We have learned a lot from our first five years, and in a couple weeks we plan to launch a simplified fee structure. One of the primary goals is to make the site easier to understand as we begin to launch new services.
We announced last year that we purchased the domain COMC.com, and that we would eventually branch out into new markets (e.g. comics, coins, memorabilia etc.). One of the major concerns was that the fee structure could get extremely complicated if we didn’t make some fundamental changes. So here is our core strategy.
Simplified the Fees For Buyers
We have about 2,000 sellers and 40,000 buyers. Buyers outnumber sellers 20 to 1. The only fees that buyers need to be aware of are shipping fees. By simplifying our shipping fees, we can make the site easier for 95% of our users. To accomplish this goal, we will be integrating the per-item shipping & handling fee into the published asking price of an item.
Examples: A normal trading card where a seller is asking $0.75 would be listed for buyers at $1.00 and a graded card with an asking price of $24 would be listed for $25.
Simplified Shipping & Handling
All shipping services offered with one flat rate price regardless of the number of items shipped.
Standard: $2.99, 3-5 days to package + USPS First Class Mail
Rapid: $4.99, 1 day to package + USPS First Class Mail
Priority: $7.99, 1 day to package + USPS Priority Mail
Express: $29.99, packaged same day + USPS Express Mail
Local Pickup: FREE (Coming soon to a card shop near you. More details will be released over the coming year.)
Shipping Guarantee
We will package your order and hand it off to the USPS within the specified time frame or we will refund the shipping fee.
How does this shipping change affect purchased items that haven’t shipped yet?
We will track when the per-item S&H fees have been paid. This is like purchasing a forever stamp. Items that were purchased before these changes will still need to pay the per-item S&H fee. This may be a little confusing until these grandfathered items get cleared out of the system. We will try to make this understandable, but it will soon become a non-issue. The Manage Inventory and My Shipments pages will display the corresponding per-item S&H fee.
How does this shipping change affect sellers?
These changes will not require any effort from sellers. When we release this update, all published prices will be inflated by our per-item S&H fee. When sellers set asking prices we will make it easy to specify how much they want for an item or to specify how much they want the item listed for. If a seller is trying to relist (aka flip) an item which already has S&H paid, the asking price will be the same as the list price, and the seller will get the full list price upon sale because the per-item S&H was already paid.
Original owners that want to have some items returned will still have to pay some per-item S&H, but it will be reduced.
Simplified Fees for Sellers
- 3 simple processing services
One Month, One Week & One Day. See below for more details. No more Special Sized service. All services can have a mix of raw trading cards and other items. - $3 batch fee gone
Replaced with a simple minimum processing fee - Reduced storage fees
Starting September 1st we will offer free storage for all items for sale at $0.75 or less. This jumps up to $2.50 if you opt in to the $50/month account upgrade. This will reduce what we charge for storage fees by an average at least 30%. - Free premium options
Sellers will no longer have to pay for an account upgrade to set the minimum offer amount, minimum offer percentage, or auto-accept offer percentage. - No “fine print” fees
Everything is simplified into the processing fees listed below.
Simplified Processing Fees for Sellers
All the fine print is gone. This is all you need to know.
One Month Processing
$0.25 / Card for raw trading cards
$0.50 / Item for all other supported collectibles
$5.00 Minimum processing fee per submission
One Week Processing
$0.50 / Card for raw trading cards
$0.75 / Item for all other supported collectibles
$5.00 Minimum processing fee per submission
One Day Processing
$1.00 / Card for raw trading cards
$1.00 / Item for all other supported collectibles
$5.00 Minimum processing fee per submission
Condition Notes
$0.05 for “has flaws” or “vintage wear” condition notes
$0.25 for detailed condition notes or separate COAs
Processing Guarantee
If we don’t deposit your items into your account by 11:59 PM PST on the due date, we will discount the processing fees by 50%.
Raw Trading Cards
Raw trading cards are any trading cards that meet the following specifications
- Meets the “standard size” requirements
- They must be raw or in penny sleeves
- No toploaders or other hard cases
- No graded or encased cards
If trading cards do not meet these requirements, they will be treated as “all other supported collectibles”.
All Other Supported Collectibles
You can use our service for any of the following.
- Collectible trading cards that don’t meet the “raw trading cards” requirements
- Collectible poker chips (e.g. 2005-06 Topps NBA Collector Chips)
- Collectible coins (e.g. 1964 Topps Coins)
- Items on our Beta Test list that will be published in a week or so (e.g. Comics, Coins…)
Feedback Wanted Disclaimer
We want your feedback, but please keep in mind the big picture. Yes, some of the fees are going up slightly, and many are coming down significantly or are completely eliminated. As you analyze these fee changes, please keep in mind that we need all of the fees to work together to make sure the system is sustainable and simple.
For example, today the 4 week processing service costs $103 for 500 cards. This is currently the cheapest way to get cards on the site. Soon the cheapest way to get 500 cards listed will be $125, but we are also decreasing the average storage fees by 30% by allowing you to list cards at $0.75 or less for free and $2.50 or less for free if you pay the $50/month membership. It should also be noted that we are reducing the cost of listing 50 graded, encased or jumbo cards from more than $40 to only $25, and we are cutting the cost of next day processing in half.
We are really excited about expanding into so many new markets, and these fee simplification are a critical, strategic step towards our future offerings. You are invited to help us shape these services.
We will be charged an extra 25 cents per card come September 1 to sell a port?
So just to make sure I am clear on this , a card will only be subject to the shipping fee one time regardless of how many times it is re-listed on the site.
That’s how I read it. Kind of makes me think it is a cover charge to get into Club COMC. Once you’re in, no more fees. I hope the new storage fee rule will make it easier for everyone to charge 75 cents for commons. I sell way too many commons for 24 cents that I could be selling for 74 😉 (and yep, some buyers really do pay that much for commons).
We can make it possible for people to sell ports without having the buyer pay the per-item shipping.
I think in a port sale, that would be best especially due to some sellers massive inventory.
Good question— Can anybody explain how getting 10% of BV will equate to a flipper that has already paid the shipping for their items….
Bravo lowering the graded card fee. The $1 per card was the only thing holding me back from dropping eBay completely.
I’m a bit confused. Do you have to pay the additional shipping when you buy the card even if you aren’t getting it shipped?
What about the cash out fees ? WIll they still be high ?
I love the changes for buyers, but I’m a little concerned the per item shipping fees are going to take away any advantages to selling any cards under $2. It’s tough enough getting 25 cent offers on 50 cent cards because most buyers don’t understand that it cost a seller a minimum of 25 cents to list any card. Top that off with the fact that people will more aggressive with offers in attempt to “cover” the shipping fee and I think you guys loose all competitive advantage in that sector of the hobby. Lastly, does this change supersede the previous change to vintage card fees?
I don’t think we the sellers should pay the shipping rates…if so, let me choose as well how fast and which method of shipping we can use
Hi, Arcaiser. This update incorporates the previous condition note fee changes. $0.05 for “has flaws” or “vintage wear” condition notes, $0.25 for detailed condition notes or separate COAs. Thanks!
What about international rates? Also, how does this affect the Make an Offer feature? If a $0.75 card is changed to $1, and a seller has a 50% auto accept on, do we enter 50 cents or 38 cents? Also, I have 66 cards ready to ship which at the moment is $15.19 standard rate (also, I’m in Canada), so what is my new cost going to be? 2.99 + .25 x 66= $19.49? OUCH!! I’m confused.
We won’t tell buyers that the minimum offer percentage is anymore. Instead we will tell them what the minimum offer is. So the minimum offer on a $0.75 card listed at $1 would be $0.63 ($0.38 to the buyer + $0.25 per-item S&H).
Regarding shipping rates, the “Limited Time $3.99 + $0.20/card special” will be going away in two weeks. You should place your shipment request soon to take advantage of that.
Hate it! Now making ebay look like a better option. Read the posts, listen to your clientele, dont become ebay. You have come so far snd now to outrage and turn your supporters isnt a good thing. Proly delete this as they have previous posts. It will not prevent user frustration. 20% checkout way too high. One week listing way to high. If the shipping is charged on the same item multiple times and shipped once this kind of move could hurt especially if reported as fraud. No one has been willing to address the multiple shipping charges on the same item so hopefully you will. Love the site and functionality but will take all items to ebay as it becomes a better option. it will drive better items away I will now use 30 day and send lower valued items.
Hi, Larry. The only posts we delete are inflammatory ones – people calling eachother names or trying to incite hostility. We’ve never been afraid of people voicing strong opinions.
Shipping will be paid on any given item only one time. It’s like a “forever stamp” – if you buy a card that the shipping has already been paid on, you won’t have to pay it again.
Thanks,
Jeremy
Why was my post deleted Jeremy?
Nevermind, my post reappeared. must have been a glitch.
Tim, thank you for the heads up on the shipping rates. I will be cleared out of the site within the 2 weeks and hope I resist the urge to get drawn back in.
As a seller, I don’t really like the changes at all.
This makes selling and buying cards under $2.00 or commons almost impossible. I guess we should have seen this coming with all the past price changes leading up to this. I guess I am done selling on this site.
everybody needs to raise the prices higher whats going to happen
So prices are raised again if your a seller? Going up to 25 cents per card? Also the adding shipping to a card, So if a card is marked at full price it will show as an asking price higher to cover the shipping?
Big Picture? More money in the pockets of COMC and not for the sellers that are supplying the demand?
Sorry been a member for a few years, every year your fees go up and up? When is it time to stop before the suppliers start looking elsewhere? Also there has been talk about comics coins ect for years as well, I figured it will never happen but I’m fine with that as that stuff takes up more storage space than cards
Not trying to be a jerk, but I do more business on e-bay these days because fees are cheaper (wasn’t like that before) and I’m always seeing other sellers of yours there as well, and when I joined COMC I thought I would never use ebay again. Sorry but truth hurts sometimes.
I use to have close to 40K cards on here now I’m down to around 13k cause I can’t keep paying the raising storage fees and listing fees. That is also why I don’t attempt to send the inventory in to be in the top 10 as I defintly have the inventory to do so if I rich!
This is my issue with this as well. Even though paying $0.20 per card is rough on me, It still allows me to send in those lower priced cards to sell. But now at $0.25/card you are going to see a lot less lower end cards on this site which is going to make it harder for those who need to find those lower end items they need.
I’m already planning my next shipment of only GU and Autos. Not more inserts or rookies.
Agreed people will now begin to flee. Easier to keep business than win it back.
This is the best thing said from anyone. With COMC hiring people I guess the will soon be letting some go. Without all the buying even the ones for.25 you will lose buyers and buyers that buy less. Less shipping cards out means less people in the shipping department.
These new changes do not help the sellers in any way. Big deal about free storage, that only helps about the top 25 consigners on here. All changes appear to only benefit buyers and only hurt the sellers more, there will be less cards on the site due to sellers leaving.
I don’t see how adding the per item S&H fee into the listing price simplifies anything. It seems to me it would only complicate things. The per item S&H is to be covered by the buyer when the card is shipped. Why add that to the listing price? It should be paid by the buyer when the card/cards are shipped not before. Not to mention the need to track if/when per item S&H was paid. This only complicates the buying/selling process when offers are involved. Flat rate per card storage. Per card processing fee to add cards to site. S&H + per item S&H paid for by owner when cards are shipped. Premium membership option. Done.
First, when COMC adds $0.25 to a card for shipping, if we accept 50% off, it hurts. Say we have a $1 card, we accept 50% off, we no longer make money, because COMC gets $.25 for the list, and $.25 for the sale we get nothing.
What about a port sale, and a deal is accepted for 10%, are you adding $.25 per card? Even if we are a seller and plan to resell the cards? Every time the card changes hands you make an additional $.25?
I have been recommending your site to every person I talk to at shows, and people I try to buy inventory from, but it is becoming harder to do so, the bottom end of the inventory is now about to increase in cost quite a bit on the site.
So as I see it, for a card sold with a $4 BV I sell for $1, now sells for $1.25, if I accept 50% off, it sells for $.62, you get $.50 of that in fees on either end, and then another $.02 for your 20% on the back end when we cash out. For a $4 card, we list for $1 we end up with $.10, and the card likely costs us more than that.
Your site is quickly becoming unprofitable for the smaller cards, which should be your bread and butter. You need to consider a tiered structure that makes it worth selling these cards (less than $10BV) which are probabley the bulk of the sales.
Well said
I flip cards lately because the hassle of buying on other venues and shipping and waiting it was all fair… now I am seeing that I the flipper pay for a new item with .25cent fee, then I sell it for listed price, I haven’t seen anybdy getting more than 10%-15% of BV for a card– and lining them up to look like a PORT is difficult becasue I like $1-$10 cards, every $1 I am spending on a new card will have to be listed for .25 cents more to make a profit— I think you guys at COMC should rethink this .25 cent fee and charge the buyer at shipping point–
YOU WILL LOSE THIS COMPANY IF NOBODY LISTS THEIR CARDS___ NO MORE #d/1s and rare cards will be tuffer to find and then there is all the $$$ in processing that will be lost—Business Major and Graduated with well over 3.0– sounds fishy to charge shipping for something that is not being shipped— BBA will be contacted for charging a FEE for something I am not having done!!!!
Hi, mojo2005.
You may have already seen Tim’s responses above, but we’ll be adjusting the “make an offer” feature so that it still works to the benefit of the seller. The “minimum offer” will be adjusted to 50% of your asking price plus shipping, not 50% of the listed price.
Example: You list a card for $1. The customer on the site sees it for $1.25 (your $1 + the built-in shipping cost). They can make an offer of as low as $.75.
If you accept that offer you pocket $.50, which is half of your asking price. It’s still a 50% offer, and you aren’t asked to take a hit to cover any of the shipping. The remaining $0.25 covers the shipping cost of the card forever. (If the guy who bought it from you wants to flip it, shipping will never be charged on that card again. If he lists it for $1.25, it will display to buyers as $1.25, and they can make offers on it as low as $.63)
So for a card sold that you list for $1, it will sell for $1.25. If you accept 50% off, it sells for $0.75. and you get $0.50 (of which $0.25 was originally used to list the card if you’re the original owner). If you use that store credit as store credit, $0.25 is your profit. If you cash it out, we take 20% which is $0.05, leaving you with a profit of $0.20 on a card you sold for $0.50. If you only deal in $0.50 cards that’s pretty steep – 40% takeaway overall – but I don’t know offhand where else you can sell individual $0.50 cards and do as well.
If you sell your $1 for $1, your margin increases from 40% to 60% – $0.60 profit after cashout ($0.75 if you keep it as store credit).
Thanks,
Jeremy
Jermey how is this not confusing. Some Tim it applies sometimes it doesn’t. You just exchanged having agree cumstomers for angry sellers.
So Jeremy, what about counter offer on my $.75 bid? Seller counters with $.95. So that means I deduct 25 cents to find the seller wants $.70 for himself. That’s fair except you better have your calculator on screen or paper & pencil handy to do all this figgerin out, especially if you have 10-15 offers on the go or 10-15 cards in an offer to one dealer.
Didn’t have to worry bout that before. Heads startin to hurt now.
I think these changes will only favor the high volume sellers as the smaller volume sellers will either sell off their current inventory or move and sell it another way.
I think some serious re-consideration needs to be made regarding the increase in the processing fee for raw cards from .20 to .25 cents per card.
I feel it’s worth pointing out that under this price structure it would actually be less expensive than it is now for people to upload batches of 20-50 cards.
Jeremy
That would be lost shipping the items to you…
I find the addition of a partial shipping fee to the asking price of the card, a little odd, in addition to to the flat rate fee. I guess this makes sense if allows you to incorporate different shipping fees directly on to the item, whether it be a card or a coin (much heavier), but still have the same flat rate shipping. Someone could theoretically order a card and a silver dollar and pay just one flat rate, since the shipping charge is already built into the item?
Looking forward to sending some coins in, once that site is setup.
As a member on this site for over three years, I’m not sure how I feel about the new mentioned changes. I’ve really enjoyed buying/selling and flipping cards on this site. I have bought over 9,000 cards and sold 12,000. I have faith that Tim will continue to make this a viable site for buyers and sellers. I may have to sit back a bit and slow down my buying and sending cards in while I re-evaluate how to stay afloat as these new changes take place.
Flippers are not affected. They are not adding 25 cents every time the same card is purchased.
” If a seller is trying to relist (aka flip) an item which already has S&H paid, the asking price will be the same as the list price, and the seller will get the full list price upon sale because the per-item S&H was already paid.”
When I try to flip a low cost card, it will have an affect. An example is when I watch a baseball game, I like to log in and see if I have every player on the field in my inventory. If I don’t, I’ll purchase the cheapest card and relist if for a nickel more. I’m not doing it to profit, but a fun thing to do while watching a game. With the new fees, the 20 cent card will cost a 45 cents and will have less buyers at 50 cents than I would if I relisted for 25 cents. This fun type of flip will not be worth my time anymore which means I will look less often at higher price cards.
When flipping cards that I’m looking to make a profit of several dollars, the new fees will have little effect. However, that is not what drives me to the site.
This will kill flipping as it is now! I have flipped over 15k cards on this site and I would say most of the card I flipped cost me 8-25 cents and have had a BV of $1.25-$5. There is no way I will get as many cards at this price if some one had to pay a 25 processing fee and someone(or my self) has/will pay a 25 cent shipping fee. Also with the new storage fee set at .75 cents we will see a lot less cards in the 90%-95% office range. I am not saying if the new fees are good or bad I am just saying it will kill flipping as it is now.
This is terrible. If a buyer is not smart enough to add the .20 for shipping himself then I’m sorry. This is terrible for sellers and therefore terrible for buyers. I don’t understand how anyone can possibly like this idea. Please elaborate more on this change and why it is happening.
Tim,
I’m sad to say that I have submitted my last batch of cards to COMC :(. Such a shame since I was going to drop off a few thousand cards at the National. They are going on Ebay instead. I just don’t see how this is anything but a complete screw job for the seller. The pricing structure completely prices out low value commons. I suspect sooner rather than later, the free storage for sub .75 cards will become irrelevant because no such cards will exist in the community as sellers stop sending them in. For everything else, you are talking about a 20% increase in processing fees. In addition, we will have to absorb some price contraction due to buyers incurring a shipping charge. All in all, the margins in this business just can’t justify a model where the selling fees encompass such a large share of the sale price. I would encourage that you explore other pricing models, perhaps on a sell through basis. As always, I am free discuss this over the phone or through e-mail.
Plinvestments
I just shipped a bunch of cards to you guys Last Friday, I’m assuming these new price changes won’t take effect for me? Since, I definitely won’t be sending anymore in.
Obviously you guys are a business and you need to turn a profit, but people come here because they got fed up with absurd fees on eBay… Now this place is following eBay’s footsteps. Guaranteed price hikes every year with silly tiny minuscule positive changes. And then to say this is all to make things simplified and easier? Yeah, right… Just the opposite, how is this ANY easier? I’m fine with the increase in processing fees, but to add a shipping charge and then to charge it to the SELLER (this is basically charged to the seller since it effects his bottom line price of what he is willing to accept and increases the gap of what is a negotiable price between the buyer/seller)…. And then still an additional 20% cash out fee? Keep pushing your customers to increase your margins COMC, but soon you’ll end up like Netflix and the they will walk. Now the question has become what are people willing to pay to scan and list their own cards? Because that’s the only thing you have right now on eBay, and now with this restructuring it makes it not worth it to list low value cards due to an added “shipping fee” which will drive buyer away. Blahhh, I can go on but I know it won’t matter, you guys knew before making this that it wouldn’t be popular and you were expecting post like this one…. But seriously…. Learn from the mistakes of other companies.
So you are raising the fee to list a card from .20 to .25 and raising the cost to ship a card. On top of that, you are restructuring the way fees are assessed? I hate to say it, but this reminds me of Netflix.
It may just be me, but I think you should have probably got some opinions on this at the National before announcing it. I can understand raising the fees to list the cards, it is your way of telling everyone to slow down on sending in cards and be much more selective. But this is the second increase in shipping charges in four months…
I would assume that this will also put an end to any future shipping specials
very disappointed at the price increase as i felt the 20 per card was already very high. the math just doesnt work out for the seller on this site anymore, example, you pay 25 cents to list a card, sell it for 40 cents, if you cash out COMC keeps 20%..so how much do you actually make? just about zero. the only one it seems that is making money is COMC itself. they are getting too much like BEAY with all the fees that are tilted toward COMC making all the money and the seller not. im starting to see an EBAY type mentality here which is it isnt broke so we are going to fix it. again very disappointed as the new fee structure. Not trying to be negative, just trying to be very honest as fees continually go up here as COMC puts more of the sellers money in their own pocket. how do you increase the fees on an already high fee structure to begin with? EBAY got greedy with charging sellers more fees and ended up losing more sellers than gaining new ones.After being in this hobby for 30+ years I think it is going to be hard to “sell” this fee increase to current sellers and to “sell’ this new fee structure to new sellers.
My largest gripe is the flipping problem. I buy cards to flip. Some of them are long term investments and probably will not be realized for months. I do not want to hand over .25 per card to COMC for them to hold for months until I finally sell the item. If I buy 100 cards to flip, I’m handing over $25. If I buy baseball cards in December at low prices, I may not be able to sell again until March/April. Ultimately I will get that money back, but I am just granting them a No-Interest loan. It is really an unfair fee. I think in this case COMC needs to remember that most of their 2000 sellers are also buyers and we need to still be catered to as well. Do not abuse us in the manner that eBay has.
A suggestion: If I buy a card and then relist it/mark it “Not For Sale”, that fee should be waived. If I decide to ship, then I would pay the .25 fee. (This would be possible, seeing as how you will have to charge .25 to cards people have already bought before the changeover occurs and want to have shipped after the new fees go into place)
That being said, I really don’t have a problem with processing fees going to .25. It doesn’t bother me that much.
Hi, dlab85.
There’s definitely a lot of flippers on the site and we don’t want them to feel unwelcome or discouraged from flipping by our new fee structure. We’re looking into how to best implement a flipping option that essentially kicks the shipping fee down the road to the next buyer. Your suggestions are definitely appreciated.
Thanks!
Jeremy
Well thank you really. Don’t put 2 much thought in it. It’s suppose to be easy fee structure. Wouldn’t want u guys puting 2 much effort forward. Do u guys think things through before u release it. I’m lost just tell us what your doing so we can figure out what where doing thank you.
I’ve bought 40,000 + cards on this site and have never taken delivery of any of those cards. I re-sell them. It would now cost an extra $10,500+ to buy those cards with the new fees. Granted those cards could still sell – and I fully understand how the fees work. But it lessens the chance I’m going to invest in buying those cards – or as many cards – if I have to pony up an extra $10 grand. I use this site as more as a cheap way to invest and get a slow return. Not to build a collection.
The new fees would limit how much I would be willing to invest – as there are other traditional – non trading card related – investments out there that deliver a slow return.
The racket seems to be to collect a shipping fee upfront in the hopes that a card never gets shipped. Kinda like a ponsi scheme where you hope the redemptions never come in. If you really want to make things simple, why not just charge .25 a card to ship plus a flat fee when the buyer ACTUALLY requests the shipment?
