Category Archives: policy update

Service Update: Internet Sales Tax Legislation Changes

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What’s Changing on April 1st, 2019: 

Last year, the Supreme Court voted to remove the requirement that online retailers must have a physical presence in a given state in order for that state to impose sales tax obligations on a retailer. Since then, states have individually begun to adopt and implement this legislation. While these laws are in their infancy and will continue to expand and evolve over time, COMC will comply with any states requiring us to collect states sales tax on incoming payments from customers that reside within that state.

In accordance with this new legislation, COMC will calculate, collect, and remit sales tax for all incoming payments received from customers residing in the following states starting on April 1st, 2019:

California
Colorado
Connecticut
D.C.
Georgia
Hawaii
Illinois
Indiana
Iowa
Kentucky
Maine
Maryland
Massachusetts
Michigan
Minnesota
Nebraska
Nevada
New Jersey
New York
North Carolina
North Dakota
Oklahoma
Pennsylvania
Rhode Island
Utah
Vermont
West Virginia
Wisconsin
Wyoming

We expect that more states will continue to be added to this list in the coming months and will continue to provide updates as needed.

For tax-exempt and non-profit organizations with a sales tax exemption certificate, or businesses with a resellers permit, please contact staff@comc.com with your documentation so that our team can ensure that your account is not charged sales tax going forward.

Make a Trade!  Sell Items to Earn COMC Credit to Buy the Cards You Want Without Additional Sales Tax

With this new Sales Tax Legislation, COMC is only required to collect sales tax on incoming payments from customers in states that have adopted these new laws. Store Credit earned through selling items on COMC is not taxed.Whether you’re selling items that you submit for consignment, or flipping items you bought on the COMC Marketplace, sales tax is not applied to purchases made with Store Credit you earned from the sale.

This is an enormous added benefit that you’ll only find on COMC to the already abundant reasons that you should be selling your trading cards and comic books through our service. By doing so, you’ll not only save the time and hassle of doing the work yourself, but you’ll now save by not paying sales tax for the items that are purchased on COMC.

If you have any questions or comments regarding these changes, our friendly Customer Service Team will be more than happy to assist! Thank you.

– The COMC Team 

 

Commission Structure Changes – Cashing Out, Blowout Gift Card Rates, & Legacy Store Credit Update

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Hello COMC Nation!

We hope that you had a fantastic Holiday Bonus Sale! Now that 2019 is here we want to tell you about some changes that have gone into effect today on COMC. Some of these changes were already covered in our previous announcement regarding changes coming in 2019.

Cashing Out COMC Credit for Paypal/Check:

Our 20% Cash-Out Fee has been replaced with a 10% Cash-Out Fee and a 5% Transaction Fee. The specific details of this change can be found in-depth in our earlier blog post.

Cashing Out COMC Credit for Blowout Cards Gift Cards:

Our rates for redeeming COMC Store Credit for a Blowout Cards Gift Cards have changed as well. Out with the old, and in with the new:

Legacy COMC Credit Explained

To qualify for cash outs under our new commission structure, COMC credit must either be earned after January 1st, 2019. Store credit earned prior to this date is considered Legacy COMC Credit. While this credit will spend the exact same as new COMC credit earned in 2019 and beyond, the key difference between Legacy COMC Credit and new COMC Credit earned after January 1st is that it Legacy COMC Credit cannot be cashed out until it has been converted to new COMC Credit via the Request Refund page.

When Legacy COMC Credit is converted to New COMC Credit, a 5% conversion fee is assessed, and the credit is now eligible to be cashed out under the new commission structure. Alternatively, if you have Legacy COMC Credit in your account, you can simply choose to wait until January 1st, 2020 when the concept of Legacy COMC Credit is retired, and any existing Legacy COMC Credit still in your account will be automatically converted to new credit without the 5% conversion fee.

Legacy COMC Credit only needs to be converted to New COMC Credit if you wish to cash out. Otherwise, it spends exactly the same as credit earned after January 1st on COMC. When you use COMC Credit to consign items, make offers, buy items, request a shipment, or pay for any other COMC services, we will use up your Legacy COMC Credit first. When you Cash-Out COMC Credit, we will use the new COMC Credit first.  We will always use the credit that is most advantageous for you.

