Let the countdown begin! We are weeks away from a significant advance in the North American card collecting experience.
Over the next couple months we will be rolling out services that make it safe & easy to buy & sell items between the US and Canada. No more hassling with customs forms.
We are essentially creating a private shipping service between our Seattle area warehouse and our new Vancouver area warehouse. We will electronically file all the necessary paperwork to transfer items to and from Canada. No more worrying about items getting hung up at the border!
Barry Mah & Sam Kassam at the Vancouver Fanfest
New Canadian Warehouse
Assuming things continue to go according to plan, we will announce the address of our new location in about 2 weeks. It will be in Burnaby, near Vancouver, and will be available for dropping off consignment submissions and picking up orders. Everyone in Canada wanting to consign items online will now be able to simply ship to our Canadian address instead of dealing with customs forms when shipping to the states.
Accepting Submissions at the Toronto Expo!
November 9th-11th we will be at the Sportcard and Memorabilia Expo in Toronto. Come meet the head of our shipping department, Geoff Holland, and the two newest members of our Canadian team, Sam Kassam & Barry Mah.
Processing Special: Canadian Pilot
Until we are fully operational, we will only be accepting one processing service in Canada. We are calling it our “Canadian Pilot” service, and it is only 20¢ per card. We guarantee items will be deposited by December 31st.
Canadian Pilot Details
– Raw trading & gaming cards cost $0.20 per card
– Graded, encased or jumbo cards & other supported collectible costs $0.50 per item
– 5,000 item limit
– $5 minimum processing fee
– 5¢ fee per toploader we have to remove
– No condition note fees
– No batch fees
– Must be postmarked from Canada no later than December 1st
Bring your consignment submissions to the Toronto Expo. We will be giving out $20 off coupons for first time sellers, and we will ship your submissions back to Vancouver for you. This allows you to submit your first 100 cards without any processing fees or any burden of packaging or shipping the items.
Those of you in Canada are welcome to continue shipping items to our US warehouse if you would like our faster services.
What about our US customers?
In order to use the Canadian Pilot service the items must be submitted at the Toronto Expo or shipped from a Canadian address to our Canadian warehouse. We encourage those of you in the US to use our Black Friday processing special.
Black Friday Processing Special: 2 Week Service
We are 4 weeks away from Black Friday, and we will be running some significant promotions to attract buyers. To help get your items on the site in time for the promotions, we are offering a 2 Week processing service for only $0.25 per item. This is the same as our One Month service in less than half the time, but you must write “Black Friday” on your submission to get the increased speed.
Details
– Raw trading & gaming cards cost $0.25 per card
– Graded, encased or jumbo cards & other supported collectible costs $0.50 per item
– 5,000 item limit
– $5 minimum processing fee
– 5¢ fee per toploader we have to remove
– No condition note fees
– No batch fees
– Must be postmarked no later than November 13th
– Must be received by November 8th to guarantee that the items will be live by Black Friday
Lots more news to come
We are excited about all the new offerings we will be rolling out over the next several months. Keep an eye out for more news, Eh!
Can’t wait to see that BC address so I can have stuff sent there from other Canadian addresses 🙂
So for those of us who already knew that black friday was coming, there isn’t actually a processing special. Too bad. Was hoping for something.
I’m assuming condition note fees are a thing of the past? So it’s something we won’t have to worry about here? Not planning on loading up the site with damaged cards but I do have a few low numbered and pretty rare cards with minor damage I wouldn’t mind throwing up and selling at an obvious discount
With modern (1981-present) cards that would need a condition note we are being very selective: serial numbered to 25 or less or would sell for more than $20 despite the specific note. Otherwise they are being returned with maybe a few exceptions (for example, common Fleer Retro Precious Metal Gems #/50). Also, things that are considered minor wear such as one fuzzy corner, light chipping on cards such as 2003/04 Bowman Gold basketball where the chipping is unavoidable, refractor lines, peels removed from 1990s Finest, or off center cuts are not noted.
We have been following these guidelines since early September and it was implemented due to popular demand from our selling community.
