YouTube video about MyComicShop and ComicLink 9 9

[KCOComics]

On 11/24/2022 at 11:55 PM, Motor City Rob said:

I'm sorry but I think you might be really confused as to what GPA did or how GPA works. My belief is that GPA absolutely corrected this because MCS incorrectly reported this as a November sale. I'm hoping GPA is able to chime in to this thread as they've been asked by multiple people. 

I can appreciate it's imperfect and can skew market information for certain sales ..and this matters more in the rapidly changing market comics have been in for the last few years. 

But I don't believe MCS is doing anything wrong. A sale isn't a sale until it's paid for. I wouldn't feel comfortable reporting sales until they are complete. 

Perhaps the alternative is, once the book is paid for, MCS reports the completed sale with the original date.  In this case, they wouldn't report the book until November, but the sale would reflect a May date.  

 

[mycomicshop]

@Motor City RobWhat exactly would we accomplish by "reporting sales in a misleading way", since "we don't know if it's intentional or not"? Sounds like you're still entertaining the idea that we're somehow dishonest or shady? I don't appreciate that.

A day or two ago when I first saw this thread I emailed George at GPA to discuss this. I explained the situation and proposed ways we could address time payment orders going forward. All options have pros and cons, and none of those pros and cons are unique to us--anybody who offers time payments and reports to GPA would face the same issues. He and I will be discussing more soon (off today for Thanksgiving). George asked if I was good with moving the AF 15 sale to the original purchase date, and I said yeah, told him the date to use, and he moved it. That's not GPA fixing "our" problem, it's two partners working together to address a simple issue when made aware of the problem's existence. 
 

We started reporting to GPA a long time ago, probably over 10 years ago. At the time we didn't sell as many big books as we do now, and we didn't offer time payments. Since we offered both BIN sales and auction sales, and we didn't want to report sales to GPA that didn't get paid for, it made sense to not report sales til they were shipped, when we knew the sale was 100% going through. That way no unpaid orders, and no canceled orders, would ever be reported to GPA. This was discussed with GPA at the time and was a normal decision, not some weird thing we did or kept secret from GPA. I assume they have similar conversations with every reporter they work with.
 

As time passed we developed more business selling bigger books, and also started allowing time payments for buyers to pay for those big books. Reporting to GPA is a very minor aspect of what we do, so when we started accepting time payments it did not occur to me or anyone here that we needed to re-examine anything about GPA reporting. It just silently runs and we never think about it. 
 

Some people are way too quick to cast aspersions on businesses when they run across something questionable or confusing. Occam's razor--the simplest explanation is often the truth. Most businesses aren't trying to rip you off, and most things are the way they are due to some well-intentioned combination of historical inertia and accident. Please cut us some slack and don't act like this is some sneaky misdeed we may have been doing intentionally. It's the guilty until proven innocent just asking questions attitude that the original video got wrong. 

[mycomicshop]

And for the record, once George and I settle on how we'll handle these going forward, I'll share that here. In the meantime people are free to continue speculating as they wish. 

[Prince Namor]

On 11/24/2022 at 11:55 PM, Motor City Rob said:

I'm sorry but I think you might be really confused as to what GPA did or how GPA works. My belief is that GPA absolutely corrected this because MCS incorrectly reported this as a November sale. I'm hoping GPA is able to chime in to this thread as they've been asked by multiple people. 

I've been on GPA for 10 years, I'm well aware of how it works. 

They DO NOT want to post a price that is incorrect. That would be bad for them. Mistakes happen, but let's say they posted that sale in May and then the buyer backed out on the deal in August... MCS would have to report the bad deal and GPA would have to correct it, but by that time the information would've distorted the market. 

THAT's the real way to really get rumors and speculation going. THIS scenario is just some youtube click-bait chaser making up a story to damage reputations. 

The way you're saying it should be done would just cause MORE confusion and distrust. 

As I said, only someone trying to manipulate the market would want that information earlier which is EXACTLY what this scenario shows us could be done by reporting before the sale is actually complete. 

