It’s nearing the end of the year, which is a great time for reflection and contemplation. Looking back on 2014 with all its ups and downs, there is one thing we appreciate most – YOU. That you’ve had our backs in our most difficult year has been the greatest gift of all.
This is exciting. You have asked us for the ability to do auctions for years. So we are testing this functionality. We still have a lot of work to do, but we hope to allow you to run your own auctions in the near future. In the meantime, test out our auctions, pick up some new product, and give us your feedback.
Boxing Day – Free Promotions & Free Shipping
In honor of Boxing Day (Canada’s Black Friday), we will allow sellers to run free Promotions & we will offer buyers free shipping on 30 items or more from Thursday, December 25th – Wednesday, December 31st.
Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year!
Thank you for running this special. Can you let us know how this will be advertised to pull in new traffic. Most come to COMC for BF because of past sales. Unfortunately, this is an out of the norm promo and may not be known by those unfamiliar with this platform? Again-thanks!!
Thumbs up on the auctions! Great way to give folks options. With the images they will certainly blow out the competing auction sites.
I appreciate the innovation. And it’s nice to see something people have been asking for.
This is probably an FAQ: If I win an auction, can I keep the card on-site and reprice it for sale like any other card I buy to flip?
Are you saying you have been using company resources to add something new before fixing what you already had and needed fixing?? Such as getting our items updated and corrected so we could have made some sales.
Hey ken, get a life!! I have sold $1200 in the last 2 months, COMC is a great site and they are getting better all the time. They are already 10 times better than Ebay and once they get auctions up and running no one would ever be able to make a case to sell on that overrated, garbage website where you have to do all the work and can never ever sell cards under 2 dollars!! Go complain somewhere else, or even better, leave the hobby to people who know what the hobby needs!! Boom goes the dynamite!!! Keep up the great work COMC!! Lifetime customer you have found!! Now let’s rule the hobby world together!!
Hey”yasiel”, I have a great life but is seems your adolescent rants reveals an interpretation issue. Do yourself a favor and read, again, my comments and you will realize how childish your accusations and suggestions are. I am here to stay so let’s try to be friends if it’s in your DNA.
Just for a refresher, I have always thought Tim had a great idea but got a bit too hasty in making it the cure all instead of making what he had work properly. I felt he developed an “I’ll get even with Beckett” attitude and it clouded his overall vision. And no one really cares how much or what you sell except COMC, it’s the vast majority that want a site working well. That is the reason I quit selling on e-Bay (not that it is a bad site – evidently you are one in a million who couldn’t make it work for you), and I joined COMC after a terrible time with Beckett’s website. So I repeat, I have all my chips on COMC but will not hesitate to recommend something to Tim I think will work better. But I will answer in kind with ignorant suggestions and accusations.
And no need to thank me because I have probably bought some of your cards. I also probably bought more cards on COMC than you sold and sold just as much. So what you sold , if accurate, is not part of the discussion. Oh and by the way, try to keep this blog civilized and not create a seventh grade playground atmosphere! Enough said?
I don’t think the web developers are the ones who identify cards and correct descriptions.
Nobody said they were. I said “resources” which could include money well spent on hiring some folks to ID and correct. The site had other problems that the development team should have been working on before taking on new problems.
You said “resources” can be taken a lot of different ways. The guys coming up with the code/development for the auctions are already in place and being paid. I’m not sure what the web development team could have been doing to help with the two biggest issues on site – missing/incorrect information and slow processing times.
Resources in the context of my comments could only have been taken as financial because I believe I addressed the manpower issue. And I don’t understand your point about the programmers. COMC either hired more programmers or used those already on the payroll. Either way was not in the best interest of the paying subscribers who needed their items identified and/or corrected first before other “resources” were used for new and unproven options. Tim should have hired more people to help with identity and corrections first. Then Tim on his own time could have prepared his ideas on the auction idea on paper. Then after all the paying clients had their items correctly identified for proper searches from potential buyers, he could have presented his auction ideas to the programmers and told them to write the code and test that part separately after prime buying/selling hours and present it when they felt confident it could interact safely with the overall programs with no MAJOR glitches.
I am persuaded Tim is a very bright young man with lofty goals and the ambition to see them through. But sometimes aggressive, ambition leads to hasty decisions. I am speaking with over 45 years as a businessman but not buying/selling memorabilia. I do this as a hobby but still think Tim has some great ideas and I want him to succeed on the level with Beckett or higher. You don’t make the big money betting on the favorite. That’s why I chose the underdog to partner with in this hobby and want COMC to succeed in a big way.
