COMC - Anyone have anything positive to say in 2021? (2022 UPDATE) (2023 UPDATE)

[WizardofOz1982]

I've slowed way down on COMC, mainly because they don't have a ton of the stuff I've been buying lately, but the last shipment went about normal. I requested them to ship the 7 items in my inventory on 5/10. It took a ridiculous 17 business days to pull and package 7 cards for shipment but once they were packaged and received by USPS, on 6/2, then I had them in hand on 6/5.

 

[thelesquad]

I buy on COMC knowing I'm not going to get my cards for quite a while. I let it pile up in my account before requesting shipment, and then I expect a wait for it to get to me.

 

[mrmopar]

My order arrived today to close the loop.

 

[mrmopar]

I am going to bump this thread once again. Feel free to give it to me straight...Am I just being a whiner here or should we all just expect a company to take forever to "pick and ship" our cards if we only pay the standard rate? I think I previously showed that for years, they could ship out packages within a few days to a week in most instances. Covid disrupted their flow and it's never been the same since, but most people in the world have recovered and compensated or changed directions to account for any past Covid impacts. Is COMC still hiding behind that as an excuse?

I obviously have let COMC back into my stable of card vendors, but each time I have to wait and wait for my cards to arrive, I question why. I know it's hard to avoid them when you can bundle to save shipping. Shipping increases are slowly killing the online card business in my opinion. $6 is fast becoming the new "norm" to ship a padded mailer. However, even when I plan and allow extra time for a shipment, it is hard to wait this long when nobody else needs this much time to fulfill orders.

I originally requested shipment on 8/15, with an estimated ship date of 9/6. That is 3 weeks. Imagine if Amazon needed 3 weeks to a a month to ship you your purchases. In fact, does anyone else who HAS THE PRODUCT IN THEIR HANDS need that long to send it? I think it said close to 200K items ahead of me when I requested the shipment and now its showing 127K still in front of me. What is even the purpose for showing me this? Are there really 100,000s of cards being shipped out over the course of any given month? Maybe there are, but it would seem that a good company would be able to staff to accommodate that. I can't help but wonder if their primary manpower isn't going to receiving and posting new cards and the outbound sales and delivery are taking a back seat, because that is revenue already recognized.

9/6 came and went and now the estimated ship date has slipped another 10 days to 9/17. C'mon COMC, get your sh!t together!

 

[Dilferules]

From my experience before the pandemic their cheapest shipping option took 2 sometimes 3 weeks to ship. Obviously that crashed and burned during the pandemic, but in the last year my cheap shipments were taking about about 3 weeks. That really sucks to see it's back up over a month. I just picked up a really good '90s insert on there and was thinking of having my 177 "ready to ship" cards sent, but now I'm just going to wait until their Cyber Monday shipping deal.

 

[jmc855]

From my experience before the pandemic their cheapest shipping option took 2 sometimes 3 weeks to ship. Obviously that crashed and burned during the pandemic, but in the last year my cheap shipments were taking about about 3 weeks. That really sucks to see it's back up over a month. I just picked up a really good '90s insert on there and was thinking of having my 177 "ready to ship" cards sent, but now I'm just going to wait until their Cyber Monday shipping deal.

I ve had two shipments right at 3 weeks for about 12 cards or so each time on the economy option (4.95?). So as a collector who doesn't really flip, and who is in no hurry for cards to arrive and hates paying extra shipping charges, I m fine because most of those cards I made offers of significant discounts on to buy them, so I was quite happy with all aspects. I have 4 more cards purchased over a week that i ll just wait on till I find Nother handful to ship.I ve used COMC much more in last 2 years than in prior years. Just my two cents adjusted for inflation......

 

[mrmopar]

I guess what is bothering me the most is the estimated 9/6 date being provided, only to push it to 9/17, with no guarantee that it will even ship that day. Then, recalling the last shipment actually shipped 2-3 days after they indicated on the site that it had. You can only wait so long before it becomes irritating, but in fairness, it is great to combine all of the cards for $5.99 economy shipping, the new norm ($6)! If I wait until TG, I can save $6 and see my cards in 2024.