An agreement between MCS and a seller online isn't actually a sale until it has been completely paid for. 
 

There are private dealers who've been dealing with regular customers for decades who you could trust an agreed upon sale being reported... I'm sure that happens. But in this instance, no. It's not beneficial to anyone other than someone trying to manipulate the market. 

Edited November 25, 2022 by Prince Namor

[gpanalysis]

On 11/25/2022 at 4:08 PM, mycomicshop said:

@Motor City RobWhat exactly would we accomplish by "reporting sales in a misleading way", since "we don't know if it's intentional or not"? Sounds like you're still entertaining the idea that we're somehow dishonest or shady? I don't appreciate that.

A day or two ago when I first saw this thread I emailed George at GPA to discuss this. I explained the situation and proposed ways we could address time payment orders going forward. All options have pros and cons, and none of those pros and cons are unique to us--anybody who offers time payments and reports to GPA would face the same issues. He and I will be discussing more soon (off today for Thanksgiving). George asked if I was good with moving the AF 15 sale to the original purchase date, and I said yeah, told him the date to use, and he moved it. That's not GPA fixing "our" problem, it's two partners working together to address a simple issue when made aware of the problem's existence. 
 

We started reporting to GPA a long time ago, probably over 10 years ago. At the time we didn't sell as many big books as we do now, and we didn't offer time payments. Since we offered both BIN sales and auction sales, and we didn't want to report sales to GPA that didn't get paid for, it made sense to not report sales til they were shipped, when we knew the sale was 100% going through. That way no unpaid orders, and no canceled orders, would ever be reported to GPA. This was discussed with GPA at the time and was a normal decision, not some weird thing we did or kept secret from GPA. I assume they have similar conversations with every reporter they work with.
 

As time passed we developed more business selling bigger books, and also started allowing time payments for buyers to pay for those big books. Reporting to GPA is a very minor aspect of what we do, so when we started accepting time payments it did not occur to me or anyone here that we needed to re-examine anything about GPA reporting. It just silently runs and we never think about it. 
 

Some people are way too quick to cast aspersions on businesses when they run across something questionable or confusing. Occam's razor--the simplest explanation is often the truth. Most businesses aren't trying to rip you off, and most things are the way they are due to some well-intentioned combination of historical inertia and accident. Please cut us some slack and don't act like this is some sneaky misdeed we may have been doing intentionally. It's the guilty until proven innocent just asking questions attitude that the original video got wrong. 

Yep.

The only other thing I'll add here is that Conan is one of the most friendly, accomodating, thoughtful, intelligent and outstanding individuals I have had the pleasure to work with inside and outside the comic book industry. GPA is fortunate to have him as a supporter and contributor. The community is better inn having him as a participant. 

The dollar amount of this sale, the time frame, and the extreme fluctuations in the market over the past 1-2 years has created the perfect storm where this anomaly has needed to be readdressed. As pointed out, neither position is ideal (report day 1, report at last payment) but we're working through the scenarios and what's best for how these should be included/reported. We're doing this in a measured and considered way, and not hashing it out on a message board or via a YouTube video. 

[fastballspecial]

I think some of these Podcasters don't really understand the legal ramifications of what they are doing.
They think they can just say whatever they want without consequences. I think Mycomicshop handled this
much better than I would have if someone was accusing my business of collusion without proof.

 

[Aman619]

On 11/25/2022 at 12:55 AM, gpanalysis said:

Yep.

The only other thing I'll add here is that Conan is one of the most friendly, accomodating, thoughtful, intelligent and outstanding individuals I have had the pleasure to work with inside and outside the comic book industry. GPA is fortunate to have him as a supporter and contributor. The community is better inn having him as a participant. 

The dollar amount of this sale, the time frame, and the extreme fluctuations in the market over the past 1-2 years has created the perfect storm where this anomaly has needed to be readdressed. As pointed out, neither position is ideal (report day 1, report at last payment) but we're working through the scenarios and what's best for how these should be included/reported. We're doing this in a measured and considered way, and not hashing it out on a message board or via a YouTube video. 

