COMC Mailbox Thread

SharpysSports said:

I was just searching this thread to make a very similar comment.

I am finding that there are cards on the site that have not moved in price since they were added. Maybe during the initial hype of product release the cards were worth the price the sellers want but since then the prices have dropped. Half the time it is cheaper for me to wait and win a card for $0.99 plus shipping plus $2 COMC fees. If it is a more expensive card I just wait for it to show up on eBay and pick it up for as little as 30% of the price on COMC inclusive of all the fees.

Maybe COMC should have the selling port set up so if a card is not sold within a period of time (6 months?) it is removed as a sale item and placed back into the sellers mailbox. There would be exceptions to the rule like cards less than $5-10 etc. I'm sick of looking at the same cards up for sale for ridiculous prices.

Yes there are exceptions to the above as I do purchase most of my low end cards from COMC but some sellers really need to do some research into the actual value of their cards.

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I feel you. I've been staring at a card on there for 2 years for this reason. Fml.

nichj99 said:

I feel you. I've been staring at a card on there for 2 years for this reason. Fml.

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I only have 41 cards for sale at COMC at the moment. Every couple of months I will jump on and heavily reduce the price of my cards. I hate having cards just sitting there in my inventory.

Just sent across another 500 cards to COMC. Should be processed by the start of the season...

Just one example. The top card is on COMC for almost $400 and the bottom one is still for sale on eBay for $99 which is also high. If it was to be put up on eBay as an auction starting at $0.99 I would guess it would go for no more than $50-60.

Seriously though, if someone is going to use COMC they will have enough knowledge about trading cards to know that this price is ridiculous. You can get an MJ auto for that these days!!!

SharpysSports said:

Just one example. The top card is on COMC for almost $400 and the bottom one is still for sale on eBay for $99 which is also high. If it was to be put up on eBay as an auction starting at $0.99 I would guess it would go for no more than $50-60.

Seriously though, if someone is going to use COMC they will have enough knowledge about trading cards to know that this price is ridiculous. You can get an MJ auto for that these days!!!

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Yeah I seen some listings like that too!

I think the above phenomenon can be explained simply by the following: TIME... when people sent cards into COMC in bulk, they only took the time to set the price then, by the time the cards are not worth a cent, their account probably have 10000 items which is a very painful task to do, so there are lots of "forgotten" mis-managed items on COMC. Most of the time, when someone makes an offer, they would realize that the card is over-priced and will accept or counter with something more reasonable. Also, there is no incentive for COMC to remind you that your card is not selling because they charge a storage fee for cards with set price over a certain amount.

There are times when people would refuse to accept a seemingly reasonable offer and go to extremes (raising the price) to make sure no offer can be made at the lower prices, but that is the same as people not willing to sell a card on the forum even though no one pays the asking price anymore based on market value. You can't blame them if they have placed certain sentimental value on their cards. Also, not everybody does business the same way... people might think you have a fair offer, but they are trying to fry a bigger fish if one comes along, especially if the card is newly listed.

banzini said:

It's not a base card but I may have purchased this recently! haha!

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Thanks Be, but I have that one as well as the Century Marks, need a lot of base actually and guys on there wouldn't drop 10c on certain cards. I'll just bide my time, only a side pc anyway....

wjrwebber said:

Thanks Be, but I have that one as well as the Century Marks, need a lot of base actually and guys on there wouldn't drop 10c on certain cards. I'll just bide my time, only a side pc anyway....

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That's the right attitude, someone else ought to have that card and be willing to take 10 cents less, so just wait.. you don't need to have it now.. there are also promotions on Black Fridays and other special occasions where the prices can drop a lot... even some of the well over-priced cards can come into acceptable range.

Brian Lee said:

I think the above phenomenon can be explained simply by the following: TIME... when people sent cards into COMC in bulk, they only took the time to set the price then, by the time the cards are not worth a cent, their account probably have 10000 items which is a very painful task to do, so there are lots of "forgotten" mis-managed items on COMC. Most of the time, when someone makes an offer, they would realize that the card is over-priced and will accept or counter with something more reasonable. Also, there is no incentive for COMC to remind you that your card is not selling because they charge a storage fee for cards with set price over a certain amount.

There are times when people would refuse to accept a seemingly reasonable offer and go to extremes (raising the price) to make sure no offer can be made at the lower prices, but that is the same as people not willing to sell a card on the forum even though no one pays the asking price anymore based on market value. You can't blame them if they have placed certain sentimental value on their cards. Also, not everybody does business the same way... people might think you have a fair offer, but they are trying to fry a bigger fish if one comes along, especially if the card is newly listed.

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I agree with you however there are some cards where the minimum allowed offer is two or three times the actual value of the card. It's all about being patient I suppose.

SharpysSports said:

I agree with you however there are some cards where the minimum allowed offer is two or three times the actual value of the card. It's all about being patient I suppose.

