I saw some folks talking about how much they use the COMC Mailbox on another site and though it if it works might be a benefit for collectors overseas.

I've only looked at this *very* briefly, but from what I can tell once you have a COMC account you can buy stuff on eBay (or other places) and have it shipped directly to COMC. COMC will then process the cards and add them to your account, where you can then send them in a combined shipment to yourself.

Here is info:

https://www.comc.com/mailbox

I'm not sure if it is a viable solution from a cost perspective, but a number of people seem to use the mailbox (perhaps not for this purpose).

In order to do this you would need to pay for:

The initial shipping cost to COMC.
COMC's processing fees ($3 + $.60 per card). (Probably also sales tax in the state where COMC resides).
Shipping from COMC to yourself.

I definitely seems like this would work around sellers who won't ship out of the US.

Not sure if this is a workable solution or not -- but I thought I would share in case it could help someone.

Jon

This would be worth looking into if you were buying lots of items however i know a lot of ebay dealers who will only ship to the address of the person buying the item and not some other address allthough i guess you could make your paypal address the comc address, or maybe not as this would be diffrent to your credit card address.

I'm going for a lie down now.

You would also have to check out the insurance situation if the purchase was for any larger dollar amount. While eBay buyer protection might cover the initial trip to COMC, once they receive the package I'm sure eBay is done. If you don't get it in the second leg, that would be between you and COMC.

And if you don't like what you got or it's not what you ordered, returns may be tricky if COMC does "process" your cards, rather than just send the whole thing intact to you. I know that if I were a seller and I got a complaint from a buyer who used a third party to reroute my package, and that third party opened it, first thing I would claim is that they compromised the shipment.

Another thing to possibly consider is sales tax, as this is getting to be a thing in the US with internet sales. For many states it has already started and I'm sure they will pass a law soon as they say they want to level the playing field for physical stores. They really just want more taxes from everyone. Not sure what state COMC is in, but if there will be sales tax applied or already is applied, it will be added on accordingly.

It's worth looking into, but you are going to have a tradeoff some place here.

The real benefit of a COMC mailbox is if you buy and sell on there. Otherwise they are more expensive than a lot of other mail services out there. Also starting with 2019 Washington is one of the first states that ebay is collecting sales tax from so you will need to figure that into your purchases. I am sure in the following years every other state will be in that same boat but for now Washington is one of the first.

I started running a mail service for people in my group breaks that do not live in the US so I researched a lot of different services. There are some mail stores where you can rent a mailbox and they will just take everything that comes to your mailbox, put it in a box and send it off to you. Downside to that is if there is a problem with one of your packages you won't know it until you get it. The mail store does not open your packages, just forwards them so it could be months before you find out.

No matter which way you go if you live outside of the US a mail service will save you money if you buy a decent amount of stuff from the US. ebay's GSP is a complete rip-off for you cost wise and the way US postage rates are you will save a ton by combining packages.

i.e. I just sent out a package to a customer in Australia. He combined around 20 separate purchases into one larger package. If they were sent separately to him postage alone would have been close to $300. Put that together in one box and the postage cost goes down to under $40 and you don't have to deal with the extra charges from ebay's GSP. He switched from COMC to me and COMC would have charged him $80+ in their fees on top of that too.

quote:

Originally posted by wolfie:
This would be worth looking into if you were buying lots of items however i know a lot of ebay dealers who will only ship to the address of the person buying the item and not some other address allthough i guess you could make your paypal address the comc address, or maybe not as this would be diffrent to your credit card address.

I'm going for a lie down now.

You can make your paypal delivery address different to your credit card address

quote:

Originally posted by hammer:

You can make your paypal delivery address different to your credit card address

I have a post office box set up as my main Paypal address that most of my packages get sent to, which is not the same address as my credit card.

I am relatively active in hockey cards. Being in the US, that means most of my dealings are in Canada or overseas (Czech Republic, Finland, Russia, and other hockey-rich countries).

I have had one buyer request to use his COMC address. The price of the card was roughly $60, and to send to his country with tracking would have cost $36. He accumulates his purchases at his COMC mailbox and has them send them to him every couple of months.

The other option is Get It Shipped Intl. I have sent it to several Canadian buyers who use it--it is a US-based address (mine have been in Delaware) that, like COMC, will hold shipments and you can request everything at once.

I'm sure there are others, but those two seem very reliable. And as a seller, I am done once delivery confirmation shows it delivered to the US address. And MUCH cheaper than sending with tracking outside US borders.

COMC dose have cheaper postage but the catch is that it is snail mail in November i purchased off COMC about twelve promo cards shipping was $3 two days after purchase I was notified that my cards had been shipped waiting waiting waiting and the cut off day for complaints had passed wich was of no use as I had not used Pay Pal COMC accept payment direct still waiting finally late January my parcel arrived intact and all the cards there. So if you want to have cheap postage and wait go for it. But I must say clarify with COMC the type of shipping you are going to get as their messages on when shipped and how are a bit vague.This is dealing with the company direct COMC E Bay purchases are different E Bay and Pay Pal rules then come into effect.If your countrys Postal Service has overseas mailing addresses under their name wich you can get your parcels sent too and then on to you it will pay you to use these as you can save big bucks bu using their combine parcels system New Zealand have offices in China USA and UK/Europe If your country has a similar system look into it and if you think it is ok for you definately sign up for it i have saved literally hundreds of $ over the three years that I have used it by using the combined parcels shipping offer that it offers. though sometimes you will have to pay your countries postal charges to the address but if it is a free shipping offer there is nothing to loose

quote:

Originally posted by wolfie:
This would be worth looking into if you were buying lots of items however i know a lot of ebay dealers who will only ship to the address of the person buying the item and not some other address

Not strictly true. A lot of eBay sellers now use the GSP so they don't send to the buyer anyway.

You use your own name and the address in the country of origin provided to you from the post office it dosent matter what address that you put it will be sent to that address sometimes i forget to change the address and my parcel goes from UK to USA then back to me in New Zealand or vice versa even though the seller knows that i dont live in the USA the parcel goes to that address if I have not changed it you have to be alert about changing addresses to the country that you are buying from

Reading through all the posts on this thread it seems that there is the impression that sellers will only send to the persons address on their Pay Pal or E Bay accounts
This is not true as you can have as many mailing addresses as you like it is true that the parcel will be sent to the listed address
But if you change the address before paying for the item it will be sent to the address given
Half the time sellers do not know or care who they sell too as long as they get paid so they dont even know wether the addresses are legit or not on E Bay I do not know wether I am buying off a card talk member or not as i do not know their E Bay store names wich makes the buying and selling on E Bay a pretty mercenary deal.
I have just recently found Promokings E Bay shop and even though i have only done one purchase off him it feels a lot better than from someone I have not heard of