Wills has been a seller since early 2009 after finding us on the Blowout Cards forums.  His inventory consists mainly of hockey, baseball and football cards.

Now living in the college town of Bloomington, Illinois, Wills started collecting in 1974. The Oakland Athletics’ dominance in the early 1970s prompted this desire. He still considers them his favorite team, but also roots for the White Sox.

His day job is with an auto parts company, but Wills has been selling at card shows and online for about a decade. He has settled on COMC mostly for the following reason.

“It’s so much easier than eBay,” he said. “I can send you cards and don’t have to worry about doing all the work.”

Thanks from the COMC staff!

It definitely made my day. I have been bedridden all week with a bad cold, so this is what they sent me.

If you can’t read the subtitle, it ways “The safe and easy way to avoid work for a week!”

I do have to admit, this has been one of the best weeks to stay in bed. I am falling in love with ESPN3.com... watching tons of the 2010 FIBA World Championships. There is a lot of good basketball talent all over the world.

$50 for a 550-count box of up to five different products for five-week processing

Restrictions
– Packages must be postmarked no later than October 15th
– Boxes must be clearly marked with your user name and “$50 Flat Rate”
– Boxes must be no larger than 10″ x 3 3/4″ x 2 3/4″
– No more than 5 different products* per box
– No more than 600 cards per box
– There is no limit to the number of 550ct boxes you send us
– Follow the instructions for how to ship to us

* A product would be something like 2009 Topps football. Any of the inserts and parallels included in 2009 Topps football are counted as part of that product. 2008 Topps football and 2009 Topps baseball would each be counted as additional products. You can give us up to 5 different products in one flat rate box.

Shipping Suggestion
You can fit three 550ct boxes nicely in a medium size priority box, and it only costs $10.70 for postage. Be sure to fill any excess space with padding.

Learn more about using our consignment service to sell your cards

Thank you for all of your Support!

This was a great experience. It was a reminder for me about what is important when shipping cards. Here is what I found.

Beckett Marketplace
Beckett Marketplace dealers are on the ball. They all pay at least $250/month to list their cards, so you can be assured that they will jump on your orders right away.
Speed - About 80% of the sellers had the cards shipped within 24 hours. An email with tracking information was sent as soon as the seller had shipped the cards.
Accuracy - Unfortunately 10% of the orders were either canceled or partially canceled because the sellers couldn’t find the cards ordered, and about 1 in 50 cards were incorrect. They gave me the right card number from the wrong set. The accuracy and completeness is about what I expected. As inventories get larger it gets harder to find everything and not make mistakes.
Packaging - All of the cards arrived securely, but about half of the packages were very hard to open. They were taped everywhere or the bubble-mailer used an ultra-sticky glue. It was very common to put multiple cards in an extra-thick toploader, and use of penny sleeves was fairly random. Occasionally cards were shipped in a hinged plastic case and taped shut (very frustrating to try to open).

Sportlots
The Sportlots experience was a little different. It is free to list, and sportlots keeps a cut of the sales. So the responsiveness of the sellers wasn’t quite as good as Beckett Marketplace.
Speed - About 30% of the sellers shipped within 24 hours, 30% within 48 hours, and the rest shipped 3-7 days later. A message was posted on the sportlots website when the order had been filled.
Accuracy - 100% of the 50+ cards ordered were received correctly.
Packaging – All of the cards arrived securely, but about half of the packages were simply mailed in a regular envelop. I guess that is how they cut on costs. Fortunately envelopes are very easy to open. The usage of card savers or toploaders and penny sleeves was also pretty random. Virtually none of the plastic holders were reusable. They had either been taped shut or they were already heavily used.

CheckOutMyCards.com
Here are some key takeaways that I have passed along to our shipping team.
Speed - We have increased the staffing of our shipping team to try to get packages out faster. Our stated guarantee on the website is that we will ship standard orders in 3-5 business days. In reality we have been averaging 2 business days. Now we are going to see how close we can get that to 1 business day. This used to be easy when we were only shipping a few hundred cards per day, but this is now quite a challenge as we are shipping a few thousand cards to hundreds of people all over the world each day. Our shipping team has great leadership, and I am confident we will make good progress on this goal.
Accuracy - Our accuracy is around 1 mistake per 1,000 cards shipped. This is very good, and we will continue to work hard to keep the accuracy high.
Packaging - We have made one nice upgrade in the past couple months. Now all cards that are purchased for $20 or more will be guaranteed to ship in toploaders. Previously it could be random which cards ended up in toploaders after we checked the accuracy of the order. From the 40 packages I received from other sellers, a few were packaged nearly as well as ours, but I didn’t see anything that were packaged better than our packages. Our team does a top notch job, and I have encouraged them to keep that up as we try to increase the speed. Our shipping team takes pride in the work that they do. When you receive a package it should feel like you are opening a present, and it should be an enjoyable experience. We welcome people to post youtube videos of opening the packages they receive from us, and we are always open to suggestions for ways to improve our shipping experience.

