I just released version 3333 of our internal application today. This is the software that is used by our 50+ employees to manage all of our processing and shipping. Yes, that means that I release more than once a day on average. This is part of our competitive advantage. We are able to quickly adapt to the changing needs of the business, and boy, have there been a lot of those lately.
Thank you for your patience as we continue to catch up with all of the changes. We are rapidly adapting and evolving to meet our new needs. Good thing I put in my 10,000 hours with Microsoft before launching this business. I couldn’t imagine trying to tackle these challenges without so much technology at my fingertips.
I have stopped being a member since July, 2013. On numerous occasions, I have asked COMC to remove me from
all mailings issued by COMC. Please remove me from receiving the BLOG via email. I am getting sick and tired
of all of your employees, telling me that this nonsense will cease. Please remove my account from the active list as well.
Jim Miller
Jim,
In the emails that get sent out, there should be an “unsubscribe” link – click that and you should stop receiving emails from us.
No offense, but you should have been able to honor his request personally without him having to tell him to do that.
No offense taken, Chuck, and we agree. If we had the ability, we’d have done this for him awhile ago. But, unfortunately, we can’t “unsubscribe” anyone from the blog notifications – WordPress requires subscribers to “unsubscribe” themselves. It’s out of our hands.
Are the database updates going player by player? I ask because some player searches show zero results, while others show limited results. So, if they are in fact going player by player, is there an ETA on what the order of priority is?
Also, this lawsuit is ridiculous. It’s obviously shaping the way the checklist names are being data-based. For example, 2013 Bowman Hometown is now called 2013 Bowman State & Hometown. It may seem nit-picky, but this is going to cause massive confusion down the line for collectors, when you have multiple websites calling the same set by multiple, different names.
This is a hobby, it’s supposed to be fun and enjoyable. But it’s things like this that make it needlessly difficult and make one want to give it up entirely and find something else to do.
The different set names is annoying. And it’s all user generated. I don’t understand why someone would put a different set name in than what is out there. But I guess if you’re creating an incentive (via points) then any old answer will do. But the alternative is it takes longer to build a more accurate database. I don’t know what the right answer is, because being idealistic solves nothing. But seeing 2013 Topps Chrome Update be called “2013 Topps Chrome Holiday Mega Box” or whatever is kind of funny.
Cardboard Connection, et al, use the information from manufacturers’ sell sheets. There must be a technological reason why COMC can’t do it that way too. The good news is that these are easy to fix after higher priorities are taken care of. Maybe these user-generated set names are just placeholders. Hope so.
I just figured Comc was going out of their way to prove to Beckett that they weren’t using their info anymore. For example, in 2012 Bowman Platinum baseball, there are 3 main parallel sets: Gold, Emerald and Ruby. Comc calls those sets Gold, Green and Red. If this is something that is going to be fixed in the future, I can be as patient as needed. But, if this is what Comc has to do to skirt Beckett’s watchful eye, then I need to go somewhere else.
We are not trying to be different from Beckett. We are trying to name the sets as if Beckett had never existed, and we are trying to be as true to the original naming provided by the manufacturer. In this particular case the original sell sheets refer to these sets as Gold, Green and Red. That is why we called them Gold, Green and Red.
http://www.blowoutcards.com/forums/blowoutcards-product-information-pages-baseball/254285-2012-bowman-platinum-baseball.html
That’s great attention to detail and thank you for the reply. Truly I am impressed with the amount of work you folks at Comc are cranking out in such a short amount of time.
However, going back to this issue, naming the sets with the names they were given on the sell sheet still leaves the problem that the rest of the collecting community has been calling these cards by a different name for the last 2 years now:
http://baseballcardpedia.com/index.php/2012_Bowman_Platinum#Parallels
http://www.cardboardconnection.com/2012-bowman-platinum-baseball-cards
http://sportscardradio.com/sports-card-directory/product-previews-a-reviews/1165-2012-bowman-platinum-baseball-checklist
The point being that collectors who fulfill their want lists via a printed checklist, will have some difficulty here on comc. I’m just trying to provide some criticism is all.
