Looks like Beckett Pricing is gone on COMC

[dcaudle68]

Now you have to pay to see it.

[TSJCT]

Of course. Another money maker

[jkbball]

I'm wondering if this is good or bad... You guys think low end cards will sell better? I feel like low end autos won't sell as well, but I feel like even base star players will sell better.

I'm excited to see what happens, and if it fails, we'll see what happens. Hoping it adds a boost to sales. :)

[ac-n-mike]

well to be fair, it's not COMC's "fault"... Beckett simply cracked down and didn't like them "giving" away BV's for free.... COMC had no choice in the matter

[Cactuspies]

but we have the IQ test now get points/credits to see historical data. Last time the BV prices went away (and w/o notice) there was a huge s*itstorm, and soon enough the prices came back. From the blog post tone it may not happen this time.

[papercards]

They said it would happen last year, and I guess it finally is here. I hope they give a break for users who already pay a pretty big monthly fee, maybe to include it or discount it with something like the $50 a month option. I like having it, but it isn't something I want to put another $20 or so a month into, when BV is almost irrelevant in today's hobby. As most already realize, the BV doesn't mean a whole lot...but the way the site is run, it is actually an important factor.

It could actually be a good thing in the long run with people just paying market value, I dunno...

[jkbball]

Launching Beckett Subscriptions | COMC Blog (http://blog.comc.com/2013/07/09/launching-beckett-subscriptions/)

I doubt it will happen this time. I don't think it's coming back. Last time I was against it; this time I think it may actually help sales. People will go for cards they think will sell well if they flip, or will go for the players they collect. They won't be turned off by a 7$ card with a book value of 12.

The true "book value" of a card is really how much the consumer will pay for it in my opinion.

[thebrett]

I just noticed this...

Interested to see what happens next

I hope this stops some of the Port Sales by BuyMore and SellMore who just snatch up 95% off cards and throw them all into one worthless port

[TSJCT]

well to be fair, it's not COMC's "fault"... Beckett simply cracked down and didn't like them "giving" away BV's for free.... COMC had no choice in the matter

It's all about money and we know comc is about making as much as possible. Not knocking them for it but I can see this hurting sales for the ones who are selling and paying those high fees. My sales are horrible right now and I am paying a ton in storage fees. I hope it gets better and fast.

[Jbjints]

They've been talking about it for awhile now so it is no surprise. I only collect baseball, football, and hockey but for the $27 sub fee might as well pay the extra $4 and get the whole package.

[Ajax1723]

Well, if you are already a member of Beckett.com price guide, you can link your account (which I just did).

Might help for selling though, not sure, kinda hard to tell at this point, not sure how many people actually buy based on book.

[TSJCT]

Well, if you are already a member of Beckett.com price guide, you can link your account (which I just did).

Might help for selling though, not sure, kinda hard to tell at this point, not sure how many people actually buy based on book.

Thanks for that info I'll do that now myself

[Ajax1723]

Thanks for that info I'll do that now myself

What I wonder though, is when submissions drop, I guess you have to be subscribed to see book to base prices off of? I only subscribe to baseball as I don't feel like paying 280 dollars a year for fake prices to all sports I don't care as much about.

As of right now, I can still see the BV for my football, basketball and hockey cards that I have in my port. Would be very nice if that stayed, as I don't really care to use BV anytime else really.

[TSJCT]

What I wonder though, is when submissions drop, I guess you have to be subscribed to see book to base prices off of? I only subscribe to baseball as I don't feel like paying 280 dollars a year for fake prices to all sports I don't care as much about.

As of right now, I can still see the BV for my football, basketball and hockey cards that I have in my port. Would be very nice if that stayed, as I don't really care to use BV anytime else really.

I think for the sellers you will see the book value but as a buyer you will not see it.

[Ghumbs]

I think for the sellers you will see the book value but as a buyer you will not see it.

Correct. Sellers will still be able to see Book Values for items they consigned to COMC as that is included in the cost of processing.

Grant

[Ajax1723]

Correct. Sellers will still be able to see Book Values for items they consigned to COMC as that is included in the cost of processing.

Grant

Awesome. Thanks for the info.

[My-Coolectibles]

Correct. Sellers will still be able to see Book Values for items they consigned to COMC as that is included in the cost of processing.