Beckett Marketplace
I first went to the Beckett Marketplace and pretty quickly found 102 cards that I wanted. The problem was that they were all split across 35 different sellers. My total shipping came to $90.07.

With our service you always get combined shipping because everything is stored in our warehouse. For 102 cards my shipping would have been $28.25 on our site, and if I use a free account and wait until the last week of the month, I can get that shipping down to $22.80 with the bulk shipping discount.

Sportlots
Next I tried Sportlots where I found 52 cards that I wanted. Here the cards where spread across 19 different sellers. They really try to offer extremely cheap shipping. Yet the shipping still came to $24.37 for their budget service. With our service the shipping would have only been $15.75 and it would have been at least as good as their premium shipping service.

eBay
Finally I tried eBay where I found 25 cards that I wanted. Unfortunately the 5 sellers were asking $5+ for cards that I could get for $0.50 on the other sites. In any case, shipping would have $25.45 for the 25 cards. With our service shipping on 25 cards is only $9.

Summary
With other services shipping fees very quickly add up and are hard to keep under control. With CheckOutMyCards.com you can count on quality shipping for around a quarter a card. This is $0.25 to $0.75 per card less than the other sites. These savings allow buyers to pay less out of pocket while sellers are putting more into their pocket. Ahh… the magic of efficiency. I love this hobby, and I love working hard to make CheckOutMyCards.com a great service for my fellow collectors.

Among our many show specials, the one that seemed the most popular today was the free shipping on drop-offs. We took in many full shoebox-style boxes, as well as dozens of 400-count boxes. With Geoff heading up our shipping department, we’ll get going tomorrow on packaging the cards we’ve received thus far so that we can ship them back to our warehouse and begin processing.

Since it was The National night at Oriole Park at Camden Yards, we all took in the Angels game. The Orioles nearly blew a 4-run lead late but got a walk-off hit up the middle by nine-hole hitter Cesar Izturis for a 5-4 win and a series sweep. Apparently Buck Showalter has made an immediate impression on this ballclub!

On Friday, it will be the only day that all five of us will be on hand so stay tuned for another update…

–Darren

4x4x4x4 special at 2248

In honor of the company’s 4th appearance at the National, we’re offering a special with the number 4 being the backbone of our theme. At the show, you can receive a special 400-count box with our company logo on top. (The exterior dimensions are 7” x 3 ¾” x 2 ¾”.) Put up to 4 different card products* in there for just $40 and we’ll get them processed within 4 weeks.

* A product would be something like 2009 Topps football. Any of the inserts and parallels included in 2009 Topps are counted as part of that product. You can give us up to 4 different product in one flat rate box.

Free shipping from 2248

Anyone wishing to drop off cards at our booth (2248) will receive free shipping, as we will be sending all batches via FedEx from Baltimore back to our office in Redmond, Washington at no charge. Additionally, we are also waiving the 5-cent fee for each card that is in a hard plastic of any kind (e.g. toploaders or screw downs). Feel free to drop off your cards from home or the cards you buy at the show. Our normal processing fees apply, but you won’t have to take the effort to package the cards or pay to ship them to us.

First time seller special

New sellers can get a $100 free Express service coupon simply by dropping by our booth (2248) or the Blowoutcards.com booth in the corporate area.

Win Prizes!

Finally, COMC is proud to announce that over the course of the show’s five days, we will be giving away $2,000 worth of products and services. So if the above reasons aren’t enough to check out our booth, this one definitely should be!

Thanks for reading this, and we’ll see you in a few days!

We here at COMC are planning on posting daily updates on our blog whereby we capture the highlights of our happenings at Booth #2248P. This space ironically happens to be next to our second-ranked consignor ddearing, who will occupy Booth #2149P.

So if you’re attending the show, make sure you stop by and say Hi. And if you’re not, just check our blog each day and we’ll hopefully give you a sense of what went down…