COMC Port Sales - Are they worth it?

[w3w0]

I'm curious what everyone's experience with Port sales has been. I have one listed now, and am tired of all the super low offers.

My cards are listed competitively with eBay buy it now pricing, and have about a $4,700 total list price and I keep getting $500-$650 offers. The SRP of my port is just over $1,000 but largely because so much of my stock is 2013 and 2014 and don't have SRP prices yet.

With COMC being tough to sell mid-range ($50-$200) priced cards, I wonder if they'd ever consider selling on eBay in the same way they do through Amazon assuming sellers could opt-in.

[colls69]

I would start by putting a price on your port. At least buyers will know around what you are looking to get for your port. Most potential buyers will pass over you if there is no price. Your probably not going to get EBay prices. People buying ports want to buy them at prices on the lower side so they can resell for a profit. I have sold a few ports here and also stopped the Ad because offers were much lower than I could feel comfortable with.

But definitely put a price on it and you can haggle from there.

[chezball]

So why did you send them to comc and not sell them on ebay?
OP don't you think you should have asked this question before you started the sale?

[w3w0]

I would start by putting a price on your port. At least buyers will know around what you are looking to get for your port. Most potential buyers will pass over you if there is no price. Your probably not going to get EBay prices. People buying ports want to buy them at prices on the lower side so they can resell for a profit. I have sold a few ports here and also stopped the Ad because offers were much lower than I could feel comfortable with.

But definitely put a price on it and you can haggle from there.

I actually started off with a "Make Offer" price listed, and got the same low offers. After getting 5 or 6, I decided to take the price off and see what happened.

[w3w0]

So why did you send them to comc and not sell them on ebay?
OP don't you think you should have asked this question before you started the sale?

Thanks for the snark.

I researched COMC before joining the site and knew it was slow for pricier cards, I just didn't expect it to be this slow.

I grew tired of eBay and the work maintaining the listings (especially as I was starting to travel more for work), shipping the product, and dealing with some of the shady buyers. I decided to give COMC a try, have been more disappointed in the sales of the $20+ cards than I expected. I'm trying a Port to see if that drove some business, and clearly not what I was expecting.

Anyhow, I was just suggesting that perhaps COMC would be even more attractive if it offered the option to sell on eBay too, just as it does for Amazon. More traffic can't hurt right?

[jerryw]

ports very rarely sell for a "fair" or at "ebay prices" you must be willing to take 20-30% of your total asking price (unless you are way off base with pricing and it could be more) people buy to resell..so they must have that margin in their and when I bought ports I always assumed they were selling the port because individual cards weren't being bought at a high rate of speed...meaning I would have to lower those prices by a bit already..so that cuts into the margin as well...

and if someone isn't buying to resell on comc they will have to add .25 to every single card to get them shipped back to them (rarely happens)

also I just checked your buxton /20 auto from leaf memories you have at 134.99..one /10 went for best offer of 75.00 on ebay (maybe that was a huge steal due to the sellers feedback who knows) but even if you accepted your lowest offer it would be 81.18 which is still above the /10 price...so im guessing the port buyers (who will check these things and add that to what they offer)....its very hard to get one over on port buyers...so I wouldn't even try

[checkoutmydeals]

If you have rational asking prices (that is, your prices tend to be competitive with the lowest on the site or the lowest BIN price for a similar item on eBay), then a port sale will usually yield about 20% or 30% of the asking price.

When COMC had Beckett Values, there were many buyers who would routinely offer 10% of Book Value, regardless of the quality of the port. If the port was higher quality, you might have been able to coax 15% or so.

As an alternative to selling the port at one time, it's sometimes useful to run a few promotional sales. Maybe start with 40% off, then 50%, then 60% then 70% and maybe 75%.

Then, if you sell your port, taking 20% of your asking price for everything you have left over won't be quite so lowball. All the retail buyers will have had their chance to pick up the low-hanging fruit.

You can also mark certain items "not for sale", then have the port sale. The "not for sale" items won't be included in the port sale, so you can start fresh with solid stuff.

[Swipe79]

Lots of good advice here. I'll just add that when you sell your port, you're getting to sell all of it at once. Sure the buyer may get some great deals on certain cards, but they are also receiving cards that are complete dogs and will possibly never sell.

Running sales is a great way to trim the port down. Start at 30% and run it up in 10% increments. If you have cards you don't want to discount, pull them from your sale list during the promotion or edit the sales price to a discount you can deal with.

If you have rational asking prices (that is, your prices tend to be competitive with the lowest on the site or the lowest BIN price for a similar item on eBay), then a port sale will usually yield about 20% or 30% of the asking price.

When COMC had Beckett Values, there were many buyers who would routinely offer 10% of Book Value, regardless of the quality of the port. If the port was higher quality, you might have been able to coax 15% or so.

As an alternative to selling the port at one time, it's sometimes useful to run a few promotional sales. Maybe start with 40% off, then 50%, then 60% then 70% and maybe 75%.

Then, if you sell your port, taking 20% of your asking price for everything you have left over won't be quite so lowball. All the retail buyers will have had their chance to pick up the low-hanging fruit.

You can also mark certain items "not for sale", then have the port sale. The "not for sale" items won't be included in the port sale, so you can start fresh with solid stuff.