Our Recent Experience Selling Comics Through Mycomicshop 23 23

[Black_Adam]

On 7/6/2022 at 11:10 AM, mycomicshop said:

- Books are relatively common (eg 5-10+ sales in past 90 days), which usually means there are other copies available on MCS and ebay as BINs. The higher priced BIN won't move as long as a cheaper one is sitting out there.

I appreciate the point being made by MCS, but the blanket statement above is a little misleading. If you have a comic with the same grade as another but, for example: better page quality; better presentation; newsstand vs. direct; and/or an absence of flaws that may be on the other copy (for example - writing on the cover), feel free to price it higher than the other BIN as many buyers will pay the extra for a more desirable copy, even in the same grade.

Edited July 6, 2022 by Black_Adam

[mycomicshop]

On 7/6/2022 at 2:50 PM, Black_Adam said:

I appreciate the point being made by MCS, but the blanket statement above is a little misleading. If you have a comic with the same grade as another but, for example: better page quality; better presentation; newsstand vs. direct; and/or an absence of flaws that may be on the other copy (for example - writing on the cover), feel free to price it higher than the other BIN as many buyers will pay the extra for a more desirable copy, even in the same grade.

Agreed with all that. Was intended more in reference to these books specifically than a universal statement about all comics. The books I was referring to are modern era 9.6s and 9.8s with a decently large number of sales per month. Even with those, yes, they're still not completely interchangeable, but generally less variation with those than say a silver age 4.0.

[KirbyTown]

@mycomicshop

Can you shed some light on the reasoning behind so many consignments being grossly overpriced for a year or more? Do the owners just forget? Not care? False hope? Thanks

[mycomicshop]

On 7/6/2022 at 3:32 PM, KirbyTown said:

@mycomicshop

Can you shed some light on the reasoning behind so many consignments being grossly overpriced for a year or more? Do the owners just forget? Not care? False hope? Thanks

I think it's a combination of different reasons for different people:

- not super motivated, if they get their high price great but they're not in any rush to sell soon

- over-committed and not willing to cut their losses: paid too much originally, now they're anchored to their overpayment and not willing to sell for less

- speculation in action: their prices are unreasonable today, but they are guessing the book could jump in the future

And then beyond that for some people it's some combination of lack of knowledge, lack of time, and lack of effort.

We have mechanisms in our consignment terms where we can start putting some downward pressure on unreasonably high prices, but thus far we haven't chosen to activate any of those and have left all pricing completely up to consignors. Particularly with the market moving along over the past couple years of covid, I've been reluctant to be interfering or telling people what we think their books should be selling for when that was changing pretty rapidly. That's still something available to us to exercise. If and when we get more assertive about that I also want to be able to provide consignors better information and better tools to guide them to what we think good pricing is, and make it fast and easy for them to review their unsold items and quickly make those decisions.

[mycomicshop]

Oh and then specifically just from the past two or three months, I think there's significant overhang from some consignors who priced their books during the boom period, and haven't been particularly quick to adjust downward since the market has cooled off a bit. I don't blame anybody for not being in a rush to lower their prices, but it's just acknowledging the ebb and flow of the market.

For our own MCS-owned inventory we have mechanisms in place to gradually lower prices every month or so on books that haven't sold, so if our stuff is temporarily overpriced it'll gradually come down.

[ttfitz]

On 7/6/2022 at 5:10 PM, mycomicshop said:

For our own MCS-owned inventory we have mechanisms in place to gradually lower prices every month or so on books that haven't sold, so if our stuff is temporarily overpriced it'll gradually come down.

I remember my first experience with y'all was back in the 80s when my wife went to Dallas on business and I came along. Went to a number of Lone Star stores, and the back issues had colored stickers, based on when the books had been put into stock. Certain color stickers were discounted, and I think I came home with a suitcase full of comics I picked up at a great price.

It was also when I first encountered how different areas can have different books available - it sometimes seemed like your back issue bin was made for me, as it was missing books I already had and was full of books I didn't.