 

[Dazed]

My most recent Topps redemption was fulfilled by COMC. So, they are taking on other work to ship.

 

[DaClyde]

I submitted a batch for their August throwback special, and a few of the cards have already trickled into my account. Nice that they don't automatically back-burner low priority submissions.

 

[mrmopar]

Two days later, I slipped another day and a few items cleared out in front of me! Yay!

 

[jeffv96masters]

Never had an issue paying the slight increased s/h to economy rushed. Got my COMC stuff w/in a week every time.
Waiting around saving pennies to me is an optional choice-- I'll pass and pay the extra s/h

Time is money to me. Others wanna be a bird and save a few bucks and wait 10x longer = more power to them
As a now famous old woman once uttered = Aint nobody got time for dat

Every energy expenditure best be used towards moving forward in life and its pleasures. To me sitting around waiting for packages while saving pennies and nickels- that's wasted TIME and mental energy. I pay more s/h to speed life up= and it helps me enjoy more of life

 

[Dilferules]

Never had an issue paying the slight increased s/h to economy rushed. Got my COMC stuff w/in a week every time.
Waiting around saving pennies to me is an optional choice-- I'll pass and pay the extra s/h

Time is money to me. Others wanna be a bird and save a few bucks and wait 10x longer = more power to them
As a now famous old woman once uttered = Aint nobody got time for dat

Every energy expenditure best be used towards moving forward in life and its pleasures. To me sitting around waiting for packages while saving pennies and nickels- that's wasted TIME and mental energy. I pay more s/h to speed life up= and it helps me enjoy more of life

It depends on the number and types of cards you are shipping. For the two lowest options it's the same $4.99 base rate, but the faster one adds 50 cents per card shipped. So if I'm buying ten $20+ cards, yeah no big deal to pay the extra and get it a lot quicker. If I have two hundred $1 cards ready to ship, no thanks. I'm not paying $100 extra to save a few weeks on a $200 purchase.

I do wish they would let me split it up more easily. Right now I have 178 cards ready to ship. Most of them are cheap and not that exciting, but a few of them are really cool. I'd love to be able to easily ship the few cool ones at the faster rate and let the cheap ones sit in my account until I request a big shipment for Cyber Monday. But, the last time I did something like this I had to remove all cards from being "ready to ship", add the few I wanted quicker to a pending shipment and request it, then go back and manually mark every single other card as ready to ship one by one for the future shipment. Like it was stated, time is money and I don't have time for that mess.

 

[mrmopar]

Never had an issue paying the slight increased s/h to economy rushed. Got my COMC stuff w/in a week every time.
Waiting around saving pennies to me is an optional choice-- I'll pass and pay the extra s/h

Time is money to me. Others wanna be a bird and save a few bucks and wait 10x longer = more power to them
As a now famous old woman once uttered = Aint nobody got time for dat

Every energy expenditure best be used towards moving forward in life and its pleasures. To me sitting around waiting for packages while saving pennies and nickels- that's wasted TIME and mental energy. I pay more s/h to speed life up= and it helps me enjoy more of life

Some valid points, but I would never consider paying for expedited service. I also don't believe it is usually "slight", but I don't bother to pay attention to the other options anyways. I am not saving any real time in this equation, therefore faster delivery times are not worth more money spent. I don't ever need the cards in a specific time, so waiting for them to be in my hands vs on a website is a given regardless of how they are processed. How long I have to wait is partially a choice I make, but my complaint is the ridiculous processing time that was once very reasonable and then not being able to stick the time once they do estimate it. in fact, my estimated date has now slid another day in 1 day's time.

I want COMC to strive to do better., which is the point of even posting this I believe they are continuing to use Covid as an excuse for poor service. 1 month+ to ship a small package of 50 or so cards is not OK, regardless of the shipping level selected. Grading companies are falling down the same way it sounds like, but I don't partake in that silliness, so I don't care about that.

 

[jeffv96masters]

I get your point.

I personally try to speed my own order deliveries up. Not because I'm in a rush. I just want to do more with life than wait.

I prefer 20 card orders or less because years of buying on COMC and experimenting taught me less is best.