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I guess you are referring to base cards of unknown players that would be worth 5 cents, but most sellers have a minimum of offer value of 50 cents. But I think you need to take into account that the site helped you find a card that would otherwise be very hard to find if you also take into account of the free postage here, that service is sometimes worth the 45 cents for me anyway.

Brian Lee said:

I guess you are referring to base cards of unknown players that would be worth 5 cents, but most sellers have a minimum of offer value of 50 cents. But I think you need to take into account that the site helped you find a card that would otherwise be very hard to find if you also take into account of the free postage here, that service is sometimes worth the 45 cents for me anyway.

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No, I actually with him. Both low, mid and high end on numerous occasions I can buy an auto, or even a standard jersey card on eBay and have it shipped direct to me from the U.S. and it still work out to be half of the minimum offer on there. There are certainly plenty of examples of crazy and unrealistic prices on there and I think most buyers would find that it's no longer a cheaper alternative to buy on eBay, now being on par with or higher - I've had 3 or 4 members on this site say it to me in PM's alone. Then when it comes to sale time the prices go up by 30% just so they can put a 30% sale on it to make it look more impressive. It's BS really. Apart from standard base and inserts, it's near impossible to find a fair price (example, a few days ago I scrolled past a 13-14 Crusade blue Steph Curry for $22, min offer was $15.... That's ridiculous!)

Just had a seller send me 6 junk brillance common cards with my one card I won off ebay.
If I have to pay $6 to have these processed I am going to be

Have emailed COMC to get them binned / avoid the fees for having cards I never won sent to me!!


EDIT: I don't like my chances, :

1. What about bonus cards from the 3rd party sellers?
   We will process ALL such cards that come in under your name at $0.50 per card. 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 You may still donate any “unwanted” cards to Charity but we will no longer reimburse your processing fee. However, please remember: you have a COMC account and are able to price any unwanted cards for sale on the site.

PS PS EDIT: At least it seems it will only cost $3.50 to have this lot of 7 cards processed at 0.50 a card instead of $2 for one card. It is still rather frustrating!

nichj99 said:

No, I actually with him. Both low, mid and high end on numerous occasions I can buy an auto, or even a standard jersey card on eBay and have it shipped direct to me from the U.S. and it still work out to be half of the minimum offer on there. There are certainly plenty of examples of crazy and unrealistic prices on there and I think most buyers would find that it's no longer a cheaper alternative to buy on eBay, now being on par with or higher - I've had 3 or 4 members on this site say it to me in PM's alone. Then when it comes to sale time the prices go up by 30% just so they can put a 30% sale on it to make it look more impressive. It's BS really. Apart from standard base and inserts, it's near impossible to find a fair price (example, a few days ago I scrolled past a 13-14 Crusade blue Steph Curry for $22, min offer was $15.... That's ridiculous!)

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Comc overall has become a joke unfortunately

banzini said:

Just had a seller send me 6 junk brillance common cards with my one card I won off ebay.
If I have to pay $6 to have these processed I am going to be

Have emailed COMC to get them binned / avoid the fees for having cards I never won sent to me!!


EDIT: I don't like my chances, :

1. What about bonus cards from the 3rd party sellers?
   We will process ALL such cards that come in under your name at $0.50 per card. 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 You may still donate any “unwanted” cards to Charity but we will no longer reimburse your processing fee. However, please remember: you have a COMC account and are able to price any unwanted cards for sale on the site.

PS PS EDIT: At least it seems it will only cost $3.50 to have this lot of 7 cards processed at 0.50 a card instead of $2 for one card. It is still rather frustrating!

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It's crap that they took away the donate function because you never know when you buy from ebay. The seller might think he is being nice and throw in some extra cards, but it ends up costing you a lot more.

Brian Lee said:

I guess you are referring to base cards of unknown players that would be worth 5 cents, but most sellers have a minimum of offer value of 50 cents. But I think you need to take into account that the site helped you find a card that would otherwise be very hard to find if you also take into account of the free postage here, that service is sometimes worth the 45 cents for me anyway.

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Nope. I generally pay the asking price for any card less than $2 as I would be paying $2-3 in shipping from ebay anyway. It's more the cards that are worth $10+ that are being over priced. See my earlier post.

If sellers on COMC want to compete with eBay then they need to do a little bit of research on the cards true value and price it accordingly. Yes some sellers have thousands of cards and it would take time however what would you prefer; sell the card for a little bit less than its true value and have money in your account or let it sit in COMC's warehouse and incur storage fees...

I think there a few contributing factors to the ridiculous prices on COMC.

Yes, there are sellers who are just greedy by listing base cards at $20! And there are also sellers who are less informed about market trends and values.

But I also think a lot of the price increases are dictated by the system itself. The more commission COMC takes from processing, storage, cash out and Amazon, the higher the seller has to price their cards in order to offset the fees. Which of course not only effects the seller but also the buyer as well.

banzini said:

Just had a seller send me 6 junk brillance common cards with my one card I won off ebay.
If I have to pay $6 to have these processed I am going to be

Have emailed COMC to get them binned / avoid the fees for having cards I never won sent to me!!


EDIT: I don't like my chances, :

1. What about bonus cards from the 3rd party sellers?
   We will process ALL such cards that come in under your name at $0.50 per card. 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 You may still donate any “unwanted” cards to Charity but we will no longer reimburse your processing fee. However, please remember: you have a COMC account and are able to price any unwanted cards for sale on the site.

PS PS EDIT: At least it seems it will only cost $3.50 to have this lot of 7 cards processed at 0.50 a card instead of $2 for one card. It is still rather frustrating!

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Hello,
Thank you for contacting us. As of 3/7/15 we no longer remove specific items that come in through the mailbox service. We will process every card that comes in the mailbox unless they are clearly marked as just packing material. Please seehttp://www.comc.com/mailbox.aspx for more details.

Regards,

Nathan Richards
Communication Manager, COMC

banzini said:

Hello,
Thank you for contacting us. As of 3/7/15 we no longer remove specific items that come in through the mailbox service. We will process every card that comes in the mailbox unless they are clearly marked as just packing material. Please seehttp://www.comc.com/mailbox.aspx for more details.

Regards,

Nathan Richards
Communication Manager, COMC

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I had a package arrive this morning with the same thing. 6 base cards included. I will put the extras up for sale in the hope of making back the additional $1.50 it will cost me. I should be able to sell the cards for $0.25 each...

SharpysSports said:

I had a package arrive this morning with the same thing. 6 base cards included. I will put the extras up for sale in the hope of making back the additional $1.50 it will cost me. I should be able to sell the cards for $0.25 each...

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That is a fair point. Cheers.
Sucks we have to pay 50c per card but hey we can actually afford 3 base cards per arrival! just when they start adding more it becomes an issue

jkidd05 said:

I think there a few contributing factors to the ridiculous prices on COMC.

Yes, there are sellers who are just greedy by listing base cards at $20! And there are also sellers who are less informed about market trends and values.

But I also think a lot of the price increases are dictated by the system itself. The more commission COMC takes from processing, storage, cash out and Amazon, the higher the seller has to price their cards in order to offset the fees. Which of course not only effects the seller but also the buyer as well.

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I think sellers are not that greedy, they are like you said, just disconnected with the market trends and are not too concerned with selling their items at what seems to be a ridiculous low-ball price. The same thing can happen here on this forum.

In terms of item prices on COMC, the sellers most likely took into account of the many fees that he has already paid to get the card there, so it won't be the 5 cents bargain bin here. Like I said, it is a great service to some of us who are looking for specific cards which would otherwise cost us $5 to have (taking postage into account). I think the key is to take postage into consideration, then you will see that things even out and they are marginally cheaper, by centralizing all their cards in the warehouse.

In terms of the mailbox service, I guess they tweaked the prices (based on stats) to make sure they are making the right amount of profit for the resources available and required.
- $2 is a fair bit to charge for one card, you still have to pay an extra $0.45 to send the card to yourself, but they want to make sure it is worth their while every time they open a package, because most packages contain only one card
- not refunding money for donations and charging for all cards within the package, this is to cover their cost of scanning the unwanted cards, they want people to cut down on that
- the $2 now covers 4 cards, so the best thing to send over to COMC mailbox would be small lots, and I bet that's what's going to happen

Being a smart customer instead of a stubborn customer, I would focus on what COMC does best and continue to take advantage of them:
- buy small inserts and base cards that are not worth buying individually on ebay
- buy small lots and send to COMC
- continue to take the $2 hit for big cards that I win on eBay because I don't think there is another mail forwarding service out there cheaper
- for small single cards, I would search for an alternative service...

I bet in a year's time, the usage stats will change so much due to this tweak, and they will be forced to make more changes, but this is just how businesses work.

Most of us would be a smart buyer and do the sums on our eBay/COMC purchases prior to buying.

I always run this check prior to making any purchase on eBay:
$1.00 purchase price + $2.95 shipping + $2 processing fee = $5.95 for a $1 card on eBay or I could buy it for $X on COMC. If the person selling it on COMC is cheaper then I will buy it there however a lot of the time the card is selling for $10-15.

I'm not concerned about the cost of base cards. They are all generally reasonably priced. It is the mid-range cards that I have problems with.

At the end of the day it is tough being an NBA collector in Australia. Imagine if I lived in the US. I would have nearly double my budget to spend on cards and my PC would be twice as good!!! It is something I have always wanted to do, now I am going to have to convince my boss to transfer me there.