Monthly Archives: November 2013

10 Tips for a Successful Black Friday

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Black Friday weekend is the biggest shopping weekend of the year.  Here are some tips and tricks to help you have a successful Black Friday on COMC.

Tip #1: Start shopping now
We expect that about 90% of all items on the site will be on sale when Black Friday comes around.  So get things in your shopping cart or on your watch list so that you are ready to scoop things up as early as you can on Friday.

Tip #2: Purchase items with Store Credit
During big shopping days the fastest way to purchase an item is with Store Credit.  If you have to wait for PayPal or Amazon to notify us that they have collected payment for the items in your shopping cart, those items may get scooped up by someone else.  So get your account funded as quickly as possible and start shopping.  Plus, you get an extra $5 for every $100 of Store Credit you purchase on Black Friday Weekend.

Tip #3: Don’t wait for the search results to update
Once 12AM PST comes around, we expect to have more than 6 million items that need to be discounted.  It will take some time for the search results to reflect the discounts. However, the sale prices will be live everywhere else.  That is why having items in your shopping cart or watch list is so advantageous.  The Product Details, Item Details, and Make Offer pages will all reflect the discounted sale price immediately at midnight.

Tip #4: Use “full-price” offersFull-Price
When you put multiple items in your shopping cart you can make one offer to each different seller.  If that offer is equal to the seller’s discounted asking price, the offer will be instantly accepted.  This is very handy if a seller is running a steeply discounted sale.  It allows you to quickly purchase their items all at once.

Tip #5: Snag the biggest discounts first
Start by going to the Promotions page and use the new dropdown to sort the list of sales so that you can easily find the best deals.  If you already have a bunch of items in your shopping cart from that seller, you can bring that seller to the top of your Make Offer page by clicking Make Offer on any of their items.  If you don’t actually want to purchase that item, you can simply remove it from your Make Offer page, and then you can proceed with making a “full-price” offer to quickly scoop up their items.

Tip #6: Be sure to request shipment before midnight Saturday
You get 5 times the entries for our Cyber Monday Shopping Sprees on items that are purchased and shipped on Friday and Saturday.  Also, you will get a $5 store credit bonus for every 50 items you have shipped in November.

Tip #7: Be patient, and enjoy the hunt
We will be working around the clock to try to keep the servers running as smoothly as possible, but we expect to get more traffic than ever before.  So we might run into some new stresses.  We will do our best to help people out.  Some actions might take longer than normal because of the high traffic.  If one part of the site isn’t working optimally, try another part of the site.     

Tip #8: Remember this is just a hobby & enjoy the holiday
There will be a buying frenzy, and you will miss out on some great deals.  That is part of the game.  It is OK, keep shopping, and get as many deals as you can find.

Tip #9: Sellers, Respond to offers quickly or turn them off
If you will not be able to quickly respond to offers over Black Friday Weekend, we recommend making sure your Minimum Offer Percentage is greater than your promotional discount.  This will prevent buyers from making offers.  If you choose to accept offers over the weekend, please respond as quickly as possible.  The buyers are trying to get extra credit and prizes.

Tip 10: Sellers, be sure to approve your Black Friday Sale early
If your promotion is approved before midnight on Thursday, this will make sure that your sale goes live as early as possible.  We will try to get other sales live as quickly as we can, but they will need to be staged.  Worst case, the search results may not get updated until the following day.

Happy Hunting!

COMC Cyber Monday Shopping Sprees

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Black Friday approaches!Cyber Monday is December 2nd (two weeks from today!) and we’re giving away 100 shopping sprees to celebrate.

Winners will be randomly selected based on the number of items that they both purchased and shipped in all of 2013.  Every item that was both bought and shipped counts as one entry into the raffle.  That means if you both purchased and shipped just one item this year, you’re already entered!  To really show our love for Black Friday buyers, items purchased and shipped on Black Friday or Saturday will count as 5 entries!  For example, if you bought and shipped ten items over the course of 2013 and buy and ship another ten items on Friday Nov. 29th, that would give you a total of 60 entries into the shopping spree drawing.

On Sunday, December 1st we will select 100 users at random from the entries to win a Cyber Monday Shopping Spree.  One lucky customer will win the grand prize: a $500 shopping spree!  The rest of the winners will receive shopping sprees worth between $5 and $100.  The winners will be announced on Facebook, so make sure you like our page to see if you win!  Winners will have until midnight (Pacific Time) at the end of Cyber Monday to spend their shopping spree and the winnings can be spent on any item or service on the site.

PLEASE NOTE: To be eligible to win you must have a COMC account (free to create).  Any items which were both purchased and shipped in 2013 from your account or that were bought using the email address associated with your account will count towards your entries.  If you did not have an account when you have purchased items, just create a free account using the same email address you used to buy your items, and your purchases will be retroactively credited as entries under your new COMC account name!