Grant

Does that include items purchased for the purpose of flipping?

[dcaudle68]

Well I purchased the subscription on COMC and can see the prices now on Beckett but not on COMC where I purchased the subscription. go figure...

[JDubs80]

Does that include items purchased for the purpose of flipping?

negative. All of my inventory was purchased and relisted and now shows me no BV any longer.

[Jeramy]

Yup, icing on the cake. I'm done here - not buying any more ports or sending anything else in.

[w8lifter28]

Who the f*** uses Beckett value anyway

[TSJCT]

Who the f*** uses Beckett value anyway

Yes but the problem is buyers like to see a list price or book price whether it's a car a boat or a card. They want to see a discount. I agree with you as book value means nothing but buyers like it for some reason. I just hope like heck it does not hurt my sales anymore than they already are.

[dlab85]

Yes but the problem is buyers like to see a list price or book price whether it's a car a boat or a card. They want to see a discount. I agree with you as book value means nothing but buyers like it for some reason. I just hope like heck it does not hurt my sales anymore than they already are.

Agreed

This should at the least help some of the low-end on the site, as buyers might be willing to pay a bit more, but for mid-high end it is going to turn it into eBay 2.0. I'm not thrilled about the changes. BV gives people a baseline value, and some are willing to buy at full book.

http://cdn.meme.li/instances/300x300/39563450.jpg

[chezball]

This is going to kill the low end cards,the buyers need some sort of guide.They should tell beckett to fork off.I'm sure beckett told them to get the free pricing off their site.

[jetscollector10]

Question:
If I go ahead and get a monthly subscription to beckett sports monthly magazine(the multi-sport one), would I get access to all COMC BVs?

[TSJCT]

Question:
If I go ahead and get a monthly subscription to beckett sports monthly magazine(the multi-sport one), would I get access to all COMC BVs?

You have to have the OLP subscription to get access

[Jeramy]

Yup, icing on the cake. I'm done here - not buying any more ports or sending anything else in.

For the record, I don't blame COMC for this directly. I doubt they had ANY choice in the matter. That being said, there is zero chance they haven't known about this for months. Their contract with Beckett was expiring and they knew the entire time things were going to change, but only told us AS IT HAPPENED.

I only joined a few months ago, but I put about $10k on the site buying ports and sent in thousands of cards...now I want everything back.

[XL5]

negative. All of my inventory was purchased and relisted and now shows me no BV any longer.

It does for me today, both items I sent in and items I bought on the site. It didn't yesterday so I think they either fixed it or changed it.

[Brad]

That being said, there is zero chance they haven't known about this for months. Their contract with Beckett was expiring and they knew the entire time things were going to change, but only told us AS IT HAPPENED.

We knew this was coming for months. They did make an announcement a long time ago.

[Cactuspies]

We knew this was coming for months. They did make an announcement a long time ago.

not to mention they did pull the plug on the BV viewable pricing when we went from checkoutmycards.com to comc.com for a bit. It was weird after all those years of having pricing to base off of. I know I did basically stop buying at that point (and other reasons).
I don't think sales were hurt too much. Maybe initially. If you price right then you will sell, if you overprice and try to run a 50% sale that stills has you over ebay ending sales you still won't sell. BV is old but having that guague and % off most certainly helped sales/purchases.

Maybe they can implement a "boyd" function where we can just add our own BV to cards descriptions. I'd pay an extra penny a listing for that! I already have a good chunk of mine which have no BV anyway.

[mrwalken]

This is going to kill the low end cards,the buyers need some sort of guide.They should tell beckett to fork off.I'm sure beckett told them to get the free pricing off their site.

I actually think this might be good for low end cards. Buyers seemed really reluctant to pay $1 for a card with a BV of $1, even if the card is really worth $1. So, now I think some of those cards will finally move without a BV displayed.

What this is going to kill are the cards with prices that were artificially inflated by high Beckett values. Like the cards with a BV of $12 with 184 copies on the site with a current low price of $1.65. Those cards will plummet to at least $.75, if not lower.

[limitedplay]

I think COMC had a youtube video about this awhile ago. Either way this has been in the works for awhile now due to the fact that beckett does not want to give people 100% free access to their guide.

