First 5 years of service: 7.5 million cards processed
First 2 weeks of August: 0.7 million cards submitted

Normally we receive about 100,000 cards in a 2 week period. Due to our 5th Anniversary Special, we received about 7 times that in the first couple weeks of August. Last year we ran a similar special and only got about 100,000 cards. We figured we would probably get 200,000 – 300,000 cards based on the growth of the site and a slightly better promotion. Oops!

We received more cards in two weeks than we have ever processed in a 3 month period.

We had been hoping to launch the new COMC by the end of this month, but that was before we received 10% as many cards in a two week period as we had received in the previous 5 years combined. Unfortunately, we have had to put all development efforts on hold in order to increase our work force by nearly 50%.

Due Dates

Many of you have been wondering what will happen with due dates. As you may have suspected, it won’t be possible for us to process everything in just 5 weeks. That would have required hiring about 60 temp employees. Instead we have opted for a much more healthy balance of permanent full-time, part-time, and temp employees.

As a result we expect to process about 65-80% of the 5th Anniversary Specials on time. The rest will get processed as soon as we can, but they may get delayed by 2-4 weeks. We will be strategically skipping the most difficult submissions so that we can try to satisfy as many customers as possible.

5 Week Guarantee for the 5th Anniversary Special

If we miss a submission’s due date, we will discount the processing fees $5. Also, for each additional week we miss a due date we will discount an additional $5. If you would prefer to get the discount instead of getting your cards posted on time, please let us know, and we will prioritize your submissions accordingly.

4 Week Processing Blackout for September

Because of the enormous backlog, we will not offer our 4 Week processing service during the month of September. If you have stuff you are planning on sending us we will honor the 4 Week guarantee as long as the package is postmarked by this Saturday, September 1st. Any packages that are postmarked after September 1st will be given a due date of October 29th. Starting October 1st we will only allow the new One Month processing service that will cost $0.25 per item.

1 Week Processing Fee Going Up in October

We will keep the $0.35 processing fee for 1 Week service during the month of September, but on October 1st the One Week processing service will cost $0.50 per item.