Great idea with having auctions now!!! I will personally list many auctions when you make it available!!! Can’t wait!!!!
I like the idea of the auctions but have to agree with Ken. Why can’t I get my items fixed that I paid for more than a year ago?
Most of my stuff is non-sports and quite a few cards of mine are still missing titles or descriptions or have other problems that have not been addressed. When I ask about this I am never given an answer as to when or if they will ever be fixed.
I believe I have been patient with this but when is enough enough and when will my items be fixed?
2015 [???] [???] #N/A
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That above is how quite a few of my items are listed.
Sorry to be such a jerk and have to keep posting about this but it seems like COMC is not very concerned with non-sports cards unless its pokeman or yugioh or MTG. I have never seen a challenge for non ports cards but they have challenges for all those.
Does this site sell that many pokeman or yugioh or magic cards?
I just don’t get it.
David, no need to apologize when you have been frustrated for so long. A happy customer is a repeat customer and I believe because Tim made a pact with the devil (Beckett) and the devil had the upper hand, Tim’ s emotion got in the way of good business sense. Instead of fixing the simple problems left from the “breakup”, he decided to get fancy and try to keep up with the Joneses (Beckett), an undertaking he was not prepared for. My only fear was too many COMC clients leaving, because of a year of frustration, before he got the site working smoothly however simple it was….ie. correct and complete ID of cards, that were charged a fee, so folks looking for buys could search certain criteria.
At any rate I’ve got too much skin in the game with COMC, so I can only hope there wasn’t too much negative about this site throughout the hobby that kept the big players away from the table. No, you are not a jerk just a disappointed paying customer, complaining as is your right. It’s a wonder more folks aren’t complaining more on the blogs. Poor Moe and Norbert have done their best to deflect so many negatives and they have probably done more than Tim will ever know to keep folks satisfied and somewhat happy and more importantly from abandoning ship.
I did some digging a about six months ago to see how many volume sellers/buyers were on the site. I found that 1/2 had very minimal action….a few transactions, maybe a $1 card or two just pulled from a pack. I’m almost afraid to check again for fear of seeing the 1/2 rise considerably leaving less volume hobbyists. I think I’m about ready to lower 30,000 cards’ prices if things don’t change for the better pretty quick but I still have some hope.
The pacts with Beckett and Blowout were indeed the devil. One is gone the other….well hopefully COMC will realize the buffoonery and ignorance spewed there is not worth acknowledging at some point….though it is amazingly good for comic relief.
COMC is an entity that relies on trust. When you ask people to send you their property that takes a trust beyond most other business transactions. That is why I have brought up transparency when it comes to contests and other aspects of what has been going on.
This site and the service it provides is an important part of card collecting in 2015. I want to see it succeed because in the past it has been very good for my business both from a selling standpoint and as a way to acquire Detroit related items for my walk in buyers.
Sadly in my opinion the service is not functioning the way it should, the fee structure for submissions is out of line for the time frames and quantities required (the $25 minimum).
So for the time being we did pull most of our inventory from the site. Hopefully Tim and crew use 2015 to focus on the things they do well…the things that brought customers here in the first place, improve those areas and bring this site back to what it used to be.
I do love the auction idea and plan to use it for purchases when things I see are posted that can be flipped locally. I hope at some point the service and fee structure fits within our business profile again so we can submit new items.
I don’t understand your issues with COMC and Blowout? I understand you may have issues with some of the Forum members, but that should not reflect on Blowout as a Business. I love the relationship COMC and Blowout have, it gives me the option to use COMC Store credit for Wax from Blowout, at about a 13% commission rate. I love the fact that COMC is willing to communicate with the public through the Blowout forum. As for Blowout, I have received nothing but great service buying wax from them, and I love having their Forum to get Hobby opinions and information. I stress the word opinions, which is most of what we get on the forum. Some you will agree with and some you won’t!
Well said buddy!! I toyally agree!! Love the option to trade credit for Blowout wax cases!!! Keep up the great work COMC, and just take the neg feedback with a grain of salt!! Lifetime customer is what i am!! 🙂
Darin….actually…the forum fools amuse me… There are no issues there. Those who talk about me on there do so to fill a void in their lives. I am happy to help them! However my previous interactions with a couple of “higher ups” in that company showed them to be far less than professional. Your experience with them may certainly vary and I am certainly glad you have not had to deal with them the way I did.