5 Black Friday Specials, Including a $500 Shopping Spree

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It’s that time of year; there’s a chill in the air, the sun’s going down a lot sooner than it used to, and those jack-o-lanterns are sitting comfortably in the compost pile. (We hope so, otherwise “eeewwwww”…)

You know what else is coming up? Of course you do – the biggest holiday season of the year: Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years…and Black Friday.  Two words that mark the beginning of the biggest shopping weekend of the year. And COMC is going to be right in the midst of it.

For weeks, people have been asking us about our Black Friday Specials. Trust me, we were wanting to tell you. But, we also wanted to wait until the time was right, and we’re pretty sure that time is now.

Here’s what we’ve got planned for Black Friday!

Free Shipping

It’s one of our most popular specials and we’re bringing it back for the Black Friday weekend. We’re offering free shipping on all cards that are bought between Friday, Nov 29th and Monday, Dec 2nd. Please note, to qualify for this special, there is minimum purchase of 20 items and they must be purchased in Simplified Buying Mode.

Note: Items purchase from Advanced Reselling Mode, items purchased by buying another seller’s entire port via a Port Sale, or items purchased from the old CheckOutMyCards website do not qualify for free shipping, but you can still get a $3 discount by shipping 20 or more items.  You can switch your buying mode in the Profile and Options page.

$5 Bonus Store Credit for Every $100 Purchased

All Black Friday weekend (Nov 29th – Dec 2nd) you will receive an extra $5 store credit for each $100 of store credit you purchase.  Limit of $50 bonus credit per day.  That is a total of $200 bonus credit if you purchase $1,000 store credit each of the 4 days of our Black Friday weekend.

$5 Bonus Store Credit for Every 50 Items Shipped

Last August, we introduced a Shipping Credit when purchasing items in bulk.  Normally you have to purchase 100 items in a calendar month in order to get the extra $5, but for the month of November, you get the $5 for every 50 items you purchase and have shipped by 11:59 PM PST Saturday November 30th.

And, as the Shipping Credit is deposited on the 1st of the month, any credit you earn in November you can use in December…just in time for Cyber Monday.

$5 – $500 Cyber Monday Shopping Sprees

100 COMC customers will win a Cyber Monday Shopping Spree.  One lucky customer will get a $500 shopping spree, and the rest of the winners will receive shopping sprees worth between $5 and $100.

Winners will be randomly selected based on the number of items that were purchased and shipped in 2013.  Items purchased and shipped on Black Friday or Saturday will receive 5 times the chances.

We will announce the winners on on our Facebook page on Sunday November 30th.  You will have all day Cyber Monday to spend your winnings.

Free Promotions

On top of all the promotions that we are giving away, we are encouraging all of our sellers to run their own Black Friday Promotions. Since we are not charging them anything extra to run the promotions, we expect to have more than 1,000 sellers running promotions on more than 5,000,000 items. This means there will be lots of great deals happening across COMC.com – sellers will be able to customize their markdowns up to 80% off their original asking price.

There you have it. We have a little something for everyone, and you won’t even have to get out of bed to do your shopping…does it get much better than that?

As always, be sure to keep up with all the news and company updates by following us on our Blog, Twitter, Facebook, and Youtube pages.

New Customer Service Hours: 9-5 PST M-F

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Customer Service Changes

Goodbye to Nathan

It’s a bittersweet day.  Today is our Customer Service Lead Nathan Richards last day with us.  So many of you have gotten to know and love Nathan during his time with us and sent us glowing feedback letting us know.  We will all certainly miss Nathan and wish him well in his future endeavors.

New Team

Not to worry, our Customer Service Team continues to be in good hands.  Account Manager Norbert Strub will be overseeing the team’s success.  We are also thrilled to add to the team, Maurice Smith, who manages our Social Media, and Greg Long, one of our most senior employees from the ID team.  Both Moe and Greg are avid collectors with great personalities who are thrilled to get to know you.

New Hours

ONE CHANGE: Customer Service Hours will now be 9 a.m. – 5 p.m. Monday – Friday.

We have shifted our core Customer Service Hours by an hour later upon review of peak web traffic times.

Please say goodbye to Nathan and welcome the new team in the comments.

Be sure to watch our Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ pages.  And, for our friends outside the United States, please join us on our new COMC International Facebook page, and follow our new COMC International Twitter feed.

COMC Hot List: November 13-November-27 (now extended until December 4th)

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(updated nov 27th) Hi Gang – Moe here! We got some good news! In light of the upcoming holiday and the super Black Friday specials we have happening at COMC, we’re going to extend this Hot List for another week, so you have 7 more days to get your cards to us, in order to qualify for the current Hot List! Have a great holiday and please be careful this weekend!

Hello COMC Nation! It’s an awesome time to be a sports fan; football’s playoff races are starting to happen, hockey and basketball are in full swing, and did someone mention the Winter Olympics are only 3 months away? (well, we just did, so there…) And, on top of all that, it’s time for the COMC Hot List! It’s that special time where we let you know what cards we’re thinking are going to be great sellers and we give you the opportunity to get them on COMC.com as quickly as possible…even in time for Black Friday!

