Collectors Comics - How do they make money? 2 2

[Nick Furious]

On 8/21/2023 at 10:06 PM, wiparker824 said:

I get it, but it’s also against PayPal’s user agreement to abuse the F&F like that, and why you don’t see most businesses ask you to send them money on F&F anymore. 

F&F creates a really bad situation if something happens in transit as there is no buyer protection.  G&S is basically insurance against this.  If an item is being shipped, F&F is a risky choice even when buying from Friends and Family.

[Beastfeast]

I would expect nothing less from David and those goons.  

[dikran]

Auctioned off about 10k worth of books in their last 2 auctions, no issues getting paid last time. Also no issues with communication, Thomas replies pretty quickly to direct emails.

[shadroch]

On 8/20/2023 at 8:41 PM, Flanders82 said:

 

I'm assuming this is the same guy. I'm not a big fan of one of his son's youtube channels, but I'm not about to judge someone based on how closely related they are to a possible crook. I'd hate to be judged by my closest relatives instead of by my own actions. Unless I hear that the sons are dirtbags, I wish them the best of luck with collectors comics. I've used them before and was happy with my winnings, but I've yet to sell some of the dreck I've listed there.

Follow the money and connect the dots.

[Ryan.]

On 8/25/2023 at 10:42 AM, dikran said:

Auctioned off about 10k worth of books in their last 2 auctions, no issues getting paid last time. Also no issues with communication, Thomas replies pretty quickly to direct emails.

How quickly do they normally pay?

[dikran]

On 8/25/2023 at 11:34 AM, Ryan. said:

How quickly do they normally pay?

The first payments go out 2 mondays after the end of the auction, so this upcoming monday (if all buyers paid on time...) if not they pay every monday once payment is received.

[dikran]

Apologies, it’s the Monday 2 weeks after the end of the auction, so that should be next Monday not today. 

[dikran]

Looks like next auction is 5% selling fee (5$ minimum) and no buyer premium... fun while it lasted... guess i gotta find a new outlet for blowing out my 8.0 modern slabs

[Ryan.]

On 8/30/2023 at 12:46 PM, dikran said:

Looks like next auction is 5% selling fee (5$ minimum) and no buyer premium... fun while it lasted... guess i gotta find a new outlet for blowing out my 8.0 modern slabs

Curious if their submissions go down.

[dikran]

On 8/30/2023 at 12:55 PM, Ryan. said:

Curious if their submissions go down.

If you could bundle lesser graded books into one listing, might still be worth it over eBay. But I don't know if they do multi slab listings (they do for raws...)

[WolverineX]

On 8/21/2023 at 4:26 PM, Ryan. said:

I had 3 books in this just closed auction, as a trial. Nothing worth more than $150-$200.

The first ended where I thought it would, almost to the dollar.

The second book ended at 40% of where i expected. Puke.

the third book ended at about 75% of what I expected. Blah.

All in all I would consider the experiment a failure but won't rule out sending books in the future if the site gets more traction.

yikes. though, several of my comiclink sales have been pretty low recently too.  

[Number 6]

On 8/30/2023 at 9:46 AM, dikran said:

Looks like next auction is 5% selling fee (5$ minimum) and no buyer premium... fun while it lasted... guess i gotta find a new outlet for blowing out my 8.0 modern slabs

Assuming you can expect to get roughly the same amount at auction, those fees are still less than ComicLink and MCS.

I had contemplated consigning with CollectorsComics, not so much because of the 0% consignment fee (though that would have been nice) but because they are in the same state as I am and it would be a lot cheaper to ship them CGC books as opposed to shipping them across the country to Clink.

Aside from the fact that they may not be established enough yet to get the same results as Clink, the whole asking for PayPal Friends & Family for payment really gives me pause.

If they weren't charging fees on either end of the transaction (and weren't selling their own books) I could maybe see an argument that they're just as an intermediary between buyer and seller and aren't profiting off the sale at all as a justification for F&F.  But if they're charging either a commission fee or buyers fee and/or offering their own books in the auction that payment option really needs to be dropped.

It just comes off like a WhatNot seller trying to muscle in on the big boys.  

