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COMC vs. SportLots: The Showdown

With trading cards of all types bring difficult to find in retail, many collectors seem to have flocked to the various trading card selling sites - myself included.  In fact, within this year I've placed two fairly larger orders (by my standards at least) - one from COMC and one from Sportlots.

Let's compare and contrast, shall we?

COMC:

Order date:  January 17, 2021
Order arrived:  (still hasn't even shipped)
Total cards in order:  52
Cost of order:  $149.21
Cost of shipping:  $6.99

Sportlots:

Order date:  April 18, 2021
Order arrived:  
Order spread across 16 sellers (I didn't do the box shipping option)
4/21:  2 arrived
4/22:  4 arrived
4/23:  3 arrived
4/24:  1 arrived
4/28:  1 arrived
4/29:  1 arrived
5/1:  1 arrived
5/3:  1 arrived
As of 5/4:  2 still have not arrived
Total cards in order:  42
Cost of order:  $73.61
Cost of shipping:  $31.88

So there you have it - two different websites and two vastly different results.  

Let's start with COMC.  Ever since the pandemic took hold of the country, COMC has stated that they are way behind on shipping.  For quite a while, that made sense to me (and I was okay with it).  However, it's now been over a year since covid ravaged the land and still COMC is struggling to ship packages.  For what it's worth, my "estimate ship date" was 4/19 with a delivery date of 4/25.  Obviously, both of those dates have now come and gone and still no cards for me.  Also, the $6.99 shipping charge is a joke when you have to wait over 1/3 of a year to get your cards.

As for Sportlots, I chose to stick with individual sellers shipping directly to me which meant I ended up with a higher shipping charge than I would have liked.  That said, I chose my sellers carefully so the difference between direct shipping and box shipping really wasn't all that much.  The good news is that 14 of the 16 packages have since arrived...all in the span of about two weeks.  Of course, the bad news is that two packages have not yet arrived.

Given that COMC still hasn't shipped my cards, I don't have anything to show off from that site but I can begin to show off some of my purchases from Sportlots.


Each of the six cards above came from different sellers.  Interestingly enough, the two Aaron Judge "Tarot of the Diamond" cards were the final two cards that I needed from the 2018 set!  That means I'm now at 16 different sets completed in 2021!

The other cards are from the 2012 Topps Archives set - I'm still in need of three more of the In Action inserts and two more of the Combos inserts before I can mark both of those sets complete as well!  Slow and steady progress on a set that's now almost a decade old!

I'll have more Sportlots cards to show off in future posts.  Eventually (hopefully?!), I'll have quite a few COMC cards to show off as well...but for right now if you are looking to make an order from a website I think the winner is clearly Sportlots over COMC (even with the much higher overall shipping costs).  At least with Sportlots you'll get (most of) your cards in a reasonable time frame.  


Comments

  1. Thanks for your comparison! I'll come back next year for your report on COMC.

    (I'm still waiting on my 2 COMC orders to ship as well. Both were requested on the same day in November 2020. Expected ship date had been March 30 for the first, a week later for the second)

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  2. I'm wondering if COMC is going to be around in another 2 years if they don't get shipping straight. I've been using express shipping there just so it doesn't take me a year to get my cards, but I see that getting old soon. ... For Sportlots, I flip between the box option and ordering direct from sellers. The box saves on shipping but I HATE waiting so long for cards. Then there is this weirdness: I was going to order direct from sellers in the most recent order but 2 cards from one seller would have cost me $90 more (that's right) than if I used the box option. So, box it was. ... Sometimes ebay doesn't look so bad.

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  3. It's sad to hear COMC is still having these shipping delays... because it's my favorite place to buy singles. I wonder what the deal is. Are they having trouble finding reliable and trustworthy labor? Whatever it is... I hope they figure it out (and soon), because I'd hate to see collectors abandon (even though I wouldn't blame them) such a (once upon a time) great resource to collectors.

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  4. I'm hoping that COMC gets is shit together soon. I'm still building a stack there since I figure if I'm waiting forever I may as well keep shopping. Sooner or later the ship times have to become reasonable right? Presumably their move to a new building will help since they'll be able to have more people working. And vaccinations should help out too though Washington's COVID numbers are going up again right now.

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