[kalanye]

On 7/6/2022 at 2:01 PM, mycomicshop said:

On 7/6/2022 at 1:32 PM, KirbyTown said:

Can you shed some light on the reasoning behind so many consignments being grossly overpriced for a year or more? Do the owners just forget? Not care? False hope? Thanks

I think it's a combination of different reasons for different people:

- not super motivated, if they get their high price great but they're not in any rush to sell soon

- over-committed and not willing to cut their losses: paid too much originally, now they're anchored to their overpayment and not willing to sell for less

- speculation in action: their prices are unreasonable today, but they are guessing the book could jump in the future

And then beyond that for some people it's some combination of lack of knowledge, lack of time, and lack of effort.

 

These 2 points describe perfectly a few consignments I have posted right now. I've purposely overpriced them (but not insanely out of reach) because they are books that are guaranteed to pick up in interest since they are books that have a movie or tv show that'll be released within the next year. I'm not desperate to get rid of them immediately, so I'm willing to hold onto them until the related movie/tv show is about to be released or happy to sell them right now to a person that's willing to buy it at the price I've posted.

[kalanye]

So I'm fairly new to MCS and I've been consigning/auctioning my slabs with MCS for only around 4 months now and can say I'll never ever again sell my slabs on eBay–I sincerely wish I'd hopped on board earlier. I highly recommend giving it a go if you've been on the fence thinking about it. There was a bit of a learning curve to understand the layout and function of the different sections of MCS.com but once you figure it out the process has been so easy. Honestly the most challenging part of the experience for me is packing up slabs safely enough and getting shipped out. I've found that using pirateship.com for shipping has saved me a little bit on the shipping cost to MCS. I LOVE the fact that once your slabs are in their system (after a week or so after they've received your package), you can look at recent sales data from MCS and GPA to help you decide how to price your books.

I just started to utilize Auctions to move slabs I don't want to hold on to anymore and I've had good results so far with prices I'm happy with. I've got one auction that ended June 27th that hasn't been paid for yet but I'm hoping that will get resolved once the current Prime auction is finished up.

I do wish MCS and their auctions (at least their Prime auctions) were promoted/hyped a little better. I don't think I've seen a promo through CGC official emails yet, whereas I see Goldin, Heritage, ComicLink and Shortboxed constantly promoted. Even a more visible nod on social media would be a good idea. I hope that with addition of Steve Borock to the team, there will be some crazier auctions in the future that will attract more attention.

On the buying/purchasing side of things, I primarily use MCS to purchase all my preorders/subscriptions. Hands down the best prices (including shipping price, packaging, and bags/boards) I've seen so far. I do wish you could preorder incentives/ratios, but that's not a dealbreaker for me. I won/purchased my first auctions just this past week and thought I picked up some steals.

 

Edited July 7, 2022 by kalanye
more words

[bpc3qh]

Just popping in to say I love the idea of MCS posting to discuss why things aren't selling/are selling lower than desired--and especially the tone being used. It's really encouraging me to use them, if I ever get the wherewithal...

[phretbored]

Thanks OP for some great info

[Motor City Rob]

@mycomicshop

Any plans to consider a tiered commission structure in the future? I believe you're currently at 8% for auctions and 10% for fixed price (8% after $300), with everything capped at $1000 as well.  Would be very exciting to see something that entices sellers to offer some bigger books. I'm currently using Myslabs due to the 1% seller fee, and 0% for bigger books. It's a slower process since they are relatively new and don't yet have a large following, but they are growing and the money I'm saving is hard to pass up. 

Have never sold through MCS, but would absolutely give it a try if the fee structure were a little different. Sounds like a great place to sell!

[dover]

On 7/6/2022 at 5:10 PM, mycomicshop said:

 

Q: If I lower the price of a consignment book, does any person with the book on their watch list get a new notification? What triggers the notification, is the real question and can it work that if I lower my price the people watching get notified.

I would love this for books i am selling, but also for books I want to buy. 

