Why does mycomicshop take so many ridiculous consignments? 2 2

[FSF]

First off, the vendor and site is great.  I have issues with it's limited search capabilities but it's still top notch for a retail vendor.  However, I don't understand why they bother having SO MANY items that are obviously way over market pricing.  I get that they want to eliminate the need for management of pricing the item but the time it takes to scan and catalogue and store all those items seems wasteful in many instances.  The vast majority of their consigned items are so far above eBay, it's virtually a complete waste of time to even look on the site except for perhaps auctions and some very limited situations.  It would be nice if they required the pricing up front and rejected all those that exceeded a certain threshold. 

[ygogolak]

Because they often get more money simply based on reputation.

[oakman29]

Remember  people can ask whatever they want, it's up to you to be smart enough to make wise choices.

[wolverine180]

There grading is very very strict. I have bought consignment books from them on multiple occasions and out of those times, very little did I actually agree with grade. Most times I feel like I have received a better book than actual grade. And on numerous occasions I have sent books in to be graded and they receive a much higher grade than the raw grade given at my comic shop.  If this is the experience everyone else feels with buying from them.

I could see as a seller on there sight feeling like they got a lower grade than warranted. Thus raising the price of said consigned book.

[FSF]

3 minutes ago, oakman29 said:

Remember  people can ask whatever they want, it's up to you to be smart enough to make wise choices.

I completely agree with that philosophy, and if it were the shop that were charging it, I chalk it up to another Mile High situation and move on.  But the fact they let so many others use the site to clog it up with such unrealistic pricing has gotten me to the point where I'm pretty much done with them, at least in terms of fixed priced listings.  I'm one to pay over retail so I'm not looking for "deals".  I'm willing to do that on many occasions because my time is limited.  But I find spending time on their site is just a major time suck and I can't be the only one that thinks this way.

[FSF]

13 minutes ago, ygogolak said:

Because they often get more money simply based on reputation.

But I'm not talking about the 20% or even 50% over retail on books that trade in volume every day, week and month elsewhere.  I'm talking 2-20X+ on VERY COMMON material.  Even if some sucker should come along to bite, I would think it's such an infrequent occurrence that I just don't get the rationale behind it.  A site like that should be able to turnover very rapidly and keep profits rolling in instead of having dead inventory lying around for months and years and year.

[oakman29]

[ygogolak]

4 minutes ago, FSF said:

But I'm not talking about the 20% or even 50% over retail on books that trade in volume every day, week and month elsewhere.  I'm talking 2-20X+ on VERY COMMON material.  Even if some sucker should come along to bite, I would think it's such an infrequent occurrence that I just don't get the rationale behind it.  A site like that should be able to turnover very rapidly and keep profits rolling in instead of having dead inventory lying around for months and years and year.

I'm guessing they know how to operate their business.

[FSF]

6 minutes ago, wolverine180 said:

There grading is very very strict. I have bought consignment books from them on multiple occasions and out of those times, very little did I actually agree with grade. Most times I feel like I have received a better book than actual grade. And on numerous occasions I have sent books in to be graded and they receive a much higher grade than the raw grade given at my comic shop.  If this is the experience everyone else feels with buying from them.

I could see as a seller on there sight feeling like they got a lower grade than warranted. Thus raising the price of said consigned book.

I agree that they grade strict.  I'm not sure I agree it's as strict as all that.  On average, I would anecdotally guess that 20-25% of raw books might grade the next grade up at CGC.  Meaning a Fine might go Fine+ or maybe sometimes F/V.  It's not like all of their Fine listings, or even remotely the majority of them, would grade VF (which would be an outlier IMO).  And of course, that wouldn't really explain virtually all of the CGC books also ridiculously priced.

[ygogolak]

9 minutes ago, wolverine180 said:

There grading is very very strict. I have bought consignment books from them on multiple occasions and out of those times, very little did I actually agree with grade. Most times I feel like I have received a better book than actual grade. And on numerous occasions I have sent books in to be graded and they receive a much higher grade than the raw grade given at my comic shop.  If this is the experience everyone else feels with buying from them.

I could see as a seller on there sight feeling like they got a lower grade than warranted. Thus raising the price of said consigned book.

[FSF]

Just now, ygogolak said:

I'm guessing they know how to operate their business.

You'd be surprised how many businesses have no clue how to operate their businesses.  I'm not saying mycomicshop is one them.  But I highly doubt they have some in house financial analyst doing hardcore spreadsheets to run various profit scenarios on different business models.  I could be wrong.