Well I guess these new shipping fees take a seller like myself right off this site. Looks like I will have to find alternative means to sell my cards as COMC is becoming the new fee-bay. What once once a great site is now becoming just another card selling site that cares less and less about the people supplying them with their inventory. Unfortunately unless everyone stops sending in their cards to provide the inventory the fee increases will never stop happening. I will make my samll protest by not sending anyomore cards in to this once great site, and maybe even just have my entire inventory pulled. A shame having been with COMC for almost 4 years now. I think you need to re-think the fees.
So this incorporated shipping fee is really throwing me for a loop. So let’s say two sellers have the same card listed, one has changed hands already, and one is with the original seller. They both have the card listed for 1.50 as it appears to the buyer. The minimum offer on the card that has already changed hands could be .75 (1.5 X .50 = .75), and the minimum offer for the card with the original owner would be .88 (1.25 X .5 = .63 + .25 = .88). This scenario would give a advantage to the seller owning a card that had changed hands before, as it would look more desirable to the buyer, even if they aren’t making a full 50 % off offer, the seller with the lower minimum offer will look more negotiable. I understand you are trying to make the shipping costs look more desirable to the masses when they visit the site, and I have always understood that the .20 or .25 per additional card shipping was not to cover actual shipping costs, but the labor intensive process of pulling and packaging the cards. I would like it better if you advertised 2.99 flat shipping, and added the .25 per card as a handling fee for pulling the card from the massive inventory.
I really think most people understand that they are still getting a value in shipping versus buying from many different sellers on Ebay or Beckett Marketplace, and paying each seller their own shipping fee.
I don’t like the increased listing fees, but I understand why, this attempt to hide S & H fees in the purchase price just sounds like it will affect many aspects of what has made this site popular, such as auto accept, X% off sales, port sales, etc. I may be wrong on all this, and you may have a better explanation for how it will work when there are two cards for sale, one with the fee already paid, and one card with original seller.
Hi, darin2200.
Thanks for your thoughtful input. There’s a little more psychology at work behind your example here, which is: who paid that shipping fee for the card listed at $1.50? It’s likely that the current seller did. Let’s say for example the original seller had the card listed at $0.75 and so the flipper saw the card listed at $1 and made the minimum offer: $0.63 (.75/2 + .25) and the seller agreed. Now the flipper lists the card at $1.50 and if it sells he pockets the total $1.50. His profit is $0.87 ($1.50 – his $.63 investment). Not a bad deal. He can also be offered as low as $0.75 on this card, which is less than the second guy you mentioned – the guy selling a card for the first time who can only accept offers as low as $0.88 (1.25/2 + .25).
HOWEVER if the flipper takes this deal, his profit is only $0.12 because of his investment (.75 – .63). It makes much more sense practically for him to either increase the price of his flip or to not accept offers as low as he might otherwise be able. Since we’re giving everyone the ability to set minimum offer amounts and percentages without an account upgrade now, this will be simple for him to decide.
The decision to incorporate shipping costs into the listed price of cards is also one that trades heavily on the psychology of site experience. Right now people spend a lot of time filling their carts with seemly cheap cards and get a nasty shock when they go to check out and learn what allowed those card prices to be so low. Our CS team fields many calls per week from angry customers demanding to know why shipping cards costs more than the price of packing supplies and postage. This new structure inverts that negative experience. The cards appear more expensive on the front end, but people will now know exactly what their end cost will be as they go. No more last-minute disappointment.
I’d prefer that twenty people placed smaller orders and were happy than fifteen people placed orders and five walked away angry because they weren’t anticipating the real cost of shipping.
Thanks!
Jeremy
So because people r stupid the rest of us suffer. It pretty simple math.
If people do not understand the true cost of shipping it is your fault. All you need to do is SHOW everyone the process to get the cards shipped out. Not many people understand how their orders make it to them, the process of pulling 10-20 cards from an inventory of over 4 million cards.
Do not think for a second that this new idea will stop the complaints. Ebay has already proven that even with free shipping people still complained.
This is garbage. Come on man, if people are too dumb to realize that they will have to pay shipping then that is their fault. You are punishing the wrong people here. It is just a matter of time before you guys reverse this.
Jeremy, I am strictly a buyer and I have no problem what so ever with understanding and paying the current shipping fees. It is straight forward and simple.If you want to put it up from .20 cents per card to .25 cents per card for shipping I can live with that.
The new proposal of putting the shipping fee in the sellers price does not seem to be fair to the sellers for many of the reasons and concerns I have read. Collect the shipping fee from the buyer when he requests that the items be shipped. The backbone of this site is the sellers who pay all these hidden costs and fees and I do not think you are listening to their concerns. Myself all I want to do is add to my collection at the best possible price.
If you are concerned about complaints from customers regarding shipping costs then explain and market that aspect of your business better. You are making this sound as if the buyers need protection from themeselves and your solution is to increase their shipping costs and hide it in the price of the card.
Lets all stop kidding ourselves. You are trying to generate more revenue for your business and we are all trying to keep our individual costs both as buyers and sellers as low as possible.
This is the way it is nowadays. Stupid people are catered to while the people that can actually think have to suffer for their ignorance.
And with all of these examples, let’s stop with the minimum bids and percent offs. Coming down to the bottom line- if I am an original seller and I post a card to sell for $1, it will read $1.25. And a 2nd or 3rd owner lists the same card for $1.25, they are making more. I am being punished for actually putting the card in inventory first. Truly unacceptable. You charge shipping when something ships.
Hi, Robert (and others).
While at a very direct level it is totally the responsibility of the buyer to understand the shipping structure, that does not mean there is no merit in adjusting the structure. No business offers truly free shipping, and logically everyone knows that, but businesses which advertise “Free Shipping” and inflate the cost of their merchandise to cover it at the point of purchase show reliably superior market results.
A viable counterargument to this point I just made is that COMC may well be the only large-scale marketplace where people buy items with fully no intention to receive shipment. That’s a fact we’re not overlooking. There are intelligent people making good points on either side of this discussion.
Thanks,
Jeremy
Jeremy,
There is an allure to “Free Shipping” and yes everyone knows it is not truly free shipping. Yes, the price is inflated to cover the shipping fees. The problem is COMC is not offering free shipping. You are tacking on $.25 per card AND charging $2.99. After reading all these posts I do not think the issue is the $.25 fee for shipping, but rather that it is added to the price of the card from the start..
I realize you are getting complaints, but what business doesn’t get complaints. I think the complaints come because the shipping costs are not spelled out well. When I first started on COMC i read the shipping details because at the time I was just going to be a buyer. I understood them, but actually checked with a couple others who used COMC to make sure I truly understood the shipping. A buyer should not have to do that. Spell it out, use a flow chart, give examples. Make it as simple as possible for buyers. With the new rates it would be $2.99 per order plus $.25 for every card shipped. It is not that difficult!
OH MY, I have a degree in Education and I am guessing that most of the 40,000 buyers and 2000 sellers using COMC would be completely befoggled by this! Simplify…yeah right. C’mon guys, make money where money is due…your worse than the car dealership down the street… And PLEASE don’t ruin this site. Even now, after all the rate increases mentioned, you still have a great thing going! How about a truly new concept…why not ask us, the sellers, for once, what we think would work…? Do you know how many times in my 12 years on the Bay I have asked them to get a concensus through sellers before implementing a new policy or fee change… they don’t care! They’re too big to care anymore. Please remember who made you as big as you are today and don’t forsake them for that silly almighty dollar. We have been collecting for allot more years than COMC has been on this internet. About 150 plus years or so. Are you afraid we might come up with something that may work in everybody’s favor or are you more afraid of not getting your chance of becoming the next collector’s AIG…?
I don’t have tons of money to blow on boxes of cards with the big ticket cards in them. So I buy lots at garage sales and thrift shops for a small bit of cash. So this usually means my cards are 5.00 and below. Most of my cards on here are now under 1.00 due to the amount of the same cards on here. Sounds like I won’t be able to make any money on this site anymore? That’s disappointing.
So let’s do some math for a buyer purchasing 100, 50, 25 or 12 cards I get the following:
100 Cards – Current Bulk $18.50, Current Standard $21.99 and New proposed $25.49
50 Cards – Current Bulk $11.00, Current Standard $11.99 and New proposed $12.99
25 Cards – Current Bulk $7.25, Current Standard $6.99 and New proposed $6.74
12 Cards – Current Bulk $5.30, Current Standard $4.39 and New proposed $3.49
In a previous blog Jeremy from COMC indicated that the “Broadly speaking the average order on our site is for about a dozen cards and 80% of our orders are placed with the Standard shipping service.”
So…. if most of the purchasers are buying 30 or fewer cards and the changes proposed will actually reduce the shipping costs maybe the sellers should not be too upset?
One suggestion is that maybe COMC should show the components of the price; as an example for the $.75 card show $.75 plus shipping and handling $.25 total $1. What I like about this is that it shows the buyer the full cost which is fair but does not make it look like the seller is pricing above Beckett.
Your math is way off!
100 Cards new rates $27.99
50 Card new rates $15.49
25 Card new rates $9.24
12 Card new rates $5.99
As I stated above, shipping rates are going up AGAIN! And much worse than the previous rate jump, they are 26%-37% jumps over the LAST rate jump. At least the last rate jump saved some people a little money.
Thanks cardsrus1 and others; I was thinking the flat amount covered the first ten cards but from what has been outlined that would not appear to be the case. So for the average order size of 12 cards the total shipping goes from $4.39 to $5.99.
Coco, shipping fee doesn’t affect the seller it only helps COMC pocket getting fatter, what does affect the seller is the increased listing fees again, which in long term is gonna reduce the number of cards the sellers send in available for purchase.
COMC has a 2000 sellers that it continues to raise prices on instead of lowering them so more can be sent in, which in the long run would make more money for them off of shipping. Instead lets raise prices again on everybody that makes more sense.
Sorry but I think I’m done sending cards in if this sticks. I can list cards all day long for 0.05 cents in my ebay store. Oh and I make money too on my own set shipping fees.
Perfectly put and I’m with you.
Me to I’m not a heavy hitter on here but there r some like Reno, and rookies and jerseys and others that r not happy. I am in hope that all the heavy hitters will follow suit that’s the only way 2 change anything. So please do. I like the word boycott a lot.
I don’t think your math is correct. The whole idea of the incorporated Shipping in the asking price, is that the buyer will not be aware they are paying the .25, and when they go to ship, this is what they think is the case. Quote ” All shipping services offered with one flat rate price regardless of the number of items shipped.” So to the buyer, they are supposed to think that whether they buy 12, 30, 50 , or 100 standard cards it is 2.99 period. In my opinion most buyers will end up reading the blog posts, and reading the official rules for sellers and will find out about the hidden .25 and will just be confused again. Once again, I could be wrong.
Alright, as far as the new fees for selling goes, this is brilliant, I love it, and I’ve already got some comics and coins picked out just waiting for the instructions to send those in. I’m looking very forward to seeing what else besides coins and comics will be accepted.
Meanwhile, I guess I need to launch all I’ve got card-wise asap if I want any more listed at 20 cents each instead of 25 cents each, and afterwards adjust what I send in accordingly based on the extra 5 cents. No problem. No worries.
Here’s the part I do not quite grasp yet. Say some game-used card books at $12 and there isn’t one for sell on the site. I send it in. I price it at $12. Does that mean the customer will see it listed at $12.25? On a site where book value rules, won’t I probably want to price the card then at $11.75 so that the customer still sees it priced at just $12? By extrapolation, at any price point and at any percentage of book value, doesn’t that mean sellers are now paying the shipping costs, whereas buyers are just “chipping in” the extra flat rate? When I sold on Feebay I did free shipping on all my listings, and it sounds like I’ve just been instructed to do the same, here. If so, that’s fine by me. Just so long as it’s explained to me that the sellers are now being asked to subsidize the buyers by covering not only the cost of the logistics of shipping the product in, and the cost of the logistics of listing it in our port, but also the cost of the logistics of getting it to the buyers (minus the little bit of flat rate they’ll be “chipping in” when they’re ready to take delivery, of course)?
It’s late and I’m tired, so perhaps I’m interpreting this incorrectly. Please, someone, enlighten me and tell me that I’m not reading how I am about to sacrifice an extra 25 cents a card on the back end in addition to the higher fees on the front end. You know what? If that’s what is happening, I’m still all-in for COMC, I just want someone to tell me very clearly whether it’s raining on my leg. Thanks!
P.S. On another tangent, what “book value” will be used for comics, coins, etc., and will that book value be added to my total book value of my port, or will we have separate ports for each product line? Perhaps I’m jumping ahead by a couple of weeks (or months), but the answers to these questions would probably help me tremendously in figuring out what else to earmark to send in. Thanks again!
Hi, Affordablecards.
Thanks for your comment. We defintely are looking forward to moving into the testing phase for coins and comics, and we love that you’re as excited about it as we are.
As for your question, it is very much up to individual seller interpritation. Right now shipping a card costs $0.20. There’s nothing to stop a buyer from offering you your asking price minus that $0.20 – in effect, asking you to cover shipping. The only change to that in the new model is an additional choice for sellers on the front end. You can price the card based on what you want buyers to see, or you can price it based on what you want to earn. It is up to each seller to decide and we want people to be free to make whatever choice works for them.
Book value is certainly an important factor in “curb appeal” of a card, but the endless fields of items at 60, 70, and 80% off make it clear that BV is only part of the equation. At the end of the day, a card’s value is 100% subjective since unlike coins there is no intrinsic value. The market determines what the market will bear. Enough economics philosophy from me, though.
We’re working with a few sources to obtain BV for coins and comics. I imagine the ports will be kept separate, but we’re still just in the beginning stages of testing. Feedback will be key.
Thanks!
Jeremy
Hi, Jeremy!
Thanks very much for taking the time to address my questions. As far as the coins and comics go, I’m excited to learn more!
As for my question about the cards, your answer helps me understand, but what might have made the issue clearer for me is another answer you gave in which you pointed out the CS team is inundated with buyers complaining of sticker shock over shipping charges.
90sBasketBall is onto something when he says that one of the problems with this thread is that there are two separate discussions here: the one regarding the new seller fees structure and the one regarding the new shipping fees structure. I agree with 90sBasketBall that adding “plus 25c shipping” under each card, the same way we have already got that information added under over-sized cards now, for example, probably creates more transparency for the buyer than just bundling shipping into the price they see for the card.
As a seller, I love having options, which is your focus in your answer to my question. However, isn’t it more important that buyers have options? This is why I find what Rookies&Jerseys wrote so appealing. Let’s charge shipping to buyers when the buyers actually have their items *shipped*.
After all, if we flip a card here, the item number of the card doesn’t change, and as I understand it, nobody goes and lays hands on the card and moves it from point a to point b. It’s only when someone wants to take delivery of an item that the item gets pulled from the warehouse and shipped to the buyer. So let’s just make is as clear up front as possible that when a customer wants an item shipped to them, they will pay a per item fee for it to be pulled and shipped.
This is quite a balancing act for team COMC, I’m certain, and I do not envy you guys one bit on handling this issue, but I do have faith you will find what works. Thanks very much for your patience with us!
I have to agree with Phil on this one. The easiest solution would be to list the shipping charges with each and every item, not just the odd sized cards. Never hide or assume everyone understands the true shipping and handling cost.
And once again, show everyone what you have to go through to get an order pulled. I cannot stress that point enough!
Affordablecards, cardsrus1, thanks for the responses. You’re not far off when you describe it as a balancing act, but it’s a good problem to be tackling. It’s awesome to have so many people passionate about the site.
Do keep in mind that we all had a passion for Ebay at one time… Then they went crazy with the fees and policy’s favoring buyers only and trying to force every seller to offer free shipping. I hate to admit it but you guys just turned down that same road with the new shipping policy. Do you really want to be known as COMFee or Checkoutmyfees?
Jeremy…
Phil (Affordable) makes a very valid point with regards to the additional $0.25 being assessed to each new card. Why should that be reflected in the price? Are you not jsut complicating matters on your end? You are in essence penalizing any seller adding NEW cards to the site. That I just don’t understand
I’ve purchased several cards for shipment from your site. Is the s&h a bit of sticker shock when checking out, yes it can be. But because of my buying and selling experience on eBay, I realize that what I’m paying you to ship my cards is nothing. Maybe that’s what you need to do. Show people in the listing that there is a $0.25 per card shipping fee being assessed but also at checkout, show them what they “could have” paid on “other” sites. On eBay, the average s&h fee on a single card is $3.00. If I buy 25 cards on eBay from 25 different people, that’s $75 is s&h. On COMC, it’s $9.24 (25 * .25 per + $2.99 s&h fee). That’s a huge savings for the buyer.
Regardless of how you spin the adding of $0.25 to each cards listing price, it still penalizes the seller… If you do move forward as outlined, you’re in essence doing the same thing eBay did, play favorites with the buyer and penalize the seller. There’s a way to satisfy both without penalizing either. As Affordable (and another seller) noted, show the $0.25 to the buyer on the screen as a seperate fee instead of automatically adding it to the cost of the card. For example… card books for $5, it’s for sale at $1.50. Don’t show the price at $1.75 but instead show it at $1.50 PLUS $0.25 shipping fee. You currently have a “cart total” at the top of the page, why not tweak that to show the cart total plus another “shipping fees” total. That way there is not confusion at the time of checkout or “sticker shock” as you point out. Could you not list each card out at the time of checkout to show the actual purchase price, the $0.25 per card shipping fee and then the $ amount from the $2.99 (or whatever standard fee option they choose) to show the buyer the net cost to shipping that card??
eBay chased me almost 100% away this past year. After running close to 1,000 auctions per month and developing a large following, I was forced to consider other alternatives. That’s why I was excited to find COMC (thanks to Phil at Affordable). I just ship the cards, wait for you to do the rest and then price them. DONE. I’ll gladly pay an extra $0.05 per card for processing. That doesn’t bother me, it’s simply a cost of doing business. What I do have a problem with is the additional $0.25 per card being added to the price. Break it down and list it as a seperate fee to the buyer, do not include it in the price. The problem isn’t really with what you’re doing, it’s how it’s being presented.
My time at shows this past year have been spent trying to find stuff for COMC. I’m fearful that if you move forward as you’ve outlined, I won’t be sending very many cards into the site anymore…
Bill
BMCards_STL
Have to agree that this is starting to feel a bit how ebay was and why I closed my store over there. It seemed like every few months both the pricing structure changed and the fees went up.
First of all this business about including the shipping or not including the shipping is just a bad idea. I base my pricing on trying to be pretty much the lowest price on site, now I have to figure out whether or not each other card includes the shipping or not with its listing. This doesn’t just apply to initial pricing, but trying to figure out what it means to all of those 50% offers that come in and deciding whether to accept or where to counter-offer, not knowing what is included in the other listed cards is just bad. Getting people to pay for shipping even when they aren’t shipping at that time, really?
Second, raising the listing fees again, smacks of ebay. When I started on COMC, it was possible to list 500 cards for $75, then it was $100 and now its $125. All of this in about 18 months. When I first discovered this site, I felt the charge was fair because there is a process involved in scanning and listing and I was willing to pay for that especially since ebay had gotten more complicated and expensive. Well, since I joined this site, it has become more complicated and more expensive. In the meantime, ebay has lowered their fees and become less complicated.
It seems the goal here for COMC is to get people to stop sending cards that will list for $1 or less. As people have pointed out, if you are only going to list for $1, the most you can net is $.55 anyway, but now you might have to be another quarter lower because of shipping included/not included, plus there will be a bunch of cards now lowered to $.75 to get the monthly fees waived so it really is a losing battle.
Until now, it has been an easy decision where to list, just send everything here. Now I am definitely going to have to think about where I list if this goes through.
This plan gives COMC more of a corporate feel and sort of takes some of the joy out of trading cards which is what I previously had enjoyed about the site.
I love the changes. I use the next day service quite a bit ,so the $1.00 processing fee is great. This also could help getting higher dollar items on the site. I think most people don’t want to send in 100 $50-500 cards and wait a month for them to be listed. Another thing that may be holding the higher end items from showing up is the 20% off the top of a $1000 sale. I’ve sold an item in less than a hour after it was listed for $1000…it stings a little bit knowing that cost me $200+ ,but I live with it. It would be nice if the fees could be lowered on those kind of transaction ,but that’s whole different discussion. I think people are just going to have to be a little more selective sending in their items and I’m sure COMC will tweak a few things as we get adjusted to it. I’ve read it quite a few times now and seems pretty cutt and dry. Let’s not forget how much goes into what they do to get our cards up in a timely imagine. I’m still not sure how they do it cost effictively. I don’t see it changing the way I do business on here.
That’s why my Rodgers 2005 SP Authentic rc/99 hasn’t surfaced on here and likely never will unless COMC works with me on it..
Hi Maximoose, hi dirty. We actually totally agree that 20% is steep for high end stuff. We’ve got something in the works for those types of items which will hopefully be an appealing option. Implementation timeline is always adjusting, but I imagine we’ll start to test the service within the next couple quarters.
Thanks!
U remind me off the kid on the credit card commercial. They ask him or her if they want more cash and they throw stuff at jimmy Fallon. U don’t like more cash.
WOW …..this would be under “BUYER BEWARE” ….this per card shipping cost is not right. Some type of flat rate per amount of cards ….bubble envelope size, box size,etc., exact postage than a handling fee, say$2 for example. Sure you’re reducing different rates …..but…..you came up with a brainstorm of a great site …..now fees are going to kill it.
I’m a little guy here who likes to flip and make a couple of bucks, why not just simply send me an email and tell me to go else where with the $2 and under cards and that you want to get out lower end cards.
I don’t see where it’s hurting the lower end cards unless your loading your port with cards that don’t have a return after the fees. Not much has changed unless I’m reading it wrong. The weekly fees will have to change my game plan a little for lower end stuff. They did come up with a great idea for a site ,but without fees it would still just be an idea.
There have been fees from the beginning. No one has argued that there should not be fees. What we are arguing is greed. That is the #1 killer of a successful business. Continuously changing things until you have completely gotten away from what made you successful. I think everyone is really underestimating how much of this site is powered by the lower to mid end cards. These are the cards that are going to be hit the hardest. $.25 is not much on a $100 card. $.25 is everything on a $.50 card. I enjoy dealing with lower end cards a whole lot, because that is where you can make 300% profits. You can’t do that on a Jeter autograph. If you do not think this will hurt lower end cards you have blinders on and are refusing to see the writing on the walls.
Sigh…..when will sites learn. This has happened so many times through the course of the internet. A new company is a huge hit and is growing beyond belief. In order to “prepare for future growth” they change the way things are done. Next thing you know the site has no users. I realize that these changes are well thought out and on the surface do not seem to be that big of a deal individually. But when you add it all up and look at the ripple effect that it is going to cause I believe you are making a huge mistake. Your users are what make this site. It doesn’t take a MBA to read through these comments and see that you are about to make a change that isn’t going to sit well. Stick with what got you here and continue to enjoy success and growth. I am waiting for more comments from the staff before I decide if I may be abandoning ship as well. Such a shame. Write it down, this could be the beginning of the end.
