Last 2 Weeks of 20¢ Processing

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A couple weeks ago we announced that due to the overwhelming success of our 5th Anniversary promotion we would have to do a blackout of the 4 week processing service during the month of September. Well, our hiring and training has been successful and we have good news…

We have removed the blackout. For the next two weeks you can submit as much as you want with the old 20¢ processing service, but rather than guaranteeing 4 weeks, we are calling it our “Oct 29th” service. Anything postmarked by September 29th will be processed by October 29th. Please specify “Oct 29th” for this service. You are also welcome to continue using our Next Day, 1 Week, and Special Sized services.

The website has been updated to reflect these updates. Anything postmarked October 1st or later will get our new “One Month” service that starts at $0.25.

What does that extra nickle get you?
The extra $0.05 allows us to do the following.
– Open a Canadian drop-off center with free shipping (the first of many to come)
– More advertising (every single Beckett publication + an online ad campaign)
– Hire trading card experts with more experience
– Get rid of condition note fees
– Remove the $3 batch fee
– Increase free storage from $0.25 to $0.75 (40% storage fee savings for most users)
– Remove the $15/month fee for premium seller options (min offer and auto-accept settings)

With all of these improvements, the old 20¢ service is a steal. Take advantage of it while you can.

48 thoughts on “Last 2 Weeks of 20¢ Processing”

  1. Thanks Tim
    I do understand the need to raise the fee but I do hope that once things settle down you do consider
    offering a lower tier as the fees do add up.
    As you mentioned, if the submission is all from the same set, COMC’s job is much easier so
    I would welcome a lower tier where the submission is all from the same set and there is a longer timeframe ( even 12 weeks would be fine with me )

    Rookies_n_Jerseys

    • I agree with Rookies_n. A lot of people will break a box and send the rest to you guys. Also a one-sport/year/or player would be nice.

      Also I think the Beckett pricing should be included in the $50 a month membership

      -LakoKahili

      • I know what your thinking is, but I think flooding the site with as many cards as we can from the same set is a bad, bad idea..that’s why there’s hundreds listed of certain cards. Diversity and unique cards are what attracts new people to the site to find rare cards for their PCs, not everyone wants to load up on the new releases even if they’re 90% off BV since COMC’s flooded with the same cards

      • Actually I’m not thinking of new product and flooding as I see that point. I’m looking at submissions from legacy sets where there is little to no inventory on the site already.

      • Ha, I’m working on that, but I’m being selfish when I say I don’t want others to send in cards from those sets 🙂

      • Although on the surface not a bad idea, one sport/ year/ player is not faster to identify than a random assortment. We still have to deal with locating what set, parallel, and/or variation each card is, whether it’s across the spectrum or only one player, year, or sport. One product is faster, in particular when dealing with base set and base insert sets only.

  4. Just wondering why there isn’t any invoice type coorespondence for the “storage fees” charged? I have looked the last couple of times and was a little startled when I saw a decrease in my store credit. I chalked it up as the beginning of the month and must be the phantom storage fees… But there was no email or site indicator or breakdown of my fees cost. Sorry, maybe I missed it somewhere but I for one, would really like something for my records related to the total of those fees.

    • Good idea. We do list the fee in the Store Credit History from your dashboard, but I like the idea of sending a monthly email that lists the storage fee as well as some summary stats for monthly sales.

      • I would love to see one more step added to the Store Credit History page, a running total showing all credits and debits. This would allow us to keep accurate daily totals and also account for cards actually going live, since the amount you prepay is rarely ever accurate.

  5. is the .75 max for free storage the current thing or has that not taken affect yet and it’s still .25?

  7. So if we have a card sitting in our inventory at $1.00 and it appears it’s not gonna move, we can price it at 0.75 to avoid storage fees?

    • $3.25 + .25 per additional card was the original shipping fee for a long time. In February, COMC ran an “experiment” where they switched to the current 10 cards for $3.99.

      Now, COMC is going to a different format, where the 25 cent per card handling fee is included in the asking price of the card (or at least, that’s the way people who are not logged in or who are viewing the cards on Amazon / Google Shopping and other off-COMC websites will see it).