I wouldn’t mind a similar agreement with Steel City and DACW. Blowout doesn’t have the ability to sell hockey cards and that shunts a lot of us out of redeeming store credit for Blowout wax.
Are you, perhaps, saying that an *exclusive* agreement is reducing competition and screwing the consumer with a lack of innovation? 😉
I would agree with this…. When I brought my concerns to COMC I was told that Tim was a big fan of B*** despite the fact that he rarely posts there. I suggested to COMC that they partner with other entities… but they sleep with who scratches their backside the best I suppose.
BCW is a sponsor… I spend probably $2000 a year with them. Would be nice to be able to redeem credit for them…
Its easy to see who are dealers and who are retail buyers of wax. SC & DA for the win by a large margin.
I hope Tim and COMC never take any mistakes or reminders of those bad decisions as comedy. But always keep them in the back of their heads….”second time my fault.” I know the clients of COMC do not think it funny but wish, as I do, that this site gets it right and right sooner than later.
Can you please keep the auction and buy it now search separate. The auction junk is showing up when i do searches . I would hate to see when the auction gets more populated. it is bad enough to find cards to buy already, it is horrible looking for cards with auction items mixed in also.
I second this. In the past couple of days, i have clicked on cards, ready to buy them, but then I find that they are actually auction listings, and there seems to be no way to block them. I have absolute zero interest in auctions, and i do not want to see them in my search results. The last thing this site needs is to make its interface/catalog even messier.
On the left hand side, there are radio buttons to help improve your search results – you can choose the “Listing Format” to filter out the Auction selections.
From a user experience perspective (and based on your internal analytics of course), have you considered changing the default setting?
Good idea Joel. It would help to save a little time if we had a choice for defaults especially when doing maintenance in our inventory. Don’t know if that was what Joel was addressing but defaults are a definite bonus for searches. An “all” default would be great if I wanted to reprice all of one player but I don’t know how that affects COMC’s hardware. Also when doing the same chore on one player, it would be nice to have the cards in chronological order and in individual card and set order. Something to consider in the future knowing how busy the dev team is now.
I asked several months ago to be able to set a default for the inventory manager. One thing I have learned through the years is that if Tim likes your ideas they will be implemented sooner than later. If nothing happens within a month he either did not like the idea or is unable to implement your idea.
I have also asked for defaults settings for certain areas of the site. Maybe now that things have settled down a bit Tim will consider what many feel would be a time saver.
I agree with Tony it would be nice to spend “our” sales money on dealers we have had great dealings with. And I see “Frozen…” has had the same good experience with Dave’s Card World. Tim may be thinking about his 20% being spent elsewhere and the return not commensurate but the choices sure favor us who will sell/buy on COMC. And the added options would surely be a selling point to potential customers for COMC’s services.
Another reason I won’t send cards in. While i love this site, the need for accurate descriptions is clear. I wish the admins cared enough about continuing what they built rather than what they can(an ebay alternative).
How many months has it been since the Beckett pull out and how many people are still pouring in cards? Stats that would be well received by both current and:(potential) new members.
Yup agree, DACW and Steel City is the place to buy cases and boxes. Too bad Blownaway is the only redemption option.
Please separate the auction and bin in the searches on comc. auction showing up in searches just plain sucks.
I do not really understand why COMC is starting auctions, especially, as noted above, there are still outstanding issues that need to be addressed. I have some cards that I corrected/edited in August and they are still not Identified. Aside from incomplete info on cards, I am disappointed with the new price guide. Just like Beckett, the SRPs are way too high.
Instead of implementing auctions, I would like COMC to invest some time into putting magazines into separate categories so If am looking for a certain WS program, I don’t have to trawl though all the magazines. But I know that will not increase traffic on the site,which seem to be COMC’s intent with auctions..
In short though, slow down and stop trying to be the ebay of card collecting.
