COMC who is it pushing this company?

[Tankp]

Ironic the person I know who it is never commented on this post? Gees wonder why? hahahaha

 

[Tankp]

Update Friday got tracking number. Monday they still have the card in their possession.

• un 26, 2021
• 3:46am

• PRE-SHIPMENT INFO SENT USPS AWAITS ITEM
• AUBURN, WA 98001

 

[Rhubarb_Runner]

The pandemic hit them hard. They're in Washington where the whole mess started, and were virtually shut down. When everyone was unsure about the virus, they didn't know how to safely man their business. Then the postal service went sideways. And then everyone and their mother started picking up the hobby big time, and it put them even further behind the 8-ball.

I know they're trying, but I wouldn't bother with them until they get their feet back under themselves again, and who knows how long that will be?

 

[GotMelky]

COMC is a great concept but their execution has been poor. I just sold my last cards on there a few weeks ago and am washing my hands of them. The pandemic did cause problems for them but they were already struggling before it started - ironically enough it was when they started running eBay auctions in January of 2020 when things started going sideways.

It really comes down to how poorly they are managed - there are a number of other large card companies that seemed to get it figured out long before COMC even acknowledged they were behind.

 

[cjay101]

COMC is a great concept but their execution has been poor. I just sold my last cards on there a few weeks ago and am washing my hands of them. The pandemic did cause problems for them but they were already struggling before it started - ironically enough it was when they started running eBay auctions in January of 2020 when things started going sideways.

It really comes down to how poorly they are managed - there are a number of other large card companies that seemed to get it figured out long before COMC even acknowledged they were behind.

You would think they’d be prime for a buyout or a competitor to take advantage of their major flaws right now. There had to be plenty of venture cap that can see the profits in the market.

 

[Mike121]

You would think they’d be prime for a buyout or a competitor to take advantage of their major flaws right now. There had to be plenty of venture cap that can see the profits in the market.

I wish I had room to build a small warehouse to get started, and I'd get on this right now! Would be a long road for someone to take off, though, and if COMC ever gets their crap together, that would put a hurting on a startup.

 

[katester44]

I wish I had room to build a small warehouse to get started, and I'd get on this right now! Would be a long road for someone to take off, though, and if COMC ever gets their crap together, that would put a hurting on a startup.

I concur. Would love to build my own company like this based on the model. With the exception that my giant warehouse would have batting cages, so baseball/softball players would be in there all the time and could buy on the spot.

 

[dragonfire613]

Not defending them at all but sounds like they have just been overwhelmed. The owner/ CEO has been doing the podcast circuit explaining the situation (albeit with a positive spin of course) He was on wax pack hero last week. They're supposedly getting caught up like PSA.

Me personally I've bought from them several times on ebay this year for hard to find cards and never had an issue other than the slow shipping (about a month).

I love the idea of what they do, and actually hope they stay around and are able to get their act together... but I don't order from them unless it's the only place I can find a card ill likely not see again... until they get back together. Sounds like it will be next year at the soonest.

 

[Jaybo374]

I’ve flipped for years but stopped buying new cards to flip about a month ago. My plan is wait until my inventory is sold out and cash out. I’ve recently started selling on Sportlots. While it’s an entirely different model, it seems to be in working order.

 

[GotMelky]

Not defending them at all but sounds like they have just been overwhelmed. The owner/ CEO has been doing the podcast circuit explaining the situation (albeit with a positive spin of course) He was on wax pack hero last week. They're supposedly getting caught up like PSA.

Me personally I've bought from them several times on ebay this year for hard to find cards and never had an issue other than the slow shipping (about a month).

I love the idea of what they do, and actually hope they stay around and are able to get their act together... but I don't order from them unless it's the only place I can find a card ill likely not see again... until they get back together. Sounds like it will be next year at the soonest.

Tim Getsch is a fantastic spin doctor - honestly, the company has been going downhill for a while in most aspects. They used to be know for great customer service - not anymore. They used to be known for processing cards on time - not anymore. They used to be great at shipping out well packed cards - not anymore.

Great concept for sure but execution has been lacking.

At one point, early on, Beckett tried to buy them. It didn't end well.

 

[dragonfire613]

I’ve flipped for years but stopped buying new cards to flip about a month ago. My plan is wait until my inventory is sold out and cash out. I’ve recently started selling on Sportlots. While it’s an entirely different model, it seems to be in working order.