With the new fees and such I am also leaning towards bringing my talents to eBay. Sure the fees there are high too but if I am constantly paying fees out the wazoo on COMC why bother sending in cards ?
So how long do I have to send in cards while I could still take advantage of the current processing rates? I had boxes and boxes sitting around waiting for the next processing special which is apparently never going to happen…and with some of these changes, I’m gonna have to pull some stuff and sell it on my own..
If you’ve been waiting for a processing special, I have good news about the week of the National. We realize not everyone gets to go, so we’re going to open this year’s special up to everyone. =)
Is there a timetable for being able to list memorabilia items?
There isn’t a hard date yet, but it’s getting more exact. Please keep checking the blog, we’ll be very vocal about new service offerings and beta tests. Thanks!
I don’t feel that adding the shipping cost to the asking price is simplifying anything. The conversion will be a nightmare for sellers and you may be seriously hurting the concept of flipping of lower value cards. As a seller, I would appreciate an opportunity to have all my cards shipped back to me for some reasonable flat amount due to this change. I have no problem with your other changes or your effort to simplify or expand your business. But the adding of shipping onto the selling price will hurt most sellers for several reasons. I would like a fair option to leave the site.
It’s stupid…the guys at COMC should be smarter than that
So for the new storage fees will the price cut-off be based on the ask price including the $.25 shipping or will it be based on what the seller has as the price. egs. I have a card which I have at $.75 but which will have $.25 added to it making it $1.00 for the buyer; does this card get charged the storage fee?
Hi, cocoscards. In your example if you have a card listed at $0.75, a random buyer browsing the site will see it priced at $1.00. If they buy it, you get paid the $0.75 you asked for it. Since you were only asking $0.75, the card is not subject to storage fees.
Thanks!
As I see it, the proposed “combo price per card” (seller’s set price + $0.25 shipping = buyer’s cost) concept is that COMC gets $0.20 per card processing + $0.25 per card s/h.
Quite simply, this equates to $0.45 for EACH card. Ouch!
Reminiscent of a lump sum interest free loan advanced to COMC. The obligation is paid off in quarters ($0.25) over time by buyers. Not quite a ponzi, but close…
Actually here’s an easy solution…let sellers price cards the way they are..
WHEN the buyer purchases card, then add the .25 at checkout..rather than making the seller mess around with it
I know you guys are out to make money, but don’t do it at the expense of forcing sellers to jerk around with their prices..
Sounds almost too easy…where do I send my resume?
I’m going to comment once here instead of doing it for every post like this. The staff is definitely seeing this suggestion and are reviewing it for its merits. As we have demonstrated in the past (for example, the “damaged” vs. “has flaws” debate), we take our users’ opinions very seriously and often implement them into our final policies. You can rest assured this will be no different.
My main thoughts and feedback on the changes:
1.) In no way does this make anything easier, in fact it seems more confusing than the current rates. Based on this fact, I don’t really like being told this is to simplify things when it clearly looks to me like it’s just to increase revenue for the site. I have no problem with this if it’s needed to keep this great site going and sustain the growth it has incurred. However I think the changes are negatively effecting the bread and butter of the site and those who are supplying all the inventory. I think drastic changes of what is being sent in will occur (I have about 2,000 ready to send) which will probably reduced in half by the fees increases (the increase of $.05 per card and my thoughts on how things will go when you have to add $.25 to each listed price for it to sell). Again, maybe this is what the site wants (less cards being sent in) but in my mind 2,000 cards at $.20 is better for COMC than me sending in 1,000 at $.25.
2.) As I mentioned above, the increase from $.20 to $.25 is a drastic change, even at only $.05. This will affect a lot of the sellers on here and I believe to the point where they will no longer contribute to the site. I am guessing also that the sellers also buy a lot more than anyone else on the site (both for flipping and sending home) so losing sellers hurts across the board. If you can’t handle the cards with current overhead and capacity, fine, but let us know that is the reason for the fee increase and it might go over in my mind a little better. In addition, the decrease in storage fees in no way offsets this for most sellers on here (granted there are a few it will probably help). I really think you need to reconsider this, I think in the long run it will negatively effect COMC.
3.) The built in shipping cost in no way simplifies things in any fashion. I know it’s framed up as making things simpler on buyers, but again, I think it will negatively effect sales for buyers and sellers. For lower value cards, buyers will look at the sticker price (with the $.25 added in) and shy away immediately, rather than taking it to the point of checking out. For higher dollar cards it doesn’t matter. If COMC can make more revenue from this fee structure, I think it’s must simpler if you just go back to closer to how it is now and say its $2.99 per order and $.25 per card (that is pretty simple in my mind). This will also not require any changes to help with cards moving hands multiple times on the site, flipping and port sales. I think adding in the shipping with negatively effect sales (hurts sellers and the site when COMC has to store these lower value cards for free).
4.) These changes all look like they are geared to generate more revenue and recieve less cards in. This site was built around cards and I don’t think changes like this should be made so that you can handle bringing in other types of items (comics/coins/etc.). There may be a market for sending those items in, but these changes will hurt what built the site.
That’s just my 2 cents. I really think these changes need to be reconsidered. If fee increases need to take place to sustain the site, fine, but I think you need to figure out a way where it won’t as drastically affect the bread and butter of the site.
COMC Seller/Buyer
Just wanted to say I appreciate your well-thought-out feedback. Thanks for being a part of this.
Jeremy
So it really went up 5 cents to scan a card and host a picture on your web-site an store a card? No it didn’t, Feebay Junior is what you have become. I guess the write-up in Beckett cost a lot of money. I was telling my friends this was the place to sell. Now I guess its eBay store time again.
Bad move guys . I have talked this site up for the past few yrs . Now with the new fee’s i’m thinking i’m done as well. your changing the storage fee great but upping the processing fee and the batch fee . So i’m already losing another 24.00 overall to start . Then your adding shipping onto the card so another charge on us as well. Please don’t change the fee’s like that.
I think there are two separate discussions here.
One is the amount of the fees. I can’t say whether increasing the fees is a good idea or not. You will get less traffic, but make more money per card exchanged. I assume you are in a better position than we are to evaluate the global economy of the site.
The second major change is trying to include part of the shipping cost into the prices. This would seem to create a pretty big headache when it comes to things like offers, flipping, port sales, etc. These have all been fundamental to the site’s growth. If the only benefit is transparency to the buyer, why not just add “(+.25 shipping)” underneath all the prices and leave the pricing system the same?
It seems as if you recognized it yourselves that there are 20:1 as many buyers as sellers. This certainly would not be the best way to improve that ratio. I had just sent in my first batch of cards to be put up on the site and was excited to send in more. Not sure it is becoming worth it after these fees.
Why are you guys making things so complicated? Your headline is “simplified fee structure”, it should just read, “fee hike for sellers and buyers.” I got three 500ct boxes waiting to ship to you but I think I am going to hold off. Honestly, lately sales have been super slow on COMC. I have things priced very cheap and accept most offers. Guess I will take all my stuff off and go back to ebay, at least it moves there.
I don’t like that they didn’t answer one of the first questions which is what happens if someone buys a card and then relists it? Are they going to be collecting that $.25 shipping cost every time it is purchased regardless of it gets shipped? I’m not sure if they haven’t thought of this or if they were hoping we wouldn’t. They are set to make some healthy profits if they essentially make $.25 for every card being sold regardless of if it actually gets pulled from inventory.
They answered that question. It’s a one time deal. It just gets absorbed.
Thanks, Maximoose, you’re right. Once the shipping cost is paid one time, a flip will switch on the card and it will be registered as having shipping paid for it for as long as it remains on the site.
Jeremy
So will cards already on the site be given a free forever stamp
Lets say you were to send in 100, $1 cards to get listed on COMC. It’s fair to assume that a seller may be able to pick up a lot like this on eBay for around $50 to try to resell on COMC, this is incredibly common and how a lot of people on COMC “make it”. However, with this new price hike it makes it pointless to stay.
cost of shipping to COMC= $10
processing fee = $25
hidden shipping fees that the seller will eat if he doesn’t raise his prices= $25
cashout fee= $20
total in fees= $80
total in cash= $20
total percentage of fees= 80%
my math is correct on this, right?
Hi, whoameye55.
Your example can play out one of two ways.
1) The seller eats the cost of shipping for the buyer
2) The seller doesn’t.
Either way is valid – I’m not denigrating either. Some people will sell one way, some the other, and some may mix it up on a case-by-case basis (which is what happens now already with the “Make an Offer” feature – some sellers accept, some don’t).
100 cards, priced at $1, if all of them sell for asking price:
WAY 1)
cost of shipping to COMC= $10
processing fee = $25
Profit on cards = $75 (cards listed at $0.75 to eat the shipping cost)
cashout fee= $15
total in fees= $50
total in cash= $25
total percentage of fees= 66%
total percentage in fees if you use profit as store credit= 47%
WAY 2)
cost of shipping to COMC= $10
processing fee = $25
Profit on cards = $100 (cards listed at $1.00, passing on the shipping cost)
cashout fee= $20
total in fees= $55
total in cash= $45
total percentage of fees= 55%
total percentage in fees if you use profit as store credit= 35%
RIGHT NOW)
cost of shipping to COMC= $10
processing fee = $23 (.20/card + $3 batch fee)
Profit on cards = $100 (cards listed at $1.00, passing on the shipping cost)
cashout fee= $20
total in fees= $53
total in cash= $47
total percentage of fees= 53%
total percentage in fees if you use profit as store credit= 33%
I think it’s cool that people can make the site work for them selling cards at $1 and below – our target zone from the beginning has been $1 to $100 items. Our hope is that for the sellers of items at $1 and below the fee increase will balance out with the relaxing of storage fees. Right now we’ve got about 200,000 cards priced at $0.25 or below, which makes up about 14% of our inventory. A large number of those cards would be priced higher except for the free storage cap.
Thanks very much,
Jeremy
Jeremy,
I fit into your target zone and will leave under the new structure. I have mostly gu and autos on the site with avg book price 8.27. My avg sale price is $2.71. After fees, ebay is just a better option for sellers that have my type of product.
Where will buyers get the additional discretionary funds to buy similar quantities at $1/card vs. $0.75/card?
I believe the number of purchases will reduce exponentially as prices go upward.
It can be argued your proposal “simplifies” pricing. However, the result is a increase for buyers AND sellers — no matter how it’s presented.
Never assume customers won’t recognize negative pricing strategies.
I think a lot of sentiments have been voiced here already, but one thing not really covered by others is how much this rips the guts out of flipping cards on the site, both as someone who buys cards to flip and lowers cards into the range where I know others will probably want to pick the card up and flip it. As far as I’m concerned core functionality of the site is lost here, as there’s suddenly a per-card entry fee for doing this, severely limiting how often this would be useful, in large part because it’ll suddenly become rather cost-inefficient to do it with much regularity.
An idea to keep this intact would be to give flippers the option to purchase the card without paying the S&H fee up front, basically just letting that fee remain unpaid until someone seriously interested in having it shipped to them wants it that badly. You could make this a feature in the options setting, where users can either call themselves buyers or sellers, with the boldfaced caveat that if they’re a seller then they’ll need to be paying the fees when the shipment request is initiated. I haven’t and won’t ever have a problem paying a small fee for every card I want shipped to me, that’s a part of the game and it doesn’t take a stellar imagination to see the necessity of that from COMC’s perspective, but I don’t really see the logic in expecting users to pay a fee for a service they have no intention of using.
I do understand the necessity to cater to buyers with this feature, and the desire to make costs more transparent to them, but I don’t think it’s advantageous to undermine the possibility to flip cards on the site entirely. At the end of the day, flipping keeps prices higher, prevents cards from bottoming out completely, and helps sellers manage their inventories more efficiently. I think this is a necessary factor in the general economy of the site, and would render the site much more difficult for sellers to use effectively without it.
I second that post. Hate it. Ebay philosophy of screw the seller here. Time to go back
I’m not seeing how this effects flipping? It’s a one time deal. Basically they are collecting up front instead of when they item eventually shops.
shops = *ships
Why though? Why are the sellers paying the shipping for the buyers? So many people came here to sell because eBay was showing WAAAAAAAAY too much favoritism to the buyers…. sure the buyers are what make it happen, but if you lose the sellers then the buyers will have nothing to purchase. I’ve already seen the effects of this on eBay which has been on the decline for cards. Viva la Card Show Revolution!
You need to consider that the majority of cards that are flipped are cards roughly in the $0.10-$1.00 range, so a $0.25 fee on top of what they’re already paying for the card suddenly makes it a less appealing investment, as it’s a flat loss they need to recoup in addition to the base price they’ve paid for the card. While the argument is that, yeah, it’s just a quarter, that’s a pretty heavy deterrent when you’re dealing with card prices that low already, and I just don’t see it as being good for the overall health of the site’s economy to inject such deterrents into an otherwise useful system.
I wouldn’t bother trying to argue this issue if this fee was in place for some service being intrinsically utilized by the flipper, but in this case it truly isn’t, it’s there as a way of conveying prices more effectively to the user that buys and ships, but the flipper is now forced to shoulder the burden for it. It’s an unnecessary barrier of entry for a system that has effectively kept prices normalized and allowed sellers to more effectively use the site.
Hi, Hundley. dlab85 and some other commenters have touched on the same idea which I think is a good one. We absolutely don’t want to discourage flipping, it’s a part of the hobby that’s been around from the beginning and is something our site does better than any other I think. Whatever the final implementation, I am confident that flippers won’t feel cheated or unwelcome.
Thanks!
Jeremy
But we do
Awful changes. Simplifying? Quite the opposite. All these fees you are collecting, and yet we still see virtually no advertising money spent to get new buyers. Sure you have 40,000 or whatever number you claim, but let’s be honest – those are merely accounts. Not active buyers.
Hello, William.
We’ve been holding off on heavy advertising ever since we knew we were going to change over to COMC.com (though we’ve still done some) – we didn’t want to waste a lot of money getting the name checkoutmycards.com on everyone’s radar just to change it. Now that we’re in the final stages of the change we’ve already inked a deal to advertise in each issue of each of Beckett’s different sports publications for the next year. That’s a good start, and there will be more to come.
Thanks,
Jeremy
So the way this reads to me is that these ” restructured fees” will now cost 20% more to list a batch of 1000 cards and the flat $5 batch fee is almost double the $3 batch fee. So a batch that previously would have cost $360 to post will now cost $505. OUCH! Quite the gouging! also interested in the avoidance of the question of… If I purchase an item and list it for sale will I be charged shipping and? Will the the buyer also pay the extra shipping charge? If they do shouldnt I receive the full price for my item or are you now charging .25 plus an additional listing fee? Becoming more expensive for the card guys if this is to cover costs for item expansion. At the new rates its cheaper to drop off all items at the local sell it on ebay store. The number one response that I get while pumpin the site is outlandish fees. Does this mean that checkout fees will now be reduced to cover the increase in listing?
Hi, Larry. Just to clarify, there will not be a $5 batch fee – there will be NO batch fee – just a $5 minimum.
I’m sorry you felt like your quesiton hadn’t been answered. Tim addressed it to one of the earlier comments and I had hoped that you’d seen it. Just like now, you’ll be able to price your card at whatever you like. If you list a card and tell us you want $5 for it, that’s what you’ll get when it sells. The buyer is responsible for shipping, just like they are today. If you want to lower the price of your item to absorb the shipping cost for the buyer, you’re free to – just like you are today. Once shipping has been paid on a card one time, it will never be charged on that one card again for as long as the card remains on the site.
Thanks,
Jeremy
Thanks for the response Jeremy. Very vocal audience against this. Seems to me like an attempt to slow things down in house. Hope you all hear these complaints and rethink this I profit on average around .15 per item on the site after purchasing, shipping it out, listing fees and cashout. The hike effectively makes this a much less viable option for me to use as a liquidation tool. If it were a bulk of my business I would be much more vocal but it is a small part of what I do. Good luck and I hope this works as well as comc hopes it will. I can say it appears very aggresive business wise and haste makes waste. When will all of this go into effect I have a batch ready to ship and am holding off to be sure its my best option
Hi, Larry. We’re currently planning to implement the update at the beginning of August (when we’ll also be running a pretty amazing processing special).
I wouldn’t necessaily characterize it as an attempt to slow things down, though that may be a collateral effect. Our main two goals are to make our fee structure more realistic for our ongoing growth, and to develop a structure that’s easy to understand and apply across a broad variety of consignment merchandise. As Tim mentioned, we didn’t want a different fee structure for coins, for comics, for memoribilia, for stamps, etc. We wanted to design one all-encomapssing “Processing Fee” without a bunch of little details, so that anyone could judge the merit of it easily and decide if it works for them.
So I can send all of my comics in any condition? If I send a massive amount of comic comc is going to go through every one and inspect for tears, pages missing, ink marks, water stains and so on? For .50 ea.?? In one week? Awesome so 5000 comics comin your way August 1st! I just figure since it isnt really about the cards that is when comic and memorabilia submissions will begin. I will also be sending in a jordan ball that is from a vegas convention not uda and a Walter Payton helmet that isnt steiner, mounted memories, or WPA. Maybe comc really stands for CHECK OUT MY CHARGES .COM
I would think they’d just say the comic “has flaws.” I for one will be buying lots of Archies if people send them in and price them at a rate comparable to eBay’s.
Avoiding the cashout fee (mine is 0% because I’ve reinvested the $87,000 in sales I’ve had here in sending more cards into the site as well as buying cards to flip — just saying) will be that much easier when you can sell your cards and then buy other people’s coins, comics, records, BBCM with Kevin Seitzer on the cover, etc. I’m not saying these changes are the best thing since sliced bread, but a lot of the value proposition is being completely overlooked.
Autographed items will need to have approved COAs from industry recognized authentication companies (PSA/DNA, UDA, Steiner, etc.) so you will want to make sure they meet these requirements before sending them in once we move forward with this.
Chad, JSA is also acceptable correct?
How are you going to account for signed memorabilia from non-national brands? Personally my business has conducted public and private signings with 100’s of athletes and have we have sold items from our signings to every major dealer Mounted, Steiner, Tri star,etc. but I don’t have a brand that is widely known.
I just knew that greed would ruin another good site. I will probably just open an eBay store again and just go with it. at least I can make some money on the shipping to make up for the fees they have. The loser with these changes is the sellers on this site. I just don’t understand why a company would dismantle its base of its supply and revenue. These changes are totally one sided to the buyer.
While I see marketing value in boasting “flat $2.99 shipping” I’m not as certain it makes things less complicated from a buying standpoint. For those paying flat price, yes. Make an offer – just got very confusing. You can have 3 copies of a card with 3 different “minimum offer” rules – one with ship-fee pre-leveed, a older copy without the fee, and a third copy belonging to someone with different offer settings. Blend in oversized cards and multiple cards from one seller, and confusion can reign. Offers constitute a large portion of business on the site, and making offers confusing can hurt business.
Additionally, most buyers are smart enough to know they’re paying for shipping somewhere – raising pricing may send users BACK to ebay, where the service is non-existent but the fees are certainly lower.
I’d also like to know how the shipping fee will be reflected on Amazon listings.
I concur with some other posters that the economics of “flipping” become so muddled that they may not be worth dealing with.
All in all, I think a per card shipping fee would be much simpler in the long and short runs.
I’m not happy about it, but I can understand raising fees if necessary to cover the scanning/listing services. However, I do think the price increase narrows the COMC “sweet spot” significantly in terms of value of listing here as opposed to other sites.The change in storage fees helps, but not significantly, at least to me. I’m also not convinced I like lowering the one-day “cut to the head of the line” listing fee when everyone else is taking on a 25% fee increase for the same processing work.
Nice for a few apparently but not for most…
I also see this as a bad move for collectors . I collect as well as sell on here and i want a card that is hard to find and get it cheap it’s great. But now it’s not going to be cheaper than .75 so the seller can make money on it. keep the main price fee of.20 intact . I’m ok with the batch fee . But you also get more money coming in with the ad’s page also the goggle ad’s etc. But you will lose people on this .
The common thread I see among the negative comments from the sellers is that there is an expectation that they know what buyers want and that buyers think just like they do.
Think about all the analytics COMC uses to make their product decisions. It doesn’t need to make sense to us. It needs to make sense to them. My sales have grown faster than my site BV, and that tells me they’re doing something right.
But it’s clear by the repetition of questions that people won’t read this but instead ask the same things again.
The one complaint I’ve seen that I think is legitimate is that non-port-flipping (so, lots and singles) amounts to a microloan, which for lower end cards is annoying. But do you know why they do it? Because a very small percentage of lots and singles purchased on the site are flipped. Most are shipped. I’m guessing a large number of those lots and singles just end up getting flipped in a port sale anyway, so you’re not out the money for long. Will it curtail my flipping of lots and singles? Sure, but most of my purchases are of lots anyway.
Your right But i came to this site to help sell some cards but to also buy card’s . I have purchased a ton of cards for my collection by selling items. When i joined the processing fee was .15 for a month then they had the 3 week deal at what .20 or .25 can’t remember. now it’s 4 week at .20 no 3 week price. But now they are adding another .5 onto the overall processing then changing the batch fee from 3.00 to 5.00 and adding .25 on your sales to the buyer. So if i plan on buying a card for .25 it will automatically cost me .50 even if i don’t have it shipped. Port sales will rise from a 10% to maybe a 12 to 15 percent min. Due to the raised fee’s . All the cards will get raised to .75 since people will want more out of all the cards as well. It will also hurt the influx of new product on the site . since a lot of people who were thinking of putting cards on the site might change their minds on it. they can charge higher fee’s for the comics or other items they have coming to the site soon. But leave the cards at the prices now.
I think you are correct about alot of unwarranted negativity most of these changes are for the good. The big concern is adding 25 cents to low value cards. COMC, what would it take to get a trade off? Something that would say change the shipping fee to only 5 or 10 cents for cards under the 2.50 threshold? That would protect pricing in that tier.
Cards are moved so often on the site I don’t think people will even notice it after awhile once everything been circulated. I’m not seeing where anyone is going to take a hit if they adjust their items to the new fee structure. It make a month or so ,but it will eventually just be the norm.
Right now cards move fast . But when prices change a lot more sellers will start changing how they price cards or what offers they take. They can bring in more money by making different levels of the monthly membership? I think upping prices so fast will only hurt the growth of the site. It’s great they changed some pricing but don’t raise your lowest pricing that was raised not that long ago. Unless you plan on making more pricing specials . Or a special for cards with a BV of 2.99 or less .
People can still acquire cards at rock bottom prices, some because a seller is dumping inventory, others are acquired for merely pennies through heavily discounted port sales. Example seller 1 listed card at .10 cents, .35 cents to the buyer, they just paid the shipping fee on it, so they are into it 35 cents, they can list it at .50 cents and still make a profit. Or assume that the .10 cent card someone already paid the shipping fee on and are selling at a loss, the flipper would then only be into it .10 cents, plenty of room for profit to list at say, .50 cents.
I personally feel that the shipping “fee” should not apply until the card leaves the site.