[ygogolak]

1 minute ago, FSF said:

You'd be surprised how many businesses have no clue how to operate their businesses.  I'm not saying mycomicshop is one them.  But I highly doubt they have some in house financial analyst doing hardcore spreadsheets to run various profit scenarios on different business models.  I could be wrong.

Most small businesses don't. Most are people doing a job they know and then trying to run a business also.

MCS is not a typical local comic shop. Which I will agree with you on the model that you proposed of turning over inventory.

Unless I'm missing something here, they sold 18,000 comics on eBay in the last 15 days. That's just eBay, not what they sell directly from their site.

https://www.ebay.com/csc/mycomicshop/m.html?_ipg=50&_since=15&_sop=13&LH_Complete=1&LH_Sold=1&rt=nc&_trksid=p2046732.m1684

[lizards2]

1 hour ago, oakman29 said:

Remember  people can ask whatever they want, it's up to you to be smart enough to make wise choices.

What?  That flies in the face of the Nanny-State!!

[ThothAmon]

9 minutes ago, lizards2 said:

What?  That flies in the face of the Nanny-State!!

After the Feds start regulating bitcoin rumor has it they will turn their attention to comic books. 

[lizards2]

2 minutes ago, ThothAmon said:

13 minutes ago, lizards2 said:

What?  That flies in the face of the Nanny-State!!

After the Feds start regulating bitcoin rumor has it they will turn their attention to comic books. 

I was talking more about the making wise choices part of it...., 

[roach04]

I love MCS and order, honestly, way too often from them.  Grading is the definition of conservative - not surprised  to hear that folks have subbed an MCS 8.5 and gotten a 9.4 back from CGC.

re: Consignments.  You can price your book at whatever you want.  Totally agree - some of the consignment pricing is insane but I just assume those books either never sell (if you don't want to sell, why consign is another argument) or overtime the consigners realize they're out to lunch and lower the pricing.  It's really beyond bizarre where some people get their pricing from.  When you consign Lone Star actually provides you data - what your book in the given grade has sold for over time, etc.

Here's one on my want list - Conan #4

https://www.mycomicshop.com/search?q=conan+4&pubid=&PubRng=1971-1975

Lone Star has a 4.0 for $12.25.  Somebody has consigned a 4.0 for $34.  Why price your book at 3x the recommended price?  Who knows.

All that said - eBay is the same.  You can see one book for $25 and the exact same book for $125.

[Buzzetta]

my LCS owner said he has about another two years left in him and then he is going to retire.

 

After that I will order my twice monthly copy of ASM once a year through MCS.  I search through their listings quite frequently and I am always pleased. 

[FSF]

45 minutes ago, roach04 said:

I love MCS and order, honestly, way too often from them.  Grading is the definition of conservative - not surprised  to hear that folks have subbed an MCS 8.5 and gotten a 9.4 back from CGC.

re: Consignments.  You can price your book at whatever you want.  Totally agree - some of the consignment pricing is insane but I just assume those books either never sell (if you don't want to sell, why consign is another argument) or overtime the consigners realize they're out to lunch and lower the pricing.  It's really beyond bizarre where some people get their pricing from.  When you consign Lone Star actually provides you data - what your book in the given grade has sold for over time, etc.

Here's one on my want list - Conan #4

https://www.mycomicshop.com/search?q=conan+4&pubid=&PubRng=1971-1975

Lone Star has a 4.0 for $12.25.  Somebody has consigned a 4.0 for $34.  Why price your book at 3x the recommended price?  Who knows.

All that said - eBay is the same.  You can see one book for $25 and the exact same book for $125.

That example that you point out is merely a proxy for a TON of back issues on their site with the same situation.  That is my problem.  And sadly, the exceptions are very very few and far between.  As for eBay, I agree there are unrealistic sellers there, but there are tons of closed transactions on just about every given book that trades regularly (both fixed price and auctions) that trade for well below anything available of a given issue on MCS.  A silver age book ranging in VG to Very Fine could have multiple examples all trading well above anything close to market reality.

[FSF]

Let me add that I understand with low priced moderns that they are market competitive.  I should have made that clear. That is not an area that I participate much in And toward that the end, the volume they do on eBay clearly tilts heavily toward moderns and or low priced older issues or somewhat infrequently traded issues that are low to moderately priced.  It doesn't surprise me at all that that stuff moves with them.  Their shipping is reasonable an they have the wide selection to make it worthwhile to order low priced (especially modern) stuff through them

[TheFifthHorseman]

3 hours ago, oakman29 said: