All I want to do is talk about COMC

[Southpaw21]

had a 160 (exact) card sub sent to COMC in april. They uploaded 152 of them a little at a time through july then i've had 8 sitting in limbo since.

I emailed them last week asking why my last 8 cards haven't been uploaded. I haven't received a response, but they updated my processing status to 100% complete 152/152.... so they just get 8 of my cards for free?

[Southpaw21]

On the buying side, i paid $6 for shipping (w top loaders) and got all of my cards within a week. so that was nice.

[bowman209]

I haven't had many problems with them which is odd based on some posts here.

I have never had any cards shipped to me so no experience there.

The cards I pay $1-2 to get listed get listed on time or close to it. The others, like .35-.50 get pushed back and back. I am not sending in anymore of those for now.

I can understand that in this current situation tho...I mean heck, the mall here is closed. I can't even go into a restaurant anymore, not even to order. Not sure if this plandemic is being used as an excuse but it does match with my experiences elsewhere due to it.

They keep paying out my thousands I request via Paypal or check so that's my main concern.

I'm about to send in thousands of cards for the $1-2 processing, if anything goes wrong I will check back in and post here. If you don't hear from me then then it went well.

[Sonnys88]

Originally Posted by Southpaw21

had a 160 (exact) card sub sent to COMC in april. They uploaded 152 of them a little at a time through july then i've had 8 sitting in limbo since.

I emailed them last week asking why my last 8 cards haven't been uploaded. I haven't received a response, but they updated my processing status to 100% complete 152/152.... so they just get 8 of my cards for free?

There seem to be a lot of older submissions that have a small number of cards lingering. I have one that was due in March that still has (5) cards not processed.

If you know what cards are missing, email that list to COMC to reconcile your submission.

I would highly recommend anyone submitting to COMC to inventory what you are submitting (at least the more expensive cards). It is very easy to forget what you submit - especially when it is months later when they finally upload. And if you cant't say what cards you are missing, I think you will be out of luck.

[fungi2510]

Why do we not earn eBay bucks when we purchase items from COMC and then transfer them to our account? I mean I think I know the answer, but I do not like it.

[mjohnatgt]

Elevate the issue to their staff? My guess is that it's an oversight. They're making money hand-over-fist. Not sure why they'd try to siphon off a tiny fraction of sales worth of eBay bucks, if that's what you're insinuating.

Probably just an eBay integration issue, where you can only earn eBay bucks through an eBay checkout.

[mrseanc1]

COMC is a joke. I bought some singles on the site this year to fill a set that I planned to sell and requested shipping on 6/6. They blew past the estimated ship date of 9/7 and don't return emails. So I guess I'll get my cards when they get around to it! Great service. I suppose if you're flipping Prizm refractors or whatever and never sending cards in or taking them out I can see the appeal.

Other cards from this set have been sitting at BGS since late May, where the best I get is emails saying basically "we have no idea when your cards will get graded, sorry!". (Yes, I should have submitted to PSA, they don't grade what I submitted).

As a new hobbyist, I am pretty shocked at how low-quality and predatory the ecosystem for cards is.

[mjohnatgt]

Originally Posted by mrseanc1

As a new hobbyist, I am pretty shocked at how low-quality and predatory the ecosystem for cards is.

Welcome to the team! Watching it over the last 6 years, when I got back in, there was steady growth most years (estimate 20% or so). BGS got overloaded first, then PSA and COMC, now SGC and the toploader companies as well.
COMC really bit off more than they could chew with their Upper Deck ePack contract, and that's IMO what really put them behind the 8-ball. Nobody expected 2019-2020 to be an exponential growth curve in the market like we've seen (except maybe dpeck).
Companies that were built with a certain expected throughput are now trying to handle demand 2-3-4x that. It's just not easy to build new buildings and hire to meet exponential demand, especially during a timeframe where they're limited by national and local policies concerning Coronavirus. People that are expecting that don't seem to have that much business experience.

Yes, definitely, some of the blame comes to the leadership of those companies. But some of this is just unavoidable. If this is a blip in the market because everyone is bored, would it make sense for PSA or BGS or COMC to purchase 3x the buildings and hire 3x the employees? Maybe now in retrospect, it seems like an easy answer, but month-by-month starting in Feb through now it's completely reasonable that the companies were thinking this was a local high on a growth curve.

[MountainGoat]

I store all my graded cards in PerfectFit sleeves. Planning to send some to COMC with my next submission. Has anyone sent graded cards in sleeves and had problems? Or is that just fine? Would rather keep them sleeves for protection during shipping / handling, unless it will be an issue...

[superjames27]

Just submitted a shipment order of 300 cards exactly the eta is mid December for delivery I regret not just using eBay

[scotthenrichs]

Woohoo! I got a reply to an email asking about the status of my 5/8 due submission that has yet to even be started, they're "looking into it", lol.

