COMC Non-Black Friday Ship times

I'll start this out by saying that I do enjoy COMC and the advantages they provide the buyer of singles. In fact, this is the 10th consecutive year that I am requesting at least 1 shipment from their site. Interesting, it seems 2016 was the big year for me. Either I was too impatient to wait or I just bought more. 5 shipments that year.



You can see how the wait times have varied over the years. I almost always have waited for the Black Friday sale and free shipping promotion. There has never been a need to have my cards immediately as long as I have shopped with them, so why not wait and save some money. The wait time was sometimes hard to handle though, as I often had 100+ cards that had been sitting in their warehouse for close to a year and once you select that ship button, you suddenly want those cards immediately! As the times got longer, it made it more and more difficult to wait.

I have to say now, it seems they have gotten a little too big, too fast perhaps. I understand the demand around Thanksgiving, as the sales have traditionally driven lots more sales than normal times. Then, a lot of folks probably ship their orders soon after, as it was free. However, I don't understand a long wait time in February.

Now that the free shipping has gone away, I wonder if this is going to be the new norm. They still have a chance to better the estimated ship date and I recall they often do by a few days, but it has been 8 days so far since I requested shipment. If they ship on the estimated day, that means it would have taken them 17 days to process the order and ship.

$5 s/h for as many cards as you have is still a heck of a deal, but they definitely seem to have outgrown their process. I still don't need the cards ASAP, but I still feel like a kid at Christmas when those packages come and that wait time can be excruciating.

I'd shop more at Comc but thos shipping times are crazy.

I’m currently waiting for mine to be shipped as well. I requested shipment of 75 cards on 2/21 as well. Still waiting!

I don't think they were prepared to handle the demand they received for eBay auctions and as a result every other aspect of their business has suffered since the auctions started.

Sent from my SM-N950U using Freedom Card Board mobile app

I don't know if it's new but I've started seeing things "stored at a remote location" and they say it'll take an extra 2 weeks to ship those. So about 6-8 weeks total. What is this, Ronco in the 70s? And is this remote location somewhere in the Siberian tundra only accessible by dogsled? Hire a couple more people and get those things out.

smapdi said:

I don't know if it's new but I've started seeing things "stored at a remote location" and they say it'll take an extra 2 weeks to ship those. So about 6-8 weeks total. What is this, Ronco in the 70s? And is this remote location somewhere in the Siberian tundra only accessible by dogsled? Hire a couple more people and get those things out.

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I believe the 'Remote Location' is in Canada. If I'm not mistaken they send the Canadian items to there location in the states. Making those items take longer to ship.

Edit: Items Stored Remotely

Some items listed for sale on COMC are not are not currently stored near our Redmond, WA headquarters. For example, cards that are consigned through our Canadian processing facility may take a month or two to migrate down to our US headquarters. While the items are still in Canada, we can’t ship them as quickly. Such items are labeled as Item Stored Remotely and can take 1-2 weeks longer than normal to ship. We don't currently allow expedited shipping for these items. We recommend using our Standard or Registered shipping options if you have any remote items in your shopping cart or shipment request.

Here's a request I had for 100 cards on 1/30. Doesn't seem like it should take that long to gather up 100 cards. I wonder how they store the cards...I envision a large warehouse with thousands of monster boxes on shelves, all organized by item number.

Whatever their method of storing and pulling cards is doesn’t seem very efficient, given the time it takes to pack an order.

I actually was inside the facility once, as my former company serviced the elevator that is in their facility. I don't recall exactly how they are stored though, but I don't think it was card boxes. I could be wrong. Maybe I didn't even see the storage area. I didn't want to appear too eager to see what was going on when I was in there, for fear of spooking them. I was simply just another vendor inside doing work for the building.

Letch77 said:

Here's a request I had for 100 cards on 1/30. Doesn't seem like it should take that long to gather up 100 cards. I wonder how they store the cards...I envision a large warehouse with thousands of monster boxes on shelves, all organized by item number.

View attachment 97227

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I am sure it's a big operation, and given their business model, shipments are probably typically either very small (I just want that one card) or very large (send me everything I bought in the last 2 years). But they probably get hundreds of shipment requests per day. They have millions of cards and I imagine two things. Either there's probably only general organization, so pulling an order is like an Amazon fulfillment center where one card might be well away from the next and the one after that back where they started. And then they might have dozens or hundreds of copies of any one card so pulling the one ID means sorting through a bunch of the same card, if they even are organized like that. Or else they just have everything in the order it was submitted and fulfilling an order would just be a matter of zipping through the boxes or however they store stuff. It would be cool from a tech perspective to see how it works.

smapdi said:

I am sure it's a big operation, and given their business model, shipments are probably typically either very small (I just want that one card) or very large (send me everything I bought in the last 2 years). But they probably get hundreds of shipment requests per day. They have millions of cards and I imagine two things. Either there's probably only general organization, so pulling an order is like an Amazon fulfillment center where one card might be well away from the next and the one after that back where they started. And then they might have dozens or hundreds of copies of any one card so pulling the one ID means sorting through a bunch of the same card, if they even are organized like that. Or else they just have everything in the order it was submitted and fulfilling an order would just be a matter of zipping through the boxes or however they store stuff. It would be cool from a tech perspective to see how it works.

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I assume they have software that directs them in what order they should select the cards to make it as fast and efficient as possible, but maybe they are too small to make that type of software investment.

if I recall, Tim left Microsoft to start this company. Not sure if he was a tech type though. There are (or were at one time) bios on the site, but it's been a while since I read one.

It would be interesting to know exactly how it works. I suspect items do change ownership fairly often. I doubt they are being physically moved each time. My guess is that they are alphabetized and multiple copies of cards must be identified, such as a unique ID number or barcode. That way, when you pick that 1 Biff Pocoroba card out of the 96 they have listed, you get the one you wanted! Once the time comes to physically move them to you, someone must have to pull them individually. Just a guess though.

I assume they have software that directs them in what order they should select the cards to make it as fast and efficient as possible, but maybe they are too small to make that type of software investment.

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One would hope, but based on the stories that come out of Amazon warehouses, not even they have such a system. But it would be a good project to build some intelligence in the product gathering process. Look ahead 10 orders and see what's close to what, something like that.

Got my shipment today, so they beat the estimate!

I also asked for a shipment on 2/27. COMC gave a projected ship date of 3/9. Two weeks seems a bit much to gather up 35 cards (none were listed as stored remotely) and ship but whatever. They actually shipped on 3/4 and according to tracking arrived today so I guess that's not too bad.

My guess is they have their items stored by item number in the warehouse. When they go to fill a shipment request, the system probably organizes them by item number so they can start with the lowest and pick items as they move through the shelves. It'd be a lot of fun to tour their storage facility.