I've been ordering quite a bit from sportlots... that's another company I wish would update their tech a bit and it would be much more mainstream. What is your seller id on there? I'd like to check out your inventory (or PM if you don't want to make it public)

 

[Jaybo374]

My seller I’d is Biggpapi but I only put things up for auction. I have not yet found the time to create a store. Currently I only have one lot up for auction which has been going on for over a month.

 

[PRosefan1]

I have placed three orders from sportlots in just the last week and a half.

 

[Loyalty32]

Another member and I recently had a conversation about COMC. I actually placed my first order with them since 2012, just a couple weeks ago.

I was surprised at the ridiculous shipping times listed at checkout. Fortunately, my three card order arrived much faster than expected.

My order was placed on 6/18. Shipping label was printed on 6/24. The package was delivered on 6/28.

If I remember correctly, the package was due to be shipped out on 7/15.

Thanks
Craig

*I came across this video a few days ago. It gives some insight into the issues they've been facing...

 

[Jaybo374]

I placed a shipment request (funny term they use, hmm) of about 90 cards and 3 comic books on 4/18 with a delivery date of 8/9. All of these were purchased with the profits I made from flipping for about a year and contains cards I need for sets I’m building including a 71 Topps baseball. Anyway, I just checked the status and of the four steps in the delivery process, they have only checked the first one, “order placed”. Given that they have to go through the steps of “picking”, “checking/packing” and “shipped”, I am very doubtful that they make the August 9th delivery date.

I know COVID truly hurt their operations, especially since they are located in WA which has/had more stringent COVID-related business regulations than most of the nation but this problem seems to go beyond that at a systemic level. In the meantime, whenever I sell something I’m not using the revenue to purchase anything to flip and will most likely cash out when my inventory is bought out. It’s a real shame that this business can’t keep up with demand because this was my “go to” site to sell and purchase cards.

 

[mrmopar]

I just checked they have over 4300 neutral feedbacks and over 6300 negative.
Why they allowed to operate when they are so horrible. Cards shipped with no top loaders
Just bought a card Wednesday from them let me see how long it takes to get to me hands.
They do not respond to complaints no accountability?
Cards takes weeks to month to receive?
I'll keep this venture in bench eyes. It has no shipping info in three days? This is clearly BULL CRAP!!!

I will ask this simply to know, not casting any judgement. Did you know about this BEFORE you ordered? (EDIT: I didn't read the comments and see that you were not aware of the issues when you ordered). If so, why would you have still ordered from them? This is the biggest problem when a company is providing poor service or product, but are popular or the "only game in town" type seller. People still keep buying, so nothing changes.

I hope that this is a huge and painful learning experience for them. I like their model and the ability to buy cheap cards, hold them and ship together, but the wheels fell off the bus last year initially due to Covid, but they conveniently blamed covid for ALL of their woes and didn't keep up with the changes in the market. I hope they can rebound back to shipping orders within a few weeks at most, but right now if I request a shipment of cards, it still shows Oct 31st for my $5 s/h charge or I can pay $47 and get it in the time any other ebay seller would ship a padded mailer for $4, July 10!

COMC is seriously ******* HARD right now!

EDIT: Adding on a couple thoughts, based on comments. It would not have helped people outside of a reasonable driving range, but they need to offer an in-person pick-up option, so that shipping can be avoided by those who live locally.

Investing some of their profits could help resolve this faster. I suggested that they pay their shippers OT to get everything packaged up and out the door. Yes, it could be very expensive, but these are also not high skilled positions making a ton either. They need to quit shitting on their site customer base with these STUPIDLY RIDICULOUS shipping times and blaming it on problems like covid, uptick in business and the USPS.

 

[mrmopar]

Another member and I recently had a conversation about COMC. I actually placed my first order with them since 2012, just a couple weeks ago.

I was surprised at the ridiculous shipping times listed at checkout. Fortunately, my three card order arrived much faster than expected.

My order was placed on 6/18. Shipping label was printed on 6/24. The package was delivered on 6/28.

If I remember correctly, the package was due to be shipped out on 7/15.

Thanks
Craig

*I came across this video a few days ago. It gives some insight into the issues they've been facing...

