Our Recent Experience Selling Comics Through Mycomicshop 23 23

[mycomicshop]

On 7/7/2022 at 11:25 AM, 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.

Excellent suggestion. Don't think that should be too hard to set up as a user controllable option, we'll take a look at doing that.

[manetteska]

On 7/7/2022 at 11:56 AM, mycomicshop said:

On 7/7/2022 at 11:25 AM, 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.

Excellent suggestion. Don't think that should be too hard to set up as a user controllable option, we'll take a look at doing that.

[Motor City Rob]

On 7/7/2022 at 9:46 AM, KirbyTown said:

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?

Not clear on the "Craigslist model" you are referencing. Myslabs is really simple. When your book sells, they take 1% of the sale price (or 0% for books over 60k). They are still fairly new with comics but they've been an established platform for trading cards for awhile. Moved into comics a year or so ago. 

[Motor City Rob]

On 7/7/2022 at 9:50 AM, mycomicshop said:

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.

Thanks for the clarification. On your website, I missed the detail where commission reduces to 8%. Obviously customers would love to see even smaller fees but I understand you guys offer more than than most other consignees and there is value to that. 

[ttfitz]

On 7/7/2022 at 10:12 AM, dover said:

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. 

If I'm honest, I almost never read the wantlist emails - I'm too cheap to pay market price in a lot of cases, so I'm not likely to see something I want to buy that's just been listed. But I sure would like it if there was some way to search thru my wantlist books for things like dropped prices, or if something was on sale.

[KirbyTown]

On 7/7/2022 at 11:56 AM, mycomicshop said:

Excellent suggestion. Don't think that should be too hard to set up as a user controllable option, we'll take a look at doing that.

If you do, please promote it heavily so current want list users will know they can go and change it immediately 👍

[Nick Furious]

My first post on the forum, hopefully it gets approved.  A while back I started selling exclusively through MCS.  My 2022 sales just went over $20K with 110 books sold.  I'm sure that number is large to some and smallish to others.  But what's worth noting is that MCS made less than $2,000 on those 110 books.  That seems hardly enough to compensate for all the man-hours put into processing, storing, pulling and shipping.  I'm convinced that I get the better end of the deal.  If someone offered me $2,000 for all that work, I would decline it.  

The only place where I don't give MCS a 10 out of 10 is Visibility (other than the marked up Ebay listings).  I've done many 5% price reductions to get on the "New In Stock" list, but haven't really seen any immediate results from that.  I've also tried pricing aggressively at initial set-up to take advantage of the want list notifications.  That had more success but was limited.  I would be incredibly happy to see a "want list" notification sent out on price reductions.  Maybe there is a way to keep consignors honest in their pricing expectations by putting some kind of minor cost or limitations on the additional visibility opportunities? 

I also have learned not to be afraid of putting books into auction (after a few discounts) if I truly believe that lack of visibility is the only thing keeping it from selling.  I have certainly had some disappointments, but I have also had several pleasant surprises where the final auction price was more than my discounted BIN asking price.  Sometimes it turns out that all the book needed was additional visibility.  I have also found this to be true for raw books that I felt were graded very strictly.  Putting them into auction and letting the market decide often works out better for me than trying to sell them with BIN.       

[workingdog]

On 7/8/2022 at 10:16 PM, Nick Furious said:

 Putting them into auction and letting the market decide often works out better for me than trying to sell them with BIN.       

Agreed.  The only problem is when the winning bidder(s) don't pay.  I just relisted two books because the winning deadbeats didn't pay up

[KirbyTown]

On 7/8/2022 at 10:16 PM, Nick Furious said:

I also have learned not to be afraid of putting books into auction (after a few discounts) if I truly believe that lack of visibility is the only thing keeping it from selling.

 

Welcome! 🥳

 

There's definitely a point at which it makes more sense to toss certain items into a weekly, but those auctions are essentially bargain bins. I don't believe weekly results represent any kind of true market value, which is much better represented by curated auctions. Buyers attend Prime-type auctions with a plan to fight for items they want, whereas buyers drop by the weeklies to see which prices they'd be foolish to pass up.

[Nick Furious]

On 7/11/2022 at 11:39 AM, workingdog said:

Agreed.  The only problem is when the winning bidder(s) don't pay.  I just relisted two books because the winning deadbeats didn't pay up

I agree, and I don't really like the 14 day lag in learning if your auction item will be paid for or not.  It's also why I don't do "best offer" anymore after having a $2,500 book sit in limbo for 2 weeks or more, probably while the buyer was trying to broker a resale.  At least with BIN the book has to be paid for before it comes out of inventory.  But for auctions I imagine not having to pay immediately must have some positive effect on the final selling prices overall.     