Edited August 31, 2023 by Number 6

[toro]

On 9/20/2023 at 6:59 AM, MikeBishop said:

Collectibles Comics is quite intriguing, isn't it? The fact that they don't charge any fees for auctions or marketplace sales raises the question of how they sustain their business. It's likely that they generate income through alternative means, such as advertising, offering premium memberships, or possibly taking a percentage of transactions in some cases.

In the next auction they are starting to charge fees to the sellers.

Featured Auction item sales have a 5% Final Value Fee (5% of the sale price) for all items sold within the auctions. There is NO Buyer’s Premium when bidders make their purchases.

• $5 minimum fee ($5 or 5%, whichever is higher)
• $500 maximum fee ($500 or 5%, whichever is lower)
• Third party graded items – $5 minimum fee
• Raw items/lots – $10 minimum fee

Fee examples:

The $5 minimum fee means that it will be 5% of the sale OR the minimum of $5 (if an item sells for $100 or less, our fee will be $5).

The $500 maximum fee means that it will be 5% of the sale OR the maximum of $500 (if an item sells for $10,000 or more, our fee will be only $500).

[justafan]

On 8/31/2023 at 12:37 PM, Number 6 said:

Assuming you can expect to get roughly the same amount at auction, those fees are still less than ComicLink and MCS.

I had contemplated consigning with CollectorsComics, not so much because of the 0% consignment fee (though that would have been nice) but because they are in the same state as I am and it would be a lot cheaper to ship them CGC books as opposed to shipping them across the country to Clink.

Aside from the fact that they may not be established enough yet to get the same results as Clink, the whole asking for PayPal Friends & Family for payment really gives me pause.

If they weren't charging fees on either end of the transaction (and weren't selling their own books) I could maybe see an argument that they're just as an intermediary between buyer and seller and aren't profiting off the sale at all as a justification for F&F.  But if they're charging either a commission fee or buyers fee and/or offering their own books in the auction that payment option really needs to be dropped.

It just comes off like a WhatNot seller trying to muscle in on the big boys.  

Maybe but not much different from. CLink accepting a check or Heritage taking ACH bank transfers. Both are fee free and offer little protection. On the flip side. CLINK and Heritage.both charge an additional fee for CC transactions.

[Number 6]

On 9/21/2023 at 11:35 PM, justafan said:

Maybe but not much different from. CLink accepting a check or Heritage taking ACH bank transfers. Both are fee free and offer little protection. On the flip side. CLINK and Heritage.both charge an additional fee for CC transactions.

The difference is that when you use a check or an ACH you’re not using that form of payment for something that it wasn’t intended and violating the issuing institution’s terms of service. 
 

PayPal’s F&F is not intended to purchase merchandise from an auction house and as such violates their terms. Just because they don’t physically stop people from using it this way doesn’t mean their ok with it. 
 

So on the one hand Collectors Comics expects users to abide by their terms of use but then when it comes to payment Collectors  Comics gently nudges their users to violate another businesses' terms of service so they can reap a little extra financial benefit. 
 

I understand that there always has been and probably always will be an effort to equivocate using F&F this way with something that is acceptable, and as such this type of “principled” argument will probably fall on deaf ears for the most part. 
 

But to my eyes, it’s not a good look and raises the question:  if they’ve going to play fast and loose with this, at what point will they decide to bend the rules again if it’s to their benefit and they think they can pull it off?

Edited September 22, 2023 by Number 6

[jonminkun36]

On 8/14/2023 at 6:32 PM, SpineTic said:

Comic book collectors can make money in a variety of ways if they have rare or valuable comic book issues. Everyone earns as much as they can. I recently logged in to Zodiac Casino, my friend also Zodiac Casino login and now we’re playing together. It’s hard to get into it for now, but this is due to the fact that I have 0 experience. I think with time I will understand what's what.

 

and that is all? interesting...

Edited October 29, 2023 by jonminkun36

[david182]

Hey its David here from CollectorsComics also my youtube show ComicBookInvestments. Just saw this thread and thought I'd clear up some confusion and add maybe some clarification.