Sounds good. Off the top of my head I know there’s an SP authentic football auto/patch with damage around the patch, a Leaf Certified mirror gold auto with some scratches, an Absolute auto/patch numbered to 25 with chipping, a Press Pass legends auto numbered to 25 with a crease..not looking to send in damaged low end junk…thanks for the clarification
Who pays the cost of return shipping for these cards that are being sent back?
They do, but you don’t get the submission fee refunded.
Just to clarify, anything we are unable to process does not incur a processing fee. When a batch is entered, the initial fee is charged based on the estimated card count. When the cards are deposited, the processing fee of the batch is adjusted to reflect the actual card count.
Thanks!
Interesting……
Jen,
Thanks for providing the information!
Does one have to send to Canadian processing if in Canada? Unfortunately, shipping isn’t always cheaper within Canada. Canada Post is great……..
Nope, you will be be welcome to ship to either location. The new Canadian location will be provided as a convenience.
Amen to that. With us it”s usually a lose-lose situation. Prices up here are atrocious both in and out of the country unless I pop very few in a small env.
So this was probably answered earlier, but a little unsure here. If I am shipping oversized or graded items with the regular size, could I put them in the same box or would I need to separate them when shipping?
Hi, dirty. Good question. With our new services we accept oversize items together with standard size. The standard items will be charged at $0.25/ea for One Month service (or for our current 2-week Black Friday promo), and the oversize will be charged at $0.50/ea. I recommend keeping the cards separate within the box for safety, but they can all ship in the same box and be submitted in the same batch.
Thanks!
Jeremy
This is an insanely good promotion, congrats.
However, I just sent off a big box a couple days ago to be processed using the One Month service. Are my cards going to be leapfrogged by tens of thousands of cards that get special treatment for the Black Friday Special?
Within seconds of my post I received a message that my cards were received AND that they would be processed under the BF Special. Wow, thanks!
It’s going to be an INSANE day of buying and selling.
Since November 12th is a postal holliday in the U.S. (Veteran’s day observed) does that mean a package can be postmarked 11/13 and still take advantage of the Black Friday special (with the caveat that the cards may not actually be processed by Black Friday)? Or do the packages actually have to be postmarked by Saturday, November 10th? I just launched a package Monday, and whether or not I can get another one in the mail to also take advantage of the processing special may well depend upon whether I have that extra couple of days to sort out what else to send in next. Thanks so much!
That’s a good point, Affordablecards. We’ve updated our post, and will be accepting cards Postmarked by November 13th. Thanks!
What have the stats looked like since launching the new fee structure? Have incoming cards gone down or up? Have sales gone down or up? I haven’t sent in any new cards yet because I’d like to hear the stats.
Hi, Arodyanksfan.
We like to be cautious when interpreting stats because things always fluctuate a bit depending on industry strikes, customer’s paydays, championships, holidays, etc. That being said, we’re on pace to surpass our Q2 submission numbers (Q3 was an anomaly due to our enormous National promo) by about a quarter million items. We’re actually on pace to process more cards in 2012 Q4 than we did in ALL of 2010. So we’re cautious, but things are looking good. Sales are up too, by the way.
Thanks!
Jeremy
Can we drop off beta stuff at the card show in Toronto this weekend? Ie Factory sets, comic books etc.
Right now we’re just accepting cards for an initial test of the new Canadian facility. Once we have things established we’ll be happy to take comics/favorty sets/etc, but for now we’re not able.
Thanks,
Jeremy
Is the processing fee added to all submissions or do we need to submit enough cards to cover 5.00?
There is a minimum processing fee of $5. So you should simply submit enough cards to cover the $5.
Thought so, thx for the quick reply.
For the black Friday shipping special can you elaborate on the email as to what the deal is for buyers? Wht exactly is shipped for free and what cards do you get the 10 cents off.? Does the shipping deal also apply to cards already bought that we want to ship? Thanks
We are going to do a detailed blog either tomorrow or Wednesday will all the info on Black Friday.
Ok thanks for the quick reply Tim. Will keep an eye out for it. Love the site
I can’t log in to buy stuff.