Monthly Archives: October 2008

Does a BV under $1 mean anything?

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We have had several sellers point out that Beckett prices for cards worth less than a dollar are not very relevant when buying cards on the web. When I was chatting with someone at Beckett about this issue, they mentioned that eBay now forces people to start listings no lower than $0.99, and Beckett Marketplace also has a minimum price of $0.50.

We are seeing that either people want the card or they don’t. Whether you charge $0.05 or $0.50 for a card with a book value of $0.25 doesn’t really matter. It generally only sells to people that are interested in that card, and those people often don’t blink at paying full book or more for these cheap cards that they want.

So… What if we simply display “Under $1” for the book value when a card has a book value that is less than $1?

We would not display a discount percentage for these cards, and if you ask us to set your prices based on a percentage of book value we will assume that the book value is $1 for these cards. For example, if you send us a card with a book value of $0.30 and ask us to set your prices to 50% off, the card would be set to $0.50 and the discount percentage would be N/A.

Is this a good idea? Bad idea? Should we display “$1 or less” instead of “Under $1”? Should we use a number other than $1? Let us know what you think.

New record for first time seller

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Today we finished processing nearly 1,000 cards from olsonnet. This was his first consignment lot, and this was the first time we had a new seller give us a lot with a book value of more than $10,000 where the average book value was more than $20 per card.

His prices are pretty good too. Here is a $300 Alex Rodriguez numbered 4 of 10.
2007 Topps Sterling Stardom Relics Autographs Quad #SSA138 - Alex Rodriguez/10 - Courtesy of CheckOutMyCards.com
I don’t expect it to last too long at $100.

Here is a $150 Reggie Bush numberd 6 of 9. He is only asking $40.
2006 Topps Triple Threads Relic Gold #TTR29 - Reggie Bush/9 - Courtesy of CheckOutMyCards.com

In the first few hours his cards have been up for sale more than $1,000 book value worth of cards have sold.

Paying it forward

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It is always encouraging when you witness someone looking out for a stranger, especially when there is nothing in it for them. On Friday a very honest member of the COMC community noticed a mistake by another seller and did a noble act to help out that seller.

At 5:22 PM garymccoy accidentally set the asking price for the following $30 card to $1.50 instead of $15.00.
2007 Topps 52 Chrome Gold Refractors #14 - Alex Gordon/52 - Courtesy of CheckOutMyCards.com

At 6:00 PM our search results were updated so that people could start finding this card.

At 6:08 PM Tigers1984WS noticed that the card was marked 95% off book value, figured it must be a mistake, and purchased the card. He very quickly emailed us to let us know about the mistake so that the card could be transferred back to the original owner and set to the correct asking price.

As a special thanks to Tigers1984WS, we added an extra $1.50 store credit to his account. We are so thankful for having people with such integrity participate in this community.

On a side note… It is amazing how fast things can fly off the site if they have a low enough asking price. 8 minutes! Wow!

1 week left for listing 100 cards free

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This is a reminder that first time sellers have one more week to get their cards in the mail in order to redeem the following coupon. Packages must be postmarked by October 31st.

This promotion has been a wild success. More than 75 sellers have taken advantage of this special. It is a great way to get familiar with our service without having to pay anything up front.

Check out your business cards

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Over the last few weeks we have been creating some new marketing materials. One of our goals is to make it easy for each of you to help spread the word about COMC.com. Your voice carries much more weight than ours.

The whole reason behind the name of our website was that we wanted each of the sellers to tell people “check out my cards!” Now we are giving you a great tool for doing this.

These business cards are designed to look like a cut signature card where you have a blank to enter your user name.

2008 CheckOutMyCards Business Cards - Courtesy of CheckOutMyCards.com

The back of the card is modeled after a baseball card with some statistics about the website.
2008 CheckOutMyCards - Courtesy of CheckOutMyCards.com

We will be including a few of these in each order that we ship out. We will also bring them to card shows. You will be welcome to grab as many as you would like, and you can even order them from the website.

Best city to live and launch a company

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Score! Bellevue, WA topped the list of 100 best cities to live and launch a company compiled by Fortune Small Business on CNNMoney.com.

I live in Bellevue, and Check Out My Cards is literally on the border of Redmond and Bellevue. If we were across the street, we would be in Bellevue. That is a great picture of Lake Washington.

Seattle on Saturday & Vancouver next week

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On Saturday Jimmy and Steve will be at the Meridian Park School Show near Seattle.

From Friday, October 24th – Sunday, October 26th, Jimmy and I will be heading up to Vancouver for the Vancouver Sports Collectibles Show. This is “Western Canada’s Largest Show”.

Gordie Howe will be signing autographs on Saturday.
1971-72 O-Pee-Chee #262 - Gordie Howe Retires - Courtesy of CheckOutMyCards.com

Frank Mahovlich will be signing on Sunday.
1970-71 O-Pee-Chee #22 - Frank Mahovlich - Courtesy of CheckOutMyCards.com

Beet the holiday rush and avoid shipping fees by drop of any cards you would like to sell. We look forward to meeting you.

Growth in a down economy

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I have been amazed. In spite of the economy growing south, our site continues to grow at an blazing rate. Over the last two weeks our website revenue has been up 25% from last month, which was also a record setting month.

Now is a great time to sell mid-range cards. The average price of a card that sells from our site is $2. If you are sitting on a large quantity of cards in the $1 – $20 range and you want some extra cash, this might be the right time to start selling. We will even process your first 100 cards for free. Just print off this blog post or write “100 free” on a piece of paper and include it with the cards you send us this month.

Portland on Saturday & Vancouver next week

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On Saturday Jimmy and I will be at the Jantzen Beach Supercenter Show near Portland. Note that this show is Saturday October 11th only. Normally this is a two day show, but this month it is Saturday only.

From Friday, October 24th – Sunday, October 26th, Jimmy and I will be heading up to Vancouver for the Vancouver Sports Collectibles Show. This is “Western Canada’s Largest Show”.

Avoid shipping fees and drop of any cards you would like to have added to the site. We look forward to meeting you.