Questions regarding COMC
 

I was hoping to get some information from some of the collectors on this site as to the details of the process at COMC. I've searched COMC in the data base here and read through several of the threads on Blowout (some are 200+ pages long!). So my questions are several.

First, I think the costs are pretty transparent.
.30¢ to COMC for processing
.25¢ that COMC adds on top of each card
x to calculate in for shipping to COMC
My question regarding fees incurred is should I anticipate Paypal fees of 2.9% and .03¢ on the dollar added to every sale? Not a problem if someone buys $10 worth of cards. Problem if they buy 1 card listed at .75¢. Was hoping someone would share their thoughts without giving away any tricks they've learned the hard way.

Second, I see common cards listed there at prices substantially higher than I would plan to ask. If I go in and price under the lowest cost listed am I being a jerk? Are there methods large sellers can employ to "bury" me if I do so? Frankly I'm astounded by some of the prices I see being asked.

I know there are plenty of things that I'm only going to learn through the school of hard knocks but I'd appreciate any thoughts folks on here would care to share.

There are no added PayPal fees for the seller. On COMC you have to have $ in your COMC account to purchase items. I believe they do have a fee to cash out though.

Please put normal prices on your cards. COMC is becoming a museum. That could be because you can make offers on cards and sellers are pricing high because of that. Not sure because I am just a buyer there.

John will hopefully post and give you better answers on the selling side.

If you are just looking to sell or buy, I think COMC can probably be figured out without much trouble. I was looking at it recently on the idea of possibly trying to flip vintage cards, and must admit I gave up pretty quickly. The threads over on the Blowout forums about people who use it strictly for arbitrage (both modern and vintage) were mind-blowing to me. Selling bulk lots of cards for 30 cents apiece when you bought them for 7 cents each and then just doing that - again and again and again.

I'm sure it can be done, but I simply wouldn't have the hours in the day to learn to do that properly.

Thanks a lot for taking the time to read through my post and comment. As I was out taking my daily walk I was re-hashing the Paypal fee part of the question and thought I might have gotten it wrong. It's a big relief to get confirmation from an experienced COMC user.

As an example to illustrate my question on prices I have several 1992 Bowman baseball sets around. If I were to seed one of them into COMC I'd be thrilled to make .10¢ on a common card. .30¢ to recoup the initial processing cost, .25¢ that COMC takes on sale, maybe .03¢ to cover my shipping/handling, and lets say .12¢ as "profit". That brings me to .70¢ for a card and unless I'm missing something I'd take that in a heartbeat. Something tells me it won't be that easy - but I think I'll work up the nerve to test the water pretty soon.

Thanks again for taking the time.

I don't understand overpricing at COMC, they hold your cards so why on earth would you overprice to the point of them not selling?

Glad you read some of the threads on Blowout. There sure are a bunch of them. I'm mjohnatgt over there.
To the questions posed in this thread:
1) No PayPal fees at any time. On cashout, COMC gets 10% of your store credit funds as part of their consignment fee structure, you get the other $225 as PayPal Friends & Family. On a regular sale, it's all handled in store credit, not through PayPal.
2) Price your cards however you want. People will adjust or they won't. Very regularly, someone will see your common listed for 75 cents, when theirs is listed at $2.50. In that case, they'll either ignore, drop theirs to 74 cents, or buy your card and reprice it at $2.50. ;-) Nobody can bury you or contact you on COMC; that's one of the things a bunch of sellers like about it.
3) The reason a bunch of cards cluster in price around 75 cents and $2.50 are because small buyers pay no storage fees on cards listed at 75 cents each (in Advanced Mode), while larger sellers pay an additional $50 monthly to store all the cards they want at $2.50 or less for "free."
4) Why is the pricing so high? Some people really love running 80 or 90% off sales. So they price their $5 card at $37.50, mark it 90% off, then hope it sells for $3.75! Or they're like those guys in Vegas with a "system" and are waiting for the one specific player's grandson to find the only copy on site and pay up for it. This get a lot of people annoyed because the $37.50 price is what is the base price for the card that shows up on eBay/Amazon, not the sale prices, then marked up $4 for "free shipping" and an additional 15% to cover the eBay/PayPal fees and consignment; so it will show at like $50. Sale prices are only on COMC's website.
5) In order to make offers on site, you add them to your cart and send an offer. Some sellers consider offers down to 50% of list price (not sale price), and some don't consider any offers. Some automatically accept offers of certain percentages, many don't. Cards that are already 50% or more off during sales will not have any additional discount.
6) COMC has restructured their fees on Jan 1, 2019 and made it smarter to lower your base prices instead of running constant high-percent off sales.
7) .75c is 3/4 of a penny, not a dollar. ;-) You're looking for $0.75
8) My standard recommendation is to send in cards worth at least $2 each during your first submission. That way, you're making "profit" on every card you send in. Once you get comfortable selling, send in more batches later on.
9) You don't have to flip the way some of us do in order to make COMC work for you. I enjoy it, and have a bunch of "free" Mickey Mantle cards to show for it, but I do that instead of day-trading stocks.

Feel free to ask more questions; I love COMC even though it has a bunch of faults. Caution on sending any high value cards right now, until you read the "Terms of Service" thread over there. Their terms on insuring your cards in their possession and their FAQ about the TOS are not consistent. Most people still send in cards because otherwise they'd be sitting in a box in the closet collecting dust.

If anyone wants to talk about COMC on the phone, call me at 239-822-5726.

Thanks again to everyone for weighing in. In particular John for taking the time to offer up his expertise with such an extensive list of points. My plans on COMC are to be strictly a seller. Time has come.

I guess the only way to know if certain types of cards will sell there is to open an account and be able to explore past sales information. For example, the 1992 Gameday football set seems to be lightly populated with decent prices, but if no one is buying it that doesn't seem to count for much.

I'll take John's caution about high value cards to heart and see if I can move some of them here on the BST at a fair price. Most (not all) of my stuff is mid-80's to mid-90's so the $$$ hits are rare, but at least I came out of that era with a decent stash of nicely graded Derek Jeter cards.

Thanks again, much appreciated.

If you click the histogram icon next to the price of a card, you can see if they regularly sell. If you play a few Challenges to earn history points, you'll also be able to see the highest prices those cards sold for. The larger number of sold cards, the more likely your card will sell if you send it. If there's 5 already on site and only one has sold in the last four years, don't bother.

What kind of stuff are you going to be posting?