Jane
You are so wrong Jane!! The thing COMC is more traffic, more buyers, more sellers!! Auctions are guarenteed to do that!! It also give us a chance to watch incredibly rare 1 of 1 and the most expensive cards ever made to be sold without buyers who bail on paying or sellers who relist hoping for a higher price!! Ebay is sooo frustrating for that reason! How many high end cards that sell….actually sell on Ebay!! Comc is not trying to be ebay!! Ebay doesnt care about sellers, they only care about buyers!! Comc cares equally about both!! I am thrilled to be able to have comc host my auctions knowing that winning bidders cant mess me over, time and time again for paying late or not paying at all!! I am sorry but problems with the magazine section should be the least of their concern!! Getting auctions running is their best idea yet!! Check out the bidding already, great results on the sold items already!!! As a seller thats great!! Personally i cant wait, be ready for some really high end cards up for auction my friends!! I love the thrill of the auction, thanks to comc i can enjoy it without the stress of shipping hassles!! Loyal customer for life am i!! 🙂
You are so right Jane with the notion that a company would start new beta programs when the original program, where items are identified and offered for sale to paying subscribers, is not working properly. I am afraid this will only appeal to a few who like bells and whistles and add to the frustration of the ma,y hundreds of paying subscribers that do not have their cards properly identified. A good idea not ready for prime time on this site.
Ken, how many auctions or listings on any website are truly accurate? On ebay half the listings are not the right year, the wrong parallel set, suspect pictures they have, lots and lots of innaccuracies!! In my opinion comc blows the common seller on ebay out of the water for details and the accurate pictures are amazing!! Why does comc get held to a higher standard than the other sites who do nothing to check the accuracy of the pictures or the details in the description!! They can work at getting better and they will, at least thru are trying, unlike other sites who leave everything up to the actual seller who has very limited knowledge of what they are selling. 🙂
COMC will gain people like shaun and lose people like jane. Some will be happy and some will be sad.
It is tough if comc losses buyers when they get tired of the searches flooded with auction prices that are just auctions not ready to purchase. PLEASE MAKE THE AUCTIONS A TOTALLY DIFFERENT SITE LIKE THE “VAULT”.
I am using Chrome as my browser. The search option for “buy it now” still shows the auction listings when doing a search with the “BIN” option. is anyone else having this problem?
You are correct. Hopefully they will address this but I think it’s their own cards that are being auctioned??
If it were a member’s cards and the auction undersold, I think the fallout would be pretty bad. Safer to test it out with their own, and if it’s a bargain price, it’s just goodwill.
It would be suicide if COMC would auction anything the company owns to offer them as competition for paying subscribers. COMC is an entity selling a service…..the paying subscribers to that service are individuals moving product and accumulating goods to sell. No, I think Tim is smarter than to pad COMC’s pockets with chump change and take the opportunity from paying subscribers to move their product or take money out of the hands of paying subscribers that would be used to buy other subscribers product.
Yes, we are testing the Auction software with our own cards, to ensure everything is working the way it’s supposed to. Once we’re confident things are good, we’ll open things up to the COMC Nation, and we’ll be sharing details re: any fees, rules, and other issues for setting up your own auctions.
I am sorry to hear that for the reasons I stated. COMC could have tested the new option with dummy programs aside from the subscribers site. Explain how COMC is NOT in competition with paying subscribers, again for the reasons I stated.
Ken, we were testing auctions on our offline site, but that kind of testing only goes so far. We had to release the code “into the world” to really test the software and to see how it would work in real world conditions. And, we didn’t want to risk having any issues with user’s cards, so we used our own as “test dummies”. It was felt that using a seller’s cards would have been irresponsible, even if we had their permission.
Thanks Moe for the explanation, although vague to us non-programmers. I had programs developed for my businesses and the basic programs “in house” could be tested offline as you say. But problems with interaction from outside your servers could have been tested from an employees laptop could it not? I still don’t understand the policy for COMC, and COMC as a business entity, for owning like items it’s subscribers are trying to profit from. I would advise a subsidiary for situations such as this to address issues that may arise.
Yea, we did some in-house testing – but there’s a difference between a handful of COMC employees poking at the auctions page, and thousands of COMC users visiting the website, all at one time. We wanted to see how things worked with higher traffic than we could generate among ourselves.
Moe you just tested volume just a couple weeks ago about the time of Black Friday? Your servers don’t differentiate between incoming traffic unless routed correct? But maybe you are using a dedicated server for the auction program? But if that’s the case why are subscribers complaining about auction usage while doing searches?
Sorry for the questions but I believe it’s important folks understand how the service works without getting into company secrets or proprietary language. Thanks in advance for your patience and understanding.
Ken
I can answer to the best of my abilities – I’d have to go to Tim for the more detailed explanations. And, I know he reads the comments here so if he has something to add, he’ll jump in.