1. The pop up: For some reason this has been one of the most buggy features we have. Don't know why but every time we fix it, it comes back. We want it to only pop up once, but it has a mind of its own. I've now asked my web developer to only have it on the main front page. Hopefully that helps. Realized it was the most requested annoying thing about our site.

2. The stickers. We purposely made them super easy to remove. Like really really easy. They don't leave any residue either. Alot of the time we get in books that have stickers from other companies (comiclink, hakes, heritage, ect..) and some of those companies have really hard ones to remove. So it make its much easier to just simply put ours over it plus its also advertising for us. If you get one, you'll find its really easy to remove and leave no residue either. If you don't want it there. 

3. Paypal friends/family: Paypal takes 3.5% plus 35 cents for each transaction. We cannot take that cost. So that is why we charge a 3.5% fee if someone wants to go Good/Services. If they don't want to pay that fee we have options. Friends/Family, Venmo, Check, Money Order, or Zelle. Personally we prefer Zelle as its pretty much a ACH transfer and its the easiest to deal with. We also pay people out that have sold us with any of the ones listed. I'd say about 50% use paypal, and then maybe 20% use friends/family. With the rest mostly using Zelle or Check. Also other auction houses such as comicconnect use friends/family paypal as well. Not sure about Comiclink as I've always just sent them a check.

4. Yes we are 100% free: For the first 2 years of our auctions we have 0% buyers and sellers fees. We did that to build trust and establish ourselves. Also I believe that we have to offer a good enough service in order to charge. Our current auction November of 2023 is our first auction we started to charge 5% seller fee. We also do a $5 minimum but the end fee is whatever is greater (example book sells for $200 then its $10 fee to us, sells for $50 its a $5 fee to us). We feel that books and our service our now up to that level and it also helps us continue to build on the site. As before we just did everything for free and made no money for 2 years. Our marketplace (Buy It Now) section is 100% free still. Its similar to ebay, you make a sellers account and list your books and sell them to other people. We don't charge a single penny to use that. But for the Feature Auctions we do, as we picture and list, then ship, and figure out all the payments for sellers. 

5. Buggy Website: We are constantly fixing our website. There always seems to be more bugs every day to work out (the pop up). That is an on going process that if you have a problem you can email/message us and we will try to get to it. I would say most of the bugs are on the mobile side, as we mainly focus on the desktop, then circle back to the mobile after we got it worked out on desktop first. We need to be better about the mobile as it is about 50% of our customer base uses it. 

6. Prices/FMV: I think what most people forget is they look at the FMV or GPA and think a book should go for X price. Usually the GPA average includes BUY IT NOW prices which are usually higher than auction prices. Its best to compare auction to auction prices for a fair estimate of what your book would go for. I do an analysis of the books sold in our auctions on my Youtube channel every auction. I've seen the exact same book and grade go for higher and lower then all the other site (heriage, comiclink, comiccconnect, ebay, ect...) It really all depends who is watching and bidding that particular day. Also when you factor in our 0% but now 5% fees, we almost always come out ahead for the seller. We gotten similar prices to heritage but when you factor in they charge a 20% buyers premium plus also a sellers fee ontop of that sometimes. You could be losing upwards of 30% on your same book as opposed to 5%. Just something to keep in mind. Ebay is nearly 15% and you have to do all the work yourself as well (listing, picturing, shipping, messages)

 

Hope that answers all your questions/comments. I never go on here and I think this is my first post, you can find me mostly on my youtube channel. If you leave a comment on there I'm much more likely to see it. Anyways feel free to give us a try as we currently have our Quarterly Featured Auction running. 

 

-David Wilson (Yes, the son of Mark Wilson, who is actually one of the head graders at CBCS now, and doesn't really deal in comics as much anymore)

 

[Cat]

On 10/31/2023 at 2:53 AM, david182 said:

Hey its David here from CollectorsComics also my youtube show ComicBookInvestments. Just saw this thread and thought I'd clear up some confusion and add maybe some clarification.

1. The pop up: For some reason this has been one of the most buggy features we have. Don't know why but every time we fix it, it comes back. We want it to only pop up once, but it has a mind of its own. I've now asked my web developer to only have it on the main front page. Hopefully that helps. Realized it was the most requested annoying thing about our site.

