Checkoutmycards.com

[timgetsch]

Originally Posted by jacobbigshow

Tim welcome to the board as I was one of the first to jump on the CMC site and sending in my cards and I love the site. When you first started the site you had 20 cent processing fees and that wasn't bad so I do not have a problem with the priority fees.

I just have a question, as many others I am sure they have a big box of cards piling up ready to ship, do these changes go into affect right away, or can we still send in the package that has game used and still use our store credit?

Now for future advice, I do not like not being able to use store credit, but I understand you need the cash flow so upgrading to priority service is not a big problem, but there should be an option of standard service and use store credit just taking the 20% fee and that will save you time on withdraws.... Just some advice there.

You have until March 30th to send us stuff under the current rules.

Thanks for the suggestion. I guess we could update the page where you send us the notification of what you are sending. It could allow you to have the funds withdrawn from your account so that you don't have to include the funds with the cards.

I really don't like that this seems to make things more complicated and different for each of the processing levels. I am very tempted to keep everything the same as it was before but to just increase the budget processing service to $0.15 and to guarantee 2 months.

[timgetsch]

Originally Posted by hockeyjunkie99

My suggestion would be to be able to Bulk discount cards. If I have 40 cards that I want to drop to 50% there should be an option to check off all those cards and drop click the 50% off so it can be done immediately. Rather than pricing those 40 cards one at a time.

I hear ya! I plan to release a tool that you will be able to download that will make bulk price changes very easy. Realistically, it will probably be this summer when I get a chance to finish it off.

[timgetsch]

Originally Posted by fungi2510

I disagree with the communication. We have this board already, so there is no reason we should have to be communicating there. Some people might make others mad and then not buy from them. I know it can happen on here too, but it just makes for a better environment if there is not a communication piece on COMC.

Thanks fungi2510! This is one of the primary reasons why we are staying away from any direct communication on the COMC site. There are other reasons as well. For the near future we are not going to be considering any additional direct buyer-seller communication.

[anusinha]

Originally Posted by timgetsch

- Charge a $0.05 - $0.10 transaction fee when a card is sold
- Put a lock on the processing fee funds when the cards arrive
- Require that the budget processing fee is paid out of pocket and up front
- Increase the budget processing fee to $0.15 but allow store credit
- Add another processing service level that is $0.15 and guaranteed 2 months
- Put a temporary freeze on new submissions through the budget processing service when the backlog hits 3 months
- Increase the average wait time for the budget processing service to 6 months
- Displaying ads on the site (we are testing this now)
- Charging for premium services such as featuring your cards on the spotlight
- Selling supplies and wax
- Partnering with sites like Blowout Cards so that you can use your store credit to buy their products
- Letting people use their store credit to invest in the site or to sponsor their favorite new features

I would think these would be acceptable. I also think adding in a storage fee for all cards (1 cent per mo after 90 days)would help move product faster and give you more transaction fees.

[steelheader]

I love the idea of partnering up with Blowout to spend whats in my account and would be willing to look at advertisements on the homepage or an added fee to list cards. Companies are in the business of making money and if you can't make money why waste your time. Something I think needs to be addressed by the powers that be, is an issue that drives me crazy. I have sent 2 emails regarding the status of my cards that were due to be listed on March 5th. I do not really care when they are listed, but I would like an answer with an approximate date. A standard form letter would suffice, but please, at least respond. I feel better now. I love the site and will continue to send cards in as long as they are selling at a profitable price.
Thanks, Dave

[jacobbigshow]

Tim I like these ideas

- Put a lock on the processing fee funds when the cards arrive
- Add another processing service level that is $0.15 and guaranteed 2 months
- Partnering with sites like Blowout Cards so that you can use your store credit to buy their products (this seems amazing, a lot of my junk equals a case of cards from BO sounds good)
- Letting people use their store credit to invest in the site or to sponsor their favorite new features

And I think these are bad
- Charge a $0.05 - $0.10 transaction fee when a card is sold (unless the cash out fee is reduced or eliminated)
- Selling supplies and wax (think ebay and the pit already cover wax and supplies)

[DawgFight24]

I'm a fan of these...

- Put a lock on the processing fee funds when the cards arrive
- Increase the budget processing fee to $0.15 but allow store credit
- Add another processing service level that is $0.15 and guaranteed 2 months
- Displaying ads on the site (we are testing this now)
- Partnering with sites like Blowout Cards so that you can use your store credit to buy their products (I have been saying this since day 1!)
- Letting people use their store credit to invest in the site or to sponsor their favorite new features

[timgetsch]

Originally Posted by nydted1

Just to be clear Tim, I was there for that conversation as well. I understood where both Steve was coming from based on the fact that it indeed is more labor intensive to pull, and if I am not mistaken Mizz was speaking mainly about the cards he has flagged to ship. I know for a fact he has about 140 cards that he needs to get shipped. Currently with the proposed plan it would cost him $33.75 to ship just a minor 140 cards. If the majority of this is for labor costs. And I think this is where I get confused. If all of these cards that are marked to be shipped were maybe given more time to ship rather than within a week. It might not be quite as much labor. Allowing for the person(s) to perhaps work on several shipments at once.