Simple solution would be to post all sales that aren’t time payments as of the date of sale.  And for time payments, don’t report anything until full payment received, BUT, use the date the buyer agreed to buy the item as the sale date.  This way the buyers /‘ market interest level reflects the market when the buy decision was made.  If buyer needs time to pay, that a separate factor.  Tracking the comics market by sales should be based on the markets temperature at the time of the buy decision.  If buyer fails to pay, no sale happened and it’s not reported at all. 

[Telegan]

On 11/25/2022 at 1:12 AM, Aman619 said:

Simple solution would be to post all sales that aren’t time payments as of the date of sale.  And for time payments, don’t report anything until full payment received, BUT, use the date the buyer agreed to buy the item as the sale date.  This way the buyers /‘ market interest level reflects the market when the buy decision was made.  If buyer needs time to pay, that a separate factor.  Tracking the comics market by sales should be based on the markets temperature at the time of the buy decision.  If buyer fails to pay, no sale happened and it’s not reported at all. 

My only problem with this is it wouldn't show the level of interest at that time for the comic, and the information wouldn't be up-to-date.  It's almost like if you delay the showing of the sale, maybe from some accounting standpoint it can be construed as correct, but from a gauging of interest in the comic standpoint, you'd be months behind.

I wonder if GPA could have a "pending" status on the prices they show for these type of time payment sales?  That way a sale goes in immediately when it sold indicating a level of interest at that time for that issue.  Of course, then if the sale falls through or when the sale "finalizes", that price/entry would have to be removed or updated to "finalized"/"pending" status removed, too, I suppose.  And this update would also be months down the road, but at least you'd know in real-time the movement of that comic.

[Phill the Governor]

On 11/25/2022 at 2:33 AM, Telegan said:

My only problem with this is it wouldn't show the level of interest at that time for the comic, and the information wouldn't be up-to-date.  It's almost like if you delay the showing of the sale, maybe from some accounting standpoint it can be construed as correct, but from a gauging of interest in the comic standpoint, you'd be months behind.

I wonder if GPA could have a "pending" status on the prices they show for these type of time payment sales?  That way a sale goes in immediately when it sold indicating a level of interest at that time for that issue.  Of course, then if the sale falls through or when the sale "finalizes", that price/entry would have to be removed or updated to "finalized"/"pending" status removed, too, I suppose.  And this update would also be months down the road, but at least you'd know in real-time the movement of that comic.

 

@mycomicshop should be reporting the sale when it happened, like other auction houses that report to GPA and have the sale updated there once the auction ends. Not 6 months later once the book is paid off. This should be common sense and any other scenario should raise questions. Period.

If they don't want to report the sale, like comiclink, no problem. But if they do want to report the sale.. it's now not 6 months from now. With the price fluctuation on a book like this during the period of price change from 6 months ago to now, throwing a 6 month old sale into GPA becomes irresponsible at best and nefarious at worst. Imagine if all the books paid off with time payments by auction houses, or people using paypal credit on ebay, were recorded at the time of the final payment instead of when the sale really happened?

 

To be clear, I know 100% other auction houses that have engaged in this behavior before, so this is not limited to MCS; they are just the one's here that got called out.

Edited November 25, 2022 by Phill the Governor

[THE_BEYONDER]

AlI I know is that adding a GPA data point 6 months after the fact is ridiculous.   Why add it at all?   

[SeniorSurfer]

On 11/23/2022 at 2:49 PM, VintageComics said:

It takes a long time to build something good and very little effort to tear it down. Influencers should choose their words carefully.

As with other threads, this one has also evolved and I've learned a lot on how my favorite comic company works and GPA reporting.  There's also an interesting ongoing discussion (which we'll be hearing the outcome per Conan) on when/how time payment sales should be reported.  I can see the merit in both dates and I'm interested in seeing how this will play out, not just for MCS but for - I assume - forging a standardized way for all shops to report future dates of sale.

