Online Comics Shopping Experience (Back Issues)

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Trev
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Post by Trev »

Frank Castle wrote: But what I really loved the extremely quick turn around and shipping. I received both packages 6 days after paying for them via Paypal. For either company processing and shipping has taken up to 3 weeks after I've placed my order.
That's interesting. With Ebay, they need to keep their scores as high as possible so there's more risk in getting bad feedback. Plus, doesn't ebay have some policy around how long you can take to ship something once it is sold?

How much did they charge for shipping? I like to take advantage of free shipping at mcs, so I only order from them a few times a year. If you can get free shipping on their ebay site, I may try that out.
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Post by Frank Castle »

Trev wrote:
Frank Castle wrote: But what I really loved the extremely quick turn around and shipping. I received both packages 6 days after paying for them via Paypal. For either company processing and shipping has taken up to 3 weeks after I've placed my order.
That's interesting. With Ebay, they need to keep their scores as high as possible so there's more risk in getting bad feedback. Plus, doesn't ebay have some policy around how long you can take to ship something once it is sold?

How much did they charge for shipping? I like to take advantage of free shipping at mcs, so I only order from them a few times a year. If you can get free shipping on their ebay site, I may try that out.
Sorry, I meant to say that after the auction was over and paid for I had the books within 6 days. When I've ordered from their websites, it's taken up to 3 weeks. You are probably right about them shipping faster to get good feedback and I'm fine with that because I got my shipments much quicker then when I have ordered thru the sites.

Neither offered free shipping thru ebay so if you were going to do a $50 order, then free shipping thru the site is the way to go. MH charged $3 for shipping no limit on the amount of books ordered. MCS charged $3 as well and an additional .10 cents per book ordered. I ordered 5 books from MCS and shipping was 3.40.
Wood
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Post by Wood »

Regarding eBay, I've personally found the experience has devolved from exceptionally easy and a primary outlet to secure books to almost impossible to leverage. For those who pay attention to eBay's business trends, they are floundering as competition, spam, pricing and customer/seller pushback are crushing their growth trends and momentum. Spam has become intolerable and pricing on comics has become commodity like as all the LCS' now pretty much have their stuff on Buy It Now and use guide or multiples of guide.

If you're looking for lower grade stuff are aren't particularly about grade as you procure recently released runs, you can still do fine. But if you are looking to actually FIND high grade deals [i.e., like a real auction or swap meet], that ship has really sailed.
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Post by Flash77 »

Bob -

Since you have a bit of experience using mycomicshop.com...I wanted to ask a question.

I'm interested in some golden age (jungle comic books from the 40s). Is it likely that the weekly coupons will ever include discounts on books this far back? This would be some christmas gifts...so I don't want to wait too long for a discount that may not come. Any insight?

Thanks.
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Post by JohnMayo »

Flash77 wrote:Bob -

Since you have a bit of experience using mycomicshop.com...I wanted to ask a question.

I'm interested in some golden age (jungle comic books from the 40s). Is it likely that the weekly coupons will ever include discounts on books this far back? This would be some christmas gifts...so I don't want to wait too long for a discount that may not come. Any insight?

Thanks.
There is a chance that those might be covered in a codeword sale but only a slim one. going over the emails for the past few months, the typical sales are things like:
-DC: A-L
-DC: M-Z
-Marvel: A-L
-Marvel: M-Z
-other publisher specific ones like:
--Dark Horse
--Image
--Archie
--Eclipse
--Bongo
--Dell
--Charlton
-Theme/group sales like:
--Avengers
--JLA/JSA
--Wonder Woman
--Batman
--Superman
--science fiction
--humor
--Hellboy
--X-Men
--horror
--Spider-Man
--Daredevil
--Disney Ducks & Mice
--Star Wars
--Marvel's Ultimate line
--Crime/Mystery/Detective titles
--Romance titles
--Classics Illustrated titles
-Date specific ones
--1970s
--1980s
--1990s

At some point, I might go through the emails for the past year and compile a list of what they have put on sale and how often.
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Flash77
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Post by Flash77 »

johnmayo wrote:There is a chance that those might be covered in a codeword sale but only a slim one. going over the emails for the past few months, the typical sales are things like:
-DC: A-L
-DC: M-Z
-Marvel: A-L
-Marvel: M-Z
-other publisher specific ones like:
--Dark Horse
--Image
--Archie
--Eclipse
--Bongo
--Dell
--Charlton
-Theme/group sales like:
--Avengers
--JLA/JSA
--Wonder Woman
--Batman
--Superman
--science fiction
--humor
--Hellboy
--X-Men
--horror
--Spider-Man
--Daredevil
--Disney Ducks & Mice
--Star Wars
--Marvel's Ultimate line
--Crime/Mystery/Detective titles
--Romance titles
--Classics Illustrated titles
-Date specific ones
--1970s
--1980s
--1990s

At some point, I might go through the emails for the past year and compile a list of what they have put on sale and how often.
Thanks for the insight. The pricing is pretty good as is and with the free shipping for post $50 orders...I think I'll just make the purchase. Plus these order books can be difficult to come across and I don't want to have someone snag it.
BobBretall
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Post by BobBretall »

Flash77 wrote: Thanks for the insight. The pricing is pretty good as is and with the free shipping for post $50 orders...I think I'll just make the purchase. Plus these order books can be difficult to come across and I don't want to have someone snag it.
Yeah, I don't think I've ever seen a codeword sale on Golden Age stuff (other than what might fall into a generic "DC A-L" or something).