Are you talking about what Amazon does to its third-party sellers? (http://understandingamazon.blogspot.com/2012/07/amazon-sellers-competing-with-amazonon.html)
I can see how one could draw that conclusion. Until COMC can get cards direct from the manufacturer (I don’t mean wax), the analogy doesn’t fit for me.
Nothing would surprise me anymore Joel. I can think of a few scenarios where that could be done. For example, COMC buys wax or cards from one of it’s “advisers” which I believe has a brick and mortar and someone busts some packs. This whole thing, since the Beckett breakup. has gotten stranger each passing week. I still can’t fathom COMC, as a service business, owns the product it’s subscribers rely on to generate income after paying fees to have their items properly displayed for sale. I am not talking about items “donated” to charity.
I have been selling on Amazon for years… Joel is correct in that Amazon has competed…and increased its competition with its sellers as long as they have been around. This testing they are doing with their own cards doesn’t bother me.
When I was on Beckett they used their “big lap dog” dealer to do most of their testing… in that case they allowed him to get first crack at everything before allowing other dealers to benefit… What COMC is doing is a much better solution in my opinion
Back to the listing format issue….What Joe was saying is that he doesn’t want to see “auctions”…Moe says there is a button to choose
the listing format…When I do a search for “2014 Topps Tek” there are 93 auctions, 122 “Buy it now” results and 122 “Both” results.
So clicking the button for “Buy it now” includes auctions. Am I wrong?
I think that’s what the professionals call “A Bug”…I’ll let the web development team know, because I thought they were meant to split off the “Auction” items from the “Buy it Now” items.
In the meantime, you will notice the “Auction” items have a little gavel icon next to them, which makes them a little easier to see.
I like the auction idea. I do have one concern/comment about the way they are listed on the site. It doesn’t seem right to me that auctions should exist in the same space as seller promotions and port sales. For instance, the 423 current auctions are drowning out the front page exposure that sales/port sales normally receive. Isn’t part of the $3.00 + 3% that we pay for promos that we get rotational promotion through the front page? It seems like everyone would be better served if the auctions existed in a separate section of the front page.
Has anyone else experienced problems today, for most of the afternoon, with the Inventory part of the site?
I for one am extremely excited for the auction option and was one of the few who “talked it up” in a post this summer. As a current eBay powerseller I can’t wait to move everything I sell/auction to COMC. Mostly it’s the for the ease of use but also as someone mentioned, eBay is only about the buyer. If you sell vintage on eBay I’m sure you’ve at some point had to deal with taking proper photos, having an accurate description, and NOT accepting returns per your description and eBay offering the option, then had that one buyer who demands a partial refund because they say the cards were a different condition than described, you refuse the partial refund only to have them file a complaint, eBay determine the buyer is always right, even though your auction pics show otherwise, yet still eBay automatically refunds the seller from your paypal account, the cards are returned to you beat up 5x worse than you sent them because the seller wants to make darn sure you can’t relist them, and you are out the money and the cards.
I’d like to have descriptions fixed, repaired, changed as well for cards in my inventory but if COMC as a business doesn’t keep up with driving buyers and sellers to the site they will lose revenue from processing fees, shipping income, cash out fees, advertising, shrink their EBIT, and there will be no site for any of us. Even though we are all the most important customer/super intelligent developer-programmer/greatest business mind in the history of the galaxy, I believe there was a tad more thought into this than Tim just saying “well we are almost done with our catalog, let’s put it on hold, piss everyone off, and start auctions (insert maniacal laugh). A business has to evolve and change daily, shoot, even hourly these days, to stay relevant with fresh ideas to keep me and you guys coming back for more. Yes I have had a few occasions I’ve been very frustrated here and wanted to take my ball and go home, but in the long run I can sit back and know I’m not the only person every change affects here, and that in the end COMC has always treated me right, solved any issues I’ve had, provided a great product, and changed for the better, to keep COMC profitable and operational (remember they are a business, not just a hobby). I say great job COMC for taking on a huge task this year with the catalog and basically redesigning your site and business, while being outgunned, under staffed, in litigation, complained to & about, probably extremely underpaid, to still standing up at the end of the year with new ideas and changes to keep business growing and flowing. Now hurry up and “do more, faster!” so we can list some auctions and get our accurate descriptions!!! Thanks guys!!!