Regardless of how you use your Legacy Store Credit, you will ultimately be better off than before with our previous 20% cash-out fee. If you wish to maximize your cash out earnings, the best option would be to wait until January 1st, 2020, when all COMC credit, regardless of when it was earned, is eligible for the new commission structure. Waiting until this date to cash out Legacy COMC Credit will allow you to circumvent the 5% conversion fee, putting that savings directly into your pocket.

If you still have questions, our Customer Service Team is here to help! Simply send an email to staff@comc.com and our team will get back with you shortly. Happy New Year and here’s looking forward to a great year of collecting!

[COMC Tutorial] All About The Rookies

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Rookie cards are among some of the most coveted cards in the trading card hobby. Unfortunately, the hobby does not have a fool-proof system for conveying what is and isn’t a true rookie card. What some collectors might consider to be a true rookie card, others would not. One of the most commonly asked questions that our Customer Service Team receives is the following:

“What is the difference between the Pre-Rookie Card, Rookie Card, Rookie Year, and Rookie Related search filters on COMC?”

Today, we seek to answer that question by explaining our search filter designations for rookies in detail, using examples and cards that you’re probably familiar with, and some that you might not be.

Rookie Card 

The red-colored ‘RC’ tag on COMC is reserved for cards that are recognized as true rookie cards. To satisfy the designation of RC, a card must:

  • Depict a player in their pro uniform
  • Be licensed by both the league and players association
  • Come from a standalone nationally distributed set
  • Come from a base set
  • Be released after the player’s top-level debut

Some of the sets that we see as producing true rookie cards include Topps Base Set, Topps Chrome, Panini Prizm Basketball, and Upper Deck Hockey to name a few. These sets are considered to contain a player’s true rookie cards because they are commonly accepted as major annual releases that have high relevance in the industry.

Rookie Year 

With defined criteria necessary to earn RC status, our yellow rookie year tag is applied to any other card released of a player during the same year as their rookie card. These cards can include parallels of rookie cards, inserts cards from sets that feature a rookie card, cards that are licensed by a player’s association but not a league (i.e. Panini Optic Baseball), stadium giveaways, and many more cards that do not meet the qualifications of a rookie card.

Pre-Rookie Card 

A pre-rookie card is any card that was printed prior to the year that a player made their debut at the top level of their respective sport. The most common pre-rookie cards are included in prospect-heavy products such as a Bowman Draft, Topps Pro Debut, team-issued minor league baseball cards, football rookies depicted in college uniforms in sets released prior to the start of an NFL season, and junior league hockey cards.

Rookie Related

The Rookie Related designation is really quite simple – it’s a catch-all filter of all the cards that have received a rookie card, rookie year, or pre-rookie card designation. If you’re still a little bit confused over rookie card vs rookie year vs pre-rookie card, simply choosing the rookie related filter will show you ALL of those cards.

The Politics of the Rookie Card

One of the most common misconceptions on COMC is that the red rookie card symbol represents the most desirable cards belonging to a player. That isn’t true at all. While these items are considered that player’s true rookie cards, there are many instances where a pre-rookie card or even a rookie year card can be a substantially more desirable card than a flagship RC. Don’t believe us? We’ll let you decide which of these cards you would rather have in your collection:

Have any questions? Feel free to post in the comments below, or email our Customer Service Team at Staff@comc.com and we’ll be more than happy to look into your concerns. If you disagree with any of our assessments pertaining to these rookie designations, you are more than welcome to submit a correction requests for rookie years that you would like to dispute. However, please note that while we will not agree with all requests, we will review each one.

BGS Grading Changes and Expedited Services Update

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Hello COMC Nation!

Each Spring we announce updates and changes to the Beckett Grading Services offered through COMC. This year, we are bringing to you our fastest BGS turn-around time ever with our new 3-Week service. Additionally, we are making changes to our current 6-Week service level so we can continue to meet our customer’s expectations of accurate and guaranteed time frames.

Please note that regardless of service level chosen, all items submitted for grading through COMC are subject to the 1% declared value fee for insurance purposes. Items can be submitted for grading via the actions tab of the item that you want to submit to grading within your COMC inventory manager.

What’s Changing on April 25th, 2018:

New 3-Week Expedited BGS Service Level Added!

You asked and we listened! We all know that players can get hot in an instant and market value can change in the blink of an eye. Starting this week, COMC Members seeking grading services for their time-sensitive items can submit their items to our new 3-Week expedited BGS Service, our fastest turnaround time ever. We’re offering the 3-Week service at $40 per item, with autographed cards an additional $2 and oversized cards an additional $8.