Getting back to the original topic, which was "Detective Dave," this community once again took the high road and did not over-react to his rants, choosing instead to, oh... find out some facts before reporting - something these influencers (and many media outlets to be sure) used to do before putting pen to paper, or in this case words in the ether.  Many like "Detective" Dave are quick to spew out their theories, but they're just that:  He had some data, took the time to set-up and post a video, and vomited out a position that he could fit around his incomplete information.  If you give him the benefit, you could say he had good intentions and wanted to point out an issue, but to throw around some inflammatory rhetoric for the sake of clicks and to be first in reporting is really disingenuous and harmful to some solidly established reputations.  Then to offer a weak apology?

I wholeheartedly agree with Vintage Comics' comment and I think if Detective "Dave" ever found himself on the receiving end of the same allegations he might learn a bit more about casting aspersions, reporting and himself as well.  Otherwise...

 

 

Edited November 25, 2022 by SeniorSurfer
Missing apostrophe

[Prince Namor]

On 11/25/2022 at 9:16 AM, THE_BEYONDER said:

AlI I know is that adding a GPA data point 6 months after the fact is ridiculous.   Why add it at all?   

Because it isn't paid for. It's not yet an actual sale. And as unscrupulous as this hobby can be at times, that information, if listed 6 months before it's an actual - completed - sale, could be used to manipulate the market.

GPA made the decision to move the sale back to when it was agreed upon, AFTER it had been completed. That's how it should be.

The book can't received or be resold until it's paid for, why should it be listed as a sale? It hasn't exchanged hands yet. It hasn't been finalized. 

Anyone who uses GPA as the be all end all of pricing decisions - on high dollar books - is maybe misinterpreting what GPA actually IS - simply a tool representative of a portion of sales - maybe 30 to 50%? Too much? Too little? - to give the market an IDEA of what someone has paid for a book. 

Most of the best sellers have a handle on the market to understand true FMV... and use GPA as a secondary, but helpful, tool...

[THE_BEYONDER]

On 11/25/2022 at 10:09 AM, Prince Namor said:

Because it isn't paid for. It's not yet an actual sale. And as unscrupulous as this hobby can be at times, that information, if listed 6 months before it's an actual - completed - sale, could be used to manipulate the market.

GPA made the decision to move the sale back to when it was agreed upon, AFTER it had been completed. That's how it should be.

The book can't received or be resold until it's paid for, why should it be listed as a sale? It hasn't exchanged hands yet. It hasn't been finalized. 

Anyone who uses GPA as the be all end all of pricing decisions - on high dollar books - is maybe misinterpreting what GPA actually IS - simply a tool representative of a portion of sales - maybe 30 to 50%? Too much? Too little? - to give the market an IDEA of what someone has paid for a book. 

Most of the best sellers have a handle on the market to understand true FMV... and use GPA as a secondary, but helpful, tool...

Again....

Why add a 6 month old sale at all?   It adds nothing 

[Ryan.]

Has everyone seen this top set of Katy Keenes:

https://www.mycomicshop.com/stores/KatyKeeneTopRegistrySet

Someone should make a YouTube video about it.

[mycomicshop]

On 11/25/2022 at 7:40 AM, Phill the Governor said:

 

To be clear, I know 100% other auction houses that have engaged in this behavior before, so this is not limited to MCS; they are just the one's here that got called out.

Did you not read my post? Phrasing that as us "engaged in this behavior" makes it sound like you think this is some ploy, something we're doing intentionally in order to gain some kind of benefit. Heck, this AF 15 is a book we bought ourselves, and sold ourselves, for a large amount of money. It would have benefited us MORE to report the sale back in May, since the sale links to our site.

We're only in this situation at all because our original GPA integration, prior to us offering time payments, was set up to provide 100% assurance that any sale we reported to GPA was an actual completed sale. Now that we're aware it causes confusion in the context of a time payment, we're addressing it.