[jkbball]

I actually think this might be good for low end cards. Buyers seemed really reluctant to pay $1 for a card with a BV of $1, even if the card is really worth $1. So, now I think some of those cards will finally move without a BV displayed.

What this is going to kill are the cards with prices that were artificially inflated by high Beckett values. Like the cards with a BV of $12 with 184 copies on the site with a current low price of $1.65. Those cards will plummet to at least $.75, if not lower.

Good ol' kosuke fukudome rc's. :p 200 copies with a bv of $12? Haha nooo way.

[Ajax1723]

I think the blog post they just posted cleared a lot up, and was nice to see them come out with something the day after.

[mrwalken]

I think the blog post they just posted cleared a lot up, and was nice to see them come out with something the day after.

Fudge, I just used up all my history points before I knew what was going on. Now I have to answer trivia to secure more history points? Is this a joke?

[jkbball]

I was optimistic about this idea at first.. I didn't think there would be such negative responses. There was 250 comments on the blog post last I checked. Over 200 were negative. many big and small buyer and sellers were out. Flippers are practically non-existent. And, well, I went from 20-30 cards sold per day, i'm at 0 and the days half over, and 90% of them 90% off, or way more.

Again, I was optimistic, and that is dead after seeing how many people are leaving. The flippers have NO market anymore. I'm going to keep checking in to the site to see what happens, but for now, time to fold for me as well. I've bought, and sent in over 6000 cards.. and many of the other sellers leaving have bought that many, and most, way more. Those cards won't go purchased anymore except by the big guys.

[Cactuspies]

chicken little syndrome again. only a few people are really tossing a fit, most don't even use real names and who knows if they even buy or sell on there. cardko is making himself look bad in everything he/she types, ya dig man?

there was a time, not so long ago when bv went out the door and we all survived (yes they did bring it back though). SELLERS still can see it on what they have or what they have added, buyers cannot unless they purchase beckett ops. they are doing this historical thing which may or may not work. just use ebay to get a price guage. yes flipping will be harder but unless the card is new or rare we pretty much all know what it is going to sell for.

I have 187 cards w/BV NA, please tell me how beckett can help that for pricing and discounting rates?

It's like all these people whining about topps and redemptions, yet they keep buying them or keeping them and I think they enjoy calling topps and getting the run around and then announcing to the world they are mad.

update:

check out this blog and all the posts to it....seeeeeee toldyaso

http://blog.comc.com/2013/07/10/comc-hot-list-july-10th-july-24th/

[dcaudle68]

Most are just talk, it is very hard to get your cards back and be worthwhile. If you aren't the original owner it will cost you more than it is worth unless they are big ticket items. Most will stay even though they say otherwise.

[jkbball]

Most are just talk, it is very hard to get your cards back and be worthwhile. If you aren't the original owner it will cost you more than it is worth unless they are big ticket items. Most will stay even though they say otherwise.

"Most will stay" if the only reason you say this is due to the shipping price back, then, some will.. But myself, I just lower the price and let it sell and once they all sell I won't buy anymore unless I see some features and a lot of sales again.

[dcaudle68]

"Most will stay" if the only reason you say this is due to the shipping price back, then, some will.. But myself, I just lower the price and let it sell and once they all sell I won't buy anymore unless I see some features and a lot of sales again.

I was talking more in general about the big boys. No disrespect meant to you in any way but when you have 7,000 cards consigned the cost to get them back becomes a huge deterrent. And there are many with a lot more than that.

[jkbball]

I was talking more in general about the big boys. No disrespect meant to you in any way but when you have 7,000 cards consigned the cost to get them back becomes a huge deterrent. And there are many with a lot more than that.

I agree with the big sellers. Most will stay. No disrespect taken. A lot of the small ones will be gone it appears.. I'm not sure what will happen. Interested in seeing what happen though. Hope all the sales are going well for you despite the changes. :)!

[aether]

I agree with the big sellers. Most will stay. No disrespect taken. A lot of the small ones will be gone it appears.. I'm not sure what will happen. Interested in seeing what happen though. Hope all the sales are going well for you despite the changes. :)!

I guess this is what all capitalism ends up with...the bigger get bigger and the small non existence! I personally think all business eventually only want big clients. Ebay is going this routes and now COMC is going this routes. It is much cost efficient to please a few number of sellers then to please thousands of small ones. And it is usually the small ones who whines and complain and only want free services.