Changes to our current 6-Week Service

In accordance with a BGS rate increase in 2018, COMC is also adjusting rates to reflect those changes. The base rate for our 6-Week service is now $21, with add-ons of $2 for autographs and $8 per oversized item. The guaranteed time frame for this service will remain unchanged.

The cut-off time to submit items under the old rate is April 24th, 2018 at 11:59pm.

COMC – How We Process Cards

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In our last video, I spoke with Tim and Geoff about our record-setting Black Friday and our shipping department. Now in this video, I sit down with Jim, our processing manager, to share information about how we process the cards we receive. Please join us in this conversation about condition notes, declined cards, handling procedures, and what we can all do to have the best COMC experience!

 

 

Mailbox Announcement

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Hello COMC Nation! We recently sent an email to those members of the COMC Nation who have ever used our Mailbox service. This email was to let those Mailbox users know that some changes were being made to the Mailbox service, and that these changes were going to take effect on March 7th.

If you didn’t receive that email or you have never used the Mailbox before, please check out this link (COMC Mailbox FAQ) that explains the service and details the changes:

Unfortunately, there was one issue that we neglected to discuss in that email that we wanted you to let everyone know about – so, with that in mind, we sent out another email and we also wanted to highlight that issue on the Blog.

We’re talking about “Bonus Cards” – those extra cards that sellers sometimes send with the card(s) you purchased. As we have done in the past, we will process ALL the cards that come in under your name at $0.50 per card, with a $2.00 minimum per package..

While you may still donate any “unwanted” cards to Charity, we will no longer reimburse your processing fees.

Please note that it’s your responsibility to urge your sellers to either not send bonus cards or mark them with a big “X” to signify they are just spacers or packing material. Cards that are so marked will be disposed of by the Mailbox team.

If you do receive “bonus cards” and they get deposited into your portfolio, please remember this: you have a COMC account and are able to price any unwanted cards for sale on the site. And, with the processing at only $0.50/card, this makes selling and recouping your processing fees that much easier.

As always, stayed tuned for the latest news and developments at our Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and Instagram pages.

 

Talking With Tim: Beckett Subscriptions

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Hello COMC Nation. The past week has seen a significant shift at COMC.com with the introduction of Beckett Subscriptions and changes in when Beckett Book Value data is visible.

These adjustments generated a lot of attention, and we received a lot of constructive feedback from our users. We’ve worked on responding to your questions and concerns via our Blog and other social media channels, and recently Tim sat down to discuss some of the most common questions in greater detail.

0:26 Why Did COMC stop displaying Beckett Book Values?

3:15 How are the subscription level prices determined?

3:42 What is included in my Beckett Subscription?

5:51 Why is a Beckett Subscription $31/month and not $10?

6:55 Why doesn’t BV follow a card?

8:42 Can we have a subscription for a team?

9:24 Will there be bundle deals available?

9:51 Will this kill flipping?

11:36 Will this harm casual buyers?

13:19 Why so many changes so quickly?

Hopefully, this better explains this new situation and the direction that COMC is going.  Please feel free to leave your comments below and discuss today’s video.  Also, be sure to keep following us on Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ for further updates as we get closer and closer to The National!

COMC Tackles Redemptions

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Redemptions. Trading card collectors have a complicated relationship with these little inserts. They could be a case hit, a stunning autograph, or something much greater. No matter what they represent, however, they all have one thing in common: the WAIT. But we at COMC don’t believe you should have to wait for everything, so we thought we’d do something about it with a never-before-seen service to help with redemption cards.

Redeemed Card

In the past, COMC dealt with redemptions by simply not dealing with them. If an unredeemed card was sent to us, it promptly got sent back to its owner as our service wasn’t designed to handle them. That all changes today, because all unscratched redemption cards will now be accepted for processing and sale via COMC.com.

What happens when a Redemption card is sent to us? Those cards will be sent to our redemption handling team who will begin the redemption process on your behalf. The redemption code will be stored in our system and the scratched card will continue through our normal submission process.

When submitting batches with redemption cards to COMC, we ask that you pack them in the front of your submission and note on your submission slip that redemptions are enclosed. If an expired redemption card is included, we will attempt to redeem it through the manufacturer’s website. If the code is rejected, the item will be put into the user’s returns.