We have done a very thorough analysis of our shipping costs, and we continue to make improvements. At times we have as many as 5 employees working on different areas of shipping at the same time. We usually have multiple people finding the cards, and they can be finding cards for as many as 100 orders at once.

Originally Posted by nydted1

And I think the biggest issue would be surrounding the individuals that are building sets by purchasing large amounts of base cards. If someone say for example is purchasing 500 cards, as an example, and pays a total of 10 cents per card. That's already $50 that they spent just for the purchase. With the proposed plan for shipping they would be paying $87.75!!! That's just for the shipping costs alone. So I guess where Mizz and I were coming from, paying $137.75 for 500 base cards with a value of only $50 dollars seems to turn away those individuals. I know it would turn me away. However, I cannot say how the exact process works, how you have the cards sorted in the warehouse and how many employees you have pulling cards for shipments.

As it stands, a seller is going to be far more successful than the regular person who wishes to buy and sell. Buyers are afterall what allows this kind of business to work. Without their satisfaction, I don't see how the people who just sell will stay happy when it's no longer cost effective for a buyer to purchase cards.

Our stated goal is to try to make our fees cost effective for cards that might sell for $1 or more. It turns out that many people have been successful with cards that are much cheaper than that. However, we are not currently able to make our service cost effective for cards that would sell for about $0.10. Maybe some day that will be the case, but at this point we need at least $0.15/card to cover labor costs to package orders.

Originally Posted by nydted1

Now my concerns are basically around communication. I think it would be outstanding if we had a way to communicate with one another on checkoutmycards.com itself. Much like you have your blog to make announcements, I beleive the buyers and sellers would greatly appreciate an easier way to contact one another other than an outside forum.

Thanks for the feedback, but we are not planning to consider such a feature in the near future. For now this is simply a risk/reward decision. There are many benefits to such a feature, but this would be a very expensive feature to implement and maintain. It also introduces new legal risks that we are not prepared to handle, and there is also a risk that it could be a distraction and turn many people off from using our service. We are trying to stay as simple and focused as we can for now.

Originally Posted by nydted1

My other concern and question would be whether or not it would be possible to set up some kind of way to search the site for cards based on their team on the card. SO based on what the card shows the player playing for it would greatly help people like myself who would like to look up all of the Yankees or Bears cards. Rather then looking for a list of players so I can cross reference who is on what team. I realize this would be quite a large undertaking and with the current changes going into effect in the next few weeks, I understad if this would be something that will have to wait for a time when it can be done without taking away resources for the more vital things such as scanning, shipping, updating prices and what not.

Searching by team is on our radar. We have licensed that data from Beckett, and we hope to integrate it into the site in the near future. I don't want to start quoting dates, but I hope to offer this relatively soon.

Originally Posted by nydted1

In closing, I wanted to say that I was thrilled to finally have a website where I can sell my lower end cards seeing as they don't usually sell well if at all on ebay and then after fees they are no longer a feasable option. I was thrilled when I sold my first card on the site and I hope to sell the remaining cards that I have.

I hope all of this can be worked through and that we all can find a happy medium both with the company being successful and the buyers/sellers being satisfied with how their progress is going.

Thank you for listening to our concerns and responding to them as well. While we as consumers/collectors are always happy to see when someone or anyone in your position comes forward to answer questions and talk about concerns.

Nydted1

It is my pleasure to hear your feedback, and I look forward to using your input to help shape the site.

[eelindy]

Originally Posted by timgetsch

You have until March 30th to send us stuff under the current rules.

Thanks for the suggestion. I guess we could update the page where you send us the notification of what you are sending. It could allow you to have the funds withdrawn from your account so that you don't have to include the funds with the cards.

I really don't like that this seems to make things more complicated and different for each of the processing levels. I am very tempted to keep everything the same as it was before but to just increase the budget processing service to $0.15 and to guarantee 2 months.

Tim, I wouldn't mind this. I started sending cards under the .20/card regime. All my cards I have on there right now, are under that umbrella. I would have no problem with .15/card to better the services or at least get them up to speed.

[beavercards]

Tim, Have you looked into the differences of charging a .05 transaction fee to the 20% cashout fee? I am wondering how many transactions take place each day. And how many people keep using their funds to replenish or buy new cards and you don't get a piece of that cash.

It could be that you could get the cash flow for growth by charging that .05 fee and lowering the cashout fee to nothing or 5%. I don't know the numbers but it seems feasible if there are a lot of transactions taking place. For example for me to cash out 100.00 you get 25.00. That's equal to 500 .05 cent transactions. But you get that instantly instead of waiting for someone to cashout.

As far as advertising on the site, I just wouldn't want it to be anything to draw people away from buying my singles. Such as Ebay adds or Beckett marketplace ads. But you would think that Upperdeck and Topps would be willing to buy some ad space. Same with Blowoutcards. Linking up with them would be fantastic too by the way.