General Forum

I'm relatively new to using COMC. I have purchased a few cards that I just have sitting there ready for shipment but I'm in no real rush to receive them. I figured I'd either wait till they have a free shipping promotion or until I have enough cards there that I want to pay for shipping. I realize it certainly isn't very expensive to pay for the shipping but as I continue to find additional cards I am looking for I just don't see any reason in shipping yet. Along those lines I have a couple questions.

How often do the free shipping promotions come along? I've heard at Black Friday. Any others?

Are there any negatives of this approach? My basic understanding is that they hold them at no charge and I've never heard of a time limit on that but I wanted to ask you with more experience. 

Thanks for your input.

only on black friday last year

previous year they did Christmas weekend I think but not last year

holding until you get enough to justify postage cost is my favorite part of buying on comc

mark 

yeh.. they don't do the free shipping too often.. as mentioned, but you can def load up on a nice stack before shipping. save a lot $$$,, better than switching to Gieco 

COMC usually does a Spring Cleaning event in April/May? I can't remember when exactly but it should be coming up, but that's the only other time I think they offer free shipping other than their Black Friday event.  I do the same thing though.  I'll pick up cards and leave them in my account until one of these events.  I also do the challenges when I can and earn free store credit.

I do the same thing... leave cards sitting in my account until I have a nice stack to be shipped. I live in Canada so the shipping costs a little more, but it's still a much better option than any other online source, especially ebay.

You can leave cards in your account indefinitely at no charge, as long as you're not listing them for sale. Even then I think they only charge you 1 cent per month if the asking price is more than 75 cents.

- Rod

Excellent, thanks for the comments. That is what I had thought and I'm glad to hear I wasn't missing anything. 

They do the Spring Cleaning in May...I did that last year for the first time and got my cards the first week of June. I remember this because I had just finished scanning them when my remote hard drive died and I had to end up rescanning a couple. They did Black Friday in 2015 and 2016 at least. 2015 was the first year I was aware of COMC and had no money set aside for it. In 2016 I did and got enough cards to build 6 blog posts around them. (68 cards total, if memory serves)

If you build up 100 or more cards and ship them in one order you get a $5 credit. I've never gotten that many shipped at once. I'm going for that next time. I have 23 cards waiting for me right now. Just bought one earlier today in fact.

Make sure you do Buy Now and not Add to to Cart. If you buy now, it's yours...but if you add to cart, somebody else can come along and buy it before you get it shipped. I didn't know that at first and lost an Elton Brand card because of it. Either option looks visually the same and works the same IF nobody comes along and gets it. A lot of people don't know how this works based on comments I've seen. I wouldn't have known if it hadn't bitten me. One of the bloggers only gets his shipped once a year. I can't go that long, though I will probably wait for the Spring Cleaning sale before I ship. Will be my first COMC order as a hockey collector...

I wondered what the fee was for something more than 75 cents. That's good to know. It's part of the reason I don't list anything for more than 75 cents. If it's only one cent per month I might give it a try. My stuff for sale is linked in my signature. Planning to send another shipment sometime fairly soon.

I just double checked the fees for card storage.

It is 1 cent per card per month for cards listed for over 75 cents. I suppose this could add up moreso for sellers with thousands of cards for sale. 

If you submit cards to sell (that is, you mail in a bunch to be listed), then there are processing fees but the storage is free for the first 90 days. This doesn't concern those of us who buy cards on the site and let them sit our accounts though.

Full fee details are here: https://www.comc.com/fees.aspx

- Rod

There are ZERO storage fees for cards that are not for sale.

There is a 1 cent per month storage fee charged per card that is listed over 75 cents, charged for whatever is listed at 12:01 PT on the first of the month. If you are the cheapest person on the planet (ME), you go in on the last day of the month, unlist them, and relist them again the next morning on the first. And yes, easy enough to do when it's only 2 cards. Not sure it would be worth it if I had 1,000s there.

Shipping promotions happen when they want, but I only know of Black Friday time frame that has happened each of the last 4 years. I know they did one after the restructure as a thank you to those who didn't bail on them.

And yes, do the challenges when you can, get points, get free COMC credit. If you plan to spend money on there, it's free money. I have gotten over $90 in free money from them over the last couple years. (I even got the little blue shield next to my user name. :) ) Again, being cheap, I'll take every free $ I can.

Also, when you carry a monetary balance, you can make offers for cards on there. Sellers can set a tolerance where they will accept offers to a certain percentage. Sellers can accept, counter-offer, or decline. I wish decline wasn't an option. If you don't like my offer, let me know what price you can do. Now that I've actually tried to sell on there, I understand how it works from the seller's side, and why they may not accept the lowest possible offer. But it certainly doesn't hurt to ask.

If you have any questions on the buying or selling process, feel free to ask here. You have a lot of people with knowledge from both sides who are willing to help out.

I'm pretty sure the storage fees only apply to cards for sale not cards that were bought.