Once the scratched redemption card is on our site, it may be purchased and sold just as any other item on COMC with a few exceptions:

  • Redemption cards cannot be made Vault Eligible. Once fulfilled, the new card will be scanned for Vault Eligibility.
  • Redemption cards cannot be shipped.  Once fulfilled, the new card will replace the redemption card in the user’s account and may then be added to a shipment.
  • All sales of redemption cards are final.  No returns will be allowed for these items.

Please be aware that fulfillment of these cards may take manufacturers months or even years. In the event they substitute a different item for a redemption, the sale is still considered final and the item cannot be exchanged.

You may be wondering how we address redemptions that involve items other than single cards, such as lithographs, unopened packs, or game used jerseys. These items will be handled on a case by case basis and the owner of the redemption card will be contacted about how they would like the redemption to be handled.

A few final notes:

  • Items not currently supported on COMC will be added to the Beta service.  As we continue to expand offerings on the site, these items will become eligible to list at a later date.
  • Hobby store pack exchange redemptions, such as Topps Spring Fever redemptions, will be rejected because COMC is unable to redeem them.
  • Contest Redemption Cards such as the Famous Fabrics Beetles Signature Drawing will not be accepted as these redemption cards only represent a chance to receive an item.
  • Redemptions such as Topps Finest Rookie Redemptions and Panini XRCs will be listed as unannounced on the site. These items will be updated with more details once they are announced.

We are really excited to hear your thoughts on this new service.  We constantly strive to provide a better and safer way to buy and sell and we believe our service has the right stuff to make it happen.  Feel free to tell us what you think in the comments below and keep up with all the COMC happenings on Facebook, Twitter, and Google+.

Changing Times: Classified Ads

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We at COMC hope you all enjoyed a relaxing day of BBQ, family, and festivities on Memorial Day.

Barbeque

As many of you know, we began developing a new set of features to help you promote your products and sell on the site.  These have been gaining popularity over the last few months and are now in daily use on the site.

These new promotion features have now made several of our older features redundant, and as such it is time to make a change.  With the advent of our new Port Sale Promotions feature and the Sales feature, the Port Sale Classified Ads and the Auto Accept Classified Ads are no longer necessary.

COMC will no longer have a separate section of promotions for Auto-Accept or Port Sale Classifieds.  We will require that no mention of whether or not the seller is utilizing Auto-Accept be included in the Title or Description of their advertisement.

(edit: after receiving questions and comments from our users, we wish to clarify that sellers can still post ads in the “For Sale” section of the Classified Ads to let buyers know that they will entertain offers – however, they cannot promote any “auto-accept” offers, as these cannot be monitored by COMC staff. All future ads using such language will not be accepted and store credit used for the ad will be returned to the user’s account.)

That is some change change....

That is some change….

By having all major sales and promotions located in one central location, we believe this will eliminate instances of a buyer looking for a sale and not realizing that there were two places to look for deals.  This will be better for buyers as a whole and will also minimize the cost to sellers who have, in some cases, been paying to have their sales running in two separate locations.

From those of you who have already used our new Port Sale and Sales features, we would like to hear about your experience with the service.   Are there any new sales and promotion features that you think we should add to our current selection?

Please post your thoughts in the comments section below.  We look forward to hearing from you folks and as always, please follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and our new Google+ page.

Preparing for Growth: Simplifying Fees

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We have learned a lot from our first five years, and in a couple weeks we plan to launch a simplified fee structure. One of the primary goals is to make the site easier to understand as we begin to launch new services.

We announced last year that we purchased the domain COMC.com, and that we would eventually branch out into new markets (e.g. comics, coins, memorabilia etc.). One of the major concerns was that the fee structure could get extremely complicated if we didn’t make some fundamental changes. So here is our core strategy.

Simplified the Fees For Buyers

We have about 2,000 sellers and 40,000 buyers. Buyers outnumber sellers 20 to 1. The only fees that buyers need to be aware of are shipping fees. By simplifying our shipping fees, we can make the site easier for 95% of our users. To accomplish this goal, we will be integrating the per-item shipping & handling fee into the published asking price of an item.

Examples: A normal trading card where a seller is asking $0.75 would be listed for buyers at $1.00 and a graded card with an asking price of $24 would be listed for $25.

Simplified Shipping & Handling
All shipping services offered with one flat rate price regardless of the number of items shipped.