200 card orders take forever I bet to pick even with the most organized system known to man. My guess is an hour and a half plus pick time. Hard to imagine one person picking faster than 2 or 4 cards a minute. Say 200+ cards for 7 hrs (lunch/breaks) 1400+ a day. They would need hundreds of pickers . which I'm sure they can't afford or even if they could cannot keep staffed .

Hurry up and wait . remember those days? Yeah. One month wait I'd say is normal. More than that its either a staffing issue or excess demand affecting. Or both.

I can see why folks want them to do it quicker . I just personally try not living my own life with such expectations. Always let down every time I wish for better service = no matter where in this hobby I turn.

 

[mrmopar]

Well, what do you know. Apparently my shipment was sent 9/14 and arrived today. Maybe someone heard me complaining? Maybe it was coincidence. I do appreciate getting it today as opposed to next week though. 5 days ahead of the last estimated ship date I saw, but still 8 days after their initial estimated ship date.

 

[smapdi]

I finally started using COMC for selling this year. I sent in about 200 cards in February and dropped another 300 at the National. Most stuff is $5 and up to keep parity with Ebay fees, my most pricey being about $150. So far, I've had over $2000 in sales. Initially, I was bummed out how long it took to get stuff listed, but I've come around. Considering that stuff sat in boxes next to my desk for several years without me scanning and listing it, promising to be there for years more, having all the work done for me in a few months for a reasonable fee puts me way ahead. About 40% of my National drop-off has been done already, though it will still likely take until the scheduled December date to be finished. As I keep going and get the rhythm of it, timing things by the sport season will make it less painful to wait for.

I do wish the basic shipping plan didn't take quite so long, but that's my cheap ass being cheap and not springing for the expedited plan, especially since I had money in the bank to pay for it.

UPDATE: Well, I take back what I said about the shipping. My current shipping request, which is 34 cards, was submitted on 8/28 with a target ship date of 9/19. I just checked it and it's not only not shipped, but it says there are 174,546 items ahead of my order. New target date 10/3. I mean, Great Googly Moogly, that's a lot of cards. If I could upgrade my order to express, I would, because I don't think they'll get there in 12 days.

 

[jmc855]

Arrived on the 16th, stated ship out date of the 22nd. Over a week early, 2.5 weeks from request. Cheapo 4.99 shipping fee. 20 cards.so Merry Christmas to me.fa la la la lahhhh, la la la la!

 

[mrmopar]

I was thinking about trying to ship before Thanksgiving, but waited. I ended up buying nothing there that TG weekend, probably first time in years. Maybe I'll do a year end shipment for 2024 delivery. Last time I looked it was estimating about a month to get the package. Still unacceptable in my opinion.

I just went and requested my shipment to clear up 2023 inventory. Here is my story:


$78.99 express! What a joke! Of course, it says you'd get same day (12/22) delivery for rushed as well for only $25.49, a $50+ discount! Yet, pay a reasonable s/h fee and they need 1+ month to ship. Only a half million cards in front of me now. What is even the purpose of showing that number? I don't care.

 

[banjar]

Same old same old from COMC.

The way I see it, there are two kinds of businesses in this world.

With the first kind, the goal is to deliver a good product or service to the customer at a good price, and trust that if they do that, the money will come. Of course the money is important, but the money is the result of what they deliver.

With the second kind, the goal is to extract as much money from the customer as possible. Whatever product or service they chose to deliver to the customer is secondary. Getting as much money as possible from their customers is the guiding principle, not the product or service.

Guess which category I think COMC falls into?

I feel like they weren't always this way. But as they've grown, greed has taken over. And it shows. I still have an account there, because it is still a source of cards for my collection. Although it's increasingly rare to find a card I need without a wildly inflated price, if something pops up, I may buy it.

But I am increasingly hesitant to buy from them. To the point where I'll pay a bit more to from other online sellers if the price is comparable.

 

[Hawk8]

I love COMC! Waiting on shipment of a 330 card order. Paid under eBay prices for all the cards and then paid one shipping fee. I don't need the cards tomorrow and I love watching the cards ahead of me click down. Thank you COMC! Always look forward to my yearly delivery.