I started emailing them every two days starting 9/12 asking "any update?" on every email reply before I finally got a reply last night to it.

[fungi2510]

Originally Posted by scotthenrichs

Woohoo! I got a reply to an email asking about the status of my 5/8 due submission that has yet to even be started, they're "looking into it", lol.

I started emailing them every two days starting 9/12 asking "any update?" on every email reply before I finally got a reply last night to it.

USE SOCIAL MEDIA. PLEASE STOP JUST EMAILING. IT ISN'T GOING TO WORK.

It has been stated over and over again in this thread and tons of others. Stop complaining about a strategy that does not work. Get in touch on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, whatever and they will respond.

[GoBeavs]

Originally Posted by mjohnatgt

Welcome to the team! Watching it over the last 6 years, when I got back in, there was steady growth most years (estimate 20% or so). BGS got overloaded first, then PSA and COMC, now SGC and the toploader companies as well.
COMC really bit off more than they could chew with their Upper Deck ePack contract, and that's IMO what really put them behind the 8-ball. Nobody expected 2019-2020 to be an exponential growth curve in the market like we've seen (except maybe dpeck).
Companies that were built with a certain expected throughput are now trying to handle demand 2-3-4x that. It's just not easy to build new buildings and hire to meet exponential demand, especially during a timeframe where they're limited by national and local policies concerning Coronavirus. People that are expecting that don't seem to have that much business experience.

Yes, definitely, some of the blame comes to the leadership of those companies. But some of this is just unavoidable. If this is a blip in the market because everyone is bored, would it make sense for PSA or BGS or COMC to purchase 3x the buildings and hire 3x the employees? Maybe now in retrospect, it seems like an easy answer, but month-by-month starting in Feb through now it's completely reasonable that the companies were thinking this was a local high on a growth curve.

Good post, but I disagree with the bolded. ePack has been going on for quite a while with only occasional blips in delays. It wasn't until they added eBay auctions that the delays really started to pile up. And then the C19 restrictions and market boom further inflamed the issues.

[beachhouse81]

I noticed in the submission wizard that the option for pre-2020 items has been removed. Are they only taking 2019-20 and 2020 items right now? This has probably been answered here somewhere else but I can't find anything about it and naturally COMC isn't responding to emails. I haven't submitted anything since the start of the year so I'm a bit out of the loop.

[scotthenrichs]

Originally Posted by fungi2510

USE SOCIAL MEDIA. PLEASE STOP JUST EMAILING. IT ISN'T GOING TO WORK.

It has been stated over and over again in this thread and tons of others. Stop complaining about a strategy that does not work. Get in touch on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, whatever and they will respond.

What are you talking about? I'm not complaining, I'm just giving updates on how I got a reply from them. Some people are saying it took six months to get a reply, I'm saying I got a reply after a week and a half. So if I got a reply, obviously it worked....eventually.

[mc1]

Originally Posted by fungi2510

USE SOCIAL MEDIA. PLEASE STOP JUST EMAILING. IT ISN'T GOING TO WORK.

It has been stated over and over again in this thread and tons of others. Stop complaining about a strategy that does not work. Get in touch on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, whatever and they will respond.

Emailing has worked for me. Sometimes they take 1-2 weeks to reply, but they do eventually reply. If and when they can resolve your issue. In the past it would take 1-3 days, seriously. For me at least that has been the best contact method.

[ForceChange77]

epack is what caused the delays. it was expanding ebay auctions.

[Ax88amp]

Is there a way to search say “Mike Trout” and then filter by more than one thing like Auto, Memorabila, and SN at the same time? Currently I can only figure out how to sort but just one of those categories at a time. I want to be able to see all 3 at once, not just the SN’d Mem cards for example because it removes non-numbered Mem cards.


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[mrseanc1]

Thanks for your reply mjohnatgt.

Of course the card industry is not the only industry to ever experience a sudden spike in demand. There are well-known strategies for successfully managing increased demand for a service with a turnaround time expectation. Many industries, including those with perishable or precious commodities (much tougher to manage operationally), were impacted by COVID. We all still ate even though grocery stores experienced massive demand spikes. I was still able to put gas in my car. And so on. From the outside it doesn't seem like there is much operational professionalism at the grading companies or COMC. I don't expect them to be able to execute the same TAT that they did in 2018, but I do reasonably expect not to be ignored by a company I transact with.

A critical factor is communication with your customers so as to manage expectations. All of the grading companies have failed in this regard, some egregiously so. It's relatively trivial to automate regular email updates to every submitter, and provide a projection of completion that actually sticks. BGS and SGC in particular seem to have been desperate to grab all the new revenue without owning up to real impacts on service levels. I'm not sure what they think the next step is other than having a bunch of angry customers.

