condition notes, but I’ve seen lots of cards with condition notes that wouldn’t grade anywhere near that high on a bet, and it gets frustrating. I overgeneralized, and I apologize. I will concede that there are probably some cards with condition notes that are either still worth having on the site or that perhaps shouldn’t have received condition notes to begin with if you will grant me that not all condition notes are created equal. “Some corner wear” might be drastically different from one card to the next, agreed?
“if you will grant me that not all condition notes are created equal”
Correct but COMC policy has changed. One year ago you send in 200 vintage cards and you may not receive a single note, now Tim has tightened it up where as is if at all flawed (and 99% of older cards are)then it will receive a note…Random example this is not my card but check out 1956 topps robin roberts #180 from silverlake that is a newer submission and i would think that card easily is the second nicest of the seven yet it has a note and others do not.The others were sent in before the policy change.
I may not know anything after selling cards full time for over 20 years but VG/VGEX vintage sells better and more often than higher grade stuff.
If you are a collector want PSA 9s then by all means buy them, But quite frankly to suggest there is anything but a strong market for lower grade pre 1970 stuff is ignorant.
I never suggested there is not a strong market for lower grade vintage. I’ve bought and sold enough of it to know there’s a very strong market for lower grade vintage.
I suggested the way vintage cards are handled on the site frustrates me as a collector. Those are two very different statements.
So on the one hand, you acknowledge that there’s a strong market for lower grade vintage, and on the other, you want to ban it from the site? I’ve been in this hobby for decades, and there’s always been a HUGE demand for damaged vintage cards, when priced properly.
Beckett says that a 1950’s card in poor condition is worth 5% to 15% of high Beckett, and I can attest that cards from the 1950’s sell very well in that range, even when they look like they’ve been run over by a lawnmower.
One reason you might see a beat up card with an asking price of 1/3 of guide is that every other copy of that card that has ever been on the site at a lower price has sold.
As an example, let’s look at some 1950’s sets:
The very cheapest 1950 Bowman card has an asking price of 10% of book. That means, either nobody will submit one and price it for less money, or it means that every time someone did submit one priced at less money, it has sold.
The cheapest 1951 Bowman is also 10% of High Beckett.
The cheapest 1952 Topps is 10% of High Beckett.
The cheapest 1953 Topps is 12% of High Beckett.
The cheapest 1954 Bowman is 10% of High Beckett.
Out of 5,143 different 1950’s baseball cards on the site, just 20 of them have a single example which has an asking price below 10% of high Beckett.
Now, bear in mind, 5% to 15% of High Beckett is FULL BOOK PRICE for these cards. Bear in mind that six million cards have been processed on this site. What other class of cards will sell 100% of the time on COMC for full Beckett value, adjusted for grade, regardless of the player? Not 1990’s inserts. Not 2000’s rookies, jerseys and autos. But beat-to-heck, run-over-with-a-lawnmower 50 year old cards? Absolutely.
Rather than telling people not to submit, or telling COMC not to accept such cards, I’ll make a challenge right now. Anyone who submits their most beat-to-heck pre-1965 card, prices it at 95% off book value and then advertises that they’ll automatically accept offers of 50% off book, I’ll buy that card. Submit 1,000 of them and I’ll buy all 1,000. Submit $1 million in book value and I’ll buy the whole lot at 2.5% of High Beckett. Eventually.
Sorry. I meant that I’ll pay 50% of asking price for any vintage card when the asking price is 95% off book.
“…and there’s always been a HUGE demand for damaged vintage cards, when priced properly.”
Perhaps that’s the rub. All the cards that are priced properly are sold out. As you point out, sometimes 15% of Beckett IS high book for a card. But when the listing on the site says Beckett is high book for that same card, and the seller prices it at a third or half book, it’s frustrating. Perhaps there should be some kind of “Pricing 101” tutorials for users to read. I don’t know what the answers are to the questions I have, I only know I’m trying to learn more. Thanks to those of you who have taken the time to write regarding my concerns.
For the record, you could pay 2 1/2% of book value for a million bucks worth of autos and jerseys, and you’re probably going to come out pretty far ahead, too. After all, book value on those isn’t really 15% of what Beckett says it is 😉
I agree that is the rub. But it’s not just low grade vintage cards. Every item for sale in every store in the entire world is, by definition, something that nobody has purchased for the asking price – yet. The only way to know for sure that someone was willing and able to purchase an item for its asking price is after it has already sold.
