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[otmack2o]

Looks like Capt better update his signature...

[hockeyjunkie99]

Originally Posted by otmack2o

Looks like Capt better update his signature...

LOL......I giggled at that one

[tedsports]

Captain,
was that you that bought my LT/Brees Playoff off Comc?

Thought that one would have been gone awhile back.

[CaptainBOHICA]

Originally Posted by tedsports

Captain,
was that you that bought my LT/Brees Playoff off Comc?

Thought that one would have been gone awhile back.

was that the 01 dual jersey?

i didn't buy it. i was eyeing it though. sht someone bought it? how much?

[tedsports]

Yes,
01 Playoff Honors tandem jersey...it sold for $40.....Think it sat without any offer for 2 months or so at around $80. I really do not do much football at all, and just through that in with a bunch of cards to comc....I figured it was about a $10 card....

I am having a blast with comc just watching stuff slowly go....I should have another 2000 cards up in the next week or so. I need to send in a few thousand more by the end of the month!

[ohiomike]

I'm kind of wondering why the discussion about the proposed March 31st changes to COMC's processing & shipping policies has pretty much gone away in recent days. I realize that we as sellers on the site don't have the final say, but if we really don't like some of the changes on the table, we need to stay on top of it and try to press them to make the changes to the areas of the proposal we find troubling. Complacency is just going to lead to everything going forward as planned, and I think a couple of the new changes are going to be to the detriment of both buyers and sellers. It seems like all we've really accomplished so far is putting an additional transaction fee in their heads to implement in the future without fully explaining why we're open to this kind of fee. I myself would have no problem with a transaction fee but ONLY if its implemented IN PLACE OF some of the other proposed changes that were to help cover their costs. I'm hoping to spark discussion back up as we still have time to explain to Tim and his staff at COMC why some of these policy changes are going to hurt the site in general before they are implemented at the end of the month.

[skober77]

- 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

I would rather keep the budget at $0.10 a card and pay out of pocket than to pay $0.15 a card with store credit. It would be cheaper to cash out and use that money to pay $0.10 a card then to pay $0.15 a card with store credit. I would also not want a transaction fee without removing a fee somewhere else, such as reducing cash out fee, otherwise we'd be getting to the point where there would be more fees than on ebay.

[ohiomike]

Originally Posted by skober77

I would rather keep the budget at $0.10 a card and pay out of pocket than to pay $0.15 a card with store credit. It would be cheaper to cash out and use that money to pay $0.10 a card then to pay $0.15 a card with store credit. I would also not want a transaction fee without removing a fee somewhere else, such as reducing cash out fee, otherwise we'd be getting to the point where there would be more fees than on ebay.

This is one of the points that concerns me about the site. I could understand if the point was to collect the money for the work before that work takes place. That makes sense. If they are always backlogged, collecting the money upfront would allow them to pay additional help or pay overtime to do the work as needed. Grading companies collect up front no matter what service level you choose. I actually think COMC should be collecting up front from all service levels.

However, its the fact that they don't feel store credit as being a sufficient means of payment that is most troubling to me. Its as if they view the store credit as being their money already... and I suppose to some degree it is as you either always have to re-spend it on the site or give them 20% of it. But if they are already depending so heavily on everyone's store credit to run the company that they need to collect "new money" for processing of any service level, it makes me wonder if they are liquid enough to be able to pay out all of the store credit that is potentially due to all of the users. I understand its unlikely that everyone will make a "run" on the site, but Banks have safe guards in place in case something like that happens not least of which is the FDIC. While I know COMC has everything insured, I don't think "not having enough money to pay all the users" is something that an insurance company is going to cover like the FDIC would for a bank.

Perhaps I'm wrong here and they are just changing this policy because not everyone has enough store credit in their account to cover processing fees. But I would think a fairly simple system of automatically generated e-mails could take care of that, reminding users to load their account with the appropriate amount of store credit before any further transactions can be made or more importantly before any work will be done with their submission.

[mwheeler27]

Originally Posted by ohiomike

This is one of the points that concerns me about the site. I could understand if the point was to collect the money for the work before that work takes place. That makes sense. If they are always backlogged, collecting the money upfront would allow them to pay additional help or pay overtime to do the work as needed. Grading companies collect up front no matter what service level you choose. I actually think COMC should be collecting up front from all service levels.