COMC ships Ebay sales within a week, so they CAN actually execute quick shipping. They just choose to let down some customers at the expense of others. That's a business decision they don't have to make. There are alternatives.

In the last Basketball Card Podcast Adam mentioned that he sent a $70K order in to BGS months ago and hasn't even received an acknowledgement of receipt. That is outrageous.

PSA seems to be handling it the best. All of the companies seem immature technologically, which is a recipe for disaster when demand spikes. I mean, PSA just made a big deal about adding barcodes to submission boxes (simple operational structure that the Post Office has had for decades).

Anyway I'm buying set fillers at Sportlots now, where I actually get the cards I buy.

[frenchquarter]

Originally Posted by mrseanc1

Thanks for your reply mjohnatgt.

Of course the card industry is not the only industry to ever experience a sudden spike in demand. There are well-known strategies for successfully managing increased demand for a service with a turnaround time expectation. Many industries, including those with perishable or precious commodities (much tougher to manage operationally), were impacted by COVID. We all still ate even though grocery stores experienced massive demand spikes. I was still able to put gas in my car. And so on. From the outside it doesn't seem like there is much operational professionalism at the grading companies or COMC. I don't expect them to be able to execute the same TAT that they did in 2018, but I do reasonably expect not to be ignored by a company I transact with.

A critical factor is communication with your customers so as to manage expectations. All of the grading companies have failed in this regard, some egregiously so. It's relatively trivial to automate regular email updates to every submitter, and provide a projection of completion that actually sticks. BGS and SGC in particular seem to have been desperate to grab all the new revenue without owning up to real impacts on service levels. I'm not sure what they think the next step is other than having a bunch of angry customers.

COMC ships Ebay sales within a week, so they CAN actually execute quick shipping. They just choose to let down some customers at the expense of others. That's a business decision they don't have to make. There are alternatives.

In the last Basketball Card Podcast Adam mentioned that he sent a $70K order in to BGS months ago and hasn't even received an acknowledgement of receipt. That is outrageous.

PSA seems to be handling it the best. All of the companies seem immature technologically, which is a recipe for disaster when demand spikes. I mean, PSA just made a big deal about adding barcodes to submission boxes (simple operational structure that the Post Office has had for decades).

Anyway I'm buying set fillers at Sportlots now, where I actually get the cards I buy.

I agree. I am buying from eBay, Net54, and I purchased 12 items on Sportlots this morning. I'm not buying on COMC until they get things figured out.

[mjohnatgt]

Originally Posted by MountainGoat

I store all my graded cards in PerfectFit sleeves. Planning to send some to COMC with my next submission. Has anyone sent graded cards in sleeves and had problems? Or is that just fine? Would rather keep them sleeves for protection during shipping / handling, unless it will be an issue...

You can definitely send them in sleeves. They may remove them for their own processing though, and just throw them in the trash.

[mjohnatgt]

Originally Posted by Ax88amp

Is there a way to search say “Mike Trout” and then filter by more than one thing like Auto, Memorabila, and SN at the same time?

Try the pipe command like this: "mike trout (auto|memorabilia|serial)"
https://www.comc.com/Cards,sc,i100,=...ilia~7cserial)

[mjohnatgt]

Originally Posted by GoBeavs

Good post, but I disagree with the bolded. ePack has been going on for quite a while with only occasional blips in delays. It wasn't until they added eBay auctions that the delays really started to pile up. And then the C19 restrictions and market boom further inflamed the issues.

I think they both contributed heavily. We just don't see the depth of ePack mailings compared to being able to see the number of eBay auction listings. I just know they process tens of millions of cards for Upper Deck so that takes up time from doing everything else for the common man. There are now almost a hundred different cards from ePack with over 700 copies EACH on COMC each. And those are just the ones transferred from ePack. And while they don't have to scan every one now because they're using the stock photo on them, they're still inventory and people may have shipped hundreds of each of them either through COMC, eBay, or ePack front ends.

[mjohnatgt]

Originally Posted by mrseanc1

Of course the card industry is not the only industry to ever experience a sudden spike in demand.

Agreed, none of them were forward thinking enough to spend the capital it would take to run their organizations properly. I remember last year when PSA BRAGGED that their new business and processes increased their capacity 25%!!! Then they got slammed for 3x the business and a 25% increase turned into a 175% deficit... ;-)

BGS's owner is in (or going to?) jail for bribery, and SGC thought they were well-positioned in April before they got flooded. I'm still holding out hope that COMC taking on investor dollars and starting a board of directors will improve their strategic planning.

[alexlazarevich]

Is there any way to nudge COMC into posting a card on their site onto eBay? I have some $100+ stuff that isn't listed on eBay and I'd like the extra exposure.