This is true of a share of stock in New York, or an ounce of gold in London, or a pint of strawberries in Omaha. When you hear on the news that common stock in the XYZ corporation sold for $100 a share yesterday, it doesn’t tell you what the stock will sell for tomorrow or next year or even 15 minutes from now. But it does give you some general, useful information about the current market price.
There actually is a primer on COMC about condition. If you click on the actual word “Book Price” on any card on the site, it will redirect you to a table which explains “Book Price” in great detail, and how to adjust “Book Price” by grade. In turn, if you click on each grade on this table, it will give great detail about how to determine the grade of a card according to Beckett’s guidelines.
One of the great advantages, though, of COMC over eBay is the fact that a seller does not have to spend hours writing descriptions detailing every minute imperfection of a card, and that a buyer does not have to spend hours begging the seller to send a clearer pic of the card, and to give more detail about a card’s condition. Nor do the buyer or seller have to spend hours looking up cards in the guide.
I can buy and sell on COMC at least 20 to 50 times faster than I could buy and sell on eBay. And I can concentrate on the actual product rather than stupid things like bubble envelopes and feedback ratings.
This is the big problem I had with eBay. It wasn’t just the fact that they spent every waking minute trying to figure out the maximum level of pain they could inflict with their fee structure before I would bolt the site. It was that they never concentrated their efforts on ways that I could buy and sell on their site more efficiently. In the year 2012, eBay has 17 years worth of sales data on billions of different items. Why the heck haven’t they entered into agreements with the top price guides the way COMC works with Beckett? Why can’t I search eBay by “Book Value”? Why doesn’t eBay publish their own price guide? Not just for cards, but for every other collectible? Why can’t I send my stuff to eBay and let them professionally sort, store, pack and ship my items?
eBay won’t do any of that stuff, COMC does. So I’m a devoted user of CheckOutMyCards. But I’d also be a devoted user of CheckOutMyComics, CheckOutMyBooks, CheckOutMyVintagePaperItems, CheckOutMyDisneyCollectibles, CheckOutMyCoins, CheckOutMyStamps, CheckOutMyPostcards, CheckOutMyMoviePosters, CheckOutMyVideoGames, or any similar site that was as trustworthy and competent as this one.
COMC’s most recent “Help Wanted” post indicated that they were looking to hire a “Coin Identification Specialist”, so they might be looking to branch out. If they do, I’ll probably specialize in low grade coins that are at least 1,000 years old, and a bunch of condition freaks will complain that the Julius Caesar Denarii aren’t mint.
Thanks for the heads up on clicking on book price. I can’t believe I’ve never done that. As for the glories of COMC, you’re preaching to the choir. I am a former top-rated powerseller who left eBay in April of 2009 as a seller (I still buy there). For the next 21 months I literally went forward without online sales, and grew considerably. Then I started selling on here in January of 2011, and grew even more. COMC literally does work for me cheaper than I can do it myself, especially as a function of time management. COMC has made selling online fun for me in ways it was never fun on eBay. This is why I put COMC referral cards in the hands of every customer I can, and especially every reseller.
I actually have been trading cards only for about the last six or seven years, but as COMC expands into other markets (it is my understanding coins are next) I plan to expand with them. Why not? With COMC doing all the work and all the research for us, we’d be missing out if we failed to diversify with them. If, after coins, they add on comic books or video games or even arrowheads and shiny rocks, then I will start buying those to send into COMC, too!
The condition notes are a good idea but they need to be used with discretion. The problem is a lack of consistency: visual inspection shows some cards without condition notes are in much worse shape than those with.
In my opinion, many condition notes provide little value added. For instance, “off center”, “writing on back”, “rounded corners”, “worn corners” or obvious physical damage is self-evident. The place that condition notes are helpful is a crease or warp that would be hard to detect by visual inspection of a two dimensional image.
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well i have to say that i think the overall shipping is not really that bad because of other sites like feebay. i am a frugal person (cheap) and i have be careful on how i buy i usually am buying prospects in bulk so if i can find 3-10 of the same card i am glad to i do have friends that are neighsayers about the shipping cost but i remind them of buying from multiple sellers that 2-5 bucks in shipping adds up i must say that i did not realize that it took so long for bulk shipping but i am just happy that i will get my lots. also i wish you were out east i need a job and i am a wealth of knowledge when it comes to cards or sports in general my wife calls me the king of usless knowledge
Thanks for the feedback. Glad you are taking advantage of buying quantities from us. The time it is taking for bulk shipping is just a temporary issue. We are backed up because we just moved and we had a snow storm. Hopefully we will be back to 7 day packaging time soon.