Turnaround times!

[Dave_Hennen]

get the books that are coming in by mail out faster! I love your product and your service, but the long wait is a turnoff.

 

My suggestion is to open up another grading facility. Perhaps in Providence, RI

 

Or on the West Coast, I guess that would be more strategic. But not in the wild fire or earthquake zones. Maybe Vegas or Tahoe, or down the street from Mile High comics and save Chuck all that postage expense ...

 

Dave H

 

[OldSchoolTerry]

get the books that are coming in by mail out faster! I love your product and your service, but the long wait is a turnoff.

 

My suggestion is to open up another grading facility. Perhaps in Providence, RI

 

Or on the West Coast, I guess that would be more strategic. But not in the wild fire or earthquake zones. Maybe Vegas or Tahoe, or down the street from Mile High comics and save Chuck all that postage expense ...

 

Dave H

 

I'm with you on the Providence facility, Dave! Maybe they'll let you and I run it....

[Zanarkand]

Do you think they are so behind because of the magazine grading? This new delay seemed to coincide with there new magazine service....I really don't want to send in books that might not come back until May.

 

Primarily, I think they are just short staffed. What do they have, just 3 primary graders?

 

Also, we have the pre-screening problem. I've heard of dealers sending 3 to 5 hundred brand new off-the-rack comics in at a time for 9.8 pre-screening. Not everything that puts cash in your pocket today is a good idea for the long run. Pre-screening was not a good idea for CGC.

 

Finally, I suspect little automation. Look how other businesses that handle tons of packages (i.e. UPS) deal with it. Having people physically tote them around from one department/room to another is painful. Get some conveyor belts. And automate label generation.

 

But alas, the reality with business is that as long as the cash keeps rolling in, problems don't get fixed, especially with a non-public company.

[plitch]

Hi all,

I just wanted to post a quick note (I gotta grade--as you all know! ) thanking everyone for sharing their ideas. We realize that the turnaround times are getting aggravating (for us too!) and want to thank you for your patience. We are working hard to get ourselves back on track. We are going to put in some hours this weekend (some of us are going to come in on our day off) to get some extra work done.

 

Clarkkentdds-- personally, I think magazines have had a huge impact on us, but it is something we can handle. Pre-screen submissions (which take us longer) have steadily increased. Regular submissions have jumped since the convention season. Conventions! Having 4 cons in 5 weeks (plus doing onsite grading at one of them) didn't help us stay on course with our turnaround times. It's a culmination of causes that overburdened us.

 

Every department is backed up and everyone here is working very hard. Aside from grading, the other bottleneck is encapsulation. We just said goodbye to a friend who moved to Miami and it has left us short handed. We are going to rectify this quickly, but we can not allow anyone to handle books until they are properly trained. That (I know you guys will hate this ) will take as long as it takes to train that person properly.

 

I want to point out that Walk-thru, Express and Standards are on-time and that for 14 months we were on time with every tier.

 

Harshen and I are going to lunch today. We have some other things to discuss, but I promise that this will be one of them. With the new year here, we will be concentrating on getting our turnaround times back on track. Thanks to everyone for their patience and their constructive criticism.

 

Have a great New Years everybody. Don't do anything Supa would do with 10 bottles of Dom, a donkey, a "doctor" and Greggy's Sweet Sweet DC's. Unless that's what your into, then I just don't want to know.

 

Best,

Paul

 

 

[Red Hook]

You guys have a great New Year too! And again, I love your product, love the service....it's just that as a self-employed business person, it does make me cringe when I think of all the additional revenue you could be pulling in if the turnaround were faster.

 

I also realize you are really the victims of your own success, and it's not easy to just "dial-a-grader". You want to keep up the quality and not dilute the product. But still, I would hope you are looking into exanding staff and opening up a new office.

 

I'd suggest looking into renting space from NORAD, in their underground bunker at Cheyanne Mt. I hear the walls are pretty damn thick and immune to nuclear attack. Great place to store all those Hulk 181s while they're waiting to be slabbed!