[Phill the Governor]

On 11/25/2022 at 10:40 AM, mycomicshop said:

Did you not read my post? Phrasing that as us "engaged in this behavior" makes it sound like you think this is some ploy, something we're doing intentionally in order to gain some kind of benefit. Heck, this AF 15 is a book we bought ourselves, and sold ourselves, for a large amount of money. It would have benefited us MORE to report the sale back in May, since the sale links to our site.

Apparently you didn't read or understand my comment. An unprofessional response would be to become defensive when someone refers to misleading recorded sales data (which is what this is) as [engaging in specified behavior]. While MCS undeniably benefits from new sales of a book at new higher prices, I don't care about the benefit it affords you. The inaccurate reporting has greater consequences to everyone else that uses GPA. You and GPA are responsible if someone else bought a copy at a higher price because they viewed lagged information as a reflection of current prices - by a LARGE margin.

On 11/25/2022 at 10:40 AM, mycomicshop said:

We're only in this situation at all because our original GPA integration, prior to us offering time payments, was set up to provide 100% assurance that any sale we reported to GPA was an actual completed sale. Now that we're aware it causes confusion in the context of a time payment, we're addressing it.

As you should.

[mycomicshop]

On 11/25/2022 at 10:03 AM, Phill the Governor said:

Apparently you didn't read or understand my comment. An unprofessional response would be to become defensive when someone refers to misleading recorded sales data (which is what this is) as [engaging in specified behavior]. While MCS undeniably benefits from new sales of a book at new higher prices, I don't care about the benefit it affords you. The inaccurate reporting has greater consequences to everyone else that uses GPA. You and GPA are responsible if someone else bought a copy at a higher price because they viewed lagged information as a reflection of current prices - by a LARGE margin.

As you should.

Fair enough, sounds like I misjudged the tone/intent of your post.

[blazingbob]

On 11/25/2022 at 10:09 AM, Prince Namor said:

Because it isn't paid for. It's not yet an actual sale. And as unscrupulous as this hobby can be at times, that information, if listed 6 months before it's an actual - completed - sale, could be used to manipulate the market.

GPA made the decision to move the sale back to when it was agreed upon, AFTER it had been completed. That's how it should be.

The book can't received or be resold until it's paid for, why should it be listed as a sale? It hasn't exchanged hands yet. It hasn't been finalized. 

Anyone who uses GPA as the be all end all of pricing decisions - on high dollar books - is maybe misinterpreting what GPA actually IS - simply a tool representative of a portion of sales - maybe 30 to 50%? Too much? Too little? - to give the market an IDEA of what someone has paid for a book. 

Most of the best sellers have a handle on the market to understand true FMV... and use GPA as a secondary, but helpful, tool...

You keep banging this over and over again that it isn't paid for.  Ok,  the sale shouldn't be reported with the date of the sale until it is paid for.  If a time payment isn't completed the sale isn't reported.      

Again,  If I suddenly shipped GPA my full CGC Payment status = Sold sales data I would change past GPA sales for the last 20 years very quickly.  

Edited November 25, 2022 by blazingbob

[Prince Namor]

On 11/25/2022 at 10:11 AM, THE_BEYONDER said:

Again....

Why add a 6 month old sale at all?   It adds nothing 

Because it happened and was paid for completely in November. 
 

The completion of sale isn't only of interest when it happens... quite the contrary: it's information that is stored to be used for the life of the market. 

[shadroch]

On 11/24/2022 at 9:25 PM, Motor City Rob said:

Huh? Where are you getting your information? GPA posted the sale in November once MCS reported it as a completed sale. The only reason GPA has moved it back to May is because of the video and this discussion. GPA fixed something that was reported wrong. No one is saying MCS broke any laws, but the way this sale was originally reported (as a November sale) was misleading. 

You aren't saying MCS broke any laws by volunteering sales information to a service? That is might generous of you.

If I were MCS, I'd say screw it and not report any sales, ever.  That will solve any problems some misinformed people have.

I know what GPA gets from MCS sharing their sales with them, but what does MCS get out of the relationship?