      A bunch of different ideas have been thrown around, so I’m not sure which one will be operational when the site changes over to the new format. But if you search this blog for “Shipping Experiment”, you’ll see a post from February 26, 2012 where the current postage fee (the one you’re used to) was proposed, and a lot of back-and-forth argument about whether or not it was a good idea.

      My general impression is that Amazon and other websites have rules whereby you can’t list an item for a higher price on Amazon than you would list the same item on your own website. Also, the average order shipped from COMC is only for a few cards. But some people will buy 100 or 200 or 1000 cards and then become outraged by the $25, $50, or $250 handling fee. So COMC is going to a format where the buyer pays the handling fee up front, and then their entire order ships for one flat rate. Or, at least, a buyer who isn’t registered to the site and logged in.

      • I am aware of the experiment and saw the same response on their facebook page.
        I think what has most people upset is the usual channels of communication have broken down. The “experiment” ended without notice (unless I am missing something) and while everyone knew the changes were coming to shipping once the site changed I don’t think people were expecting it before that…COMC normally gives notice when such changes are made.

        It was you, one of the regular NON compensated spokesmen for the site explaining it and not COMC themselves. While everyone appreciates your support of this site I think folks would rather hear these things from the folks who actually are in a position to explain these things “officially”

      • That’s not really how online communities work. I mean, sure, it’s great to get it from the source, but truth is truth. I would rather them answer their CS emails and process orders. We know that is a choke point because of the “October 29” service. Maybe if they responded to all the comments in due fashion that would have been renamed the “October 31” service. Do you see what I mean?

        Comment flows on this blog are like any other heavily trafficked blog. It’s like Cheers. There is always a Norm, a Cliffy, a Carla, etc. That’s just how the Internet is.

      • You asked a question and I answered it, to the best of my knowledge. I didn’t say whether I thought the change was good or bad, just that it is. COMC is implementing quite a few changes right now. Some of them might be beneficial in certain circumstances. Some might be detrimental in other circumstances. My personal philosophy is that it’s prudent for me to understand changes and adapt to them, and that I should try to be helpful to others when I can.

        Your question was important enough to ask on two different venues, so it seemed appropriate to answer it on two different venues. The main difference is that on Facebook, I could give a link, whereas on this blog, links are treated as spam and need to be moderated. So, the answer on this blog was to search for a certain term, and the answer on Facebook was a link to the actual post that I was referring to.

        I agree that it would have been preferable if someone from COMC had been the one to answer your question, but they seem to be rather busy at the moment, so I chimed in with my understanding of the situation. It is true that I am not compensated by COMC for my time and effort. The warm glow of gratitude that you radiate is my only reward.

      • COMD the problem is you can not address the core issue which was that there was no advanced notice given that the costs were going to increase. As I said I can see where they would not want to be flooded with shipping requests when they are already overtaxed. However it was worth noting that they did fail to “warn” people as it is a change from their normal business practices.

      • I was under the impression that the “core issue” on this thread, titled “Last 2 Weeks of 20¢ Processing”, is that we are currently living through the last 2 weeks of 20 cent processing.

      • As Joel pointed out…online forums don’t flow that way typically. Everything from storage fees to condition notes to this subject have been touched on.

        As far as 20 cent submission fees go, we took full advantage of them over the last few days and hope to see them again in the future so we can send more cards in to support the site.

  9. Thinking about this more I am going to guess based on how backed up things are that the reason they didn’t give advanced notice of this change is they did not want to be flooded with shipping requests. Not a good excuse but could very well be the reason. We were planning on waiting until coins went live on the site or a holiday shipping special to get stuff shipped so it isn’t an impact on us anyway other than unhappy customers lead to less buying which hurts everyone.

    • Here is a direct quote from Tim back on July 15:

      “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.”

      I would say they gave ample warning to the change coming. I personally believe they should have waited until COMC.com goes live, but that is solely their decision to make and hopefully is a sign that it will launch sooner rather than later.

