CheckOutMyCards.com Questions, Suggestions & Testimonials

[riotgear]

Thank you everyone who is answering each other's questions, and continuing to evangelize the site. We all here at COMC believe in what we're doing here and we hope it shows. We're glad to see customers loving it as much as we do!

[checkoutmydeals]

THANKS, Mark!

If you think about it, in a way you are trading your cards. You are putting the cards up on the site (hopefully), earning store credit for selling them, then using that store credit to purchase other cards on the site.

The things people buy for cash and the things people swap in trades are two completely different animals. As I mentioned before, I used to own a large collectibles store where I did millions of dollars in trades. People would trade for stuff they'd never buy in a million years. People would trade in stuff they'd never think to offer to sell to a dealer.

When buying, people tend to favor inexpensive items - stuff under $5 sells great for cash. They also favor items which are selling for deep discounts to guide.

When they have trade credit, they do just the opposite. They go for high dollar items selling at full book. Any collectible worth $50 or more is great trade bait. Offer it for trade, and chances are it'll be gone in a week. However, if you insist on getting full price in cash, you might sit on that same item for years.

I've dealt in comics, cards, toys, games, video games, cd's, dvd's, movie memorabilia, you name it. The people who are the most enthusiastic traders are sports card collectors. They're called "trading cards" for a reason. A person who collects toys might only buy the toys they actually want, and might never have any toys they want to trade. A person who collects cards constantly picks up cards that have value which they don't want to keep. They might open a pack and get a duplicate, or a player / team they don't collect, or an insert card they don't want, you name it. They might buy a collection or a bulk lot and only want a few items. They might run across a $10 card selling at a show for 25 cents. They know the card has value, but they don't want that card.

If COMC had an easy-to-use, inexpensive mechanism for hassle-free trades, I think you'd soon see tens of thousands of dollars, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars in trade PER DAY. And once the mechanism is in place, I think you would see an avalanche of submissions, of people who post their cards to the site just to trade them for something else.

I'd also point out, that this is another competitive advantage you'd have over eBay. eBay refuses to allow its users to trade, or to even mention the word "trade" in their listings.

[checkoutmydeals]

QUESTION: Would you consider allowing dealers to opt a card out of the 'make an offer' feature?

Some dealers slash their price to the bone, but refuse to budge on the price. Others will price their cards a bit higher, but will accept offers at the drop of a hat.

If you allowed sellers to indicate which prices are firm, then it would be easier for buyers to identify those cards which are negotiable, and those sellers who are willing to haggle.

[checkoutmydeals]

QUESTION: Would it be possible to put filters on the search engine? I might want to look for a card which is at least x% off of guide, numbered to fewer than y in existence, and where the book value is at least $z. Then I might want to sort that list by cards which were recently added to the site.

As it is, I have to pick one factor and then filter the search manually.

[DaClyde]

Originally Posted by dwc07

Yes, the way you have it is exactly what Mark's looking for.

Outstanding! I just send a zip file containing all of the 2006 Calbee baseball sets from Japan off to Mark. If those are OK, I'll be submitting a LOT more Japanese checklists (as well as submitting a lot more Japanese cards!). Thank, guys, for opening up this avenue for expanding COMC's capabilities.

Jason

[dwc07]

Originally Posted by DaClyde

Outstanding! I just send a zip file containing all of the 2006 Calbee baseball sets from Japan off to Mark. If those are OK, I'll be submitting a LOT more Japanese checklists (as well as submitting a lot more Japanese cards!). Thank, guys, for opening up this avenue for expanding COMC's capabilities.

Jason

No problem! Our pleasure.

[riotgear]

Originally Posted by checkoutmydeals

QUESTION: Would you consider allowing dealers to opt a card out of the 'make an offer' feature?

Some dealers slash their price to the bone, but refuse to budge on the price. Others will price their cards a bit higher, but will accept offers at the drop of a hat.

If you allowed sellers to indicate which prices are firm, then it would be easier for buyers to identify those cards which are negotiable, and those sellers who are willing to haggle.

We are considering it. Because it would be on a card-by-card basis, we are making sure that having all that wouldn't slow down the system.

[riotgear]

Originally Posted by checkoutmydeals

QUESTION: Would it be possible to put filters on the search engine? I might want to look for a card which is at least x% off of guide, numbered to fewer than y in existence, and where the book value is at least $z. Then I might want to sort that list by cards which were recently added to the site.

As it is, I have to pick one factor and then filter the search manually.

Not at this point. When we have a significantly larger server and things are optimized better, it might be possible; right now, though, indexing would take too long.

[ddearing]

I understand the frustration on the search engine capabilities, but the way it is currently has its advantages. It certainly causes me to look at (and buy) cards that I otherwise might have never thought about or been looking for. Since most of use send in oddball stuff, I think the current lack of filtering may actually help sales some.

Although I still think that adding a feature that allows you to search by team would dramatically increase sales on the site. For a Pirates fan to be able to search all pirates cards without having to list every player's name who ever played for them would be a huge help.

[Cactuspies]

Anyone know if this COMC seller/buyer is on blowout? We are going back and forth and I'm at the lowest I can really go and he is giving only 1/2 offers and. I just want to explain the situation as we are on the 6th counter offer...

[37Jetson]

I have also experienced that JamesCards seems to have a challenge with common courtesy when someone has to reject his identical offer three, four or five times. Whatever card that he is bidding on should have the price changed to exactly twice your bottom line price.

