New COMC Issues?

[deweyinthehall]

I made a purchase on January 6th, and instead of rushed delivery, I chose the next best with an expected ship date of about 2/5.

I'd been checking the status and now it shows an expected ship date of March 9....

So 2 questions:
1) Are others seeing delays?
2) Is there anyway to retroactively pay for faster shipping?

Thanks

[mrmopar]

I have moved into the camp of "COMC sucks" and they have lost my business. 2+ months to ship a package is completely unacceptable. I don't care if you can hold the cards and ship together. I don't need them quickly. It's the principal of things. They used to do that for the same price and ship within 2 weeks. Not anymore.

And yes, my 12/15/24 order (using the lowest cost economy shipping method) still has not shipped. It was supposed to ship in mid-late January. Now showing mid February.

[swarmee]

It's happening to all the customers for a couple of different reasons:
1) Their shipping/packing staff got hit with a huge amount of COVID sick days over the holidays.
2) Their new live eBay auctions is creating a lot of new sales with people shipping much more often, and those all get shipped using expedited since they charge expedited fees through eBay for shipping. That pushes back standard shipping amounts.
3) They ran a Black Friday week special that included free shipping credits that also caused many people to ship all at the same time at the end of December, creating a large backlog that was exacerbated by #1 above.

[deweyinthehall]

Originally Posted by swarmee

It's happening to all the customers for a couple of different reasons:
1) Their shipping/packing staff got hit with a huge amount of COVID sick days over the holidays.
2) Their new live eBay auctions is creating a lot of new sales with people shipping much more often, and those all get shipped using expedited since they charge expedited fees through eBay for shipping. That pushes back standard shipping amounts.
3) They ran a Black Friday week special that included free shipping credits that also caused many people to ship all at the same time at the end of December, creating a large backlog that was exacerbated by #1 above.

Thanks - at least I know it isn't just me and that there's an explanation.

[bnorth]

Originally Posted by mrmopar

I have moved into the camp of "COMC sucks" and they have lost my business. 2+ months to ship a package is completely unacceptable. I don't care if you can hold the cards and ship together. I don't need them quickly. It's the principal of things. They used to do that for the same price and ship within 2 weeks. Not anymore.

And yes, my 12/15/24 order (using the lowest cost economy shipping method) still has not shipped. It was supposed to ship in mid-late January. Now showing mid February.

LOL, I moved into that camp a long time ago. If I am paying for cheap shipping I can deal with delays because I am getting what I paid for. COMC sucks because their search engine is complete garbage. You can't even search for the newest listed card. When they have 100 cards listed I am not looking through all of them to find the one newly listed card.

[deweyinthehall]

In the "Sort By" field, there is an option for "Newest" - I had always assumed that would list the results in reverse order of listing date. Not so?

[HasselhoffsCheeseburger]

See I would have thought their participation and involvement in Trimpocalypse would have firmly placed them in the "do not buy from" camp but bad shipping is just as good as any other reason.

That place is a haven for people looking to dump their trimmed cards.

Arthur

[bnorth]

Originally Posted by deweyinthehall

In the "Sort By" field, there is an option for "Newest" - I had always assumed that would list the results in reverse order of listing date. Not so?

That doesn't work with specific cards. It only works with general searches.

For example if you search for 1989 Fleer Randy Johnson there are currently 1059 Completely blacked out versions. There is NO way to find the last one listed without looking at every single one of the 1059 cards to see its item number. I know it will never get fixed but if it somehow ever does get fixed they will get a customer back. Besides the complete shit show of a search engine it was an awesome place to buy cards.

[G1911]

COMC has been slow as heck to ship for years now.

I stopped buying from them for a bit after it took 8 months to ship my order; started again once things 'calmed down' and it became more like 2-3 months and I just shifted my mindset. It is by far the best avenue to get 'common' cards that I have found. Stuff .50-$5 is far, far cheaper on COMC with their flat rate shipping than it is elsewhere because of the business model. Filling out my vintage sets, grabbing the cheap modern singles that I like, browsing for minor print defects and variants, I can stack cards over several months from hundreds of different sellers. My last shipment was over 1,500 cards, shipped slowly, but for only $7.99. If I did that on eBay, I'd have paid something like $3,000 in shipping over the course of those 9 months. Makes it a lot easier for me to forgive that slow shipping. I've never paid for expedited because I know it won't be fast.

With an open selling platform and many thousands of sellers there are of course some trimmed cards among them. They've been good at removing things if pointed out in my experience. I don't think I can reasonably expect any open-user platform like eBay, COMC, etc. to never have any altered cards, sadly. I wish there was an effective way to have such a platform, but considering how many hobbyists and members openly support alteration without disclosure (and far more are willing to commit a fraud than will openly advocate it), I don't see any real potential for this problem to decrease. I have yet to see a fake get through myself when browsing, but I'm sure it's happened at least a few times as well.

[irv]

Originally Posted by G1911

COMC has been slow as heck to ship for years now.

I stopped buying from them for a bit after it took 8 months to ship my order; started again once things 'calmed down' and it became more like 2-3 months and I just shifted my mindset. It is by far the best avenue to get 'common' cards that I have found. Stuff .50-$5 is far, far cheaper on COMC with their flat rate shipping than it is elsewhere because of the business model. Filling out my vintage sets, grabbing the cheap modern singles that I like, browsing for minor print defects and variants, I can stack cards over several months from hundreds of different sellers. My last shipment was over 1,500 cards, shipped slowly, but for only $7.99. If I did that on eBay, I'd have paid something like $3,000 in shipping over the course of those 9 months. Makes it a lot easier for me to forgive that slow shipping. I've never paid for expedited because I know it won't be fast.

With an open selling platform and many thousands of sellers there are of course some trimmed cards among them. They've been good at removing things if pointed out in my experience. I don't think I can reasonably expect any open-user platform like eBay, COMC, etc. to never have any altered cards, sadly. I wish there was an effective way to have such a platform, but considering how many hobbyists and members openly support alteration without disclosure (and far more are willing to commit a fraud than will openly advocate it), I don't see any real potential for this problem to decrease. I have yet to see a fake get through myself when browsing, but I'm sure it's happened at least a few times as well.

That's basically the way I look at them too. Go in with the expectation not to receive your card(s) for at least a month or more and get occasionally surprised at times when they arrive sooner. That's a win for me and, like you said, the shipping fees can't be beat compared to what some sellers (that use global shipping) charge. That, in and of itself, has really deterred me from making purchases from most American sellers anymore. Paying $20+ for shipping on a $20 or less card purchase makes no sense to me.

[butchie_t]

If I was in a hurry to complete a set, COMC would not be my first choice. But for bulk set commons and reasonably priced semi’s and stars. I have no issues buying and waiting. Their model works for me quite nicely.

B.T.

[John1941]

I too love COMC despite its troublesome shipping. I spend months buying whatever I like and is at a good price - vintage Topps needs, Venezuelan Winter League stickers, British & German soccer cards, 1930s cricket cards, etc. And then I get them all shipped. There's a lot of fun and obscure cards for very good prices, and as a collector who likes obscure stuff and only buys cards if I think it's a good deal, it's the perfect place for me. Almost everything I buy is between 50 cents and $2.

Yeah, the shipping can be a pain, but I personally haven't had any horror stories (yet). It usually takes my cards a month or two to get to my - given how perfectly it is suited to my personal collecting methods, I don't mind that at all. Whether COMC is worth it depends on your collecting style.