2. The stickers. We purposely made them super easy to remove. Like really really easy. They don't leave any residue either. Alot of the time we get in books that have stickers from other companies (comiclink, hakes, heritage, ect..) and some of those companies have really hard ones to remove. So it make its much easier to just simply put ours over it plus its also advertising for us. If you get one, you'll find its really easy to remove and leave no residue either. If you don't want it there. 

3. Paypal friends/family: Paypal takes 3.5% plus 35 cents for each transaction. We cannot take that cost. So that is why we charge a 3.5% fee if someone wants to go Good/Services. If they don't want to pay that fee we have options. Friends/Family, Venmo, Check, Money Order, or Zelle. Personally we prefer Zelle as its pretty much a ACH transfer and its the easiest to deal with. We also pay people out that have sold us with any of the ones listed. I'd say about 50% use paypal, and then maybe 20% use friends/family. With the rest mostly using Zelle or Check. Also other auction houses such as comicconnect use friends/family paypal as well. Not sure about Comiclink as I've always just sent them a check.

4. Yes we are 100% free: For the first 2 years of our auctions we have 0% buyers and sellers fees. We did that to build trust and establish ourselves. Also I believe that we have to offer a good enough service in order to charge. Our current auction November of 2023 is our first auction we started to charge 5% seller fee. We also do a $5 minimum but the end fee is whatever is greater (example book sells for $200 then its $10 fee to us, sells for $50 its a $5 fee to us). We feel that books and our service our now up to that level and it also helps us continue to build on the site. As before we just did everything for free and made no money for 2 years. Our marketplace (Buy It Now) section is 100% free still. Its similar to ebay, you make a sellers account and list your books and sell them to other people. We don't charge a single penny to use that. But for the Feature Auctions we do, as we picture and list, then ship, and figure out all the payments for sellers. 

5. Buggy Website: We are constantly fixing our website. There always seems to be more bugs every day to work out (the pop up). That is an on going process that if you have a problem you can email/message us and we will try to get to it. I would say most of the bugs are on the mobile side, as we mainly focus on the desktop, then circle back to the mobile after we got it worked out on desktop first. We need to be better about the mobile as it is about 50% of our customer base uses it. 

6. Prices/FMV: I think what most people forget is they look at the FMV or GPA and think a book should go for X price. Usually the GPA average includes BUY IT NOW prices which are usually higher than auction prices. Its best to compare auction to auction prices for a fair estimate of what your book would go for. I do an analysis of the books sold in our auctions on my Youtube channel every auction. I've seen the exact same book and grade go for higher and lower then all the other site (heriage, comiclink, comiccconnect, ebay, ect...) It really all depends who is watching and bidding that particular day. Also when you factor in our 0% but now 5% fees, we almost always come out ahead for the seller. We gotten similar prices to heritage but when you factor in they charge a 20% buyers premium plus also a sellers fee ontop of that sometimes. You could be losing upwards of 30% on your same book as opposed to 5%. Just something to keep in mind. Ebay is nearly 15% and you have to do all the work yourself as well (listing, picturing, shipping, messages)

 

Hope that answers all your questions/comments. I never go on here and I think this is my first post, you can find me mostly on my youtube channel. If you leave a comment on there I'm much more likely to see it. Anyways feel free to give us a try as we currently have our Quarterly Featured Auction running. 

 

-David Wilson (Yes, the son of Mark Wilson, who is actually one of the head graders at CBCS now, and doesn't really deal in comics as much anymore)

 

Businesses aren't allowed to use F&F at ALL. You're risking your entire account, plus your customers. To me that screams shady right from the start. You should really stop using that before PayPal catches on. 

[Hamlet]

On 5/19/2023 at 10:43 PM, toro said:

Has anyone dealt with Collectibles Comics? 

Whether it is an auction or a marketplace sale they don't charge any fees, how do they make money?

https://collectorscomics.com

 

 

[toro]

On 11/1/2023 at 10:27 AM, Hamlet said:

 

 

We with this auction they start making money.  They will take 5% on graded and 10% on raw books.