All I want to do is talk about COMC

[ThePatriotWay]

That fact that it takes 4 ish months or whatever to upload ~150 cards is pretty wild. I know they have a to of other submissions, but one would think it would be more efficient to finish a started projected rather than trickle it over months purposefully


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[orion9578]

Originally Posted by Saraste

I request shipments from them 5-10 times per year. Most times the orders run from 500-2000 cards and I always ship bulk. The last time things were this backed up was from Black Friday of 2023 through the first half of 2024. Back then things were running 2-3 months to get things home. It appears to be running on the high end (or slightly higher) of that timeline now. I am expecting the orders I requested on 11/26 and 12/1 to be shipped around the end of this month. Sales for them must be very good overall (including ebay and auctions) because what I am seeing now is the most cards ahead of my order to ship since the pandemic. Those of us that were on the site back then remember what a cluster that was.

Like everyone else on here, I am not happy with the shipping times. However, I am trying to be objective about it. Sales for the site are likely at an all-time high, much as some of the nay-sayers on here will be loathe to admit. That has caused the increased delays in getting orders out. The issue that they have not ramped up the number of hours per week dedicated to shipping in order to offset those record sales is readily apparent. Whether or not that is something that will change remains to be seen. Hopefully the shipping issue will settle back down in the next couple of months to where bulk shipments only take 5-6 weeks to go out and the other shipment levels will also adjust accordingly.

On site sales have been horrible for me and the few people I talk to regularly about card(COMC etc.) type stuff. Auctions are about the only thing selling currently. I'll get a few eBay BIN sales via the site as well. But, overall, actual site sales have been horrible.

I think this only further perpetuates the problem. I know I have basically ONLY been buying stuff to send directly to auction OR ship home in small/rushed batches, which only causes them more shipping issues...as every single card I buy will need to be shipped. While I've NEVER let stuff sit on site, I used to have a 1 month to 3 month rule. I'd leave stuff that wasn't scanned Elite for 1 month, paying fees...3 months on the Elite stuff as I paid no fees once it was scanned Elite for 3 months. That has been out the window since I don't trust them to run their site well and give us 0, absolutely 0, CS.

They need to hire people, that much is obvious. From reading this thread for basically as long as it's been up, they picked a bad place to run their business as far as cheap labor goes. Neither here nor there now, I doubt it makes sense to move now.

IMO they have to be gearing up for a sale. They are seemingly ONLY focused on pumping up eBay numbers and paying staff as little as possible. They(the owners) must be making a ton of money, but they don't seem to be reinvesting basically anything.

In summary, it is a dumpster fire. A dumpster fire that I still use often, but a dumpster fire nonetheless

[fungi2510]

Originally Posted by Saraste

I request shipments from them 5-10 times per year. Most times the orders run from 500-2000 cards and I always ship bulk. The last time things were this backed up was from Black Friday of 2023 through the first half of 2024. Back then things were running 2-3 months to get things home. It appears to be running on the high end (or slightly higher) of that timeline now. I am expecting the orders I requested on 11/26 and 12/1 to be shipped around the end of this month. Sales for them must be very good overall (including ebay and auctions) because what I am seeing now is the most cards ahead of my order to ship since the pandemic. Those of us that were on the site back then remember what a cluster that was.

Like everyone else on here, I am not happy with the shipping times. However, I am trying to be objective about it. Sales for the site are likely at an all-time high, much as some of the nay-sayers on here will be loathe to admit. That has caused the increased delays in getting orders out. The issue that they have not ramped up the number of hours per week dedicated to shipping in order to offset those record sales is readily apparent. Whether or not that is something that will change remains to be seen. Hopefully the shipping issue will settle back down in the next couple of months to where bulk shipments only take 5-6 weeks to go out and the other shipment levels will also adjust accordingly.

Where are you getting this information? My sales are down. Not much is moving. I don't think that they are making sales.

[f2tornado]

Originally Posted by fungi2510

Where are you getting this information? My sales are down. Not much is moving. I don't think that they are making sales.

My sales are status quo. Maybe up a tick since a bunch of stuff I sent last fall is finally getting dialed up. The port size seems to waver on either side of 5800 items in spite of new stuff going up weekly. No complaints there but subs will decline a bit with the recent COMC price hike and elimination of seller incentive.

My November 26th order finally shipped yesterday. Will put in for another once I add another 25 or so cards to the pile.

[Sonnys88]

Originally Posted by fungi2510

Where are you getting this information? My sales are down. Not much is moving. I don't think that they are making sales.

My sales have been steady and the highest I have had on COMC since 2018.

In January I sold 659 cards for over 12k. That is only out of a total of 3,000 cards in my port. And I only ran 1 auction and no promotional sales.

All depends on what you're selling and your prices. Sales are definitely strong right now on COMC (as they are across the hobby).

[Dragonman]

My sales are as strong as ever

[NatsSBR]

Originally Posted by Sonnys88

My sales have been steady and the highest I have had on COMC since 2018.

In January I sold 659 cards for over 12k. That is only out of a total of 3,000 cards in my port. And I only ran 1 auction and no promotional sales.

All depends on what you're selling and your prices. Sales are definitely strong right now on COMC (as they are across the hobby).

I'm not surprised you're still doing well at that price point (average price of ~$20). The hike in ESE shipping costs and per-item costs on eBay isn't as much of a percentage of your sale, so your eBay sales are probably pretty consistent. Presumably you also deal with a lot less "race to the bottom stuff" on the site as compared to folks who are doing low-end.

My median sold price is about $5, so charging $4.99 + $2 per item is something like a 25-30% price hike on single-card orders from me. My stuff also sells way better on eBay as compared to on-site buyers. Those two factors have taken my sales way down as compared to the second half of last year.

[duwal]

Originally Posted by fungi2510

Where are you getting this information? My sales are down. Not much is moving. I don't think that they are making sales.

I think most of it really depends on the size of someone's inventory. Like if someone has less than 1000 cards more than likely they'll have less sales than someone who's inventory is in the 1000's

[boxbuster7]

My January sales were almost 4x my September sales.

And every month since September has gone up. October-December were all double September and a pretty consistent increase but January was $2,000+ higher than December

I would attribute this to me spending more time on COMC and making some good plays (Ohtani) -

But anecdotally speaking I wouldn't say the absolutely horrific customer service and shipping issues have lead to a slowdown in sales for me recently.

[Sonnys88]

Originally Posted by NatsSBR

I'm not surprised you're still doing well at that price point (average price of ~$20). The hike in ESE shipping costs and per-item costs on eBay isn't as much of a percentage of your sale, so your eBay sales are probably pretty consistent. Presumably you also deal with a lot less "race to the bottom stuff" on the site as compared to folks who are doing low-end.

My median sold price is about $5, so charging $4.99 + $2 per item is something like a 25-30% price hike on single-card orders from me. My stuff also sells way better on eBay as compared to on-site buyers. Those two factors have taken my sales way down as compared to the second half of last year.

My usual average sale price on COMC is around $9 per card.

I mainly deal in late 1990s / early 2000s and earlier stuff and that area of the market is as strong as ever.

Around 30 to 35% of my COMC sales are to eBay buyers. And most of the cards that sell for over $100 on COMC are to an eBay buyer.

Majority of the time that I see people complaining that their sales are slow - I look at their port and they usually deal in Ultra-Modern (very saturated market), are over-priced, and/or or priced super-high and running a huge discount and thus missing out on a good portion of eBay sales due to their high listing prices.

[notoriousrmb]

My sales were strong starting last October and keep increasing every month. I can't keep top cards in stock on COMC, anything over $100 moves pretty fast.

I've sold more in the last two months than I have in the last year prior - I think there is a LOT of money on COMC and a lot of buyers looking for good cards. The stuff that doesn't move are the < $5 cards and anything there are numerous copies of.

[wabashvalley]

My sales are as strong as ever, and I don't run auctions. $1-$2 stuff is still flying from my account, albeit I have noticed much less of it moving via eBay. But still consistently posting 5-figure sales months, and I haven't had a shipment take more than 3-4 weeks to arrive after placing the order.

I don't get a lot of the complaints honestly, but I realize a lot of them are coming from super small accounts with less than 1000-2000 cards, so also not surprised COMC CS isn't immediately responding.

[orion9578]

Interesting to hear that several of you are having the exact opposite experience. I'm glad for you. My experience is definitely skewed by the fact that I don't have much on there anymore. I've sold well over 80k card since 2015/2016 but I currently have...sub 100 for sale, haha! Plus, like has been mentioned, most of my stuff is new. But I do tend to only buy stuff where I have a monopoly and I also feel like I price fairly close to comps. I'm guessing, at least for me, most of my issues are just my lack of inventory. But in the end, I've noticed this trend on my port for quite a while. Almost no sales on site, some sales coming via eBay BIN's and most via eBay auctions. That'd be my experience over the last 4-6~ months.

With all that said, I am glad for the people who are doing well and I definitely don't have any "whoa is me" feelings, because of how I am running my COMC account currently. But, and it's a big BUT, if any of you ladies/gentlemen saying your sales are great can't admit that the site has gone downhill, I guess I take issue with that. The card market is strong, and your sales are strong because of that...it has almost nothing to do with how COMC has been running their business for the last year or 2, which if nothing else has probably actually hurt your ability to do better/sell more.