      • Cardsrus1
        I agree with you on the timing…
        Question…where was that quote? It is possible I (and others) either never saw it or because it was over 2 months ago and the fees only went up recently, forgot about it…Or…did the fees in fact go up at the end of July and myself and others not realize it? We weren’t planning on getting anything shipped until December. We found out about the increase when one of our customers emailed us and then I saw others bring it up on Facebook.

      • The post was the same day that Tim made the statement within the first 10 of over 400 comments, ‘Preparing for Growth: Simplifying Fees.’ I will not comment on what you may or may not have seen or remembered from the post. I am simply pointing out that your comments and accusations have no merit based on what has been publicly stated by Tim through the recent blogs. The fact is they made it clear the changes were going to happen, the exact time that they did go in effect does not change that fact.

      • In all fairness…..
        His post on July 15 was within the context of the site going live shortly thereafter. When the announcement of a delay in launch…followed by a delay in increase in fees (I am being told they did NOT go up until recently) it is very reasonable for folks to believe that as you suggested the new fees would go live when the new site went live. All in all there WAS a communication breakdown that caught alot of people off guard. The reason of course is things are in a hectic change mode right now. However there is merit in people being surprised by a sudden change that was supposed to happen 6 weeks earlier amidst a bunch of other changes.

        It’s all good. I just spent a few minutes reading the Beckett dealer forums for a laugh. My goodness I don’t missthatplace.Anytime I get annoyed by something that happens here I should revisit there and remind myself why I pulled my business out of there after 6 years of broken promises and chaos that have killed that site. This site kicks the tail of that site every day.

  10. Triple A, why are you busting COMC’s balls non-stop? I don’t get why your so up in arms over just about everything that’s posted here? I’ll argue all day long that the fees charged here are a bargain for the services provided and arguably too cheap.

    As far as being a Beckett dealer goes, it’s not for everyone. The monthly fee seems high for most, the lack of images, and there are some big inventories there that would be tough to compete against.

    Glad your biz is strong with the 15 hours of order pulling, are those orders all from here? If so, really wouldn’t understand what your complaining about.

    • For your sake I hope your years of outspoken faith in the BMP pays off at some point…. But I don’t see that happening… Down to what, 2 employees? 80 dealers with many ready to jump ship? It’s very sad.

      Nobody (other than COMC staff) pulls orders from this site…?

      Good luck over there! You have over 1 million reasons to hope they figure it out before it is really too late.

      • And if by busting their balls you mean stating that QUOTE “This site kicks the tail of that site (Beckett) every day” then we’ll beat that drum all day.

        Actually we had a meeting here yesterday and have come to the conclusion that despite some things that we may not like, this site is by far the greenest pasture out there right now so we are going to make an effort to be more vocal of the positives. Unlike the BMP, COMC has staff in place with ideas and motivation to improve and most importantly have a clue how to get there. That deserves our support as they smooth out a sometimes bumpy road.

      • I’d love to hear about your shop. I think that knowing the angle/perspective that a poster is coming from greatly enhances the discussion. For example…if someone here is strictly a buyer than their concerns over shipping will carry a much greater weight for them than how much listing fees are. A flipper or part time seller might have totally different concerns. In any of those situations one persons opinion should not carry any more or less weight but it is helpful to me anyway to know where the person is coming from.
        For me and my business I take my experiences which date back to being an anchor seller on Yahoo Auctions to the present day and those experiences shape my perspectives.

  11. Your right my bad on the orders….So where else ya selling that it takes 15 hours and multiple people to pull orders? Impressed. Agreed on the BMP as it definitely has some issues and I’m not sure why so many stay on as it seems to be dominated by 5-10 sellers. Glad your putting your support behind COMC, these guys are busting tail and innovating. Gotta respect that!

    • We are on 4 other sites (we sell more than just cards) and take orders locally from our warehouse and Antique Shop locations.
      We were running a couple of promotions locally that kept us slammed this past weekend. A good problem to have once in awhile but nothing we’d want to do on a regular basis lol.

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