This is a great point. We will likely need to incorporate a lot of synonyms into our catalog so that if people search based on alternative naming conventions, you will still be able to find the the items you need. That will be in a future round of the catalog. For now, we are just making sure that we have good basic information.
That sounds like a terrific idea. Following the same process that when someone searches “California Angels” the search results show the modern day “Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim”, or “Florida Marlins” shows results for “Miami Marlins”.
Looking forward to a finished product, as I’ve completely stopped my twice-weekly purchases due to the missing information.
You’ve thrown a monkey wrench into my buying addiction.
Correct me if I am wrong, however doesn’t each Card Manufacture publish their own Set Description or Subset Description Nomenclature?
The research should be to obtain the original naming convention that was provided by the Creative groups of the past and present variety of Card Manufacturing Publishers. Sticking to the original naming convention handed out the day any set of Cards were introduced is in no way a copy write infringement and these naming conventions are not the property of any adopted 2nd Publisher. There are certain rights granted by Manufactures to all re-sellers of their products that should also be legally researched to prove this fact. I am sure the COMC has legal counsel consulting them on proper Catalog policies and procedures so let’s clear this up now. I hope that I get some feedback from someone at COMC to advise us if this is the case or if they are not sure how to approach the name convention originally established by the Card Manufacturers.
A reply is appreciated and I am sure the community would like to know as well.
On the other side of the coin, it appears that there are some variant name conventions used by COMC and contributing collectors/dealers that are not true to there original name conventions used by Beckett Pubs and adopted by other web sites and publishing entities to ensure the accuracy of the set and subset names. I wouldn’t worry too much about the names, because COMC has the final draft to correct any and all names in the future. Let’s just improve on what we have today and move forward.
The most important aspect of identification in order of importance to ensure that card seekers can find their player/team/set/year/etc.
1) Player – probably the most important piece of data searched for since there are more player collectors than any other group of collections.
2) Team – Collectors most likely want the cards from there favorite team.
3) Attribute – Autograph, limited serial #, Rookie card, print run sequence.
5) Error variant – probably one of the most sought after due to scarcity and value in most circumstances.
6) Set or subset name/description
5) Year
6) Number in set or subset
I hope that the name of each and every card can be searchable by the actual player soon. As long as we all can agree on the player, team or other name of the card that is a best place to start. The rest is open for debate but that is my theory for now.
Tim I would like to see the info contained in the link above but you couldn’t pay me to visit anything done by Blow{insert adjective here)cards.
I would love to see “Click Save Price again to ask…” disabled. I have 1000 cards to price and I will not complete them until it is disabled. Now that the “guide” is gone it has no purpose other than to annoy people.
Everything will work out in time.
Just wondering, have you guys stopped adding new inventory to user’s accounts? The due date on one of my batches is 4/09 but it still has not been added to my account.
Thanks, and plucking out nose hairs helps keep me up when I need to work late hours.
Tim, I am new to COMC and I absolutely love your site. I have got two of my customers recently signed up on your site and working on number three. I am glad to hear that you decided not to sell this site to Beckett as I believe this site is going through many changes and is in need of your unique skill set to help continue to grow and innovate this site. I was reading the legal complaints filed in court by Beckett and it seems awfully vague about what you did wrong that seemed to merit a lawsuit against your company. Did that December 6th, 2013 phone call with Beckett go from awkward to a total disaster?? It seems like Beckett is very angry that you did not throw a brother in law discount asking price for the sale of your company. Personally, I would have told Beckett they could buy you out at 1 Billion…..who knows, maybe COMC will be the new Ebay for all the serious card collectors out there….if it hasn’t happened already.
Regards,
Drake
Sure wish I could get my Paypal cash I requested 3 days ago and have sent 4 emails about……even tried to call to only get voice mail. I know things are busy but come on, how long can a paypal deposit take? 30 seconds…..
We’ve been getting your messages and we are sorry about the voice mail. We’ve been experiencing some delays with processing Paypal requests, and we’re working on a solution.