Long shipping times hurt sales. More expensive shipping hurts sales. Less items crossing to eBay and/or crossing more slowly to eBay hurts sales. More expensive submissions might be the only thing that actually helps your sales, as less gets sent in so your stuff that's already on site likely sells better...but that also negatively affects you when you do go to send anything in. And the worst one for me, and it has been for a long time, is the total lack of customer service. It's gone, vanished.

I'm a broken record, but COMC needs to hire and they need to reinvest. But it seems like the only thing they are concerned with are mostly eBay related and their actual site is an afterthought.

[fungi2510]

Originally Posted by wabashvalley

My sales are as strong as ever, and I don't run auctions. $1-$2 stuff is still flying from my account, albeit I have noticed much less of it moving via eBay. But still consistently posting 5-figure sales months, and I haven't had a shipment take more than 3-4 weeks to arrive after placing the order.

I don't get a lot of the complaints honestly, but I realize a lot of them are coming from super small accounts with less than 1000-2000 cards, so also not surprised COMC CS isn't immediately responding.

I do not believe half of what you are saying, so there is that. I have a small account right now, but I have consistently been a top seller over the past 10 years. CS is not responding to anyone. Shipping not taking longer? Really. It is stupid long. I do not care if the bulk shipping takes whatever, but if you cannot get a rushed order of 15 cards out in less than a week, you have an issue. Glad things are good for you, but I am going to take it with a grain of salt.

[wabashvalley]

Originally Posted by fungi2510

I do not believe half of what you are saying, so there is that. I have a small account right now, but I have consistently been a top seller over the past 10 years. CS is not responding to anyone. Shipping not taking longer? Really. It is stupid long. I do not care if the bulk shipping takes whatever, but if you cannot get a rushed order of 15 cards out in less than a week, you have an issue. Glad things are good for you, but I am going to take it with a grain of salt.

If you've been a top seller over the past 10 years like you say, you would have a dedicated account rep. Shoot him a text or an email and I bet he responds. I spoke with mine this past weekend.

I didn't say shipping isn't taking longer, I said mine haven't taken longer than 3-4 weeks. Which is an amount of time I don't mind waiting, nor am I checking how many items are ahead of me 3x a day.

Is there a lot of room to improve? Yup. Should they move out of Seattle or at least pay their employees more? Absolutely. Is there a better alternative currently, especially for low end cards? No.

[orion9578]

Originally Posted by wabashvalley

I've got like 5 shipments currently being picked, with one delivered yesterday that was supposed to ship almost a month ago. A few months ago, we were getting our express shipments in like 2-3 days without even selecting the overnight shipping.

Shipping issue complaint.

Originally Posted by wabashvalley

We signed up for the premier support, but haven't heard any details. Haven't been sending nearly as much low end lately with the submission discounts gone.

I shot a question to our rep last week and haven't heard back yet.

Submission discounts being gone complaint.

Originally Posted by wabashvalley

Agree 100%. Back to the point I am building $1 boxes to bring to local shows and putting most $2-$3 cards out in shop instead of submitting to COMC.

Submitting less because of submission price increases.

Originally Posted by wabashvalley

My sales are as strong as ever, and I don't run auctions. $1-$2 stuff is still flying from my account, albeit I have noticed much less of it moving via eBay. But still consistently posting 5-figure sales months, and I haven't had a shipment take more than 3-4 weeks to arrive after placing the order.

1. I don't get a lot of the complaints honestly, but I realize a lot of them are coming from super small accounts with less than 1000-2000 cards, so also not surprised COMC CS isn't immediately responding.

1. Those all sound like complaints, or veiled complaints without coming out and saying exactly what has been said by several other people out loud. COMC has a lot of issues.

2. Like Fungi stated above, been a top seller with an account rep for several years. That account rep barely responded to emails, then they changed my rep, then they changed them again...none of them ever responded very well. I actually had better luck using regular CS vs my rep. I did get a few phone calls from my first rep with promises of better CS. That never happened. So, my site activity went from a lot to very little...very quickly. If I'm not going to get any CS, I will help myself and sell myself on eBay.

[boxbuster7]

I don't even know who my account rep is. My old one who was great doesn't work there anymore. The one they replaced him with barely responds.

[wabashvalley]

Originally Posted by orion9578

Shipping issue complaint.



Submission discounts being gone complaint.



Submitting less because of submission price increases.



1. Those all sound like complaints, or veiled complaints without coming out and saying exactly what has been said by several other people out loud. COMC has a lot of issues.

2. Like Fungi stated above, been a top seller with an account rep for several years. That account rep barely responded to emails, then they changed my rep, then they changed them again...none of them ever responded very well. I actually had better luck using regular CS vs my rep. I did get a few phone calls from my first rep with promises of better CS. That never happened. So, my site activity went from a lot to very little...very quickly. If I'm not going to get any CS, I will help myself and sell myself on eBay.