So, here it is…the COMC Hot List for November 13 to November-27!

Paul George

  • 2013 Bowman Draft baseball
  • 2013-14 Upper Deck Hockey Series I
  • Paul George
  • Michael Carter-Williams
  • 2013-14 Panini Prestige basketball
  • 2012-13 Panini Immaculate basketball
  • 2013-14 Score Select hockey
  • 2013 Topps Chrome football
  • 2013 Panini Limited football
  • 2013 Bowman Sterling football
  • 2013 Leaf Memories baseball
  • 2012-13 Upper Deck Exquisite basketball
  • 2013 Upper Deck Ultimate Collection football

The Hot List Theme

Since this is the week many of MLB’s award winners are being announced, we thought they’d make an excellent theme. Cards belonging to the Rookie Of the Year winners (Wil Myers and Jose Fernandez), the Cy Young Award Winners (Max Scherzer and Clayton Kershaw) and the League MVPs (Miguel Cabrera and Andrew McCutchen) are all Hot List Eligible.

So what does being on the Hot List mean?

COMC wants to encourage our users to get these hot cards into your accounts to offer for sale as quickly as possible, so starting today, any cards submitted for the Hot List will qualify for our “Hot List Special” processing. With this service, you will receive One Day processing at the special Hot List price: $0.50 per raw card and $1.00 per graded, encased, or jumbo card.

  • Clearly write “Hot List Special” on the outer mailing package and/or the address label.
  • $5 minimum batch fee (We recommend submitting 10+ items.)
  • 200 item maximum per week
  • Must be postmarked by November 27th, 2013
  • Can be mailed to either our US or Canadian office
  • Any submissions received on a Friday or Saturday may not be processed until the following Monday.
  • Submissions with non-Hot List items mixed in will be downgraded to One Week service.
  • Redemption cards may qualify for Hot List pricing, but will take up to a week to process.

You’re welcome to submit Hot List batches at the same time that you submit other batches with different service levels, even if they’re mailed in the same package, but please make sure that each batch is clearly separated and labeled, and that “Hot List Special” is written on the outside of the mailing package and/or mailing label. Failure to have the outside of the package properly marked may delay the time in which your cards are processed.

Thanks for your input for this new Hot List! Be sure to watch our Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ pages for the next Hot List Call Out in a week!

And, for our friends outside the United States, please join us on our new COMC International Facebook page, and follow our new COMC International Twitter feed.

The New COMC Bulk Price Editor

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During the days of the original CheckOutMyCards.com website, Tim introduced the Bulk Price Editor – a tool that made pricing cards quick and easy for those who had submitted large quantities of items for consignment.

When we moved to COMC.com, we had to discontinue the availability of the Bulk Price Editor, as the technology of the new website was incompatible with the way the Bulk Price Editor was created.  We knew it was a popular tool, so it was always our intention to create a new Bulk Price Editor, one that was compatible with COMC.com.

After a lot of work and effort on Tim’s part, we’re able to announce that the *new* Bulk Price Editor is available as a Beta download.

Please note that using the Bulk Price Editor takes up bandwidth on the COMC servers, so we ask that sellers limit their usage to adjusting their prices on a monthly basis. We want to keep the Bulk Price Editor as a free service, so we ask everyone to be kind and not overuse it.

Bulk Price Editor DOWNLOAD (login required)

System Requirements:

– Windows XP or later

– Microsoft Office Access 2007 or the Access 2007 Runtime (Free Download)

How to Install:

– If you don’t have Access 2007 or are not sure if you do, download and install the Access 2007 Runtime from Microsoft. (If you download the Bulk Price Editor without Access 2007 Runtime, you’ll get a message telling you to download and run the Access 2007 Runtime first.)

– Download and install the Bulk Price Editor (login required).

How to Use:

– From the start menu or the desktop, click on the Bulk Price Editor shortcut.

bulkstart

– This will bring up the Sign In page on COMC.com.

– After you sign in, the Bulk Price Editor will start downloading the items from your inventory.bulkload

– When this is done, you can search through your inventory for groups of cards that you would like to perform bulk operations upon.

bulkhome

– Once you have selected the group of items you would like to perform a bulk price change to, you can select the type of bulk operation to perform.

bulkpercent

– When this is complete, you can review the pending price changes.
– You can click in the green cells to manually edit any of the pending price changes.
– Finally, you can submit your price changes to COMC.com.

Thanks for your patience as we worked to bring back the Bulk Price Editor. Again, we request that users limit their price changes to about once per month – this will not overtax the servers and will allow us to continue to offer the feature for free. Please use the comments section below to let us know how it works for you, if you have any difficulties in the process of loading or running the Bulk Price Editor, and feel free to share any ideas or thoughts you may have.