Anyone sell on COMC.com? Question on how it works....
CdnOsfan
Posts: 279 ✭✭✭
I send my cards in following their directions. I then wait several weeks (months) for them to scan them. What is the process for pricing them? Its not clear, from what I see on their website how this works. Do I have to pay more if I want to lower a price at some point?
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i started selling there a few months ago and have had some modest success. After they get scanned, you will get an email asking you to price the items. You will set the price and can update the price at a time with no extra cost. If you choose the Amazon / eBay option, make sure you price your items 20% higher than you might otherwise sell on COMC. The site also allows you to automatically accept offers at at percent you are comfortable with. For example, if you want $10 for a card and list it there, if it sells on eBay you will see that your card for $8 ($2 to eBay or Amazon if sold there). So you might want to list it for $12, but if you want it sold on COMC @ $10 you could allow offers of 80% or more and get that $10 amt from COMC. If you sell vintage, I would not sell mid-grade+ cards there as they seem to dump all cards in lower grade condition categories for some reasons and therefore your buyers especially on eBay will assume the worst, even though it's a particularly decent mid-grade cards. I do best with $1-$20 off grade singles
Thanks for the excellent advice!
Do you type up a list/manifest of what you're sending to COMC and include it in the sub, or do you leave it entirely up to them to catalog what's in your box?
Also, do you have to put every card into a penny sleeve or is it optional?
Lastly, is there a maximum duration or quantity of months they'll hold on to your items before they decide they're not selling and send them back to you?
Thank you!
leave it entirely up to them to catalog what's in your box - when pricing, correct any errors
I put every card in a penny sleeve
They start charging a monthly, penny a card storage fee for anything priced over $0.74 after a few months IIRC. They don't send anything back until you request a shipment.
Thank you Kyle
I just started a couple months ago too. You definitely want to hone in on cards that you know you can get $2 or more. You'll pay $0.30 to process, $0.25 shipping allocation on any card purchased from you that you submitted, and then 20% of the gross if you decided to cash out. I basically figure that the cost of selling a card is $0.55 and don't factor the 20% cash out because I'm going to use whatever funds are generated to buy cards that I like, or to fill sets. If you were planning on cashing out, then you would figure the card you sold for $1.00 card will cost you $0.75 to sell. That's also ignoring your cost of the card and allocating shipping you paid to send the card there.
I think COMC is great to sell on because you don't have to deal with listing and packaging what you sold - only pricing. That said, you should really do some homework on cards you submit in the $1 range because the fixed cost is significant and if they don't sell, then you potentially may not be able to recoup your initial investment paid to COMC. It's a learning experience.
Also, keep in mind that they aren't friendly to obscure variations, unmarked promos, regional items or cards not listed in the Beckett or SCD annuals. They will catalog them as Declined Items and make you pay to have them sent back to them. Does not matter if you can provide them info on the card(s), once they decide not to, that's that.
Their condition standards change with the direction of the wind too. Lots of stuff that would PSA grade an 8 or 9 gets rejected by their staff for "condition reasons" but of course, they will offer you the option to list them with a condition note for a higher insertion price. Providing examples of currently listed similar items in worse condition, without notes, will do nothing to help your case either. If you refuse this higher service option, you will, again, be required to pay to have them returned to you or they sit in limbo at their HQ.
That said, it is a roll of the dice whether you will experience these issues or not. Some submissions will go through without a hitch, others will see a large batch rejected. Of course, if this happens, you will have already waited for months to receive the news!
Just sent over 1K cards in on 8/8, received 8/11, and they're already starting to trickle in for pricing updates. Looks like there's 15-20 modern with "condition issues" that I'll just have sent back with my purchases once these all log in. Vintage with condition issues (not sure what year they use as a cutoff, but at least 78 and prior, just got assigned a lower condition w/o an additional charge.
So they reject approx. '78 to current w/ condition issues, but no problem with condition of vintage commons like prewar/cigarette and '50's through '77?
They get thrown into buckets on the vintage: Poor, Good-VG-EX, or no condition notation. My 1938-1979 (just realized I had a 79 in there) got this treatment. A 1982 Fleer Rickey Henderson was in the Declined Items pile, so the cutoff is 1980 or 1981.
Correction to my previous post, 24 total items in the Declined/"condition issues" pile, so roughly 2.4% on this submission with I'd guess 90-95% of the submission post-cutoff years, YMMV.