[KirbyTown]

On 7/7/2022 at 7:03 AM, Motor City Rob said:

@mycomicshop

Any plans to consider a tiered commission structure in the future? I believe you're currently at 8% for auctions and 10% for fixed price (8% after $300), with everything capped at $1000 as well.  Would be very exciting to see something that entices sellers to offer some bigger books. I'm currently using Myslabs due to the 1% seller fee, and 0% for bigger books. It's a slower process since they are relatively new and don't yet have a large following, but they are growing and the money I'm saving is hard to pass up. 

Have never sold through MCS, but would absolutely give it a try if the fee structure were a little different. Sounds like a great place to sell!

 

Just a quick opinion from a seller while you wait for an official reply...

I may misunderstand how the site you mentioned works, but I remember thinking it was a pay variation of the craigslist model...is that the case?

Regardless, the part of the Lone Star arrangement where they pretty much take care of everything is one that can't be overemphasized, and because of that I feel that the fee is still underpriced, even at 8%. One thing you can't buy at any price is trust, and MCS is unquestionably the leader on that point for both sides of the transaction.

Also, it would make sense to me that if the thousand dollar commission cap puts you at something like a $12k book, then anything over that value becomes a bargain percentage-wise, and I'd be even more inclined to use MCS.

As a final note...even if their unprecedented amount of website traffic were to cease, your book would still already be waiting on countless watch lists that notify interested buyers immediately when you list.

Edited July 7, 2022 by KirbyTown

[mycomicshop]

On 7/7/2022 at 7:03 AM, Motor City Rob said:

@mycomicshop

Any plans to consider a tiered commission structure in the future? I believe you're currently at 8% for auctions and 10% for fixed price (8% after $300), with everything capped at $1000 as well.  Would be very exciting to see something that entices sellers to offer some bigger books. I'm currently using Myslabs due to the 1% seller fee, and 0% for bigger books. It's a slower process since they are relatively new and don't yet have a large following, but they are growing and the money I'm saving is hard to pass up. 

Have never sold through MCS, but would absolutely give it a try if the fee structure were a little different. Sounds like a great place to sell!

Our structure already creates decreasing percentages, just not 1% or 0%:

The things our service is doing that MySlabs isn't:

• saving you labor on shipping/fulfillment: make one large shipment or drop-off with us, vs packing and shipping however many individual shipments to buyers. We've recently had drop-offs/convention pickups of several hundred slabs, 1000, 2000 slabs at a time--that's a tremendous amount of labor the consignor is saving not doing hundreds or thousands of individual shipments to buyers.
• imaging
• submitting books to CGC for grading/reholdering if desired
• storing your items until they sell (desired in some circumstances, not in others)
• putting your book in front of our audience on MCS, and eBay, and most recently StockX (currently for a very small segment of our inventory because they haven't expanded their catalog much yet)
• making your book accessible to buyers worldwide at pretty reasonable shipping rates, without you having to worry about complications of shipping internationally
• insulating you from buyer issues including fraud, returns, and misc questions/complaints
• insulating you from shipping issues: damaged and lost shipments, etc.

Our service is more comparable to CL, CC, and HA in terms of what we do for our consignors, and they're charging 10% or more. If we were to expand into also offering a marketplace service in which we're not physically handling books for people, I think we would do that really well. We could offer that platform with lower rates though I don't want to speculate on what we would choose to charge.

[mycomicshop]

On 7/7/2022 at 7:57 AM, dover said:

Q: If I lower the price of a consignment book, does any person with the book on their watch list get a new notification? What triggers the notification, is the real question and can it work that if I lower my price the people watching get notified.

I would love this for books i am selling, but also for books I want to buy. 

Want list notifications go out under these circumstances:

• the first time a book is listed for sale, regardless of price
• when an auction opens for bidding and book(s) in the auction meet your want list criteria

Lowering your price by at least 5% below your previous lowest offered price will bump your item to the top of the New Listings page, but does not send a want list notification. Reason being: say the fair market value for a book is $100. Consignor has a book priced unreasonably high at $300. If the consignor cuts the price 5% to $285, it's still unreasonably high. I don't want somebody with that book on their want list getting an email telling them each time the book is  lowered to $285, $270, $250, etc, when all those prices are still way above what they'd be interested in paying.