I spend a tremendous amount of money on this site and know that this will curtail my buying greatly. I buy tons of singles that aren’t in ports every day. It does put a seller of the identical card at a disadvantage if one has the fee already paid and one does not. If it is truly shipping, then apply it when it leaves the site and gets shipped
Completely agree with you, 100%
I agree here, in the last month I have spent close to $9000 and paid almost $1000 in fees. If this plan is implemented my spending will slow big time. This is just a backdoor way of making the sellers pay the fees to pull the cards, upfront fees at that.
I agree with this. Sellers and flippers should not have to even think about shipping fees, that’s what we send our cards to COMC for. That used to be the most appealing part of your service. Please reconsider.
I will give credit though, the non-storage fee for up to $2.50 for the $50 monthly fee makes that more valuable to me. Suddenly all of our common Young Guns and jersey cards can sit here forever at $2.50 or less. That’s an improvement.
Why is the 1 week fee jumping 15 cents but the 1 month 5 cents? That doesn’t add up.
Well they are cutting the Next Day in half to a dollar and removing the $3.00 processing fee. It’s help me because I send multiple lots of mid-high end cards every week ,so I lose the $3 fees and my processing fees are cut in half. I imagine the week raise to weed out the shipments of .45 cards that people are looking to make a nickel on. I imagine this cost COMC more than its worth.
those .45 cent cards though help some people fill a set . Or maybe a player collector finds a card he was looking for but never showed up anywhere due to the low value .
Now these 45-cent cards can sell for 70 cents. The risk is lowering a buyer’s purchasing power, but I think there are enough buyers willing to pay more that COMC can at least take the risk and find out.
Businesses fail because they don’t take risks. I appreciate that COMC tries things out. The only constant is change, so if this doesn’t work, they’ll get rid of it.
I agree with Joel. If someone wants/needs card and .70 is the lowest available prices I still think there going to purchase it. It’s going to take a little time for the grandfathered cards to get out of circulation ,but after that it wil just be the norm. People know you can’t pay .50 to list a card and then only ask .55 for it. It will eventually be accepted.
I have to disagree, I am not a store and just a collector. I have been on the site almost since the beginning and I collect mainly players, game used and auto’s. I sell the cards that I get from boxes that I do not want which is mainly commons and the duplicates from what I collect. I have sold over 28,100 cards mostly commons and all at over 80% off. I believe that when the cards were .15 to list I sold way more cards because of the lower price and I have purchased over 14,000 cards for my collection. The increase to .20 per card has raised the price of cards and this new system will raise them higher, This is good for all of you that have a store I guess but not for the collector.
How about cutting down cashout fees to 15%. That would be nice 🙂
Can do! Just promise to spend your cashout at Blowout Cards. =)
Come on Jeremy this is serious, Nothing funny happening on my end. I just sold my port and have alot more cards to send in, However, if the processing fee per card goes to .25 cents then I will go to the Ebay, Ashame because I do love this site.
Sure could have lived without the wise-guy remark Jeremy. Understand you are one good competitor away from extinction and it is the seller, not the buyer who pays your freight. eBay forgot that a long time ago and survives because they are the only game in town. You are not.
I am totally serious. Well, that’s not true, I’m about 85% serious. If folks would like a discount on our cashout fee we have that option through a relationship with a great partner. We could not survive on a universal 15% cashout fee, but we are happy to take a hit for people who will be reinvesting into the hobby because in the long run it’s good for everyone. If you choose a Blowout Cards gift cert, your cashout fee can be as low as 13%. That’s a seriously good deal.
It’s easy to toss out suggestions on what we should lower, and I don’t think Maximoose was being particularly serious with his suggestion, but in reality lowering our cashout fee would mean we could not survive. I take that seriously, but I also take seriously that we do give an option to people – right now – that significantly reduces the cashout fee to even lower than Maximoose’s request.
Ok so if I just want to sell with no buying. What is the lowest price I can set for a standard sized card and even make a penny? It’s all very confusing.
One month would be .51
One week would be .76
One day would be 1.01
Here is one thing to think of though. There is not going to be a charge on anything 75 cents and under. Therefore, you can send those cards in, price them at 75 and wait for them to sell without ever paying another penny. Then you are making 25 per card, where before you could only do that and make a nickel.
Tim also said something about port sales not being subject, so after years sitting there, you can drop the price for a port sale and probably still make money.
But with the 75 cent and under never being charged a storage fee, you can keep the cards longer and make a bigger sale if you want.
If you factor in the 20% cashout rates, you’re looking at
one month would be 0.56 (25 listing fee + 25 shipping + 5 cent cashout commission + 1cent profit)
one week would be 0.86 (50 listing fee + 25 shipping + 10 cent cashout commission + 1cent profit)
one day would be 1.46(1 listing fee + 25 shipping + 20cent cashout commission + 1cent profit)
so in the short term it’s no longer profitable for sellers to send in cards that would currently list for 75cents, but the buyers and sellers will eventually adjust to the pricing and commons would just sell for more then they do now because it’s still cheaper to buy commons here then on ebay.
Jon is correct that the prices he lists are what the end buyer will see. If you set the price of your card at $0.26, a browsing customer will see it listed for $0.51. Right now that $0.26 listing will end up charging you $0.01/month in storage fees after 3 months on the site. With the new storage fee structure, you could set the price of your card up to $0.75 and never be charged storage.
Thanks,
Jeremy
Sellers have a hard enough time now selling star player cards for less than .25 cents, yet alone trying to ask up to .75 cents for the same cards or even commons. In general, any card that is currently being listed for < .20 cents, the seller is taking a bath on. I don't think sellers are going to raise their prices to be at or below the .75 cent mark on these same cards just because that is the new mark for storage fee avoidance. If they do, the cards aren't going to move.
once you factor in EVERYTHING, selling a card for 75 cents will pay you about 5 cents.
So will it show what cards have shipping fees to pay. So I can stay away from them. It really doesn’t make sense shipping fees should be for shipping. If I am a flipper why should I pay shipping fees. Flippers don’t ship much but yet we charge them shipping fees. That’s like buying a stamp at the post office then throwing it away. Let the guy who ships it pay the shipping fees. That’s why there called shipping fees not flipping fees. If u want 2 put this on all cards u need 2 change the fee name. If I’m flipping the card I will not pay shipping fees. You got my username if this is how it’s going please send my cards 2 me ASAP thanks.
It’s added onto your asking price. The buyer still eats it unless it’s already been sold on the site before you purchase it.
How does the buyer eat it. The flipper eats it. The cards that r on the site should be grandfathered in. I think it may be illegal to say shipping fee when it’s not. May want to change the name or run it by your lawyers. Tim please let us no soon if u plan 2 go through with this. I think many would like 2 no. Thanks
I believe he said the cards on the site would be grandfathered in didn’t he?
I did not read about grand fathering in I believe in september my cards will all be priced .25 higher then I want them 2 be. Just for the record this puts the shipping on the seller. U are now asking the seller to include shipping in there price. Also did shipping go up Comc acts like there shipping bricks these are cardboard.
Do you even know the demographic of flippers vs shippers on the site? People should probably get the info before deciding it is a bad idea. A simple breakdown of the stats would go a long way here
While I am concerned with the short term impact on Flipping and Selling on the site I recognize the need for COMC to be able to make money from the powerful tool that they are offering. Consider this, COMC scans the card, researches the manufacturer/year/etc., markets the card, sells the card, receives payment, handles customer service, packs and ships the cards. There can’t be anyone who really thinks they can make a living on fees from $.25 cards. I am not ready to abandon the COMC ship. I look forward to what the future brings!
I agree they need to make money . But looks like they are trying to add a new thing with comics and coins . Why not just make more money on that side since fee’s are not set up for that yet. If they only want select cards added to the site or to cut out low end cards fine. But knocking up processing fee’s are big . You went up .5 not to long ago another .5 plus a .25 to each sale for shipping is a lot. Maybe knock it up .1 on processing it still adds up . Then add .4 that goes towards the shipping . So your only adding .
5 total When the comic/ coins open charge your fee’s on that side.
You can only raise shipping fees so much! That is the problem that I have. No matter how you look at it a 25%-30% raise in shipping charges four months after the last increase will have a very dramatic effect on over all sales. Then on top of that raising every cards price on the site by a quarter will only increase the effects.
Just reading the complaints shows the overall confusion these changes will make on a long term basis.
Becoming too complicated for me, Ebay is now easier and more straightforward, let alone lower overall fees. I will no longer be sending cards, and will probably request that all my cards be returned. Your site was nice before you started raising fees, it’s almost rediculous that you now get, on average, about 40% of my sales prices in various fees.
How in the world did you come up with 40% fees?
I sell vintage cards, with the “vintage wear” conditon note, it will cost .30 to list. Sell a card for $1.50 and you will net .90 after subtracting the 20% cash out fee and the .30 listing fee. That is 40% in fees. Doesn’t even include shipping costs and storage fees, so the fees are actually more than 40%.
I wanted COMC to work for me because like most sellers are sick of Ebay, but the fees make sending any card under $10 a lost cause. On Ebay I can instantly list a card for $5 charge $2.75 shipping and clear close to $5.5 in profit after fees and shipping. On COMC a $5 card will show up on the site in a week and net $3.50 after listing fees and cash out when it sells. Yes COMC is easier, but the 55% gap in profits adds up on large volumes.
Think of all the things you get to avoid with COMC compared to Ebay. Chargebacks, people asking for partial refunds, paypal siding with buyers 100% of the time, Ebay + Paypal Monoply, scanning (back and front), sorting, looking up a card, shipping, international bidders, emails from buyers, non paying bidders, time dealing with Post Office/Emails. I wouldn’t go back to Ebay if someone paid me to. Think about the overhead and amazing customer service you get with COMC. What other site can you return a card no question asked and get your funds back and the seller gets to keep his (and COMC eats it). Websites and business evolve and adjustments are just part of it. To be honest I think everyone was just spoiled up to this point and these kind of changes have to happen to keep the site around. Instead of threating to leave or throwing your arms up why not give some suggestions. I don’t know if any site on the net listen more than COMC. Sorry about the long rant ,but people sometimes don’t realize the cost/time that goes into running a business.
Do u work for them. If not let them defend themselves. They r big boys.
It’s not defending. It’s point out the obvious. Everyone seems to forget what kind of services you actually get and that’s there is no other option like this on the market.
How can we have a reasonable debate if we only hear from people that don’t like the change. His opinion is just as valid as yours. Whether it matches what COMC thinks is irrelevant.
Its not a discussion Comc is a dictatorship. They make the rules and we follow or we don’t. Discussion is what we need. Comc doesn’t seem 2 want 2 talk.
We are freely discussing views in a site that epitomizes supply and demand capitalism, far from a dictatorship… If you don’t like some aspects of this the best thing to do is make non-emotionally charged logical comments. They are far more likely to be considered.
Thanks for a great post. What most people do not understand is that COMC is an extension of our own personal business. I think that they do a great job on my behalf and I choose to take the time and personal responsibility to determine what type of cards that are worth it to me to sell on COMC. The amount of whining in this thread is incredible. I would prefer that COMC charges be less, but I still recognize the great potential for COMC to sell my cards and to help me build my personal collection. If sellers do not like the work that COMC is doing for them, it is in their complete power to fire them and take back their cards. I remember the world was going to come to an end 6-7 years ago when Ebay raised the monthly carrying fee of their store from $.01 per month. More than a few have continued to thrive selling on Ebay. With everything in business you have to adjust to the conditions, not just whine.
Like most of the sellers that have posted above, I am also very against the built-in shipping charge on items listed for sale. I won’t regurgitate the reasons since they have already been posted by others as well. I don’t mind paying the 25c per card, but even at 20c, I thought that was fairly expensive considering most of the cards I send in are in the $5-$15 range. Is this 100% set in stone or would you consider hearing from folks at The National or via e-mail?
Hi, DizzyDSki.
We’re always interested in hearing from users with constructive feedback. We appreacite that people take the time to let us know how they’re feeing and how they see the site direction affecting them. Please always feel free to post a comment or shoot us an email. We’ll be at booth 2440 at the National, and you can definitely come by and talk to us there as well.
Thanks,
Jeremy
A few suggestions I would have are..
Quicker turnaround on check cashouts.
A direct deposit option into your checking account.
A tiered cashout fee for higher end items.
Lower cashout fee when you hit certain amounts.
Good suggestions. In regard to #4, that was actually how it was done in the very early days of the site. We found that 99% of people just waited until they hit the best tier, so we decided to decomplicate the tier system and simply give everybody the best tier rate: the low price of… 20%. Haven’t touched it since.
Jeremy
Gotcha, I’ve only been around since Feb. of this year. I have a hard time making money on high end items I purchase locally and send in. I’ve found $30-$200 are my bread and butter. There’s been quite a few occasions where I’ve listed $500-1500 cards here and they sell within an hour (which is great) ,but I get a chunk taken out of my profit (that’s sometimes not there). Cashouts have been up and down for me. I like to get paid quick because I figure I do my part by paying you guys quick. I typically just reinvest it into the site so it’s a win/win for you guys. Overall I’m really happy with the site.
Jeremy…with all due respect.. Let’s call it what it is.
20% is NOT low. It is a rate you use in hopes that people will keep their money on the COMC system rather than pull it out. It is where you make the most money for doing the least amount of labor.
Here’s a thought how about you pay us for sending r cards in so u guys can stay in business. If there’s so many buyers that wouldn’t be hard. You guys make your money on the ridiculous shipping fees anyway. I love Comc when there not screwing me. How about giving some options on this like u do with amazon. It’s not forced to sell on amazon because the seller would have 2 take 20% off. So forcing shipping should be the same. I am a buyer and a seller. Telling me I need 2 pay shipping on something I am planning on selling just don’t make sense no matter what fancy names u give it. That’s why the government don’t make people with tax I’d #’s that are going to resell something pay taxes. Same principle.
This is a poor choice and will kill low end card purchases. I will be done buying here.
The idea of adding the shipping charge right up front is a terrible idea. Right now, I have over 1800 cards that I’ve purchased, waiting to be shipped. Add an extra 25¢ per card shipping on to that, there’s an extra $450 I would have spent up front to buy those cards. I doubt anyone can afford to have that much extra money sitting around being eaten up in shipping fees. I think the current S/H fee structure is fine just as it is; we all know we’re paying around 25¢ to ship a card, but we can do it on our own time, whenever we want to request a shipment.
If you do not care about the sellers opinions at least listen to this poster view. How many more buyers will not want to see an upfront shipping fee added? How many buyers are you going to sacrifice losing?
COMC has been a great hassle free options for sellers vs. Ebay the past few years. I was willing to pay a premium for this service, but since all my volume was new releases the higher fees eliminates COMC as an option to sell cards. Buyers look for new releases and with the 30% listing fee increase on top of the 20 % cash out no seller will be able to make the financials work on getting new releases listed on the site. This could turn COMC into the worlds largest bargain bin of pre 2012 cards vs. a site that features new products every month.
Hate these fees the more I think about them. Increase on every card you buy, whether you want it shipped or not. Plus 500 4wk goes from $103 -> $125 and 500 1 week goes from $178->$250. $3 fee only sucks if you send like 10 cards otherwise it’s not a pain really.
Once these higher fees come into effect, I doubt I’d send anything in besides $10+ bv cards. Just not worth it for lower priced stuff, which sucks since that mostly what I sell.
I can’t say i agree with the fees but maybe one think it might help is slow down the price war we have going on.What i mean by this is everytime i price more cards it seems like my asking price keeps getting less and less.The reason is if there are multiple cards on the site everybody wants to beat the last guy.More times by not by pennies but by dollars i do not know how mant times i have saw 10.00 to 15.00 dollar cards priced at 10% of book or less.Sometimes WE are our own worst enemy we can not get top money if we do not ask it.Just because you have very little or nothing in a card,do not give it away.We are complaining about what comc takes if we get more on 10 and 15 dollar cards we get more to.
If I see card listed for 10-15% for no reason I buy them to flip. Also I’ve noticed with the amazon and even on here lowest price doesn’t always sell.
Chuck, you get comment of the year for that one. Andrew has the right idea, too. Most of the non-port-buying I do is of this variety as well.
like andrew said, if you see a seller giving cards away, buy them and flip them. Of course now that we’ll have to pay a quarter every time we do that will pretty much SUCK
This really stinks. The idea of adding a shipping fee to each card is pure BS. It doesn’t cost you that much to ship your items and the fee will go directly in your pocket. In addition, the 25% price increase per card (yes – increasing the price from .20 to .25 is a 25% increase) is totally ridiculous. You guys are starting a downward spiral that will reduce the number of sellers, and that will reduce the number of buyers. Your 20% cash out fee is already a complete rip-off. Remember, 20% of nothing equals nothing. That’s what you will be making when the sellers stop submitting cards.
Just thought I’d chime in and say I too do not like the new added on shipping fees. What buyer goes on a website and orders things without checking the shipping costs first. Heck, it is usually the first thing I do whether buying cards, clothes, tools, etc. Building the shipping into the cost of the card is misleading. It also changes the dynamic of the offer. With the cost built into the price there is no such thing as a 50% off offer. A card listed for $1 ($.75 card + $.25 shipping) would have a 37% off offer ($.38 card + $.25 shipping) total $.63. This adding on shipping is far from simplifying the fees.
I don’t know why there is not tiered flat rate shipping. COMC would need to calculate their cost of pulling cards, supplies and postage but I do not think it would be that difficult. It could be something like:
1 card – $3.99
2-10 cards – $4.99
11-25 cards – $7.99
25-50 cards – $10.99
and so on….
Needless to say I just made up numbers, but it would let the buyer know the exact cost.
As for the processing fee increase, I consider that a cost of doing business. I don’t like the increase but I understand it. I do understand it will hurt the low end cards. To be honest I never understood sending in commons in the first place. It made some sense when the processing fee was $.15 but not now. There are too many other sites to sell the commons on. I have mine on Blujay which is a free site. Not nearly the traffic of COMC, but no expense, so for me that is a big benefit.
It seems that COMC is gearing up for comics, coins, etc. I guess there is some overlap, but it seems separate websites for each product might be in order. that way the shipping prices could match the product.
Goyboy’s explanation of the problem concerning adding the shippihg cost to the price is the best I have seen. I agree completely. I still feel that, if COMC goes forward with that change, they should provide a reasonable flat fee option (one time only) for current sellers to have their ports sent back to them. I have disagreed to some extent with many changes COMC has made (particularly their method of handling vintage cards) but this is more or less the final blow. I have enjoyed using the site since 2008 but think it is time to explore some other option.
Thanks Bobm811. I believe they will ship your cards back for a max of $25. I’m pretty sure I saw that on the site somewhere. Depending on how many cards you have that may be reasonable.
My concern is with the back-charge on purchases that had no intention of being shipped only flipped. I’m not sure what your plan is with that one. I think it’s a dangerous game of musical chairs because the card could’ve been flipped through several ports before it reached mine. Why should I be dropped on the floor with an attached fee now that I have it? I think you should just keep all the purchases in port as grandfathered ownership. It would save me the time of dissecting which buys that had great flip potential will now have to be shipped because of the looming backward cost zing.
its a sad day for sellers on COMC… I had 5500 cards ready to ship in that I have to say I dont think will happen now. Its not worth selling low end items anymore and that was the best part of the site.
The adding shipping at the start is the worst part of all of this, kills the flippers, and I like to buy for a few months then get stuff shipped and pay at that time.
very sad day for me.
For sellers like me, who like to flip low dollar cards, the .25 fee is a killer.
Everything else sounds great, but the buyer who actually has the card shipped to him/her should be the one paying SH!!
quoting this from another board…
I think everyone is misunderstanding the new shipping option. It really has no effect to sellers or buyers once you get over how confusing it is. Right now, when you have your cards shipped to you you pay a flat rate + a per card fee. That is still the case except you are paying the per card shipping fee up front instead of when you request shipment. And if you flip a card, you will get the full cost of the card (including shipping) back from COMC when you sell it. You will not be charged the per card shipping when all is said and done if you flip a card. It is essentially an interest free loan to COMC though.
I don’t think that the shipping has any effect on what sellers will get for low-end cards either. If you list a card for a dollar, and you have 50% auto accept on, the buyer will be able to offer $0.75. $0.50 of that will go to the seller and $0.25 is the per-card shipping the buyer is paying. That is not any different than it was for the seller. The only disadvantage is the increased processing fee. But wouldn’t getting rid of the storage fees for cards listed below a certain amount offset some of that increased expense as well?
I don’t think so Maximoose, whoever buys the card first pays the shipping. Not the end buyer who actually has the card shipped. Also storage fees are 1 cent per month, so in effect you would have to have a card in your inventory for 25 months to see a breakeven, or longer for it to be actually advantageous. Don’t get me wrong the storage fee does help for those borderline cards that are priced at 50 cents for storage fees rather than they actually could fetch a little more, and that’s why I don’t think the issue is the change to the seller fee structure but the confusing nature of the shipping changes. I’d much rather see a tiered handling fee based on the number of cards being shipped than an upfront charge to the first buyer on a card. Basically until someone goes out on a limb to flip a card it will sit for much longer as no one will want to be the sucker that gets stuck with the fee.
Yea, I’d like someone from COMC to break it down for us.
Moose not disrespect, but you send in a handful of high end cards at a time and use the 1 day service,The sellers that are complaining are guys who have 5,000 10,000 20,000+ cards on here and will be affected by these changes…If they increased i day service to say $3 a card you would be complaining also.Bottom line is that you are saying the increases are no big deal,only because they do not affect you.
VERY TRUE LEE!
And as for 20% Cashout fees. I just cashed out $5,000 which cost me $6,253 for a check sent to me which I received in a week.It is my 3rd 5k cashout and I actually do think 20% is fair.It is the smaller processing fees and now these fees which i think is getting out of control
Yea, I agree with you Lee. I typically stick to mid-end items and try to move them quick as possible so this doesn’t effect me like it would members who send in bulk lower priced item. I currently have 800+ very low end items waiting to be processed ,so this will effect me at some point because I do send in everything I come across other than base. I’m not that worried though because I think the COMC market will adjust to the new prices. I have had a lot of success sending in hotter/newer items because I’ve found members like to buy quality items instead of cashing out. Basically they get more bang for their buck and don’t get hit with the 20% fee. It’s all about finding your niche. I still don’t see how this is much different than what it’s always been other than the increase in listing fees (month/week). I’m sure this will be cleared up in due time.
I’m all whats best for the community because at the end of the day without a nice core it will eventually effect everyone.
It depends, Does that .75 cent per card asking price incluse shipping and handling or not?
I again agree with Lee. I also have no problem with the cashout fee of 20%, however, I buy cards in lots and most of these cards will book in the $2 and under I would not make any money at all send ing these cards in. I might as well just give them away; it may be cheaper.
So let me get this confusion straight…
I buy a card for $1… I am getting charged $1.25 with .25 being the shipping charge…
I flip that card and my asking price is $1.50…I get my full price. I am getting $1.75 back since I did not request shipment of the card?
If correct…I get it…but I am not a fan. Please confirm I am correct?
As to the rest…
I have often said COMC is a great site with very high fees. At some point I have been afraid COMC would fee itself out of business. We don’t ship alot now because we have a brick and mortar and Amazon and Yardsellr get much of our internet biz….because the fees here are high enough that we don’t mind doing the work ourselves. If the fees were are more reasonable levels then it would justify us being “lazy” and letting COMC do all of our work for us. ut at current levels that is not the case and with the higher fees it will be even less so. We’ll continue to buy here on occasion when the right item/price are available. It is a shame because we were looking forward to being a part of the coin inventory here since it is a key part of our business.
Or are you saying I buy a card for $1… I won’t know if I am paying $1 or .75 + the dollar shipping?
And if we do decide to send cards again in the future…if I want $1 for my cards…they will appear at $1.25?
Folks we’ve been at this over 20 years and not much about this business confuses us….
Hi, TripleAvintage Sportscards. To answer your questions in order:
In your example if you buy a card for $1, you pay $1. Just like today, you don’t know if the card is brand new to the site or has changed hands a dozen times.
If you buy that card and decide to relist it at $1.50, you get $1.50 when it sells.
If you send in a brand new card and tell us you want $1.00 for it, we’ll list it at $1.25 – $1.00 for you and $0.25 for shipping. Whoever buys it won’t know if you’re the original seller or not; they’ll see a card with free shipping for $1.25 and just like now they’ll be able to decide if that price works for them or not.
I really appreciate your feedback on this post. Thanks.
Jeremy
Thanks for the reply Jeremy. That makes sense.
Well I hope Tim and other COMC are seeing the downfall of these new fees and reverse them. If not I can see this website going in reverse rather than forward. This website was cool for the set builders as that was what Tim wanted originally but now its only good for high end cards, but with the additional fees it’s easier and cheaper to just sell those on ebay. I made $800 today on ebay i can’t say COMC does that or me ever or in the future.
A suggestion for the future before your peers implement a new policy like fee changes you ask the customers how they would feel about these changes that your considering.
Also for years there was talk about comics, coins, LOTS, ect…. None of that Hapened
Listing Promo’s that lasted a few months
We were fine with those not getting done but we are not fine with continued raising of listing fees, when I started it was 10 cents a card, then 15, then 20 was implemented about 6 months ago, now were going up to 25 cents a card soon, when is enough, enough?
Were already being screwed with the Storage Fees, Listing Fees, Batch Fees, Oversized Fees, Graded Card Fees (Why is That So High), and the ridiculous shipping fees but we dealt with it.
I already give cards away and have sold over 40k cards thats a lot o money for you, not me! But I’m suppose to continue allowing you to screw me more and more
It’s been nice at times and fun at times, but if this crap continues and is finalized I’m done
Everything is On sale You want my port come get it before you have to pay these additional fees
Thanks Everyone!
With all due respect, please don’t use the royal we. Your opinions aren’t representative of all the users of the site, just like mine or anyone else’s.
Other than the interest-free 25-cent loan, which they could avoid by having the buyer decide whether to flip or ship at purchase time (by making flipping cost 25 cents less), I don’t have a problem with anything proposed here.
I hope all the sellers leave because it means more business for me, not to mention the great prices I’ll get on ports for those who decide to liquidate instead of have their cards returned to them.
No two users use COMC the same way. Blogs are the AM radio of the Internet. I’m not surprised at the negativity of most of these comments, and I’m sure the staff over there aren’t either. They wanted to know what you all think, and now they’re getting it. The system works.
Joel there is a guy in California on another site who thinks he would be best served if he sat on the mountain top alone. What he failed to realize as dealers left that site for other places as they took many of his former buyers with them. People like shopping where they have choices. And unless you are talking about 1989 Fleer Griffey rookies in most cases the more options the better. I will suggest to you the same thing I did him… if you want to be master of your own domain you might consider getting your own stand alone site.
One thing you are correct about (along with your statement that some collectors will pay $1 for commons because the same dealer I mentioned above bragged about gouging collectors on commons) is that COMC does read and respond to these threads without using cannd or scripted responses. That puts them ahead of most other sites…and gives hope that stable ground can be found.
One other thing… to say no two users use COMC the same way is probably not accurate… How about….everyone (ok fine.. ALMOST everyone) here is looking for the cards they want in the condition they for the best price possible. Whether they are collecting, flipping or retailing is where the differences happen.
Sellers….looking to sell their cards for the best price possible…or as quickly as possible….for the lowest fees possible… unless there are those out there so noble that they welcome higher fees? Actually the guy mentioned above campaigned for them as a way to drive his competition away. True enough it might have worked out for him. But the site went downhill and other sites gained market share…including this one.
But you put your cards on the table now… you are now on record saying you hope all sellers leave. It is all about you being the last man standing in hopes that the 20,000 buyers will stay here with you and buy from you. I appreciate your honesty as it clearly explains the position behind some of your comments.
Please answer my question. If I have a card listed now for $1 when this change takes place will Comc be changing it to $1.25 or r my cards grandfathered in. Or will the price stay at $1 and I will only get .75. Kind of need 2 no. Also I think it might be helpful if u explained what these extra fees will be used for and I really would like u 2 go more Indepth on why this is happening. Telling us because your adding other services like coins and comics really isn’t helping me understand. I wouldn’t think you would want 2 sell them on the same site. Don’t think you would get a lot of coin buyer that say to themselves “hey checkoutmycards let’s go there they must sell coins”. Better luck with checkoutmycoins. Just saying. Thanks
Also going along with that idea…is there gonna be a notice when the changes do take place and the .75 free storage quota kicks in..as I don’t want it to happen and suddenly see all my .75 or less cards sold within a day as people try to gobble them up dirt cheap
Hello, Cardko.
Right now if you have a card listed at $1, the price is really $1.20 for the end buyer – $1 for your card plus $0.20 for shipping (or potentailly a lot more if that buyer is buying fewer cards). With this proposed change, the buyer would see your card at $1.25. When the card sold, you would still earn that exact same $1 as before.
*SPAM
I have a great lot of 50 autographs and patches going up in the morning. Includes Griffey Jr., Cal Ripken Jr, Albert Pujols, Ryan Howard, Paul O’neil, Robinson Cano, Roy Halladay, Peyton Manning and many more. Will be priced to move 🙂
PS: Let’s see how COMC responds to the feedback before anyone does anything to drastic. Have a good night everyone.
Sorry I can’t buy anymore. To hard to resell with the new fees.
I’ve read all the comments. I’ve come up with this 98% r pissed off. They feel that there getting screwed. So I propose us 98% do a little screwing. I am going to make all my cards “not for sale” then I am going to list them on eBay. When one sells Comc can ship it right 2 my customer for me. You raise your fees so where not able to sell on the site anymore. I guess I won’t. Really not helping us with the shipping problem but it’s a good way to get your cards off Comc without them gaining much. I can be a dick 2.
Sorry this post is mean sometimes my emotions get the best of me. Please accept my apologies.
Sellers are currently able to mark a card “not for sale”, then list it for sale elsewhere. If it sells on the other platform, put in the shipping request with their address information. Sometimes certain cards sell better in other venues with more traffic. I’m assuming this practice is encouraged by COMC as they mention how to use their images on other sites such as eBay.
Few final obervations in no particular order
#1 COMC has good people working for it… they have in the past listened. Not as much as I’d like…but they don’t owe us any “consultations” prior to doing things.
#2 We have evaluated this change as a business and have decided the increase in fees this time pushes us past the limit where we feel comfortable sending in cards. Doesn’t mean we won’t buy and flip here…but our days of sending in cards at the new rates are over.
#3 Folks don’t make fools of yourself threatening COMC or doing things that make you look bad. In the end COMC is just a venue… people sell cards on hundreds of thousands of sites on the net every day whether it be Ebay, Amazon..their own websites..facebook etc etc. The day Paypal became a requirement on Ebay we decided that since we refuse to use Paypal because we did not agree with their policies, we would never sell on Ebay again. But instead of walking away quietly a couple of my staff decided to make enough noise that it got us banned and in the process damaged our reputation for a time. Those same employees repeated their actions on a popular trade site when confronted with rules that we did not agree with. Needless to say neither of them are with us anymore. If you don’t like or agree with how a site is doing things…move on to another. Don’t burn bridges…you never know when that site might change again in a way that will work for you and you might want to come back. We were on the Beckett Marketplace for 6+ years before finally having enough of their glitches and leaving in January…lessons learned. It was a clean and polite exit with the door open for a future return.
#4 To the staff at COMC…many of whom I have spoken with for one reason or another over the last year since. You guys are trying to survive on a fee based business (while of course selling your own inventory) With my business backround I question the long term viability of what you are trying to do because in the end I think you will need to raise fees to levels that all but those who refuse to do any work on their own behalf will tolerate. As noted above…you have surpassed our tolerance levels. Specifically….
We believe that 20% cashout is too high…the fee for classifieds is outrageous for the 30 seconds of time it takes to “approve” an ad…charging buyers a fee to get details on a card they are considering purchasing is something no other site on the internet would dare attempt to get away with… and as we consider getting 120 cards shipped and seeing a shipping fee of nearly $25 for bulk…sorry the argument of “well if you had bought them from 50 different dealers” doesn’t impress us because the fact is we didn’t…if ifs and buts were toploaders and team bags we’d have a castle built on 1991 score baseball factory sets.
But we learned to accept those fees but at this point there is a line in the sand that has been crossed and we refuse to pay more.
Thanks to those who took time to read this late night ramble. I suggest to all that they continue to support COMC at the levels they feel comfortable doing so. In the end a site like this is good for the hobby and as I stated above…the people working there are good and smart people. I don’t think they will sit by with their arms folded and watch this site fail. I have faith they will find ways to make this work. And when they do…we’ll be one of the first to put another shipment of cards in the mail.
T.A.S. well said I agree i will have a shipment of cards in the mail as well if things stay the way they are however fees go up I am gone. I survived for 15 years on ebay and sorry you have issues there but I am starting to like it more and more everyday with all the ridiculous fees as you and I stated above. Guess we will see what happens!
We were silver powersellers the day we pulled down 3700 listings. We offered MC/VISA via our own merchant account but were not going to turn over copies of transactions to Ebay to “prove” we had a merchant account as they required. Paypal was never an option once we read the section of their agreement that allowed them to “limit=freeze” funds for 180 days or more without warning or explaination. We had a Paypal account linked to a reloadable visa card which we used for buying when we had no other option…but we’d never give a non banking entity that kind of power over our money or access to our financial information That said we should have handled our departure there better. Leaving Ebay was easy. At the time we left Beckett and lost 400,000 items because their site glitches made selling there unbearable was painful. But you use a venue to your benefit as a business and when it stops being useful you move on. Loyalty is a great thing but it rarely is shown from the venue so we don’t get attached. I tell those who ask us how to get started in this business (asking them first if they have seen a shrink lol) to build their brand. Work hard at marketting themselves. Our customers will follow us to wherever we go providing we give them a safe and easy to use shopping experience. But that has taken alot of work and building of trust and brand. That is the key to surviving and thriving in the ever changing Antiques and collectibles business that we have chosen to make our passion here.
I think they have dug -out the people who survive on $100 investments— Now cards will have to have BV of close to $10 and though I was upset before — I will embrace making sportscard collecting a better more profitable business— Anyone see the Platinum players club prices— BECKETT is really interested in what we are willing to BUY/SELL for and the cards here have to be BETTER– not 50000 commons for .35/cents like the PORT that I just sold– Flipping cards is not has much fun when people pay 90%off BV for a PORT of semi-great cards— COMC–let’s do this and tell the IRS we pay enough in fees that I am sure you guys handle the TAX LAWS——
Very well said especially #3. COMC has not replied back to us. Hopefully they will reconsider these changes. I am fine with the 20% cash out fee but all these other little charges are killers.
Well said sometimes I need 2 site. Back and watch no more posts from me.
Does anyone sense the potential irony of the blog post title?
I’ve been holding out for a processing promo, but I guess I better hurry and ship in what I have left before realizing an extra $22 in fees per “batch”. Then again, I have my concerns if I will be even able to move some of these cards now with the new pricing structure.
If existing cards are “grandfathered in”, does this mean I can return ship all the remaining cards in my port back to me for cheap after the update, as in without the $0.25 tagged on every card, but realizing the new flat shipping rate?
I’ve LOVED using this site for a couple years now, but the recent changes and trends have really put me on the fence. It used to help me extend my hobby budget by selling break leftovers so I could purchase PC singles or more wax, but what’s considered reasonably sellable on the site and the fees behind them is beginning to overlap with many other competitive offerings for selling hobby-related items.
I have several boxes of cards stacked behind me in the living room…they’re going to Washington if a few changes occur..otherwise, keep an eye out at places like Sportscardforum as that’s where I might have to look to move them
The shipping being factored into our prices, IMO is still the worst change they are making. COMC is shipping the card, I’m not! That’s one of the main reasons I use the site is so I don’t have to worry about shipping then it is factored into MY price of the card!
Cash out fees are ridiculous too…I like you guys here. I really do, and I hope you live well and comfortably..but the hobby and the website is something you should love and I hope you do..but please don’t try getting filthy rich at our expense. I know you’re all better than that..keep this a community where we can all continue to be successful and make a few bucks. I’d like to keep COMC as my exclusive place to sell cards, I really do..
Personally, I’ve added nearly 30K items to the site and have bought over 15K. Of those purchased I’ve probably had over 10K shipped to me. I can say that if the proposed changes had been in effect from day one… it wouldn’t have changed a thing! I’d still be happy with my experience both as a buyer and seller.
One thing that slightly concerns me is the fact that bulk buyers that have cards shipped to them AGAIN are hit with a fee hike with no appreciation shown for their “higher than typical” level of activity on the site. People buying hundreds of cards to have the cards ultimately shipped to them were paying only 15 cents per card in bulk, then proposed changes made that 20 cents per card, now it seems as if it will be a mandatory 25 cents per card. Maybe you feel these buyers don’t deserve any kind of special treatment, and perhaps they don’t. But most companies come up with an incentive plan for their best buyers and reward that pattern of behavior. If the S/H changes honestly do reflect only a need to “simplify” and not a need to increase those fees charged, then it seems like those of us that were paying either 15 or 20 cents per card because of bulk shipments are the ones suffering the most from these proposed changes. As someone who “flips” cards myself on the site, I’m more than willing to pay the 25 cents if its already been factored into the card and I still want to pay that price to flip it. But its the buyers who might have shipped 100, 300, 500, or even 1000 or more cards at a time that is really seeing a seemingly unnecessary fee increase.
RE: “Local Pickup: FREE (Coming soon to a card shop near you. More details will be released over the coming year.)”…. Its largely getting overlooked, but PLEASE be careful before setting anything like this up. I think you’re asking for trouble no matter how you work it. Unfortunately, in this business today’s thriving card shop owned by what appears to be an upstanding dealer is tomorrow’s closed card shop who ended up being somewhere between less than honest and a criminal. I’ve seen it happen before, and while admittedly few and far between, there is no way to tell what the future might hold for any given LCS. I think in a perfect world, this sounds like a great thing, but in reality I think you’re opening yourself up to a ton of problems that will be beyond your control but that you will be on the hook for.
Also, I keep seeing people refer to the proposed “pre-added $0.25 S/H” as being the sellers paying for S/H. This is just not the case. The buyer is still paying it, but consider this:
The per-card-fee, whether it be 15 cents, 20 cents, or 25 cents, has always been described as a fee the covers NOT the shipping cost of the card, but the process of pulling the card from the warehouse inventory and preparing it to be shipped.
That is now and has always been part of the CONSIGNMENT PROCESS. Its part of the process that in reality seller’s SHOULD already be paying for. You don’t send in your cards to have them sit in a warehouse, you send them in because (in theory anyway) you think each and every one will eventually be sold, and pulling the card and preparing it to be shipped is all part of what you’re expecting the consignment service to be.
It seems as if the entire consignment process costs COMC about 50 cents per card. Currently they are only charging the consignees HALF (or less) of that cost upfront in processing fees, and putting the rest of the cost burden of the consignment process on the buyer. The buyer is not only paying for shipping, but is also paying for about half of the cost of the services sellers expect to have happen when they send in their cards.
Today, or under the proposed changes, its still the buyers shouldering half the cost of the entire consignment process. Keep that in mind when complaining that sellers are being treated unfairly with these proposals. In reality, COMC could be charging around 25 cents more per card UP FRONT to cover all parts of the consignment process, and buyers could (and maybe should) only be paying for postage and packing supply costs. So would a flat minimum 50 cent processing, and the elimination of this proposed add-in $0.25 that the buyer is paying be a solution that any of you would find acceptable? It would be a fair and quite “simple” solution… that no seller would like or support. As long as buyers are shouldering around half of what our fees should be as sellers, I can’t really complain about slightly higher processing fees or the way COMC goes about trying to collect the other half of the fees they probably should be charging up-front.
Well written, but you forgot that they make the bulk of their money on the 20% cash out fee. I don’t mind paying that, but I certainly don’t feel bad about not paying all the cost up front. As a business and as a seller you should have a reasonable expectation that you don’t truly male money until a sale is closed. That’s the burden of being a business and asking other people to spend money with you.
What you are failing to realize is that higher fees result in fewer sellers. When I signed up there were 10% of the sellers they now have. The sellers did not come UNTIL they lowered the listing rates to a reasonable level, that is when the site exploded. If they charged 50 cents per card there would be very few sellers which would result in even fewer buyers.
Do not discount the fact that ANY buyer on the site with a hundred card shipment is now looking at over 50% increase in the shipping cost on that shipment in a six month period. Stop and think about that long and hard, OVER 50%! The first increase had enough merit that it passed without too much complaining. The basis was simple, fewer cards sent damaged and the cards were guaranteed to be shipped in a certain time frame. But the latest changes have absolutely no merit. Having people complain about shipping cost is only COMC’s fault. There are two simple ways to educate the buyers more than is already listed on the site. One would be to list the shipping charges with each item, not just over sized shipping charges. That should be a very simple fix. The other, which they will not even address, is to show people the process to get the cards delivered.
I agree that fees need 2 be more understandable. But please don’t think we r stupid. I great way 2 make this easier so everyone gets it, don’t beat around the bush. I can sum up the fees easily. Here it is in black and white if your a seller. Pretend it’s .50 to process your card when u send it in. There trying to hide it in other ways but this is the bottom line.
I have to think that at least in part the site is needing to increase fees to offset increasing costs. As the site has grown larger and has had to move into larger space it only makes sense that the physical time it takes to go find cards to fill a shipping order has increased. Similarily to meet the Amazon standards the site is now doing things that it did not previously to avoid massive returns and related costs. So I would like the site to do a post where they identify processing problems and ask the users of the site to weigh in with their ideas of how to improve processing and shipping times.
I have a couple of thoughts that may have already been considered but then again maybe not. So here goes:
1) Shipping is driven by the request of users to have a shipment processed. So I guess that probably all the cards for a given seller are in one place so if I have a shipment of 300 cards maybe they have to go pull cards from 30 or 40 different sellers/locations. When I go into manage your inventory there are three options Ship, Not for Sale and Donate. What if you added another button which is Commit to Ship. Under this option the purchaser commits to ship the card at some future unspecified date but say no sooner than 30 days from now. If the buyer subsequently changes status of the card they pay a fee. What I would think this would do is make it so that whenever staff go to a sellers stock to fill an order they can also pull all the “Commit to Ship” cards to move those to the purchasers stock. I would think then that when someone goes to make a shipment request many of the cards to ship would already be in the purchasers stock box.
2) I think the relationship with Amazon is something that COMC sees as being critical to the success of the site and certainly with the additional products being planned I get this. However it does not really fit with the selling of vintage singles. Why not borrow something like the “Certified Used” car dealer idea. So when we send in cards we identify if the card is to be listed on Amazon in which case it has to be examined etc. and pay associated fees BUT if we choose not to list on Amazon it does not have the extra processing work done and is charged a lesser fee. Then you put a little label on the scan that says “Certified” or something like that.
In any event if the site is finding the cost of processing is what is driving the need to increase fees please do a blog where you identify your processing difficulties and ask the site users for their input. You have a lot more buyers and sellers than you do employees so kind of makes sense that there might be some really good ideas at your disposal.
Hi, cocoscards.
Appreciate your feedback. I think both of your ideas are interesting. We’ve definitely toyed with the idea of being able to partially list on Amazon.
Thanks,
Jeremy
What’s the drop-dead date to send in cards for processing and avoid the increased $0.25 processing fee? Also, what’s the drop-dead date to request a shipment to avoid the increased shipping fees?
Probably the end of September or October for the processing fee change. The shipping fee change back to $.25/item will probably be implemented sooner – the beginning of August, as I understand it – but the built-in shipping price will not be mandatory at that time. We’ll give users a chance to test the site both ways and give us some hands-on feedback.
Thanks,
Jeremy
I hope COMC is reading these comments and taking them to heart. A TON of sellers clearly stating they are done sending in anything new if the new changes go into effect. Don’t try “New Coke” and ruin what is a great option for sellers vs. Ebay. The increase in seller fees without something in return (ie more advertising or free listings after certain thresholds) could crush your business.
OK so this is the only real option I see for a stress free redolution…. I propose that 1) shipping remain as is! 2) offer .30 one week processing and .20 one month proccessing on all batches over 500 cards (if you are or become a $50 upgraded member) 3) keep your outlandish cashout fee. 4) raise the batch fee too 1.25 per hindred items(all submissions under 100 will pay $3 flat fee)
.50 per item is gonna cost you a lot of bulk submissions. The thing is a guy or gal sending in 100 cards isnt gonna kill a seller at $50 but 500 at $250 sucks. Keep the site sensible for flippers collectors and hobbyists. or maybe we can get a deal like vip swag or rooks n jerseys? Hmmm! Accepting all offers now! Tyscardshop
Resolution(stupid smart phone)
Is there some deal that I’m supposed to be getting? News to me….
I pay the exact same listing fees as everyone else does.
He does I know that to be true
I must have missed the boat on the special deals also.
Rookies_n_Jerseys is charged $.20/card + $3/batch for his transactions, the same as every other seller on the site.
So is the new $.25 shipping going to be applied to Port Sales. Because I cant see spending an extra $250 for every 1,000 card port I buy.
Hi, GCSportsCards.
We’re planning on port sales circumventing the $0.25/card shipping charge at time of purchase for the reasons you and many other commenters have brought up.
Thanks!
Jeremy
The system works as it is. Another nickel per card is something that can be built into our marketing plan, but another 30 cents is not. If shipping is going to be charged at the point of sale rather than when cards are delivered, in essence we need to find an additional 30 cents in each transaction to make it worth it.
Fat chance on that.
I would highly suggest not charging shipping until the cards are actually going to be shipped.
The rest of your changes pretty much stink, but they are livable, the shipping is a deal breaker.
Some of the issues with the increase in listing fees could be mitigated by adding a 4th tier ( one day, one week, one month, and no set guarantee.
Have a cheap tier with no guarantee on having them up in a month at 15 or 20 cents so that if you are really budget conscious or sending in low value cards you really don’t care if they are up in a month. They will take years to sell anyway. I would be happy if it was within 90 days or sooner – but no guarantee required.
There has to be some time frame… 6 months…6 years…but something. I can’t imagine people sending their property hundreds/thousands of miles away with no idea whatsoever of when they might have access to it again.
I like that maybe a 60 day at .20or 90 day at .15 at a lower price level ? but the shipping cost of .25 should not get added to the card . If you need to add a fee on shipping do it on the smaller orders of 10 cards or less . It’s a huge charge if i were to have a 100 cards shipped to me that you will send in bulk shipping . with very few if any having top loaders .
Congrats to rookiesnjerseys on its 1 million and here’s your gift. By what I have been reading Comc new warehouse will be empty. Does anyone know of any other platforms to sell cards besides this one and eBay. I think shopping around is a good option at this point. A great idea Comc has here. Now someone needs 2 find away to market it. Because this platform is not cost effective for the average joe. I would like 2 c the top sellers get together and open a site like this. They would understand a lot more about the common person. It would also be nice 2 c swag cards opinion on this. Seeing that him and rookiesnjerseys among other of some top sellers make this site work. I think that rookiesnjerseys has made his intentions clear. Comc needs 2 tread carefully these top dogs make u a lot of money. I feel bad for these top dogs. Think of the time and money they have in this. They must be crushed. Best of luck to all. I will stand by the top dogs whatever there decision is. If u move on please let us no I will follow.
Arianna it is not appropriate to offer other ideas on COMC blog but if you click on my name and contact me I’ll be happy to offer you some ideas. Others may decide to go ahead and post them here.
I wasnt aware of that. Sorry. I will be contacting you. I really don’t think comc should be afraid of compition though. They are forcing this. Im just trying to keep my options open. Know more then I’m mad that they put my stuff on Amazon. But thank you
No worries… just message board ettiquete we try and follow. Like I said some others may have no problems posting that info here. We just figure we wouldn’t want someone doing it to us so we don’t do it to others. We’ll respond as soon as we hear from you 🙂
While it is nice that you are interested in my opinion and thoughts, when I visited COMC in March I learned how much COMC values them. Despite the fact that I spent over $50k in fees to COMC in one year (and did not receive any discount or other incentive), COMC puts no more value in my opinion than they do in the opinions of someone who is considering becoming a new user on the site. There is a reason that between April 2011 and March 2012 that my submissions averaged nearly $120,000 per month in book value and I have submitted zero cards since I visited COMC in March. All of that being said, I am not going to waste my time assembling and posting my thoughts.
Thank You for taking sometime.
Swag, I’d love to hear your experiences over the last year or so. I would think with front page traffic 24/7 as long as you kept up with the times an adjusted prices you could keep your inventory very liquid. What fee’s held you back or made you cut back on sending in new batches?
Is anybody else wondering what went so wrong during his visit in March
Arianna – I am sorry that my response sounded like I was being short with you. My point was that COMC is going to put just as much weight in the response from someone who has spent nothing on the site as they are someone who is in the top 5 in fees paid into their pocket, has an education in business and who spent the money to come to their business to discuss issues.
HTN – I wouldn’t say that things went so wrong. I appologize for posting my resume here, but it is relevant for my point. My BS degree is in business management and I have had enough sucess in business that my card business is a hobby that may one day be profitable. (Feel free to ask COMC for the resumes of the decision makers and see where the education and experience related to running a business is) In the year preceding my visit I spent over $50,000 in fees to COMC, at the time was number 2 all-time in total number of cards consigned to COMC from a non-employee, was by far the highest book consigner ever. I spent the money and time to travel to Seattle for several days based on the prior GMs request. To date, not one thing that I asked for or reccomended has been done. To go a step further, had one employee not gone out of his way on his own dime and on his own time taken the effort to make my trip entertaining, then the entire trip would have been a huge waste of time and money. In early August 2011 I was promised an option on COMC that would be ready within 30 days, a week after my trip in March 2012 I was notified that this was not on COMC’s priority list.
To summarize, it is crystal clear to me that COMC does not value me as a customer or my opinoins and observations any more than someone who has never used the site. One day I will post on BO forum my full thoughts and experiences with COMC.
Maximoose – I am more than happy to spend the time discussing my thoughts with people who value them and who can use them to help.
I can be reached at matt@swagcards.com
Swag,
Are you planning on just selling off your cards overtime and not ever submitting new cards on this site again? Since you were at one point the biggest seller on the site, could you please explain in more detail why you stopped? Not profitable? Your Visit to COMC? Geting Out of the Hobby? This can not be a good thing for COMC that the biggest sellers are leaving.
I think people who would like to leave this site because of comc new fees should be offered a way out. It’s only fair when you change the rules half way through the game. Example shipping discounts when you ship your whole port. That would allow people to save some money. Please remember that some people have alot of money invested in this and asking them to pay more just to exit is a little shaddy in my book.
Random observation and why I won’t be spending more time talking about this…
Businesses look at forums/blogs as a place where unhappy people gather. They believe for the most part that for every upset person who posts there are 20 people who are happy. Basically the vocal minority. So they won’t take much stock in the fact that there are probably 30 unhappy people posting here to only a couple of have taken the time to post something positive.
We aren’t as emotional or angry about this because we’ve been through it before. For us it is a simple question…are we willing to pay someone else 25 cents per card to list for us or can we do it cheaper and more profitable ourselves when taking other fees (cashout…condition notes etc) into account. The answer is…I can pay my staff $10 per hour and get cards sorted..scanned…put up…..filed….pulled…packed…and shipped… at a lower cost than the service COMC is offering. It’s simple numbers. No reason to get upset. I do realize that others aren’t doing this as a business with employees. If you are in school or have a different job and no time to do all the work yourself then COMC kind of has you up a creek in a boat with a hole in it.
Fight the good fight but keep it civil and rational. COMC will read but good ideas may get lost when emotions spill over.
I’m confused. Are you a brick and mortar store or do COMC for a living? Lots of fluff and not to many suggestions in your post so far.
We do B&M and sell on several sites on the net. Online we were strictly on the Beckett Marketplace for a few years until January. COMC has been a 4-5th tier option to us because of the current fee structure. Mainly we send some extra stuff here and flip it for vintage cards for our local buyers.
If you are unable to understand my suggestions I’d be happy to try to explain them further but based on the level of contacts we’ve had today I think many people get what has been written. Simply…if you don’t like the changes…voice your opinion sternly but without ranting and in the end if the site doesn’t work…the suggestion is move to one that does. If you’d like me to elaborate or explain something I haven’t addressed I’ll be happy to try.
Fair enough. I guess I just see these changes as making it easier for the new traffic the site gets once the sites moves over to http://www.comc.com and start to really advertise. Reading other message boards it seems like the original COMC post was just not clear enough and people are making a lot of their own assumptions (like .25 cent charge everytime a item changes hands). The ONLY changes I see are the increases month/weekly processing fees. Everything else seems to be a positive. Now I will say my strategy on COMC is different than most (not banking on lower end as much) ,but it just seems like everyone is overreacting a bit. Nothing has been set in stone yet from what I’ve read.
Agreed. I have told several people today to take a step back off the cliff as COMC is giving this several weeks to tweak.
It is reasonably possible that COMC is TRYING to discourage lower end items on here. They may deny it but raising processing fees combined with their cashout fees is a step in that direction…even with the elimination of the storage fee.
As someone else mentioned..the per item shipping free could be put on every page just as the oversize note is listed now.
I have long held that the shipping fees on this site are too high..especially for 100+ card orders….but I haven’t read ANYWHERE that people have shown confusion of what the fees are or how they work…so why this “fix”?
Our bottom line is if this rolls out as stated here, we won’t ship more cards to the site. We’ll continue to buy as long as the price of a card and associated shipping fees meet our needs. From that perspective I hope that these changes do NOT cause an exodus of other sellers because all that will be left are the high pricers and even they will have trouble at that point because they won’t have any more port sales to lowball for fresh inventory.
When the center of the sphere begins to unravel the circle ends up losing its shape. In this case… this site needs both the low end and high end, the low price sellers as well as the high price to survive. The challenge for COMC is how to make the site work for as many people as possible while at the same time keeping their own business in the black. We are anxious to see how this all shakes out.
Check out my charges .com now? LOL
Check out my Coffin.com in a year if they implement these changes
Speaking as a current buyer only (500+ items – maybe that’s not a lot, maybe it is), I’m not a fan of the embedded 25 cent shipping charge. Unlike the other folks who apparently don’t get the costs of pulling/packaging, I’ve always been fine with shipping being 2.99 + 0.xx per card rather than the flat rate of 2.99 with the hidden shipping charge per item purchased.
Post changes, I will still continue to search COMC but depending on seller participation, if the cards that I’m looking for aren’t listed or are listed for more than I’m willing to pay I’ll stop searching as frequently as I did. It’s what I did with rec.sports.collecting when it started to fizzle out, it’s what I did with Beckett when it got borked and I would have no problem dropping from a daily (or more) search of COMC to a weekly/monthly or even less frequent search here.
I have been encourage by other local members who have send some cards to you to do the same, but at this time, I think I’m going to hold off until I see how this announcement shakes out both in terms of any possible changes to fee structure as well as seeing if the hobby buzz is still there after these changes occur.
Hi, Kevin.
That’s totally fair. Definitely take the time to see if what we offer will be a good fit for you. I’m glad you took the time to post your thoughts.
Thanks,
Jeremy
These changes may be a death sentence for the site. Of course, they may be necessary to stay afloat. If things are tight for the business, I think people would be more understanding of the changes.
You have MANY affected stakeholders, so is there any chance the 2011 COMC Balance Sheet could be posted for review?
Yeah…. right…. I thought I’d ask though.
I’m having a hard time seeing why .25 cent charge is that devistating. If you bought 100 cards on Ebay from 100 different sellers it would cost you a fortune to have all of those sent to you. The lower end market on COMC will just have to adjust to the new charges. All the undercutting will just half to adjust up a quarter. I don’t see the big deal. They are removing the VIP cost, batch cost, cutting next day in half. There is good coming with the bad. If anything maybe they just need to add another processing tier. Someone please explain where this is going to make that much impact on how things are currently run. Maybe I’m missing something.
I always wondered. Do most of you cashout, get BO credit, or purchase other cards to avoid the fees and get them shipped to you?
I purchase singles to fill sets at home and buy singles and ports to flip.
The reason people are concerned is that some sellers say they will no longer sell on the site. This is causing some buyers to say they will stop buying if the selection is no longer there.
If there are 2,000 sellers, and if 50 sellers are saying they will leave, that’s only 2.5%. And yes, there are people who will silently make the decision to leave, but there are also those who will silently make the decision to stay. Honestly, knowing what the fees will be isn’t important at all. Knowing how many other sellers there are is what matters. Supply and demand dictate the prices on this site, not fees, just like any other site.
Usenet boards (like rec.sports.collecting) died because there were better mousetraps built. It is why people left AOL and Friendster. People will leave COMC because of the technology (if they don’t keep up), not the policy. If policies made a difference, eBay wouldn’t exist anymore.
I do usability for a living. The COMC guys make a strong point that many people are ignoring here: buyers spend more money on more things when shipping is subsidized, even when they know it’s just folded into the price of the item. You’re trying to sell brick and mortar products in an e-commerce world. Could you consider giving the people with an e-commerce background the benefit of the doubt? We’re all good at different things, and we should let people be good at what they are good at. You all come from different walks of life, and I would never assume I could do your respective jobs better than you can.
We’ve cashed out a couple times but find if we buy cards and have them shipped we can sell them at our place of business and end up getting full value for everything sold here + 10-15%. In other words…sell cards here for $100….buy $100 worth of vintage…get them shipped at a cost of $8….sell those cards for $120…come out with $112. Instead of cashing out the $100…getting hit with $23 in fees including their check fee.
So now it will cost $125 for 500 cards, (was $103) .25 per card for shipping added to every card and still a 20% cash out fee. Honestly its not going to work. Sellers are going to make way less and buyers are going to get ripped witht he extra .25 per card. I sell a lot and honestly I have never been impressed with the results on COMC with the current price structure and now with the extra fees it will definitely not work. I will sell through August and then I am vacating to new venues.
So are cards that are already on the site going to be grandfathered in and not be subject to the 0.25 per card SH? I’d really appreciate someone from COMC clarifying this. Adding 0.25 to a card with an asking price of 2 dollars or more isn’t really a problem. But adding 0.25 to cards with an asking price of a dollar or less is a HUGE problem. It pretty much obliterates any kind of discount the card is listed at. I certainly wouldn’t have focused on selling lower end cards had I know you were going to do this. Which is why cards currently on the site, and any that go live before sept 1st, should be exempt from this fee seeing as you’re just throwing this on us from out of nowhere and without warning.
Someone from COMC said earlier in the thread that cards on the site would be grandfathered in from what I read.
As it reads at the top, all cards currently listed for sale on the site when the switch is flipped, will have the per card shipping fee automatically added to the existing price. Any cards shipped that were purchased before the “switch flip” will still have to pay the per card fee at time of shipment, as it is now. Essentially, all cards will pay the same fee one way or another, and the first person to buy or ship a particular card after the “switch slip” pays the fee.
With all the bickering going on here, im sure the COMC staff is reading each and every comment here we post and laughing all the way to the bank (no pun intended) because they are going to do what they are going to do no matter how many people complain here. its sad ,but the bottom line is this is their business and their website and we have two options from here on out, stay and pay there inflated prices or take our inventory and leave. they are going to run their business to where they make the most money. they dont care if the sellers here make a profit. from a business standpoint they are only concerned with their own bottom line. for every one person that complains there are dozens that will stay and pay the high fees. i dont like the fee increase anymore than you but its their site and they are going to move forward with the changes no matter what because at the end of the day the changes benefit them financially. keep in mind they most likely created this site to make THEM money not YOU.
Hi, Tommy.
With respect, I don’t agree with your assessment. Our staff is passionate about cards; we’re all collectors, and care very much about the health of the hobby. I don’t think a business like ours would be possible if it weren’t staffed by very committed fans.
Our site is a marketplace, and we don’t survive if the people using the site aren’t making any money. Supporting this marketplace is a delicate balance between making sure we stay profitable and not removing the profitability of the customers who sell on the site.
You are correct that we are reading every comment, though.
Thanks,
Jeremy
Let’s see, I already give away 20% to Amazon, and in turn will take any 20% offer here, but I like the expanded market and somehow I have made a lot of amazon sales in the last few weeks.
I like that we won’t need to pay extra to upgrade in order to get some of the extra benefits (ie be able to put minimums, auto accept, etc)
I’ve been with you since 2008 also when there were only maybe 50-200 sellers at most. A lot has happened and changed in that time, and as a company you have been great to adapt and will listen to our gripes.
None of us really know how much you are making off all the fees after paying your employees and other overhead and if you yourself as the owners are even taking home any pay. This is a great service you offer and it is hard to beat.
I can deal with a small raise or change in pricing for getting cards on the site. I can’t agree with me as a seller fronting shipping on something that may or may not leave the site and that as an original owner I will get the least in my pocket from a flipper.
I almost see this as a way to rid the site of excess singles, commons and waste of space cards.
I see a lot of port sales going on now because of the news of the change, and in all honesty I look at a good portion of these ports and see nothing that would be worthwhile of me buying and trying to flip. Maybe this is what you want to do. Get someone to buy up the low end or cards that have been on for a long time and have someone take them to another venue as they are costing you space and time.
Sellers/buyers there other venues out there for low end/singles and commons. They should not be on COMC. Vintage yes, but a full set of 2012 Topps Series 1 cards is not worth anyone’s time. I can’t get 0.18 cents a card on sportlots for some of the stuff I see priced here for more than 0.25.
I’m not a huge retailer or store owner. I’m just a regular guy that has collected since he was a kid (over 25 years now) and I have been able to increase my personal collection and rid myself of a lot of cards I don’t need. I love the feeling of opening a box/case and sending in the cards for someone else to find on the site. I still use ebay for items that I don’t send in but I have to keep listing and listing and listing them time and time again, and not to mention the time it takes to get the shipping/packaging done (I’m a powerseller fyi)
I haven’t purchased anything in a couple of months and probably won’t be for a while and all I have on the site here is basically everything that I have which is not a common card.
Anyway, I brought this up before on another blog post about shipping, most of us have no problem paying $10 s/h for something we or our betterhalfs buy online/from tv and only to have that item(s) show up in a package that we know cost $2.50 to mail. $2.99 flat fee here is a great gesture and I think adding the shipping per card on the back end after x amount of cards is the better way to do things not how this change wants it to be. We all know that you can pretty much get 25-30-50 cards in a team bag or 2 and mail that for under $4.
I hate having to factor the cost of shipping into my card asking prices, assuming everyone is going to have their cards shipped. They I have to factor it in when I get a 50% offer. My margin is thin if non-existent currently and gladly will pay .01 to keep my cards shown for months or years as someone will eventually buy them.
I have to agree with most of the posts here.
Funny though how some of the “big guys” who have 20k cards have nothing with a BV over $12 and want full price or won’t take offers. I do think some of these changes are geared towards you to stop filling your ports with these cards or to become more realistic with pricing. When there are 40 cards and the lowest is 0.23 and you want $3 and won’t take more than a 15% offer, your card may never sell like that.
/rant for whatever really makes sense in here
Interesting points.
Personally I never buy anything on TV because of those absurd shipping rates. I buy them from the “as seen on TV racks” and pay less than the TV price with no shipping at all.
The dealers you mention that are charging high rates are the ones happy with these fee increases because it eliminates their competition. Time will tell if the buyers stay for the “pride”of being able to overpay for cards from those sellers or if they follow the sellers who are a bit more flexible to other venues….if it ends up coming to that.
Thing is I don’t think commons are the problem…a lot of them sell, and sell for over book value…the problem is the site being flooded with many of the same cards from the same sets, like the Platinum Players Clubs and the newer Topps release inserts and refractors..and COMC is to blame for some of that with their “National Special”..fill up a box with cards from the same set, and get 50 guys doing that, and that’s what happens
Remember there’s a market out there for every card…we just need to be able to sell them without losing all our profit
If this is the way they want to conduct business, then they will be driving sellers back to Ebay. It makes no sense to sell on here with these new policies as the lower end items will not move due to the shipping costs now. There is a lot of traffic here, but it is nowhere close to Ebay’s traffic and those will move there. I have been enjoying the website, but I guess it is time to say it was nice while it lasted and have everything shipped back.
If things are going to be grandfathered in then you need to grandfather in existing sellers sales instead.
Im out just shipped my cards home. My account is sedahlscandu. If someone from COMC will please close that account there is no money in it and I just shipped my cards. Hopefully people will follow suit. Please email me when closed. Peace
Right behind u once I have enough money to ship.
Im gone to just need to sell my port. Its coming up in next ad run that comc does. 10% will take it. Then i’m gone bye bye all.
Thank you rookies n jerseys i’m out.
Wow… We’ve been fielding emails and phone calls all morning on this. Was good to talk to some folks here. Guys all I can keep telling you is make your points rationally and directly. COMC has an email address and phone number posted. Call and talk to them.
This kind of stuff is nothing new…I sold my first card at a show in 1988, first at a store in 1991 and first on the internet in 1998. When I think about how much has changed on all three landscapes… it is mind boggling.
Ranting and raving will do no good. If enough buyers or sellers stop using the site they will either make changes or they will fold as so many other sites have and someone else will come along and take their place…Like Yahoo Auctions…Bidville…Bidbay/auctiondiner and countless others…. The only thing that makes this situation a bit different is in those other cases the inventory was in our posession. Don’t marry yourself to a site. Best advice I can give you.
Anyone else who would like to chat feel free to message us on facebook. I don’t pretend to have all the answers. Like all of you I hope when COMC makes policy changes they are changes my company (and since I welcome competition and a vibrant marketplace, not wish it away, ) other sellers can live with. That is what keeps a thriving community going.
We are all passengers on their boat. However I will not expect them to save me room on a lifeboat if they are going to head for an iceberg.
I totally understand the fee charged per card when I choose to have them shipped to me. I always have.
I have a hard time believing that there were more buyers complaining about the high costs of shipping then there are sellers complaining about the fee added to their cards, causing them to have to adjust when competing with other cards listed. And let’s not forget the buyers who enjoy flipping cards and often buy cards with no intention shipping them.
I know this change was intended to simplify shipments and avoid complaints from buyers requesting them, but please consider other things as well.
I think a lot of you missed this part of their post…
Feedback Wanted Disclaimer
We want your feedback, but please keep in mind the big picture. Yes, some of the fees are going up slightly, and many are coming down significantly or are completely eliminated. As you analyze these fee changes, please keep in mind that we need all of the fees to work together to make sure the system is sustainable and simple.
It’s not set in stone. They are asking for suggestions.
Agreed…another reason why I have been telling people all day to step back and not get emotional. Plan for the worst but have some faith that things may work themselves out.
I said I wouldnt post again but I need help. I am leaving the site. In order to do this I need to sell some cards, so I got money to ship the rest. I don’t need alot sold some one picks up a few cards we should be good. You help me out I will help you with discounts on these. Thank You COMCers.
I think many of the arguments here miss that there is already a per card ship fee now. The debate at hand (one of them) is that they want to standardize this fee across shipping types, and move/hide it in the card price – and whether the result of that in essence forces the seller to pay a larger share of shipping via lowered pricing. The per card fee itself is either increasing or decreasing depending on the shipment service level selected, so it is not necessarily an increase to everyone (just those selecting currently lower-priced service options.)
The fact that the per-card fee will often be charged well before an item ships, I feel, is unacceptable and must be addressed.
My other largest point of contention with the new fee structure is that premium services (1 day list, priority shipping) are seeing a reduction in rate for the extra service, whereas those of us OK with slower service times seem to be taking it on the chin with higher fees. I don’t understand why being asked to pay more for less service, and less for better service, is really acceptable from a buyer or seller standpoint. I suspect COMC is hoping for more people to use the expensive services that way, since they cost essentially the same labor to fulfill and are therefore much more profitable.
Most of us users, however, probably want to conserve our money and not pay for premium service,
Clearly not all of us, but I feel safe saying most of us. I’d be much happier to see a smaller increase across all fees instead of reducing some and raising some. If COMC wants to keep a flat per card rate on shipping (however it gets paid,) that increase could be worked into the base shipment fee instead of per card.
That said, as long as we’re making suggestions, I’d rather see a tiered shipping price based on card count than a per card fee (1-10 card costs x, 11-50 costs y, etc.)
Hi, cardhamster.
Appreciate your suggestions. You’ve always made good points and we appreciate your involvement in these conversations.
Thanks,
Jeremy
Great post cardhamster. I hope the higher ups at COMC do see the bigger side and figure out how to make us all happy.
Looking to sell my port. Taking offers on the port and single cards, etc. Reviewing offers in the order them come in and pretty quick.
Everyone has to make choices of course but guys I’d really suggest not rushing out the door so quickly. There are a few weeks before these changes take place. In that time many things may happen. Our plan is to trim down our listings to less than 100 by lowering price on some items to 90% off book. We did that this afternoon and it is working. Once the changes…whatever they may be happen we will give it through the holiday season to see how it works out. If stuff continues to sell then we will split the proceeds between buying vintage to ship and some inventory to flip. If the site tanks (for us) then we will ship the remaining inventory home after the first of the year. I know for some of you with larger inventories on here there is fear. But give COMC credit for one thing…at least a months notice.