Im trying to understand if you don't cash out and you spend your earnings on other cards, then it is .55/card to sell minimum. Why are there so many cards available under .50? Wouldn't it be better to hold on to them or give them away? Why are people selling cards for as low as .34 and thus losing .21? We havnt even factored in shipping there, the cost of the cards or your time....
Whenever you purchase a card on COMC, if you turn around and sell it, you are not on the hook for the $0.25 shipping assessment, nor are you charged $0.30 because you didn't submit the card. I don't know this to be fact, but I'm guessing if you purchase a port for pennies on the dollar, the cards in that port that become yours are also not subject to the surcharges because you are not the original submitter. So, you could then afford to turn around and list them for much less. Also, it could be that a lot of what you see for sale for $0.25 to $0.30 may have been submitted ages ago when the surcharges were much less. That's also speculation. Maybe someone else who has been on there for a long time can chime in on that. Another possibility could be that some sellers just want to shave off dead inventory - take the loss to recoup cash.
There just seems to be so much accumulation of stars in the 50 cent and under range, you have to wonder how they could possibly sell. I'll admit I've been thinking about it with slews if 52 topps. The recent yard sale find brought me back there and seeing prices and quantity of the 80s mass produced stuff just looks like a huge hurdle to try and make a few cents
If you submit items with multiple copies already there, you're typically racing to the bottom price wise.
Many of the cards you see below break even are as @lahmejoon speculated. COMC used to run an annual $0.10/card special submission rate, others are from bulk purchases of an account's entire inventory, and probably some inventory clearing. I think charities also avoid the $0.30 fee or get a significant discount.
I've also wondered what happens when an account is in default on their storage fees and no payment is received. I could see forfeiting inventory to COMC who may then just keep lowering the price monthly until it sells in an attempt to recoup the default.
Definitely. I would even say for items that may only have one or two copies, you want to have the ability to be the cheapest on those as well.
Kyle, have you ever tried running a sale? I've just gone through and reviewed where my prices were and adjusted down when others creep toward my price, but I think the way they do the sale is a way to get fresh eyes on your inventory? I haven't tried it, but am tempted to. It seems that you also have to be strategic on when you add new cards for sale - I've had the bulk of my sales come shortly after listing - people must keep refreshing "recently added" to try and cherry pick.
I've opted into sitewide holiday sales once or twice, but never done a special for just my listings. If you do it, let me know how it works out.
I got one sale last night within hours after pricing my first 20, only 50% of my asking, but 2-2.5x what I would have received on an eBay auction. I really should have went through my earlier cards that I'd been piling up the past couple years before sending them in. Some of the ones being uploaded now have too many copies already of completely irrelevant players (looking at you Jahvid Best).
So far, I've been trying to stick to superstars or low serial number inserts. I made a decision to initially not allow offers because I was already the low guy. Now that it's been a month or so, I'm contemplating allowing for offers to try to move some stuff. I'm into what I have up there for very little, so I can afford to take less, just to move product and create cashflow.
My first wave was for about 350 cards. I just put another 700 in the mail to them on Monday. My first wave was about 45/45/10 basketball/football/baseball. The next wave has more baseball and a mixture of the other two sports. My initial observations - Steph Curry, Jordan, and Kobe sell. I would have anticipated football HOFers like Montana, Elway, Marino, Emmitt, Aikman, etc would sell, but I haven't had much action. The football stuff has been mostly inserts from the early 2000s. Maybe that's the problem.
Even though there looks like there is "progress" on your submission, you will only be able to actually start pricing your items right or day or so before/after the estimated date. So even if it looks like you are 50% then 60% etc well before that date you won't be able to price anything until that final date.
I don't sell modern 1980 to present but my understanding is that they won't tolerate/accept cards that are mid-grade or worst from this era as they don't want to waste everyone's time with this worthless carp.
I am still confused about the .25 shipping charge, I feel like that is tacked onto the buyers' cost when they pay for shipping. So on COMC, when you list a card for $2.75 there is a .25 "shipping charge" also posted there and I think that is telling you what the buyer would pay to actually get this card as they will pay that to be shipped to them. I COULD BE WRONG ON THIS
As for vintage, I would never send VGEX or Better cards to them as they DO NOT KNOW HOW TO GRADE LOW GRADE VINTAGE!!! They dump everything with any kinda issue in the lower grade categories. As a buyer, this benefits me as some sellers have cards "graded" by COMC as "Poor to Fair" yet my plain eye tells me it is VG, VGEX, and maybe even EX/EXMT.