However, its the fact that they don't feel store credit as being a sufficient means of payment that is most troubling to me. Its as if they view the store credit as being their money already... and I suppose to some degree it is as you either always have to re-spend it on the site or give them 20% of it. But if they are already depending so heavily on everyone's store credit to run the company that they need to collect "new money" for processing of any service level, it makes me wonder if they are liquid enough to be able to pay out all of the store credit that is potentially due to all of the users. I understand its unlikely that everyone will make a "run" on the site, but Banks have safe guards in place in case something like that happens not least of which is the FDIC. While I know COMC has everything insured, I don't think "not having enough money to pay all the users" is something that an insurance company is going to cover like the FDIC would for a bank.

Perhaps I'm wrong here and they are just changing this policy because not everyone has enough store credit in their account to cover processing fees. But I would think a fairly simple system of automatically generated e-mails could take care of that, reminding users to load their account with the appropriate amount of store credit before any further transactions can be made or more importantly before any work will be done with their submission.

I completely agree with everything you have said here and I share these thoughts 100%.

[ohiomike]

I apologize up front for the long read, but I think its worth the time...

I'm sympathetic to the company if they are not generating enough money to grow the company as fast as the site itself is growing. If thats the case, something does need to change in terms of how they take in fees to allow them to grow as a company in-line with the site growth.

However, I think some of the main benefits to the site is being able to get full value out of your store credit by either using it to load more cards or buying other cards on the site. Another thing that site has (or at least had, come March 31st) an advantage over any other site with is its ability to offer cheap S/H based on everything being in one physical location. But with the removal of the $25 S/H cap, this no longer becomes an advantage and I think its really going to deter the buying of lower priced cards and perhaps all cards in general. I understand the need to cover all expenses if orders utilizing the $25 cap were causing the company to lose money. However, I don't like the idea of sticking the buyer with the bill, as the belief that the site will be able to attract consistent buyers is the main reason any seller would use the site (if the buyers aren't there, the fact that they also do all the work for you would be a moot point).

With all that being said, I think the biggest problem is that the site has virtually no incentive for 2 key types of transactions to take place which I would imagine make up a large percentage of the total transactions on the site... those being: flips and using your store credit FROM SALES to make other purchases. From their perspective, only numbers are moving around. They don't benefit unless "new money" is added and used to buy, or unless sales are cashed out. I think that is almost a conflict of interest when actions that potentially benefit us aren't benefiting them.

That is why I would be in favor of a transaction fee IF it could eliminate the need for some of the proposed changes (mainly getting rid of the $25 cap and requiring "new money" for the budget submission tier). I would actually propose that the transaction fee be a percentage based fee (or perhaps a fixed/percentage mix like $0.05 or 5%, which ever is higher) because to be honest, I think they deserve it. But I also think if they made it say 5%, they could also lower the cashout fee to 15% or perhaps even 10% depending on how the numbers crunch. If they were making at least 5% on EVERY transaction that took place I would think they would be generating more than enough additional income to lower the cash-out fee and do away with the need for some of these other changes. Those that would have cashed out anyway would be paying no more in fees than under the 20% method, and those of us that never cash out could contribute more of a fair share by giving them a small piece of each transaction.

I believe this change should also allow for the $25 cap to stay in place as the transactions fees made from the buying that generate large orders would essentially pay for the additional costs needed to process the order. I think the $25 cap is a major selling point in getting more buyers to join the site, as COMC remains in relative anonymity when it comes to the hobby as a whole. But I firmly believe it only takes using it once for any potential customer to see how great the site's design is and how well the process works. Knowing that S/H is not going to be a "rip-off" and that they can receive a fair S/H price even when buying large quantities is something that I think could lead this site to being the #1 sports card market place eventually even over the likes of ebay. But I fear that might not happen if customers are charged, for example, over $40 for an order of 200 cards which probably costs COMC $5 in postage to send. The buyer isn't going to understand why COMC needs to charge $35 over the cost of postage... heck, they barely understand that $3 for 1 card goes toward more that just the cost of postage. Most sellers on sites like ebay and sportlots have S/H policies in place that are actually much more competitive than what COMC would charge for S/H under the new policy. Thats bad news for us sellers, when the current $25 cap creates such a competitive advantage for COMC. Again, I think this all comes back to the fact that COMC really doesn't benefit from the majority of transactions that happen on their site. When a company that is essentially an online marketplace for sales starts thinking of lots of sales as being a negative rather than a positive, I think there is a problem. If overstock.com charged even actual shipping prices much less postage + all of their overhead expenses involved with shipping, does anyone really think they'd still be in business? They make up for their losses on Shipping in other areas. COMC needs to find a way to do the same.