The improvement we could make to this is to draw on what we internally think a fair market value is. If the price is within a reasonable range of our FMV estimate (tighter range for books with lots of data, looser range for books with little data), then lowering the price within that range would trigger a want list notification, but lowering the price while still above that range would not send a want list notification.

[dover]

On 7/7/2022 at 9:59 AM, mycomicshop said:

Want list notifications go out under these circumstances:

• the first time a book is listed for sale, regardless of price
• when an auction opens for bidding and book(s) in the auction meet your want list criteria

Lowering your price by at least 5% below your previous lowest offered price will bump your item to the top of the New Listings page, but does not send a want list notification. Reason being: say the fair market value for a book is $100. Consignor has a book priced unreasonably high at $300. If the consignor cuts the price 5% to $285, it's still unreasonably high. I don't want somebody with that book on their want list getting an email telling them each time the book is  lowered to $285, $270, $250, etc, when all those prices are still way above what they'd be interested in paying.

The improvement we could make to this is to draw on what we internally think a fair market value is. If the price is within a reasonable range of our FMV estimate (tighter range for books with lots of data, looser range for books with little data), then lowering the price within that range would trigger a want list notification, but lowering the price while still above that range would not send a want list notification.

Me buying: I am tracking about 200 books that I want to buy. I would be more than happy to receive an e-mail every time the consignor lowered their price, even $5 and even if they were above 12-month / 90-day GPA, etc....I can ignore e-mails, but I cannot re-search my 30 page Want list on a daily or hourly basis in case one of the books lowered their price.  You can take this as a vote from Dover and nothing more. No need to continue to re-hash. 

Me selling: sad. No need to explain further why you do not want to notify potential customers, I understand. In regard to a possible improvement, I would vote in favor of that, if I had a vote. 

Thank you for your time. Great to be able to interact and get responses in any manner. 

 

[KirbyTown]

On 7/6/2022 at 7:24 PM, kalanye said:

books that are guaranteed to pick up in interest

I hope you're right 😬

[shadroch]

On 7/6/2022 at 11:32 AM, MattTheDuck said:

It's pretty valuable to have a dispassionate eye on this.  My books are all worth multiples of GPA-highest sales in my eyes but that ain't the real world.

It doesn't hurt to try.  I've sold books on MCS for WAY more than current GPA.  If you don't ask, you'll never know. I recently had two Marvel Spotlight 28s or 29, I forget exactly.  Both were CGC 9.4s with white paper. Priced them $100 different thinking the lower priced would appear to be a bargain and sell faster. Only someone bought the more expensive copy. 

[sckao]

On 7/7/2022 at 6:59 AM, mycomicshop said:

Want list notifications go out under these circumstances:

• the first time a book is listed for sale, regardless of price
• when an auction opens for bidding and book(s) in the auction meet your want list criteria

Lowering your price by at least 5% below your previous lowest offered price will bump your item to the top of the New Listings page, but does not send a want list notification. Reason being: say the fair market value for a book is $100. Consignor has a book priced unreasonably high at $300. If the consignor cuts the price 5% to $285, it's still unreasonably high. I don't want somebody with that book on their want list getting an email telling them each time the book is  lowered to $285, $270, $250, etc, when all those prices are still way above what they'd be interested in paying.

The improvement we could make to this is to draw on what we internally think a fair market value is. If the price is within a reasonable range of our FMV estimate (tighter range for books with lots of data, looser range for books with little data), then lowering the price within that range would trigger a want list notification, but lowering the price while still above that range would not send a want list notification.

This could be an additional checkbox on the want list or profile page theoretically. (Send Notification whenever the price drops by whatever percentage.) This would take more processing power, but it would give the users more control over their want lists.

[dover]

On 7/7/2022 at 12:25 PM, sckao said:

This could be an additional checkbox on the want list or profile page theoretically. (Send Notification whenever the price drops by whatever percentage.) This would take more processing power, but it would give the users more control over their want lists.

Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes please!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!