A few other thoughts....
There is an "advanced seller mode" option, if you click on this, you can "flip" cards instantly, but this price is not available to you if want it shipped to you. For example, if clicked on this option you could buy a .40 card and instantly update the price to .45 and make .05 cents, no work involved. However, if this MODE IS TURNED OFF, that same .40 card is listed at .65 as it is available to to you at .40 + .25 ship = .65 cent purchase.
The "cash out" option is an incentive for you to keep your earnings at COMC. Ideally you can avoid this "tax" by using your earnings to buy other cards--the only problem with this is that you will find a lot of overpriced items, especially the quality ones like graded HOFers.
In short, there are a lot of positives with this site but it is not a magic pill. You will not suddenly make loads of $ off of overproduced little demand cards, as others have sent the same cards in! It is ideal for set builders as they can buy 100 cards from 100 sellers (including your one $1 card) and pay one flat reasonable shipping charge. So your $1 card that would never have sold otherwise is now a sellable commodity. It also does the scanning and packing for your stuff if time is key to you. That said, you are losing control of the process and allowing them to sell your VGEX/EX card and dump it into a lower grade catergory, thus devalualing it
Last but real quick, if you decide to click on the option to sell on eBay and Amazon, be careful how you price it! If you list it at $10 on COMC and you pick by the eBay/Amazon option you are agreeing to take $8 for it! (a 20% "tax" if sold on those sites).....Thus, you might see Item A sold for $8 and you are thinking wait, I had it listed for $10! Well, someone on eBay/Amazon bought it so you only get $8
UD epack cards can be sold there so with no posting fee, those can be cheap too
You can price your items when they are added to your inventory. The status may say 10% complete and only have a couple of cards released to your inventory, but you can price whatever is placed in your inventory when it's put in there. You don't have to wait until the full order is processed.
When your submissions get added to your inventory and you go to price them, there is a + $0.25 assessment with each listing. If you wanted a card to be listed for $3, then you would have to price it for $2.75. The $0.25 is added to that and your card is listed on COMC for $3. When that card sells, you get $2.75. Alternatively, if the person who paid $3 for your card turns around and lists it for $4, they will get $4. The $0.25 assessment only applies to the person who initially submitted the card.
Incorrect, I've been pricing items the past 3 days as I receive "Items Added to Your Account: Partial Deposit" emails and already had sales from the shipment. They're only charging processing fees as cards are available for pricing updates.
I find plenty of stuff for my player collections/set builds that's not overpriced and I would have purchased there regardless. For me, it's basically trading cards I don't want for cards that I'm interested in. If you're going there for graded HOFers, you're doing it wrong.
I don't know anyone who thinks it's a magic pill, but it saves me time scanning/listing cards that are typically not worth it on eBay. If I don't like the way they categorized a card, it's easy to have it sent back to me. At most I'd lose the 30 cent processing fee (which you could easily do on eBay as well with listing/relisting fees), but I still have control. If people are picky or looking for gradeable examples, they'll pay the price regardless of which bucket COMC throws it into.
Agreed. It takes me the same amount of time to list a card with a sale price of $1,000 as it does for one listing at $1. The lower value items do tend to pile up and it seems like they'll never have a chance to move to the higher priority side of things to actually get them listed. The time scanning & listing seems to be of great value as I'm considering sending lower dollar items to COMC.
As far as categorization goes, if you don't like the way they categorized it, do you have a chance to contact someone there and see if they will correct that mistake for you, or is your only other option to have them sent back like you mentioned?
On the vintage, if you think they've put it in the wrong condition bucket, there's a way to contact by clicking the 'wrong?' link in your Inventory. I've never tried it, so don't know what the likelihood of changing would be. For the modern, it was just a picture of the pile of rejected cards spread out so I couldn't see the specific condition issues they were referencing.
Oops, sorry; I thought you meant that they mis-categorized some items as far as accuracy in identifying rare/odd issue items goes, and not in reference to condition. My mistake.
Ah, you'd follow the same link and it gives you these options...