I REALLY hope their policies become workable for us. The opportunity to purchase properly graded coins for our customers would be such an asset to us.
All i want to know is when will this take affect so I can take all my $ and cards out before the hike in this monsterous proposal
I believe I read they said the end of August.
September 1st it the date when we start to see the decline of COMC.
I find it funny that everybody is all doom and gloom about these changes when COMC told us that they are not final and are subject to change. To back that last statement up, look at 90% of the comments then look at the last paragraph of their post.
Give it a chance to pan out, there is a month for them to change things, give it time.
Sorry, meant last section, not paragraph…. oops
Jon I agree. If this was 7 days notice I’d be in much greated panic. I’m not happy with the proposed change…but nowhere near panic yet.
The voice of reason. They are implementing these changes in the morning people. They are feeling us out. I haven’t been here as long as most ,but so far I’ve noticed they typically go with what the masses want.
*aren’t
I personally utilize(d) the slower/cheaper submission methods. The cost for this (about a year ago) was 15 cents per card. That price went up to 20 cents and now 25 cents. That’s a 60% price increase in approximately one year. With this track record the future doesn’t look bright.
Percentage wise the numbers look big but it’s still really only 25cents to have your card scanned and listed.
If comc wants all there customers gone just start a fire everyone would benefit from that. You can get out and so can we. Just a idea.
These random ass comments don’t help move the debate along. Offer a suggestion or just move on. Geez…
not to mention insurance would certainly not cover arson. . .
its a suggestion
its not that far off of site suicide. just saying
Wheres the debate. Havent heard from comc since yesterday.
330+ post…I wouldn’t call it a debate ,but maybe a vent session.
Hi Tim,
this is just a suggestion but have you guys considered updating the cart software so it includes the cheapest shipping option with the price of the cards in the cart, this should eliminate the issue of buyers not knowing what the final price is before checking out and it would eliminate the need to integrate the shipping into the price of the card.
You r on to something here. I was thinking about something similar. Why not have a little box in the upper right hand corner of the screen. That shows the buyer his total under the total would be his shipping under shipping would be his really total after shipping. I think amazon has something like this. So the buyer is able to see what hes doing before he gets to checkout. Its almost to easy.
Jermey is this something comc would consider.
Hi, HTN. Thanks for the suggestion. It’s interesting, and we’ll definitely give it a look.
Jeremy
I can list a card on Ebay for .05 for one month. .25 for five months. This site use to be great, fees went from .15 to .25 and Ebay went from .35 to .05. Not a great strategy if I might type so.
I totally agree with you but remember the key words in your statement is “I can list”.
Yes remember COMC is doing the most work . We got the easy part but jumping fee’s so fast is the issue i think . Then the shipping up front as well. If all goes how they plan the comics and coins will make them a bunch more money .
Thanks to rookies n jerseys I am able to close my account now. Please close my account comc u can keep the five cents thats in there. Please send me a confirmation email. Feel free to grow some balls the rest of you. Happy Screwing.
Call me a lemming if you must, but I for one am staying and will work to make this a better site to sell my cards and to build my Detroit Tigers Personal Collection. It is all in your attitude.
Not a lemming. As long as the site works for you, you should stay. You would be crazy not to.
Tigers, I’m with you, I’m not a big fan of the proposed changes but I’m quite satisfied with the service they’ve provided me so far and i personally think leaving the site because of a 5cent increase is a little extreme,
Unless someone believes that buyers will totally vanish I don’t get the leaving thing either. We are going to make a choice not to ship new cards in but there is no cost increase for selling what is already in our ports or for flipping cards. There can be an increase in shipping on the back end but we have always taken into account the cost of delivery when offering on a card so we’ll compensate again. As long as there are cards here priced at points we feel comfortable purchasing we will be around 🙂
Nobody is going anywhere. A few people dump some stagnant ports. Just another day in paradise.
The issue isn’t whether someone chooses to leave or not. I feel that, when COMC makes changes that affect the cards already on the site, they should offer existing sellers a fairly priced option to have their ports shipped home. I have no problem with changes to cards that are mailed in after the changes. People have the upfront knowledge when they decide to mail something in.
Off topic…Who is hotter than Mike Trout and Mark Trumbo right now..good lord. Pujols seems to be heating up to.
Other than MAYBE Andrew Mccutchen…nobody
Yea, Cutch is playing on a whole different level.
If you read between the lines of the COMC staff’s comments it is clear that these fee hikes are intended to finance the new site. Such a shame to destroy what is working in hopes of making something that may or may not work. It is also clear that they have no intention of backing off the fee hikes. I have no intentions of financing something I will never use so it appears the National will be the end of my submissions and I will likely stop doing any buying unless it is something I need. If there is a drop in sales I will likely pull any cards I want to keep and have them sent back.
Being that this is such a drastic unwanted price increase I sure hope they offer a massively discounted shipping option for those wanting cards sent back.
I don’t agree on adding the shipping cost directly onto the selling price. Anyone who has bought anything on the internet knows that the shipping cost will be reflected on the shopping cart page. There is no need to tack that onto a seller’s asking price automatically. Plus the increase of storage threshold price only seems to benefit those sellers with higher book value cards for sale as well.
I just feel these changes will hurt sellers like me who like to sell low-end commons, inserts, rookies, etc. on this site because prices of these “cheaper” cards could balloon (sellers raising prices to cover their own profit margin), driving buyers of low end cards away from the site. Just my 2 cents on this.
Just for a different perspective here. I currently have about 4800 cards on the site priced between $1 and $2.25. When the changes go into place, I will no longer be paying storage fees on these cards, saving me $48 each month. I could send in about 960 cards a month at the higher listing fee and still come out at the same total cost. Those with larger inventories will benefit even more.
I don’t really care about where they show the shipping cost. It applies to everything on the site equally. It really has no impact to me. Once it is integrated and we are all used to it, we are all going to think “wow, it sure is nice to get 1000 cards shipped for $2.99 (or whatever it is).
It will be nice, but I never ship cards– just CASH OUT and send in— I was trying to FLIP cards, but I don’t think that will be possible now…. (because of the .25 cent per card charge)
“1000 cards shipped for $2.99”? More like $252.99 going by the formula $2.99 + $.25. per card. I’ll never forget the buried 25 cents and factor that in when I make my offers. Hope you were being facetious or as Sheldon would say “Is that sarcasm”?
But what if he gets at least half of those cards with the shipping cost already gone, or even more. That might be where money can really be made. Flipping the flippers/.
Whatever happened to the implementation of “soon we’re going to make it easy to search for memorabilia and autographs”? Last mention of it was in a post from Sep. 2010.
Imagine if you could get all of one player’s jersey cards or autographs in one sort. Now that would be a worthwhile change to the site.
Fair comment. Targeted searches and multi-variable searches are set to be a key feature of the new COMC.com site. You’re right we’ve been talking about it for a long time, it’s well past time to implement. Ideally this function will be working at the new site demo at the National Convention.
Thanks,
Jeremy
Thanks for taking the time to respond to my comments above. I hope that the comments of many of the sellers and buyers are used constructively. I feel like there have been a record number of Port Sales in the past few days. Is it just me or are people trying to get out before the changes occur? I think COMC needs to take a step back on the .25 S&H fee built into the price. It’s causing a lot of panic amongst sellers.
While the site should cater to buyers, if you don’t have sellers, you don’t have inventory to run your business.
And I don’t think people are being over-emotional or irrational with this. It seems like next to nobody has a problem with the listing fee going from .20 to .25. Hell, you could probably raise it to .30 if you got rid of the shipping charge and I don’t think many would bat an eyelash. The bulk of the problem is with this built-in S&H.
I hope COMC understands that they have a GREAT thing going and could certainly ruin it with a bad business move. Study the Ford Motor Company and look at the way they F’d things up multiple times in their history. They had the best selling car in the industry (Taurus) and did away with it.
I’ve sung the praises of COMC and recommended it to everyone I know in the hobby. I’ve written a how-to guide and other articles giving it a glowing stamp of approval. I just don’t know that I can do this in all good faith if this company does not listen to the suggestions and concerns of their customer base. You guys are doing a bunch of good things with these changes but it’s one sticking point that people are REALLY upset with. It speaks volumes about how big flipping is on this site.
It’s probably not cost feasible for you guys, but the economy shipping is just great. I love 3.99 for 10 cards with .20 per card after that. Could raising that to 4.50 – 4.99 for 10 plus .25 per card after be a viable solution? People pay $3 all day on eBay for 1 card. It’s really the same number you arrive at when using $2.99 shipping plus .25 per card, but it seems like we’re trying to play mental games without surveying customers or conducting a study to see if this really makes a difference in the mind of the consumer.
Hi, dlab85.
Really appreciate your comments thus far. As you note, the shipping update is not so much a change in cost (since we used to charge the exact same rate and it didn’t bother anyone for years) as it is a change in when that cost is applied (at the point of purchase, rather than the point of shipment request). For all site guests (we remain the only card site I’m aware of where you can buy without creating an account) these two points are synonymous – you pay for cards and shipping simultaneously if you pay by any means other than store credit. So the question that naturally arises is: what percentage of our sales come from guests? As it turns out, a very substantial portion. Really quite a lot. There’s a great study on the psychology of “free shipping” commissioned by UPS done here: http://www.ups.com/media/en/Smarter_Strategies_for_Free_Shipping.pdf
There’s a lot of evidence that people are dramatically more likely to complete purchase of a created shopping cart when the shipping fee is built into the merchandise cost.
So what about logged in purchases? Should they be exactly the same? No other site really does what we do – allowing effortless flipping and accumulation of purchases. We’re still discussing the implementation, and reading comments to get new perspectives.
Thanks,
Jeremy
Here’s another suggestion, why don’t you guys inflate the prices (include shipping) when the user isn’t logged on and remove it for for members, members would obviously pay the shipping fee once they request shipment. This would be a win win for everybody because it doesn’t really change much for the current members but non members would still get the illusion that there’s a “Flat Rate” for shipping.
When you are buying a brand new retail TV the term free shipping can have a positive effect, buying a dollar card assuming that the price was inflated 25 cents will have the opposite effect.
Thanks for the response, Jeremy. Interesting study conducted by UPS. I definitely know that a large percentage of sales are from guests and am hugely appreciative of that. Low cost shipping is obviously a factor in everyone’s mind.
It’s interesting because eBay’s free shipping movement was met with harsh resistance, but I had no problems with that and just built the cost of shipping into my price and offered free shipping. It didn’t affect me. Of course, flipping is less of an issue on there.
And no site comes close to the experience here. I know, for me, it’s not just about selling cards. I have a ton of fun flipping and would hate to see that experience be altered drastically.
I have faith that you guys will get the job done, as you are often very responsive to the concerns of your customer base. Thanks for making COMC such a wonderful experience so far.
this is very similar to what Amazon does with its Amazon Prime subscription. You can try an experiment – look for an item on Amazon without being logged in and compare prices. Then log in if you are a Prime member and watch some of their prices “adjust” to support the Prime free 2 day shipping.
One of the bigger card dealers also will do this. The price I see when I am not signed in is different than the price I will see once I am signed in.
I just wanted to add something. I am upset by this fee hike. I sat down for supper last night with the wife and this topic came up. She kind of put things in prospective for me and maybe it will help all of you that are just doing this for hobby. What she told me was at the end of the day your wasting alot of time worring about cardboard and ink.
and yes I know maximoose his is just another random ass comment.lol
We are more upset about the fee for listing than the fee to ship. The shipping fee has always been out of whack here but it was something that could be controlled by factoring it in to the purchase price.
For us (and I know our situation is different for many here) we can do the work ourselves for less than a quarter. So it comes down to whether or not I as an employer want to pay COMC more than I pay my own staff to work…or do I want to hire another employee at the same rate I pay my guys now to handle the extra inventory that we have been shipping to COMC.. Obviously for someone who doesn’t do this full time or does this as a hobby there are differeent factors to consider.
Well, COMC is a consignment service. I don’t think the full time hobby shops are the intended target. For somebody who does this as a hobby, I enjoy the time saving features. It’s also far cheaper than consigning through my LCS, even with the .25 increase.
Interesting theory..though hobby shops that stock singles could (in theory) bring huge numbers in terms of inventory and spending cash to this site. Much of the 400,000 unique items we had on the Beckett Marketplace would be perfect here and would be a benefit to buyers and flippers. But the costs front end and back would make it impossible to bring here.
As I have said..COMC is perfect for those that don’t want to do the work or don’t have the time or resources to do it. You are paying them much as we pay the people here.. Everyone has to decide for themselves how much they are willing (or able) to pay for this service…phone service..internet…cable TV…their car etc etc.
For the sake of the hobby and this site I hope they do not price themselves out of the range of the average collector. Even if it isn’t a good fit for us right now to send new cards in , it is a great site for collectors (and dealers) to buy/flip/sell with each other.
Definitely see your point there. I agree, that the big boys are the ones who make this site great by bringing the tons of inventory. I just don’t know that the higher ups are taking that into account. Same could be said about eBay, which would not be so great if not for the hundreds of people who do eBay as a full time job.
Maybe a tiered fee structure (as you would see with eBay stores and Top Rated Sellers) would be the way to go here, to keep the big guys on the site.
Jermey,
When you guys change to Comc.com will this affect my link 2 you. Right now I have a domain that’s Cardko.net it links buyers right 2 my Comc page. Will I need 2 adjust this with my provider.
Hi, Cardko. I don’t believe your link will be affected; we’ll be setting up an automatic link redirect which should get folks to your correct seller page.
Thanks,
Jeremy
Thanks jeremy thats good news.
Jeremy:
Is this feedback causing COMC to reconsider any of the changes? I’d be glad to discuss offline if you want additional feedback. There is a dynamic with the timing of new releases I want to make sure COMC is taking into consideration with the proposed changes.
Hi, Brian.
There’s some things that are definitely going to be implemented with the new COMC.com site. The universal processing charges with no batch fees and no hidden fees, thats pretty well set and I do not expect it to change. The exact implementation of how shipping charges look and feel are still being discussed, though, and the feedback here is a definte part of the conversation. The timing is all aimed on having our relaunch be the focus at the National Convention, and is not related to any new product releases.
Thanks,
Jeremy
Processing fees,storage fees,cashout fees,condition note fees,batch fees are all fair with what COMC brings to the table Jeremy rethink that .25 cent pre-shipping charge fiasco and Im sure all will be good in comc land
I agree with Lee. COMC is an amazing site. Increasing Insertion fees is fine. Increasing the .25 cents per card on the shipping end is crazy. If I bought 1000 cards that were packaged and shipped to me on any other website it would cost me $10-12 bucks roughly. Under your new system $253. Seems reasonable…
So to quote you no more hidden fees. So no .25 shipping fee on the cards right. That is a hidden fee.
Sounds good…please reconsider the .25 shipping on top of the card…I am ok with everything else, I’d rather see shipping kept somewhat similar to the way it is now as while I love to buy for myself, I am also a “flipper” as I’m sure most sellers are
I posted something similar (see below) in the blog entry regarding the Nationals promotion but figured I’d post it here as well to try to get some answers and fuel the discussion further. My main concern, and it’s also raised above, is that the fee increase from $.20 to $.25 is fueling the expansion into the other collectible items (we are financing something most all of us will not use) or just fattening the pockets of COMC. I originally did not like being told the changes simplified things and would have been more ok with the processing fee change if COMC told us straight up that with the growth of the site, they simply could not handle the current level of cards coming in (particularly with the lower end stuff). I would have been OK with the change although I would not have liked it. Then, they run the Nationals Promotion to try to smooth things over with us as well as bring in new sellers, and this lets us know that they CAN handle twice as many cards in one month that they are currently which is most likely what they will get (and at a discounted fee on top of that). If you can handle all these submissions in August/September with the same overhead costs, why do you need the increase $.05 a card going forward? That is the question I would like answered in some fashion.
I did post above as well but was not logged in (COMC Buyer/Seller post above) which has my further opinions on the matter. I just don’t think in the end that the changes will be worth what will be lost. Pushing these changes (and the resultant bad feelings to your site by many) right before Nationals and before promoting the new site just further shows me that sound business decisions are not being made by COMC. The members of the site are the ones who really bring other people to the site (more than any advertising or promotions at Nationals). Please reconsider these changes. The shipping is a no brainer to not make the change as it really makes no sense and the fee increase is debatable depending on the reasoning for the change.
Jeremy, any comments to my questions?
Post from other blog entry…..
Prior to reading about this promotion for Nationals, I just this evening cashed out the bulk of $ credit I had on the site due to the recent annouced changes (I decided to eat the 20% rather than reinvesting in cards on the site which is what I had planned to do). I had been buying and shipping home as well as buying for flipping on the site, but my worries with the changes essestially just took a few grand that would have been spent in some form or another on the site, off of the site. Yes COMC got my 20% but unfortunately other sellers won’t see any of it. I was not and am not planning on pulling out activity from COMC, but just kind of playing it by ear with any changes that do or do not end up happening. My activity and what I send in will be greatly effected if the proposed changes happen.
That being said, I am still open to reinvesting into the site right away due to this one time incentive but fear that this just might be roping folks further in (albeit for a short time only) with these discounted processing fees, then forcing the updated shipping fee policy down our throats, as well as the increased processing fee in the future. It also confuses me quite a bit as I kind of thought that the growth and the volume of cards coming in (and general increased overhead of the company) was driving the fee increase from $.20 to $.25 to try to slow down submissions and masses of lower value cards coming in. Then a promotion like this just squashes that theory, as it seems like COMC is confident they can handle mass quantities coming in all at once and processing them all in August into September. Are you hiring temps to help with this or do you have the capacity to handle this many cards in any normal month? If you can handle all these cards in August, at a discounted rate, without having variable expense overruns, why is there any need to increase the variable cost to your suppliers from $.20 to $.25 moving forward. It just doesn’t make sense. I’m sure you’ve done all the metrics/projections and obviously know a lot more about the reasons for the change than we do, but from an outsider, it just appears that you will be losing a lot of sellers due to the changes, as well as a whole slew of lower value cards being sent in from current sellers that you could be getting the $.20 a card on (but not the $.25 with implicThe facts that there will be less sellers (who are also probably the best buyers) and less cards being sent to the site, will not help with the goals to get more buyers.
Hi, NYMETSJETS.
I plan to respond to this when I’ve got a bit more time; just wanted to let you know I’m not ignoring you.
Thanks,
Jeremy
Thanks, looking forward to your response. Helping us understand the fees may (or may not depending on the reasoning) make them go over a bit easier.
Hi, NYMETSJETS.
As you’ve likely already seen, we’re doing blog posts all this week and I believe they will address your questions. You raise good points (as have a lot of the commenters here), and we judged it most helpful to respond as a new post instead of hidden away as a series of comments. If you’ve still got questions after our posts this week, please do let us know.
Thanks very much,
Jeremy
Well put NYMETSJETS heres what i’m thinking there doing. If i’m wrong please correct me jermey. They want to pull this shipping thing through so they are able to say COMC offers $2.99 s/h on your whole order. It makes them more atractivie to buyers. Also I wouldn’t doubt if they eventally make themselves look really good and claim free shipping. While the sellers and buyers pay for it in a sneaky way. The only way to combat a plain ly like this is to make sure that any ads you run or any ads you do on your own you make the buyer aware of this. What happens with this shipping fee is COMC LOOKS GREAT TO THE NEW BUYER——-SELLERS LOOK OVER PRICED. and thats the rest of the story.
I can’t seem to spell your name write sorry Jeremy.
Nothing personal Jeremy but in your statement to Brian that is shown below you claim no more hidden fees. So what do you guys plan to call the $.25 shipping fee that you are adding to the cards. So the question everyone wants to no is: Will this fee be hidden. Thank You
jeremycomc says:
July 18, 2012 at 10:11 am
Hi, Brian.
There’s some things that are definitely going to be implemented with the new COMC.com site. The universal processing charges with no batch fees and no hidden fees, thats pretty well set and I do not expect it to change. The exact implementation of how shipping charges look and feel are still being discussed, though, and the feedback here is a definte part of the conversation. The timing is all aimed on having our relaunch be the focus at the National Convention, and is not related to any new product releases.
Thanks,
Jeremy
Hi, Cardko. The “hidden fees” I was specifically referring to were processing fees assessed in addition to $0.20/card. Currently:
4 Week 20¢ per card
+$3 per batch of 500 items
Only standard size cards allowed
No graded, encased or jumbo cards
No coins, poker chips or bottle caps
Takes 4 weeks from the date your cards arrive or processing is only 15¢
1 Week 35¢ per card
+$3 per batch of 500 items
Only standard size cards allowed
No graded, encased or jumbo cards
No coins, poker chips, or bottle caps
Takes 1 week from the date your cards arrive or processing is only 20¢
.
The Fine Print:
Enough funds to cover the processing fee must be in your account in order for us to assign a guaranteed due date.
Batches of 500 or more cards will be divided into smaller batches. There is a $3 fee per batch of cards for processing.
There is a 50¢ per card fee for cards that have to be scanned in a toploader because they are too expensive or too thick.
There is a 5¢ per card fee for cards shipped to us in toploaders or other hard cases. There is no fee for penny sleeves.
There is a 25¢ per card fee for damaged items needing condition notes or items with separate COA’s.
There is a $2 per item fee for any graded, encased, jumbo cards, coins, poker chips or bottle caps. Use Special Sized instead.
Special Processing Services
Special Sized 75¢ per item
+$3 per batch of 50 items
Graded, encased & jumbo allowed
Coins and poker chips allowed
Takes 3 weeks from the date your cards arrive or processing is only 50¢
Next Day $2 per item
+$3 per batch of 50 items
Graded, encased & jumbo allowed
Coins and poker chips allowed
Takes 1 business day from when your cards arrive or processing is only 75¢
.
The Fine Print:
Enough funds to cover the processing fee must be in your account in order for us to assign a guaranteed due date.
Batches of 50 or more items will be divided into smaller batches. There is a $3 fee per batch of items for processing.
These are fees we are going to be simplifying. The shipping fee bundled into the item price is also a simplification, but for folks who want to view the site the old way, they’ll still have access to the checkoutmycards.com site where everything will look the way it does now.
Thanks,
Jeremy
$0.40/$0.65/$1.15 per card listing fees depending on speed.
$4 flat rate shipping for buyers.
It’ll help get the junk cards off the site and buyers will buy more with no added shipping costs for additional cards they buy. No hidden per-card shipping charges either.
If anyone complains about these listing fees being too high, then that means you are sending in too much junk. Stop cluttering up the site and making more work for COMC for little if any profit for either side.
Have processing specials when your employees get more “caught up” and can handle more inventory.
If you truly want/need to increase the 4 week processing fee from .20 to .25 cents. Then at least consider adding another price point like 5 week processing for .20 cents. This will keep the smaller to mid size sellers like me in the game. I deal many in lower end stuff, however, when i buy from the site it is usually mid-higher end so that my port has a better mix of cards.
I want to continue having fun with this site and I don’t want constantly sweat over the fees. Although, I admit I don’t make money on all of my cards but I am Ok with that because I usually offset tthat with the gains I make on other cards.
Bottom line-keep a .20 cent per card processing fee and increase the processing time.
I agree you could make alot of people happy with another tier pricing with a little longer wait to have them posted.
Just wanted to give the opinion of a little guy. Don’t buy much and have only sent in one batch but was in process of sending in another batch when I read this news. Here’s my take- I’m a father of two young girls, 13 and 8, I like to spend time with them and some of that time costs money. I also have two jobs- one FT and one PT two or three times a week (6pm to 11:30PM). So, I don’t have a lot of time to really invest in the hobby. One thing I do enjoy though is selling off some of my cards to reinvest back into my Wants list. Started by trading and then finally hit EBay. But, as noted above, without a lot of time, this was extremely difficult between the time to scan the cards, list everything, mail out, etc. So when I found this site, I thought “Awesome, just send them to COMC and let them do the work”. And i was happy with how my first batch sold last year. Didn’t sell everything, did a little flipping, had fun in a hobby I enjoy in a short amount of time. So overall, because of those reasons, I don’t mind the fees either per card to process or the 20% cash out. It;s not a business to me though either. that includes the old fees and the new raised fees. I really don’t.
The one thing I DO mind though is someone adding 25 cents to my pricing! Why? Because you get complaints from unintelligent people that don’t get the shipping structure?? Let me ask this- if I go on Walmart.com and look at a TV, is the price include the shipping or is that added later in the cart? If Walmart can survive without having the shipping price added in on their site, why can this site not do it?
This also leads to unfair competition between original owners and flippers. Example- I post a card and I want $1 for it. Another member is flipping the card and wants $1 for it. Since his/hers has already had the shipping paid for it though, theirs will be listed as $1 whereas mine will be listed for $1.25. Very unfair practice in my opinion.
Again,just wanted to share the opinion of the little guy. Love the site, the idea, and don’t even mind the fee hikes. BUT hate the shipping being added to the price of MY card.
Hi, Neckababy1. I recently shopped on Walmart.com, and I noticed their following offer: “This home free item ships free with $45 order of Home Free items”. Of course, the item does not ship for free. Walmart has to pay people to ship the item and pay for postage, and that cost does not go away if you order more items – as we know, it increases.
Walmart still makes a profit because the cost of that “free” shipping is added to the merchandise cost. It simply makes the item more appealing to bundle the cost together in that way.
I will have to say you have hit a new low trying to compare your business to Wal Mart! It is quite obvious the changes are going to happen no matter what is said. Any comment you cannot spin will be ignored. There is a reason these fees were not brought up in the focus group when COMC.com was discussed…
Will they at least be listed as card price plus the shipping rate so it is easier for the buyer to see why?
Like $1.25 + .25 fee
I don’t think so that would defeat the purpose of what they r trying to do. They want to create an illusion to the new buyer that shipping is cheap. Nothing personal but I can already see Tim and the boys at national chuming with the new comers, bragging up the site and there almost free shipping. Then just to top it off tons of new cards coming in for the promo to prove there point that COMC’s the best place to sell and buyer. While me and you know its just an illusion to a new comers this will be magical.
Chill.
The sky, in fact, is not falling.
Why don’t you wait to see what shakes out?
Speaking as a dude who uses this site to flip a lot, I figured out a loophole with the new pricing. I’m not worried, and I will remain a customer.
I’m leaving this post in hope that those at COMC are still contemplating the proposed “shipping fee” charge and will realize the problematic nature of the counter-intuitive changes. What is different about COMC compared to Ebay is that COMC is an interactive network, as opposed to Ebay which is an auction site. COMC is a dynamic, and systematic entity similar to the stock market that is driven by supply and demand, market prices, and potential growth. Imagine if they suddenly changed the way the stock market was priced, it wouldn’t make sense. I understand that you are trying to offer “free” shipping to buyers, I just hope that you can find a way to do that without disrupting the fluidity and simplicity of this site, which I really enjoy.
Clearly, most of the posts on this blog are not in favor of the proposed changes, and that is just those of us who have read the blog. I imagine that there are other sellers who are not yet aware of the changes and who will share our negative sentiments. I’m not a big seller, I try to make money but that’s just not going to happen, I use this site because it’s just fun.
I hope you can see what I’m talking about and find alternative solutions.
After reading all the complaints about the new ‘incorporated shipping costs’…. I am of the opinion that you should offer a ‘pre incorporated shipping’ special that will allow us smaller sellers to get ALL of our cards shipped back to us at a discounted rate. I do not honestly feel that I can afford to sell my cards on COMC in the future!!!!!
Off-topic, but still related to site changes/enhancements:
Maybe I’m a little slow but I just noticed I’m now able to search all players on a particular team. I typed in Braves and 22K cards came up. Previously, as late as a couple of months ago, only a handful of things would come up like team checklists, team mascots, oddball, etc. Is this related to new site features like the (searching for a particular player’s memorabilia only) question you responded to on this thread?
It’s actually incredibly helpful and a great feature.
I agree 100%. About a year ago, I attempted the same thing with the Jays. All I got was a couple of checklists. A fellow I’ve been corresponding with tipped me off about typing in team name again just a few days ago & voila, over 13,000 Jays popped up which can be narrowed down by typing in a brand or player. It was like magic.
Nice to talk about something other than fees, which have been bludgeoned to death in this post, especially with misconceptions and knee jerk reactions.
Shh, still in beta. 😉
I have to admit, I’ve been thinking a lot the past couple of days about the 25 cent shipping add-in, my initial reaction to that was the COMC was taking money from the pockets of the sellers by forcing them to adjust their card prices up 25 cents, thereby causing less sales as buyers will think that it’s simply too high.
Then, Jeremy or Tim came in here and explained that there was buyer psychology reasoning behind it, it immediately hit me that they were looking at this in a way that I had not yet though about. I reflected back on to my own buying tendencies online, and how I will hardly EVERY buy anything off amazon, or any other website for that matter, without it including FREE shipping…. what I didn’t think about though is that I’m probably not actually getting free shipping, the shipping is probably being built into the cost of the item so that they can market it to me as being free shipping.
After looking at it from this aspect and thinking outside the box. I can definitely see the reasoning behind this. It is a MAJOR marketing point to be able to offer free shipping. If they can do this, in combination with a smart and well placed advertising campaign, then the buyers will flock to COMC. We will exponentially increase the amount of traffic looking at our cards, and I now honestly feel that buyers will be more apt to purchase a card at a higher asking price with the notion of FREE shipping.
I would like to apologize to the COMC team for my initial harsh criticism, thank them for being so involved, and amend my recommendations to them.
My 2 current recommendations for continued success is:
Find some way to make shipping FREE! Get rid of base shipping charges and go with FREE shipping on any order of $25. Any order under $25 can be shipped under the proposed $2.99 shipping structure. The basis of free shipping though is HUGE.
I now view the .25 add in to the sellers prices as acceptable, but it would absolutely HAVE TO be for new submissions only. In order to keep your sellers from running to the doors, you would have to grandfather their current inventory and eat the shipping add-in yourself.
I do think you guys are onto something here, once my initial emotions settled and I thought about it from a business aspect, I began to see the potential. This is a very tough move for COMC, it could very well be make or break, but I view the potential reward worth the risk.
I apologize for all the typos 🙁
Hi, whoameye55.
Thanks. =)
Your explaination of how you thought about it really echoes our own process of analysis and decision-making. You’re on to something with your suggestions; conversations are definitely being had here re: implementation.
I appreciate your comment immensely.
Jeremy
I’m not going to tell you whats on SWAGCARDS mind because I don’t no. I do no he is running a 50% off sale like i’ve never seen before. If this is the end for you swag, I would like to say thank you for all you have done for this site. You really are the reason most of us are here, so thank you and good luck in what every you do.
I’m leaving this post in hope that those at COMC are still contemplating the proposed “shipping fee” and will realize the problematic nature of the changes. What is different about COMC compared to Ebay is that COMC is an interactive network, as opposed to Ebay which is an auction site. COMC is a dynamic, and systematic entity similar to the stock market, that is driven by supply and demand, market prices, and potential growth. Imagine if they suddenly changed the way the stock market was priced, it wouldn’t make sense. It would really throw a wrench in the gears, so to speak. I understand that you are trying to offer “free” shipping to buyers, I just hope that you can find a way to do that without disrupting the fluidity and simplicity of this site, which I really enjoy.
Clearly, most of the posts on this blog are not in favor of the proposed changes, and that is just those of us who have read the blog. I imagine that there are other sellers who are not yet aware of the changes and who will share our negative sentiments. I’m not a big seller, I try to make money but that’s just not going to happen, I use this site because it’s just fun.
I hope you can see what I’m talking about and find alternative solutions.
Wow, COMC was a big enough rip off before the price increase. Now its obscenely overpriced. Ebay is exponentially better then this site. You get thousands of times the exposure, thousands of times the selection and pay far less in fees. And with eBay there is transparency regarding what sells and how much it sells for, which is huge. As popular as it is to rag on eBay, its far and away the best option around for collectors.
How many chargebacks, condition complaints, shipping delays, ignored customer service emails, fraudlent payments have you had on COMC compared to Ebay? Ebay is a nightmare these days. If i’ve ever had a issue with COMC is been cleared up in a timely manner. Ebay/Paypal don’t give you the time of day and ALWAYS side with the buyer. I’ve actually sold items for higher prices on COMC than Ebay. Time is money and COMC saves me time.
Maximoose nothing personal but if I where to give you a $100 would you take it. You must be rich or something. We r average joes on here and we love money.
I like making money just as much as the next person ,but I know what it takes to run a business. You gotta pay to play. I can’t imagine the overhead they have.
I see it as a little bit of give and take. Up fee’s a bit ,but have also removed/decrease fee’s from other areas. I don’t wanna sound like a COMC fanboy ,but I’ve tried sportsbuy, ebay, beckett marketplace and they were a daily headache. If these new idea’s go into effect and I see it effect the way I do business then I’ll be the firs to say something.
I sell about 2,000 dollars worth of cards on ebay each month and I don’t have any of the issues you mentioned. Maybe 1 out of every 100 or so buyers is a bit difficult, but it never takes more then 10 minutes to resolve. And I’ve only had 1 condition complaint in 5 years of actively selling cards on eBay.
As for the new fees, there is NO way they would have changed the fees if they honestly thought they were going to go down overall. Anyone who believes that should shoot me an email because I have a bridge up in New York City that I can give you a great deal on…
Jeremy what happens with Amazon and their 20% cut if you include the $.25 in the card price. Do they get 20% of the $.25 charge; if so that works out to $.05 on every card sold through Amazon; in effect COMC gets none of the increase from $.20 to $.25 on cards sold through Amazon.
As an example seller wants $3.75 for a card so it gets listed at $4.00; 20% of 3.75 = $.75; 20% of $4.00 = $.80. This holds true for whatever the price is as 20% of $.25 = $.05.
Good question. Right now our plan is to list items on Amazon identically to the way a guest would see them on our site. For your example: The COMC seller wants $3.75, so a guest sees $4, as does an Amazon shopper. If the card sells on Amazon we tell them “free shipping” (which makes us significantly more competitive there), and the seller on COMC gets the same 80% as today ($3).
Thanks,
Jeremy
I dislike the change in shipping, hopefully there will be some variation of it when a final decision is made. Nobody likes change but we all adjust. I am addicted to cards and this site. Whether you make money from buying or selling on COMC or utulize it to trade or buy cards for your personal collection, most of us would agree it is a great website and it will only get better. Had the incorporation of the .25 shipping charge be the norm from the site’s inception no one would have questioned it and most would have thought it was a genius idea to pay a flat $2.99 and have all your cards shipped for free.
When I buy an item online I look to see what the total cost is to have it delivered (price+shipping).
Remember everyone nothing is set in stone and if it doesn’t work they can always go back to the old way or find a new one. You may not be able to reinvent the wheel but you can make a better wheel.
See you at THE NATIONAL!!!
Would it be outside the realm of possibility to just say a flat out .49 cent processing fee per card, with no hidden fees anywhere and free shipping for any shipment of 20 or more cards?
Something worries me – one of their biggest sellers offering huge huge discounts—— hmmm
I do believe they’ve had the same 50% off sales before.
Yes, they have. And right before their first 50% off sale, they pulled the top $300,000 off the site. They had a million in inventory and then it started going down in big chunks. I was watching many of the higher priced/small print run cards and they were pulled. I wouldn’t attach that decision at all to the shipping situation. If you do, I’d bet you were 100% wrong.
I saw a question above asking how this affects international rates but I didn’t see an answer.
I live in the UK and both sell and buy on COMC :
From a selling point of view I don’t think there’s any difference in the way I’m affected by the changes compared to someone who sells from the US.
From a buying point of view though its not clear – currently I’m treated the same in that I pay $2.99 + $0.20 a card per shipment. Under the proposed new “free shipping” do I now get charged $2.99 per shipment like everyone else or is there a higher international rate?
Great question. I do not expect international rates for Standard Shipping to change. The price will be baked in to the overall card price, and you’ll have the option to ship for $2.99. We really appreciate our international customers.
Thanks,
Jeremy
Please post the reasoning behind the new shipping idea. Charging buyers to ship an item that they don’t want shipped? Why not just charge shipping to the person who actually wants the item shipped. Again please post the reasoning behind this.
Hello, Tripp.
We’ll be addressing that question in this week’s blog posts.
Thanks,
Jeremy
Out of the 400+ posts, how many have been positive? Use this sample and extrapolate it to the overall COMC community. You are about to lose most of your users. The comments you have made about “people thought we were crazy before. We sure proved them wrong!” Are insulting and ridiculous. Just because you have been correct in the past to criticism does not automatically make you correct in the future.
Why couldn’t the cash out fee bump up from 20 to 22% and then COMC could offer free shipping. It solves the problem of COMC needing money to build the other sites (and by the way the card guys kind of resent that) and at the same time keeps flippers from getting burned.
At some point even flippers will want to cash out… 22%… At 20% on top of the other fees I feel like I to need ask to at least be taken out to dinner before I….
Yeah upping cash out fee is not my favourite solution but this 25 cent hidden fee is going to kill flippers which generate a lot of my sales. I can source my cards at 5% of book value so selling at 20% doesn’t kill me. Without the flippers this site may become Bidville.
Ha! Bidville…I wonder what Ed Orlando is doing these days!
I’m an active user as a seller (only). My store is Sabrgeek. I’ve been slowly growing my site over the past 2 years and granted while I’m primarily selling lower end/lower price material, I have sold approximately 33 percent of what I’ve sent in. In today’s world a 33 percent sale rate is extraordinary.
Now lets discuss some pros/cons.
1) What I liked about the “old” structure was that I sent a card in, was sent a list when processed of what was sent in and then priced cards (usually at low book if modern) based on book price. What I do not like about this new system is having to even think about pricing with shipping or other factors in mind. Just like way back in the day when I used to do card shows, my fees were the “table price” and C.O.G.S. and whatever I priced a card at was what I priced a card at. Just because there were some bad phone experiences with collectors who may not understand shipping charges, that is not my problem
2) I’m sure there are costs involved in scanning, storing and shiping cards we don’t understand. But, because of employee cost and time there has to be more than if this was just a one person company. Remember that when COMC announces costs structures I don’t know about you , but it is sure easier to pay COMC and let them do all the heavy lifting. And I’m still waiting for cards to be able to magically trnansported just like the good old Star Trek days.
3) I think the new monthly storage fees are going to be real good for the types of cards I sell. I have not put pen to paper yet but with the cards I’m bringing to the National, then I think the new $50 fee will truly behoove me.
4) Anytime I get a headache trying to figure out an annoucement such as this, the warning bells go off. I had a nearly perfect record of picking product losers in advance when I read anything that made my head spin. My head spun on this annoucement — thus it is probably a lower. A better wrap would be no shipping charge added to a card but shippping charges added at the end. And big bold letters about shipping all the way would help too.
I’m sure I’m missing things, but I’m looking forward to time with tim at the National.
2
This is how I am approaching the situation at hand. The are running the special so I will max out then run an ad sell as much as possible then flip the port. No more submissions until its affordable again period.
(Soon the cheapest way to get 500 cards listed will be $125), That will not encourage me to add more cards to this site. I have over 8000, now and want to add more, but this will keep me from adding any. There has got to be a cheaper bulk rate, Maybe $500 for 5000 cards. You want more inventory, make it to where I want to send more cards in.
I would prefer COMC owners seek a venture capitalist and sell stock to fund their ambitions.
I would prefer a two tiered price structure: the existing price for sellers and existing price plus shipping for non-sellers. This way the non-sellers are subsidizing the sellers and are encouraged to “add more items to their cart with the same shipment”.
I have mixed feelings about the increase in processing cost to .25 per card. I don’t like paying more and not getting anything in return. However, it does have a positive effect of “pricing out the junk” and discouraging sellers from sending in cheap cards.
I don’t particularly care about the impact of rule changes to flippers. They are “only in it for the money” adding costs to buyers and reducing profits of sellers.
Further thoughts….
What it boils down to is that basically COMC charge $0.40 total processing and shipping at present and are intending to put it up to $0.50.
However of that $0.40 they only see $0.20 of that up front and may never see the remaining $0.20 if the card remains on the site indefinitely.
So I can understand that they want to realise that money but I think its clear from what’s been said that the suggested changes don’t actually simplify matters but instead completely over complicate them.
If they really want to simplify things and offer free shipping then the answer is to make the entire cost up front – ie $0.50 for processing. As a seller I can’t say having to pay $0.50 up front is appealing but if advertising and “free shipping” brings buyers to the site then I can see how it would work for me in the long run.
Currently if I want to make $1.00 on a card say (ignoring the 20% cash out fee as I, like a lot of people, tend to reinvest my sales in purchases) then I price it at $1.20 ($0.20 processing + $1.00). The buyer then actually pays $1.40 ($1.20 + $0.20 shipping). If I pay $0.50 up front processing then to make $1.00 I price the card at $1.50. The buyer gets free shipping and so ends up paying the $0.10 rate increase and I still get my $1.00….. or alternatively I price the card at $1.45 and we effectively split the rate increase between us.
Yes I have to pay a lot more up front but if my card sells then I’m no worse off and if free shipping and advertising considerably increases traffic to the site then I have a lot more chance of selling it at a higher price.
My question to COMC is if you were to put the entire processing fee up front, is $0.50 really the lowest you can offer and still run a business? Given that this would give you all the fees up front and that you get paid whether the card sells or not would you be able to offer a lower standard rate, even if it is only a few cents lower?
Another question is on storage fees – if the fee were up front then logically this would move the free storage cut off from $0.75 to $1.00. Would paying all the fees up front make it be possible to offer free storage on all cards? I don’t know about other sellers but for me free storage would be appealing in the same way free shipping is to a buyer.
Just a suggestion…..
I like these changes and I trust Tim and the team’s judgement. Buyers really benefit from large quantity purchases with a flat fee, which should ultimately help keep cards rotating on the site a lot better. Yes, some sellers may be more impacted than others, but overall, I like this change. I don’t know much about other collectibles, but simplifying fees will make life much easier for their expansion.
I know that Tim doesn’t like the idea of per transaction charges but it seems to me to be a simpler and predictable way of generating revenue that will increase with volume.
Basic idea: when a card exchanges hands assess a transaction cost of 1%, I.e. when a 100 dollar card sells, seller gets 99 dollars. The 1% is retained by COMC. This method of revenue generation separates the shipping expense from tranactions and can allow both to be managed more effectively from a business standpoint.
I like the idea of a flat 3.00 shipping fee to encourage “more sales” for one time buyers and “repeat business” for other buyers.
Time will tell if the overall increased price of cards on this site has an impact on sales or not. Basically unless one wants to sell at a loss in order to make a profit on a card the initial sale will have to be 51 cents. (25 cents to list..25 cents built in initial shipping and 1 cent for profit on the sale) Obviously with this $55 promo there will be thousands of cards added to the site that this will not apply to as cards can be added to the site at a rate of 13 cents (based on how many cards we can get in a box) but going forward there is going to be a noticable increase in costs of cards booking $5 and less. Is that a good thing? It is if you believe buyers here are hankering to pay more money.
We are sending in 4 boxes containing about 1600 cards during the special. Beyond that…who knows.
I guess jeremycomc is done responding to our posts.
Jeremy,
Wouldn’t it just be a lot easier to to have a window popup on the very first click of “Add to Cart” that shows the cart with that card and the shipping price. Provide something that explains the shipping charges to the buyer from the very first add to cart?
Also how is this going to affect cards sold through Amazon? Don’t the customers pay a flat rate on Amazon for everything they purchase (because everything purchased there is shipped) then you double collect for shipping on each of those cards by $.25 per card?
Another point I would like explained is how COMC actually collects 25% on cashout’s not 20%. Example If I have $100.00 in my store account. If I wanted to receive $80 cash, I should be charged 20% of $80 or $16 for a total deduction of $96 from my account. But in reality you put it in reverse and say how much of your $100 do you want to cash out and you take 20% off that amount, which equals 25% of the $80 I received. You should only collect the cash out fee on what we actually receive. Otherwise mark it as a 25% cashout fee. This has bothered me from day one.
To answer the last part, to convert the store credit to cash to pay the cash out fee you would also need to pay the 20% on those funds.
This still doesn’t make sense. If I want $80 Cash, we should only be charged 20% of the $80 which is $16 not $20.
You are not paying the cash out fee with cash, that is what you are missing. You must pay a cash out fee on that money used to pay the cash out fee.
Sorry but I would like to hear a response from COMC instead of another user.
If a new buyer goes onto the site and buys my $100 card with their credit card or paypal account how is the money sitting in my account not already cash? Their is a transaction behind the scenes from the buyer to COMC. Granted COMC is paying a merchant processing fee 1-3% to “receive” that money but still there is actual cash deposited into their account and when I want $80 from my “account” I have to pay $20 to get it instead of $16 which is 20% of $80. I have to pay 20% of the $16 they are keeping for their fee?
Hello, TimelessSports.
Thanks for being patient; there has been a lot to keep up with in the blogs lately.
Your question about whether “20%” is a reasonable description of our cash out fee depends on whether the equation is an addition or a subtraction.
Addition) Customer wants to add $80 cash to their PayPal account. 20% of $80 = $16 fee.
Subtraction) Customer wants to subtract $100 store credit from our site. 20% of $100 = $20 fee.
Our fee is a subtraction-based fee, since it is the fee we assess for removing earned profit from our marketplace. It isn’t a fee we charge to pay you, it’s a fee we have for subtracting resources. From the “fees” page: “When you do decide to convert some store credit into cash, the cash-out fee will be 20% of the store credit you choose to convert.” http://www.checkoutmycards.com/cashout.aspx
Thanks,
Jeremy
So the $2.99 shipping cost will be in addition to the 25 cent price increase built in to the card price?
Hi, Eddie. That is correct. That means for one, two, or three card purchases the total cost will actually be lower than it is today (since we currently have a $3.99 initial shipping cost).
Thanks,
Jeremy
Is there a start date for the consignment fee changes? The only solid date I see is for storage fee changes (Sept 1.) I’d like to have at least a rough date as to when the various changes will go into effect.