Craig,

I am curious to know what service you paid for to get those 3 cards? I'll have to assume you used some sort of a rushed service?

This whole situation has been both frustrating and interesting to watch for me personally. I was involved in what I will call the early stages of waiting for the new delayed processing times with a good sized order and lived with the frustrations as they missed shipping milestones twice and added further delay. However, I still have a few cards left in my account that I want. I am hoping that the issues get settled and we get back to a point where I can get an order in a couple weeks. I am extremely hesitant to buy there because of what has happened, which is a damn shame as I have always supported their idea of a centralized selling/shipping source.

I checked today what estimated delivery date would be for my handful of cards that I still have in my account and it spit out 10/31. 4 months for their "regular" $4.99 shipping option. If I paid $10 (essentially priority shipping, although I expect it would still come first class), it would be 7/19 and if I desperately need these cards by 7/10, I can pay a whopping $46.99 to get them by that day (hopefully, as I have still seen many people complaining their rushed orders were late as well). $10 is twice as much as their normal rate, but still a far cry from what I might have to pay on ebay to get the same cards from different sellers. I can see many people being willing to pay double (just $5 more) to eliminate the excessive wait time and just be done with it. However, I feel they have taken their advantage that brought people to their site and are now exploiting it. As the gap in shipping savings diminishes, so does their main advantage as a sourced seller.

I just have one question to ask Tim Getsch...if you bought something online that the seller had IN HAND/IN STOCK, would you think 4 months is an acceptable or reasonable wait time for order processing? It doesn't matter what it is and we are not talking about ordering something that still has to be made or manufactured. I am talking like you go to Amazon, click on the item you want and see there are 15 in stock. You go to your cart and they say that it is available for shipping in 4 months. I can't imagine many people would be happy about that. How could any other business like that survive with that terrible order processing time? I am not talking about the fact that we have grown to be a society of "must have it now" people either, I am still saying that a reasonable process time can/should exist on non-critical items, but 4 months!!?

It happens slowly, with small increases that eventually become the norm. COMC used to offer free shipping at a certain card number of purchases or price threshold, then it was $4 flat with free shipping only on Black Friday, then $5 with no free shipping deals, now it is looking to move towards $10 as the new norm. At some point, with a big enough order, $46.99 may seem OK to many! The joy for Tim & Co. is that their shipping costs are not rising significantly on average to add more cards per order, be it 3 cards or 300. Obviously a larger order is heavier and adds postage cost, but I am guessing that shipping was once and may still be considered a loss leader for them. I'll assume that any cost increases they are really concerned with come with the picking time to pull all cards for a shipment from wherever they are stored. Since I can only assume how that all works, I can't really speak intelligently about it. Maybe even that is not a big deal?

The only thing keeping COMC from completely failing, in my opinion, is that card collecting is an oddity to begin with, where people are paying prices all over the board for the same items, and you can't always find specific cards elsewhere (a reason why Burbank Cards as another example got its reputation by asking what many feel are ridiculous prices, because they were the only game in town for those cards). Plenty of people are still willing to wait to get a card that maybe they have chased for 12 years and finally found it at COMC. They figure, what is 4 more months to wait, now that I actually own it. The normal ordering process that we have gotten used to, like next day delivery from Amazon, is out the window here. They are excusing poor service in order to obtain these long desired items, because that is their only option.

Here is an idea that can reset expectations and make existing customers happy: Post on your site that because you can't seem to handle order flow any longer in the new exploding card market, that all orders placed by such and such a date will now comply with the new 4 month wait time frame. Moving forward, EXPECT that any order will take 4 months and if they can beat it, you are pleasantly surprised. However, get those older orders shipped to people who bought & paid with the expectation that they could get their order in a few weeks, as it has always been in the 10+ years COMC has been doing business.

 

[Loyalty32]

Curt - I selected option #2 from the choices given.

They were...

Packaging & Shipping Options

Delivered Sun, October 17
$4.99 - Economy

Delivered Sat, July 10
$5.49 - Rushed

Delivered Fri, June 25
$37.99 - Express

Thanks
Craig

 

[cjay101]

Craig,

I am curious to know what service you paid for to get those 3 cards? I'll have to assume you used some sort of a rushed service?