Standard: $2.99, 3-5 days to package + USPS First Class Mail
Rapid: $4.99, 1 day to package + USPS First Class Mail
Priority: $7.99, 1 day to package + USPS Priority Mail
Express: $29.99, packaged same day + USPS Express Mail
Local Pickup: FREE (Coming soon to a card shop near you. More details will be released over the coming year.)

Shipping Guarantee
We will package your order and hand it off to the USPS within the specified time frame or we will refund the shipping fee.

How does this shipping change affect purchased items that haven’t shipped yet?
We will track when the per-item S&H fees have been paid. This is like purchasing a forever stamp. Items that were purchased before these changes will still need to pay the per-item S&H fee. This may be a little confusing until these grandfathered items get cleared out of the system. We will try to make this understandable, but it will soon become a non-issue. The Manage Inventory and My Shipments pages will display the corresponding per-item S&H fee.

How does this shipping change affect sellers?
These changes will not require any effort from sellers. When we release this update, all published prices will be inflated by our per-item S&H fee. When sellers set asking prices we will make it easy to specify how much they want for an item or to specify how much they want the item listed for. If a seller is trying to relist (aka flip) an item which already has S&H paid, the asking price will be the same as the list price, and the seller will get the full list price upon sale because the per-item S&H was already paid.

Original owners that want to have some items returned will still have to pay some per-item S&H, but it will be reduced.

Simplified Fees for Sellers

  • 3 simple processing services
    One Month, One Week & One Day. See below for more details. No more Special Sized service. All services can have a mix of raw trading cards and other items.
  • $3 batch fee gone
    Replaced with a simple minimum processing fee
  • Reduced storage fees
    Starting September 1st we will offer free storage for all items for sale at $0.75 or less. This jumps up to $2.50 if you opt in to the $50/month account upgrade. This will reduce what we charge for storage fees by an average at least 30%.
  • Free premium options
    Sellers will no longer have to pay for an account upgrade to set the minimum offer amount, minimum offer percentage, or auto-accept offer percentage.
  • No “fine print” fees
    Everything is simplified into the processing fees listed below.

Simplified Processing Fees for Sellers

All the fine print is gone. This is all you need to know.

One Month Processing
$0.25 / Card for raw trading cards
$0.50 / Item for all other supported collectibles
$5.00 Minimum processing fee per submission

One Week Processing
$0.50 / Card for raw trading cards
$0.75 / Item for all other supported collectibles
$5.00 Minimum processing fee per submission

One Day Processing
$1.00 / Card for raw trading cards
$1.00 / Item for all other supported collectibles
$5.00 Minimum processing fee per submission

Condition Notes
$0.05 for “has flaws” or “vintage wear” condition notes
$0.25 for detailed condition notes or separate COAs

Processing Guarantee
If we don’t deposit your items into your account by 11:59 PM PST on the due date, we will discount the processing fees by 50%.

Raw Trading Cards
Raw trading cards are any trading cards that meet the following specifications

  • Meets the “standard size” requirements
  • They must be raw or in penny sleeves
  • No toploaders or other hard cases
  • No graded or encased cards

If trading cards do not meet these requirements, they will be treated as “all other supported collectibles”.

All Other Supported Collectibles
You can use our service for any of the following.

  • Collectible trading cards that don’t meet the “raw trading cards” requirements
  • Collectible poker chips (e.g. 2005-06 Topps NBA Collector Chips)
  • Collectible coins (e.g. 1964 Topps Coins)
  • Items on our Beta Test list that will be published in a week or so (e.g. Comics, Coins…)

Feedback Wanted Disclaimer
We want your feedback, but please keep in mind the big picture. Yes, some of the fees are going up slightly, and many are coming down significantly or are completely eliminated. As you analyze these fee changes, please keep in mind that we need all of the fees to work together to make sure the system is sustainable and simple.

For example, today the 4 week processing service costs $103 for 500 cards. This is currently the cheapest way to get cards on the site. Soon the cheapest way to get 500 cards listed will be $125, but we are also decreasing the average storage fees by 30% by allowing you to list cards at $0.75 or less for free and $2.50 or less for free if you pay the $50/month membership. It should also be noted that we are reducing the cost of listing 50 graded, encased or jumbo cards from more than $40 to only $25, and we are cutting the cost of next day processing in half.

We are really excited about expanding into so many new markets, and these fee simplification are a critical, strategic step towards our future offerings. You are invited to help us shape these services.