In general, they are only an extra 5% on anything older than the 80s anyway, so (while nice) I generally don't wait for a sale when something I've really been looking for comes up.

I just ordered the last 3 issues of Invincible I needed to complete my run over the weekend. These have been on my want list for about a year and this is the 1st time they have come into stock, so I didn't want to wait around and chance someone else getting them. Then, this week's sale was all Image, so I would have been able to get an extra 10%, but I'm in the "better safe than sorry" camp, because I really wanted to finish off that run.
Flash77
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Post by Flash77 »

I was looking at Torpedo's Monolith section and saw some stuff I'm interested in. Is there a set condition that these books are in or do they vary?

Any insight from someone that's purchased books from this category would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.
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JohnMayo
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Post by JohnMayo »

Flash77 wrote:I was looking at Torpedo's Monolith section and saw some stuff I'm interested in. Is there a set condition that these books are in or do they vary?

Any insight from someone that's purchased books from this category would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.
I've purchases a bunch of stuff from the Monolith section of Torpedo and was happy with the condition of the books. It has been many months since I ordered from them but off the top of my head I'd say the comics were all in at least Very Good or considerably better condition.
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BobBretall
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Post by BobBretall »

Flash77 wrote:I was looking at Torpedo's Monolith section and saw some stuff I'm interested in. Is there a set condition that these books are in or do they vary?

Any insight from someone that's purchased books from this category would be greatly appreciated.
I've bought from the Monolith section quite a few times. Generally they are not bagged/boarded and are about like you'd get out of a dollar bin at a con. Some might have a bit of a scuff, but in general most seem to be VF or so.
Master of the Mystic Arts
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Post by Master of the Mystic Arts »

I followed a link from Mile High's lastest new letter to a list of magazines they've recently scanned.

Who is going to pay $15.00 for the latest issue of Alter Ego?
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Post by Master of the Mystic Arts »

Flash77 wrote:Bob -

Since you have a bit of experience using mycomicshop.com...I wanted to ask a question.

I'm interested in some golden age (jungle comic books from the 40s). Is it likely that the weekly coupons will ever include discounts on books this far back? This would be some christmas gifts...so I don't want to wait too long for a discount that may not come. Any insight?

Thanks.
Hey Flash,

Are you getting the MyComicShop Preferred Customer Mailings?

"This week you'll save another 5% off pre-1981 issues, and 10% off modern-era issues in sale groups Marvel A-L titles, Justice League / Justice Society title group, 1950s comics, and Promotional comics in our back issue comics selection. (All this is on top of the across the board up to 50% off sale on 1981 to current modern era comics)."

So "1950s comics" has now made it i(this week) into a sale category. I don't know if they'll do the same with "1940s comics" any time soon.
Trev
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Post by Trev »

Master of the Mystic Arts wrote:
Flash77 wrote:Bob -

Since you have a bit of experience using mycomicshop.com...I wanted to ask a question.

I'm interested in some golden age (jungle comic books from the 40s). Is it likely that the weekly coupons will ever include discounts on books this far back? This would be some christmas gifts...so I don't want to wait too long for a discount that may not come. Any insight?

Thanks.
Hey Flash,

Are you getting the MyComicShop Preferred Customer Mailings?

"This week you'll save another 5% off pre-1981 issues, and 10% off modern-era issues in sale groups Marvel A-L titles, Justice League / Justice Society title group, 1950s comics, and Promotional comics in our back issue comics selection. (All this is on top of the across the board up to 50% off sale on 1981 to current modern era comics)."

So "1950s comics" has now made it i(this week) into a sale category. I don't know if they'll do the same with "1940s comics" any time soon.
In any case, the preferred customer e-mail rarely has a deal better than 10%, so in the case of some of the books you are interested in, take a look and take 10% off the price and see if it's worth that much to wait for a potential preferred sale.

You might also drop them a line and simply ask if they ever do that. It might prompt them to offer it if they know there might be demand. :)
BobBretall
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Post by BobBretall »

5% or 10% is not a lot, but it's still a few bucks!

Given how they cycle through the sales, I generally just wait until the stuff I want to get falls into their weekly sale, and I always bundle up $50 of purchases to get the free shipping (which is kind of slow, but heck, it's FREE!)
Trev
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Post by Trev »

BobBretall wrote: I always bundle up $50 of purchases to get the free shipping (which is kind of slow, but heck, it's FREE!)
Speaking of which, I got an order from them today! I do like dealing with MCS for back issues. They do a great job packaging and I've never gotten an order that was incorrect or comics where the grading was seriously off.

Just sad that I have to pay sales tax on my orders.
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