I have been waiting 8 weeks and now we are 2 days past the 8 week mark. I thought that the sports that are “in season” would be listed quickly. The NASCAR season kicked in at Daytona 4 weeks ago so I thought my NASCAR cards would be listed, but none of them have been. 8 weeks is way too long to wait and now the April 9th listing date has come and gone and I am still waiting.
I posted something similar, they didn’t reply. My due date was 04/09 but been waiting since about 3 weeks ago because they were fast with loading my previous shipment.
I feel like an addict. I can’t do this anymore. No more fun.
I have 16 cards that are about a week past due. Moe did respond to my email and stated they were backlogged. We had concerns here about the 2 month processing window. They did get a portion done in about 3 weeks and another portion about 2 weeks later.
I understand why they aren’t uploading more now. That is a separate issue for us. We have to decide going forward if we like having to send in 100 at a time (we used to throw 30-35 in a team bag and ship about once a week) and whether or not I want to have cards I send in sit for 6-8 weeks without the potential of being sold while others who shipped cards in after us get bumped ahead. The site will come out of this transition fine. I hope they drive Beckett into the ground. When the dust settles we will find a way to use the COMC service in the way that benefits us the most. Whether that means sending in more cards or just using it as a flip site, a purchase site etc… time will tell.
Just wondering if anyone else has had a steep decline in sales because of missing data and all these changes? I noticed that some of my cards could not be brought up by a search because of the missing data such as the player’s name. I hope I don’t have to go over my entire inventory to submit data and hope that it doesn’t take months to appear.
Hopefully they will extend the fast track option to all the challenges, not just the card numbers.
Yep, this is a huge problem. I’ve put in multiple data updates over a week ago and they still haven’t gone through. Problem is, many cards aren’t searchable for buyers. Most of my sales now are coming from the Amazon.com feed where full titles/players/card numbers are available. I never did get an answer as to why that data cannot be used to plug some of the holes with the existing data.
Tim,
I am assuming, because it was not mentioned specifically, the parallel set you were naming Green, Gold and Red were not the Veteran & Rookie Parallels that are in fact Gold, Emerald and Ruby for the 2012 Bowman Platinum. Is that correct?
ref: Your comment on April 9th at 2:40 above.
It is my opinion that COMC, ie. Tim Getsch, can/should sit down with a reasonable big shot from Beckett and one on one get this crap straightened out, and leave the #$)(*% lawyers out of the conversation! A couple of apologies and an admittance here and there from both will lead to a civil resolution. It’s called “the way we used to do things in this country”. It seems there was an agreement(s) made, not thought out in black and white but leaving a few gray areas. So let’s get together COMC and Beckett and send the lawyers to get some coffee and donuts!
This mess is killing us folks that use this hobby/business for gain and relaxation and it seems both those goals are being ignored by two entities seeing who can p the farthest. There is room enough in this town for both of you if you can cut out the legal BS and settle this mano y mano. Don’t tell me it can’t be done either! You just have to ignore the damn lawyers and start with a handshake and apology.
Respectfully submitted,
Ken Swope
PS/ Now get my Mackinnon cards processed before the hockey season is over!!
Oops, there should have been a wink icon after the MacKinnon comment. I know the processing is overwhelmed now but there is a $3 bill if you get Nathan’s cards out sooner than later. : )
getting frustrated, collecting 2013 Topps Chrome, and havent seen a new card added in quite a while!! Also, i dont see ANY Chrome Relic cards. How much longer till sellers cards are added?
How about a class action lawsuit against Beckett from the co-op members of comc.com? I will sign on. There must be a few lawyers who collect cards (or not) that wouldn’t mind getting their 33.3% of the outcome. I collected cards before there was Beckett and a 1952 Topps #311 Mickey Mantle was called a 1952 Topps #311 Mickey Mantle. Us collectors traded checklists amongst each other and corrected them and improved them in the days of snail mail.
Oh the good ole days…before there were “rookie” cards and pieces of dirty laundry and broken equipment on cards…
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