[drd65]

On the search subject, I would love to see a couple of extra sections on the dashboard page, one to save favorite searches and one for favorite sellers. One click from the dashboard page and you're there.

A watch list would also be handy, I use all my cash from sales to purchase other cards and it would be nice to have place to save a listing. Maybe throw a red flag up if it changes is price, changes ownership, or if another of the same card is listed.

Just a couple of thoughts from a new guy. My first two months on the site have been great, very easy to navigate and learn the system. Keep up the great work, I'm hooked!

... I would also like to say thanks all of you who have purchased, made offers, and accepted or countered my offers, looking forward to many more.

[JimsCards]

Originally Posted by 37Jetson

I have also experienced that JamesCards seems to have a challenge with common courtesy when someone has to reject his identical offer three, four or five times. Whatever card that he is bidding on should have the price changed to exactly twice your bottom line price.

I've gone through the same thing with him recently. Unfortunately, we have similar usernames (jamescards vs jimscards), so I'm hoping this doesn't become a persistent issue!

[DaClyde]

Originally Posted by drd65

On the search subject, I would love to see a couple of extra sections on the dashboard page, one to save favorite searches and one for favorite sellers. One click from the dashboard page and you're there.

You essentially can do this already. Just perform your search, and then click the RSS feed button next to the results tally at the top of the results listing. I've got several searches saved that way in my Google Reader. So any time a new card is listed matching my saved searches, it shows up in my list of blogs and RSS feeds. Works very well!

[DaClyde]

Originally Posted by 37Jetson

I have also experienced that JamesCards seems to have a challenge with common courtesy when someone has to reject his identical offer three, four or five times. Whatever card that he is bidding on should have the price changed to exactly twice your bottom line price.

I guess perhaps the concept of blocking a user might be needed. Sportlots and eBay have it, COMC might want to look into it.

[Casebreaker]

i havent gotten any email notification in a while, when i get best offers. the only way i know is when i go in and check my account. is there a problem with it right now or did they take that away??

[ohiomike]

Originally Posted by Casebreaker

i havent gotten any email notification in a while, when i get best offers. the only way i know is when i go in and check my account. is there a problem with it right now or did they take that away??

Same for me.

I also sent the staff account an e-mail and CC'd various members of the COMC team regarding a couple issues I've had in the last 2 weeks. Its been over a week now with no response. I'm wondering if they are having widespread issues with their e-mail system.

[weedyalan]

Originally Posted by Casebreaker

i havent gotten any email notification in a while, when i get best offers. the only way i know is when i go in and check my account. is there a problem with it right now or did they take that away??

I had 2 offers yesterday. I recieved an email on the first one, but not the second. The second one I just happened to sign in and I saw it sitting there.

[Casebreaker]

Originally Posted by weedyalan

I had 2 offers yesterday. I recieved an email on the first one, but not the second. The second one I just happened to sign in and I saw it sitting there.

I havent gotten any for about 2 weeks, i do still get emails stating that "some items have sold" when actually only 1 item has sold

[checkoutmydeals]

This bears further investigation.

How about if everyone here makes a bunch of offers on my cards, and then I'll report back whether I received the email notifications?

BTW, I'll accept any offer from anyone on this board.

[Cactuspies]

could just be a system overload with so many transactions taking place at any given time and some emails go out and others don't. I think we all probably log in multiple times a day so the emails are really no big deal and the offers stay up for about 4 days unless the other person cancels it. I really don't need an email telling me a card that I had listed for 0.25 or less sold.

[Cactuspies]

Originally Posted by DaClyde

I guess perhaps the concept of blocking a user might be needed. Sportlots and eBay have it, COMC might want to look into it.

This is an interesting idea. I think the the folks at COMC and the consensus would just say to reject any offer you don't like or counter. You could be giving up legit offers by blocking someone especially if you are just trying to unload some cards and you know they will be probably be the one to buy them up from you.

BTW I'm on offer/counteroffer #8 w/Jamescards. I actually rejected a counter finally and he came back at me for all the same cards. I dropped my counter $2. (he is asking for 25 cards with a BV of $288 for $42-$49, my asking is only $82 for them and I have been countering at $58-$68

[checkoutmydeals]

Well, dang! Someone just sent me an offer (which I accepted). THANKS!

I checked my email and I did NOT get an email from COMC for this offer. I checked the junk folder and there was nothing in there either. It was in my Dashboard on COMC.

The best course of action would be for everybody keep sending me offers until COMC gets this sorted out. I'm willing to help them troubleshoot this problem, even if it means selling every single card I own.

[weedyalan]

Originally Posted by checkoutmydeals

Well, dang! Someone just sent me an offer (which I accepted). THANKS!

I checked my email and I did NOT get an email from COMC for this offer. I checked the junk folder and there was nothing in there either. It was in my Dashboard on COMC.

The best course of action would be for everybody keep sending me offers until COMC gets this sorted out. I'm willing to help them troubleshoot this problem, even if it means selling every single card I own.

Send me an offer, I want to see if I get an email today.

[checkoutmydeals]

I recently got 2 offers, and the emails appeared in my inbox in real time.

I also sold a card outright, and the email also appeared in my inbox in real time.

Whatever was going wrong before might have been fixed (thanks, COMC!). However, just to be sure, it would probably be best for as many people as possible to send me an offer every hour on the hour for the next week or so. That way, we can see if the bug is affected by time of day, time of the week and so forth.