Very we’ll said BigRed, I also was a power seller for many years on Ebay and just got tired of the seller getting screwed!! Since I sell from canada, every time someone from the US won a card of mine, I could not afford to ship using a tracking number(which ebay requires for the seller to have any chance of winning a dispute) because i would have to pay $10-15 per transaction to ship a card and Ebay buyers would never pay that for a 2–30 dollar card!! So I had to send all of my cards basic shipping, praying that the buyer wouldn’t screw me over lying that he never received my card or that it was damaged!! I lost count on the amount if refunds for 30 r 40 r 50 dollars!!! So when I found comc which has a Canadian location where I can ship my cards to, I hit the jackpot and have transferred all of my cards over to comc and have had great sale numbers and have loved every minute of it!! The only thing missing was auctions, one that they have solved that I am solo thrilled to have found comc and hope that many many more will follow us over from ebay!! Trust me… You will have so much less stress not having to deal with customers and shipping, comc does it all for me….I just cash out large amount of money and they promptly send me my money!! Thanks again comc, keep up the fantastic work!!
I suspect that people are moving too COMC and people are going back to ebay daily. its a revolving door with each change ,some liking the changes and some not liking it.
Keep up the good work. I would love to see auctions! Big Red said it best… So much better here than the other options. Haters gonna hate. I will say that I would like to see the cash out fee dropped to 10-15% to attract more sellers but I can understand why it is important to have money stay on the site to generate more sales. Really love this service, it seams like COMC actually cares about the hobby and collectors which is very refreshing.
Looking back on the past year, COMC has gone through literal hell dealing with the Beckett issue and improving the site to stay competitive. Some things tried along the way seemed the wrong way to go to me but the basic premise seemed the right way to go. I let my concerns be known with complaints and suggestions relying on 45+ years as a businessman. I also understood it would be very hard for anyone outside Tim’s circle of trusted employees to grasp what COMC was dealing with and how it affected the dream Tim had for this company.
Now, having said that, I believe Tim was and is aware of the complaints and also lived with and was burdened by the problems the buyers and sellers were having. He studied everything and did what he thought best for COMC to succeed in the end but was mindful of the issues facing the buyers and sellers. Now that the site is recovering and things are looking up for all those that hung in with COMC, I am persuaded COMC is on the way to becoming one of the best sites on the net for buyers and sellers of memorabilia. There will be more minor issues but now that the auction is about to go public the development team and Tim will have some much needed time to tweak any of those other issues.
As far as the 20% commission COMC charges…..that is the income that drives the site and pays the bills. A lower commission would be nice in the future but what Tim needs is for folks to buy from the site and have product leave the site and the sellers to cash out some money so the company can get in or stay in the black with the money produced from commissions. For money to stay on the site does COMC very little good in my opinion. The money from sales, hopefully, will be used to buy more product on but mostly off site for fresh product daily to be available to buyers looking for that certain item or items they need for their collections or their inventory. Finding the same items day after day would surely not attract new subscribers unless the items were “hot”.
One more thought – Moe and Norbert are surely the right persons for their particular jobs. Whoever interviewed and hired these two individuals has a keen eyesight and intuition. I am persuaded Moe and Norbert have been responsible for “keeping the peace” and diverting many from jumping ship. A new and prosperous new year is just around the corner for COMC and it’s clientele.
Ken – MrMint
Well said Ken!! This is gonna be a great year for collectors and sellers!! Thanks COMC!!
I have not had any dealings with Norbert, but yes, Moe is great. It is a nice change to a have a company that replies to your emails in a timely manner and actually has customer service, as opposed to ebays’ mantra of “ignorethecasutomeruntilshegoesaway.” Thanks Moe.
With millions and millions of users, e-Bay has not figured out how to keep everyone perfectly content. And sadly, like you say, their responses do little to calm frustrations. One of the good selling ponts about COMC is the benefit of seeing items with COMCs’ photo process. You are assured of better “look sees” and when you receive what you bought, COMC does the proper job in packing and getting it to you in good shape.
And do they only ignore the ladies on e-Bay Jane?? lol
i just dont want this site getting over flooded with auctions, I would limit 10 auctions per weeek/per user. just my opinion.
A sitewide limit would make more sense to me. I don’t care how many an individual seller is doing. But overall maybe 100/week or 20/day will give them the eyeballs the auctions need, at least until we know the cards are selling for SRP. Perhaps sellers could submit cards for auction and go into a queue. The top 20 every day at 3 pm in terms of SRP are the ones that get listed for a week.