[Nick Furious]

On 7/11/2022 at 1:40 PM, KirbyTown said:

 

Welcome! 🥳

 

There's definitely a point at which it makes more sense to toss certain items into a weekly, but those auctions are essentially bargain bins. I don't believe weekly results represent any kind of true market value, which is much better represented by curated auctions. Buyers attend Prime-type auctions with a plan to fight for items they want, whereas buyers drop by the weeklies to see which prices they'd be foolish to pass up.

I agree.  You have to chose items more carefully for the weekly auctions.  The weekly auction can work out well for something like a Daredevil 168 4.0 raw or slabbed, while a 9.4 you would definitely want to sell by BIN or hold for Prime Auction.  

[KirbyTown]

On 7/11/2022 at 5:01 PM, Nick Furious said:

It's also why I don't do "best offer" anymore after having a $2,500 book sit in limbo for 2 weeks or more

2+ weeks waiting for a best offer to pay?

[Nick Furious]

On 7/11/2022 at 3:40 PM, KirbyTown said:

2+ weeks waiting for a best offer to pay?

It's not the norm but I believe best offers have the same amount of time to pay as auctions...something like 15 days.  And if someone is going to back out you won't know it until the end.  This one was more frustrating than most because it was an amount of money that a commoner like myself would plan other purchase decisions around.  

[ttfitz]

On 7/11/2022 at 6:01 PM, Nick Furious said:

But for auctions I imagine not having to pay immediately must have some positive effect on the final selling prices overall.     

It does for me - if I can combine shipping over multiple auctions, I can bid more on a book.

[KirbyTown]

On 7/11/2022 at 6:00 PM, Nick Furious said:

It's not the norm but I believe best offers have the same amount of time to pay as auctions...something like 15 days.  

 

Weird, I remember posting something earlier in this thread about this. Found:

 

On 6/19/2022 at 9:48 AM, KirbyTown said:

from https://www.mycomicshop.com/help/bestoffer

What happens if your offer is accepted

If the seller accepts your offer, the item is reserved for you at the agreed upon price. Please visit your shopping cart and go through checkout to complete your purchase of the item within 7 days. If you have still not placed your order 7 days after your offer was accepted, your offer will be canceled and you will lose the ability to make offers on other items.

 

 

[KirbyTown]

On 7/11/2022 at 7:15 PM, ttfitz said:

combine shipping

equals more buying 🥳

[thehumantorch]

On 7/8/2022 at 9:16 PM, Nick Furious said:

My first post on the forum, hopefully it gets approved.  A while back I started selling exclusively through MCS.  My 2022 sales just went over $20K with 110 books sold.  I'm sure that number is large to some and smallish to others.  But what's worth noting is that MCS made less than $2,000 on those 110 books.  That seems hardly enough to compensate for all the man-hours put into processing, storing, pulling and shipping.  I'm convinced that I get the better end of the deal.  If someone offered me $2,000 for all that work, I would decline it.  

The only place where I don't give MCS a 10 out of 10 is Visibility (other than the marked up Ebay listings).  I've done many 5% price reductions to get on the "New In Stock" list, but haven't really seen any immediate results from that.  I've also tried pricing aggressively at initial set-up to take advantage of the want list notifications.  That had more success but was limited.  I would be incredibly happy to see a "want list" notification sent out on price reductions.  Maybe there is a way to keep consignors honest in their pricing expectations by putting some kind of minor cost or limitations on the additional visibility opportunities? 

I also have learned not to be afraid of putting books into auction (after a few discounts) if I truly believe that lack of visibility is the only thing keeping it from selling.  I have certainly had some disappointments, but I have also had several pleasant surprises where the final auction price was more than my discounted BIN asking price.  Sometimes it turns out that all the book needed was additional visibility.  I have also found this to be true for raw books that I felt were graded very strictly.  Putting them into auction and letting the market decide often works out better for me than trying to sell them with BIN.       

Welcome to the boards Nick

[KirbyTown]

@mycomicshop

While high bidder during countdown I bumped up my high bid and it reset the clock. Didn't know if this was intentional so just letting you know.

[Nick Furious]

On 7/11/2022 at 6:16 PM, KirbyTown said:

 

Weird, I remember posting something earlier in this thread about this. Found:

 

 

@KirbyTownI was mistaken about best offers having 15 days to pay.  It probably just felt like 15 days as I checked every day to see if the purchase had completed.   

[KirbyTown]

On 7/11/2022 at 9:25 PM, Nick Furious said:

@KirbyTownI was mistaken about best offers having 15 days to pay.  It probably just felt like 15 days as I checked every day to see if the purchase had completed.   

Thanks for the info, I've never used it as a seller and still probably won't!