Business is business, PERIOD! COMC is still a great business model and they have out expand themself to the point that they might need to sacrifice some people. I am sure it is not their intent from all the quick responses they been given out. REMEMBER, most other company (ebay) wont even respond to any users concern. LETS support COMC as this is one of the few companies that still support and care about its users. BUT they still need to make profit

[mrwalken]

It's only been a few days, but my sales have actually increased substantially since they made these changes. Knock on wood.

[jkbball]

I guess this is what all capitalism ends up with...the bigger get bigger and the small non existence! I personally think all business eventually only want big clients. Ebay is going this routes and now COMC is going this routes. It is much cost efficient to please a few number of sellers then to please thousands of small ones. And it is usually the small ones who whines and complain and only want free services.

Business is business, PERIOD! COMC is still a great business model and they have out expand themself to the point that they might need to sacrifice some people. I am sure it is not their intent from all the quick responses they been given out. REMEMBER, most other company (ebay) wont even respond to any users concern. LETS support COMC as this is one of the few companies that still support and care about its users. BUT they still need to make profit

Oh don't get me wrong. I love the site, and the communication.. It's just, there was none this time..

Last time they said BV would be taken off, they told us it would be, and there wasn't as much lash back from the comc community. This time, there was nothing.. and it's a bit shocking because of how good they have been with it. Some of the people defending them are saying "oh they told us 9 months ago!" Yes, and it happened, for a week, and then they brought it back. Everyone thought it was back for good, as nothing was said about it after they brought it back. I'm just saying, if we were told a month or a few weeks in advance, instead of a confusing 9 months after they took it off then brought it back, I would have done some things with a few cards. I would have sold off the higher percent lower quality cards that won't sell as well now that bv is off.

I totally back the company up, I'm just hesitant with all these changes. I hope that is understandable. I will be keeping up with them, watching what happens, and picking up a few cards. I want to see how cards sell still. If well, then i'll keep on doing what I do. If not, we'll see what happens. It's clear that flipping isn't going to be easy, and that's causing hesitance for me.

For you saying "all business eventually only wants big clients" (or something like that) it appears that comc doesn't feel this way by what they've stated. I think they need the big and little guys together to stay successful. Many of the buyers are the little guys after all. Ebay is a bit different in how it works, so I can see mainly why this is for them.

I hope all sales are going well for you and I hope you don't have a negative view of me now. I'm not going as extreme as many people in my hesitancy. Many are just putting up fire-sales to get out of it because they don't like it. Each man to his own. I'll wait it out, but I'm not sure how it'll go.

[mrwalken]

It's only been a few days, but my sales have actually increased substantially since they made these changes. Knock on wood.

Reviewing my sales from the last few days, it looks like most of the cards sold were cards that previously sold for higher amounts. So, buyers are definitely looking at this. I imagine at some point I will have to go through and lower the price on cards where my price is higher than any previous price paid by a buyer.

[marines4me]

I sales have gone from 100 a day to about 20. So i decided to long
On here and see if people are having the same issue.
Then again basketball and football is over and the ruin on prospect
Baseball cards have decreased.
Either way i am not going anywhere things will pick up.

[dirtydistance]

I support COMC. I think they really are one of the few good guys left in town. Just sucks that everyone in the world is greedy so they need their piece of the pot. Just a lose/lose situation of small sellers of anything. I'm sticking around and will see how it goes. Got a few nice deals to flip by people jumping off the cliff and selling low. I think Tim really needs to stand up to Beckett and get a much reduced rate for their toolbase because they are promoting so much of their product. If they don't, tell them to shove it, get their checklists from the card companies or collectors who have comprised lists and get onboard with another grading service.

[maccca3232]

Got a few nice deals to flip by people jumping off the cliff and selling low.

I guess I am one of those lemmings. I can't speak for others but I only flip as a hobby, so like any hobby when it stops being enjoyable you find something else to do. Thankfully when it comes to hobbies you don't only look at the bottom line, unlike businesses do.

So I guess in someway this is good for the businesses, cheap bargins short term and less competition long term.

I have listed all my cards at purchase cost + 1 cent. Note: Not accepting any offers and anything not sold by 19/07 I will be donating to COMC Charity account, so this is as good as it gets.