It’s common to say to let people do what they want, at their peril. Artificially limiting the number of auctions increases the chance things sell for what they “should,” which also opens the door for advertising campaigns such as “this card sold for $9 on eBay but $23 on COMC; next time use COMC auctions!”
Over time, the number of auctions can be increased as the site shows it can support the volume.
And for those who think this a seller-centric strategy coming from a big seller, let’s just say I’ve won my share of auctions. (How could I not? So many sold for so little!)
I agree with you to some extent Joel, I think that they should limit the auctions to the rarity or value of the card!! A bunch of .50-$1.00 auctions seems kinda of a waste. Maybe they could have a premium card auction, where they pick high end cards for auction and then they advertise those cards for a week letting everyone know what cards will be going up for auction next, building anticipation for the cool cards coming up!! Maybe any card under 10 dollars they won’t do auctions for, or even over $50?? Just a thought, because I have some rare Peyton Manning cards, a Walter Payton auto that I would love to put up for auction, and getting the most exposure/eyes on that auction would make it sell for highest value possible. Of course I am primarily a seller on comc so I am biased towards higher selling prices, but you brought up a cool idea Joel. Whatever they decide I will be putting up some nice high end auctions, no matter what they sell for, I love the thrill of the auction!!
I know a way to limit auctions…Require that they be real and true auctions that start at .01 and you avoid having commons that start at .99.
Do the promotions run 2+ days more or 3+ days more. The promotions themselves indicate 2+ days. The banner page indicates 3+ days.
Interesting angle on the 20% cash out Ken and you probably are right. Here is my mentality. I will try my best to avoid cashing out with the 20% rake. If they made it 10% I would probably cash out every time I had more than $1000. The Blowout option is cool but I cant really take advantage since I live in Canada and shipping/customs would kill me. I am really left with no choice but to leave my money on the site. I am finding it hard to find enough things to buy as I am mostly into mid to high end basketball. If I am unable to recoup or use any of the cash I am generating for sales it is going to be awfully hard for me to keep adding new stuff. Right now I am basically building bank and using it to buy low end and pay for the mailbox service/stocking fees and the money is piling up with nowhere to go.
I don’t want to be misunderstood here. I love the site and think it is the future for sportscards and I am sure Tim and the team know what they are doing but I know the site would be getting a lot bigger, faster if commission was not so high. It is the main thing everyone on the boards complains about and it is starting to be a problem for me. Is COMC trying to corner the seller into having no choice but pay the rake? I certainly hope not and don’t get that feeling.
On the auction topic. I think it is a great idea and don’t see a problem with high volume. With the specific tagging of cards it is very easy to narrow down the search to exactly what one is looking for. I think the idea of starting everything at a selling price or lower is a good idea as there is no point in having an auction that has a starting bid at retail price. I don’t think the number of auctions needs to be limited just the starting price.
Just my 2 cents. Take it or leave it.
A positive bottom line is the key for any business to survive. Unless you have unlimited access to cash like out government seems to believe now. Not knowing the financial condition of COMC and/or Tim, it is hard to accurately predict the direction of COMC with it’s current business model. But reading “bk’s” thoughts, I am persuaded his buying/selling decisions are like many others on this site and very similar to mine at this moment. I don’t buy/sell cards for a living so it would be nice to cash out every once in awhile to purchase “steals” and put them on COMC for the fun of it and help, what I think is a great site, to succeed while generating some cash to share with seven grandchildren.
Having 50 employees, not knowing how many are full time, I would guess Tim’s payroll is above six figures yearly and there would probably have to be processed somewhere around 15k items per week to break even there (strictly guessing on my part). then there is the income from storage. It seems there are at least half the members that have very little to offer looking at figures that COMC provides. So the rest of us are the foundation for income that COMC will rely on to break even and realize profit and eventually be one of the big players in the memorabilia world. Add to the labor force, debt reduction, utilities, taxes, insurance, upkeep and repair, advertising, etc. etc. you see Tim has a difficult time realizing his dream. Unless, of course, he has very generous friends and relatives or forgiving bankers (tongue in cheek). My point is the 20% may be necessary at this time but as “ab” points out there may be much more cash flow if the “rake” were less as I stated in my previous blog statement.
Right on! Exactly what I think. If it has to be 20% that is the way it is. That is a lot of employees and expenses to pay.