Sorry to hear that's been your experience. Simply stating facts, or how I am pivoting some submissions and cards, isn't complaining

[orion9578]

Originally Posted by wabashvalley

Sorry to hear that's been your experience. Simply stating facts, or how I am pivoting some submissions and cards, isn't complaining

It's obviously not just my experience. It looks like you only post about COMC related things, so I'm positive you read all the complaints on here. You also haven't been on here, under this username at least, for all that long. If you had been, you'd understand that it didn't used to be like this. Have people always complained in here? Sure. Mad people are usually more vocal than happy people. But the complaints are basically 75% of the posts nowadays, because COMC does not do their job as stated in a lot of cases. From shipping to CS to promises not kept, it's gone downhill.

And I'd classify every single one of your quotes as a veiled complaint

You were getting shipments 2-3 days without requesting express, now shipments are almost a month late. Complaint and at the very least a veiled complaint.

You haven't been sending nearly as much because of submission discounts being gone. Again, a veiled complaint at the very least, if not just a regular ole complaint.

Going back and forth doesn't really yield anyone anything worthwhile. COMC obviously doesn't care to change and you're right, you have to pivot...just like I did, to doing it all myself like the good old days

I'm glad you're thriving and I hope it continues! That's only good news for us all if tiny pieces of cardboard and still selling for good money

[fungi2510]

Originally Posted by wabashvalley

Sorry to hear that's been your experience. Simply stating facts, or how I am pivoting some submissions and cards, isn't complaining

Your "facts" are not universal facts. We all have/had dedicated reps, but people do not always stay there forever and as boxbuster stated, they do not communicate any of that. I am glad that everything is roses for you, but your experience does not equal fact.

[Budler]

1. Yes this forum appears to be a complain forum.
2. COMC or any other company never promises anything it is vary or estimated.
3. CS has gone from being able to E-mail Tim personally or calling CS to an e-mail taking a week or more to get a canned reply. Now an AI reply????
4. Processing and shipping times have gone from less than a week to a month or more.
5. One's experience is measured in different ways, so it is hard to compare mine to yours.
6. I have never had a dedicated reps.
7. You see complaining about everything now days and not the good stuff. Mail, E-Bay, etc.
8. Their increases of fees are also hurting sales as that pushes the total price higher than one may be willing to pay. We do not know what their overhead really is.
9. Sales depends on inventory. A lot of cards or the good cards but both is the best.
10. Everyone I have talked to is say the market is strong and going up but just for the higher priced cards. You know the hot player or chase cards. The low end is level if anyone is dealing in them.
11. I remember when COMC was not even on E-Bay. That was the good times for me.
12. Their model has changed from send me your cards in your closet to send me your $1,000 cards to be put on an auction.
13. We do not know anything about their internal workings so we do not know if they can afford more people or if they are just putting it in their picket and doing what they can with what they have.

In 2011, I had been e-mailing Tim back and fore a few times. He asks what I thought of the site. I give him a list of things that I see would happen if the site takes off. He replied stating he know what he was doing then blocked me.

[boxbuster7]

for people that drop off at shows do you just hand COMC storage boxes with sub labels on it?

I was thinking about putting my 2 subs in a medium flat rate box just for some extra protection but realize it might not be necessary

thanks!

[Saraste]

Originally Posted by boxbuster7

for people that drop off at shows do you just hand COMC storage boxes with sub labels on it?

I was thinking about putting my 2 subs in a medium flat rate box just for some extra protection but realize it might not be necessary

thanks!

There is no need for the extra protection of a flat rate box. I dropped off some stuff when I went to the big show in Nashville last October. My user name was on the outside of the box. I had mostly standard and a couple of elite. They were separated properly in the 400 count box. The box was opened to confirm the proper labels were in there and that was it. Easy peasy.

[boxbuster7]

Originally Posted by Saraste

There is no need for the extra protection of a flat rate box. I dropped off some stuff when I went to the big show in Nashville last October. My user name was on the outside of the box. I had mostly standard and a couple of elite. They were separated properly in the 400 count box. The box was opened to confirm the proper labels were in there and that was it. Easy peasy.

Thanks!

[hanes1111]

I don't know what's going on over there. I submitted two cards to be graded and paid 46$ each. At the time it was scheduled to be graded within 4 weeks. That 4 weeks came, and they extended it to an additional 12 weeks. That 12 weeks ended on Feb 6th and now I see it was extended until Feb 11. Here we are the 13th today and I just can't imagine running a company this way. Obviously, I wrote to them through their help and contact feature with nothing but crickets.