This whole situation has been both frustrating and interesting to watch for me personally. I was involved in what I will call the early stages of waiting for the new delayed processing times with a good sized order and lived with the frustrations as they missed shipping milestones twice and added further delay. However, I still have a few cards left in my account that I want. I am hoping that the issues get settled and we get back to a point where I can get an order in a couple weeks. I am extremely hesitant to buy there because of what has happened, which is a damn shame as I have always supported their idea of a centralized selling/shipping source.

I checked today what estimated delivery date would be for my handful of cards that I still have in my account and it spit out 10/31. 4 months for their "regular" $4.99 shipping option. If I paid $10 (essentially priority shipping, although I expect it would still come first class), it would be 7/19 and if I desperately need these cards by 7/10, I can pay a whopping $46.99 to get them by that day (hopefully, as I have still seen many people complaining their rushed orders were late as well). $10 is twice as much as their normal rate, but still a far cry from what I might have to pay on ebay to get the same cards from different sellers. I can see many people being willing to pay double (just $5 more) to eliminate the excessive wait time and just be done with it. However, I feel they have taken their advantage that brought people to their site and are now exploiting it. As the gap in shipping savings diminishes, so does their main advantage as a sourced seller.

I just have one question to ask Tim Getsch...if you bought something online that the seller had IN HAND/IN STOCK, would you think 4 months is an acceptable or reasonable wait time for order processing? It doesn't matter what it is and we are not talking about ordering something that still has to be made or manufactured. I am talking like you go to Amazon, click on the item you want and see there are 15 in stock. You go to your cart and they say that it is available for shipping in 4 months. I can't imagine many people would be happy about that. How could any other business like that survive with that terrible order processing time? I am not talking about the fact that we have grown to be a society of "must have it now" people either, I am still saying that a reasonable process time can/should exist on non-critical items, but 4 months!!?

It happens slowly, with small increases that eventually become the norm. COMC used to offer free shipping at a certain card number of purchases or price threshold, then it was $4 flat with free shipping only on Black Friday, then $5 with no free shipping deals, now it is looking to move towards $10 as the new norm. At some point, with a big enough order, $46.99 may seem OK to many! The joy for Tim & Co. is that their shipping costs are not rising significantly on average to add more cards per order, be it 3 cards or 300. Obviously a larger order is heavier and adds postage cost, but I am guessing that shipping was once and may still be considered a loss leader for them. I'll assume that any cost increases they are really concerned with come with the picking time to pull all cards for a shipment from wherever they are stored. Since I can only assume how that all works, I can't really speak intelligently about it. Maybe even that is not a big deal?

The only thing keeping COMC from completely failing, in my opinion, is that card collecting is an oddity to begin with, where people are paying prices all over the board for the same items, and you can't always find specific cards elsewhere (a reason why Burbank Cards as another example got its reputation by asking what many feel are ridiculous prices, because they were the only game in town for those cards). Plenty of people are still willing to wait to get a card that maybe they have chased for 12 years and finally found it at COMC. They figure, what is 4 more months to wait, now that I actually own it. The normal ordering process that we have gotten used to, like next day delivery from Amazon, is out the window here. They are excusing poor service in order to obtain these long desired items, because that is their only option.

Here is an idea that can reset expectations and make existing customers happy: Post on your site that because you can't seem to handle order flow any longer in the new exploding card market, that all orders placed by such and such a date will now comply with the new 4 month wait time frame. Moving forward, EXPECT that any order will take 4 months and if they can beat it, you are pleasantly surprised. However, get those older orders shipped to people who bought & paid with the expectation that they could get their order in a few weeks, as it has always been in the 10+ years COMC has been doing business.

They're making a killing on shipping. Every card sold has a 0.25 baked in shipping surcharge...that's before the buyer actually pays for shipping.

Anyone who is ordering using standard shipping is a glutton for punishment. Rushed delivery is about a week ahead of projected schedule, so most people are jumping on that bandwagon at this point. Express options are lunacy but obviously in this hobby money is no meaning to some people.

 

[mrmopar]

Curt - I selected option #2 from the choices given.

They were...

Packaging & Shipping Options

Delivered Sun, October 17
$4.99 - Economy

Delivered Sat, July 10
$5.49 - Rushed

Delivered Fri, June 25
$37.99 - Express

Thanks
Craig

Well that was a no brainer there. I see they made their rushed option a bit more pricy now, otherwise I'd take that deal and cut my ties.