Is a year too long for my book to be delivered from Paradise Comics? 7 7

[greggy]

7 minutes ago, VintageComics said:

It's not CGC's job to fill out the commercial invoice. It's yours.

You get the commercial invoice from whomever you're shipping from.

Fed Ex has a stand alone commercial invoice, CanadaPost uses the form that you fill out when shipping as a commercial invoice.

You simply write something along the lines of 'being sent for evaluation' and then when CGC returns the shipment, they ship it back with the commercial invoice that accompanied the books on their way day.

@Guardian Comics Jim, is this how you do it too?

CGC fills it out whenever they send books back to me :shrug:

[VintageComics]

4 minutes ago, greggy said:

CGC fills it out whenever they send books back to me :shrug:

Sure, but it's based on documentation that you sent with your commercial invoice.

Do you not fill out a commercial invoice when you ship your books down?

[greggy]

1 minute ago, VintageComics said:

Sure, but it's based on documentation that you sent with your commercial invoice.

Do you not fill out a commercial invoice when you ship your books down?

Nope, they just do it all the time.  My stuff always goes through Joey anyways but I never fill out jack chit.   They just do it for me.  Not sure why they don't it for others.  At worse, I've been charged some nominal amount (less than $15) which I just eat because I have better things to do than to fight for that money back. 

[VintageComics]

1 minute ago, greggy said:

Nope, they just do it all the time.  My stuff always goes through Joey anyways but I never fill out jack chit.   They just do it for me.  Not sure why they don't it for others.  At worse, I've been charged some nominal amount (less than $15) which I just eat because I have better things to do than to fight for that money back. 

So when you ship to Joey you don't fill out a commercial invoice declaring what they are?

[Wall-Crawler]

When I send books to CGC on the Canada Customs Form online, I just state something like "personal books for evaluation" and CGC sends back to me via FedEx, I have yet to have a big issue with Customs, usually some nominal charge that is not worth the hassle to fight, like under $20...I have had more books get pulled by Customs for purchases than books coming back for CGC.  

[comicwiz]

3 hours ago, Guardian Comics said:

Erndog:  You know you would just inform the government that they were your goods shipped to the US for evaluation purposes only and sent back, and you'd get all your money back correct?

 

Jim

Of the three times it happened to me, I only got payment back once. It tooks 6 months to get the cheque. And I kid you not, about a month after I got the cheque, they sent me a registerred letter which in a roundabout way stated they allowed this "one time" incident to go, but to not expect them to side with me again should the situation happen again in the future.

I missed this thread when it was first posted, and hope this is resolved with a positve outcome for all.

When I used to submit through Paradise, my understanding was that it was being shipped along with a higher volume of submissions for a number of reasons. The one that mattered most to me was the third-party insurance coverage, and it may be different for US residents, but I remember the cut-off coverage was $1000 CDN through CanadaPost, and if I wanted a little more coverage, $2500 with FedEx, BUT there was fine print that pretty much meant "collectibles" were excluded from insurance coverage. The fact Paradise covered the full value of the comics was reassuring.

Someone mentioned paying $7 each way to ship - I almost spit my drink out of my nose. I can't ship a small loose 3 3/4" action figure to the US in a bubble-mailer for less than $20 with delivery confirmation, and that isn't really even tracking. There is a reason why people do it this way, and a lot of is to shift the risk to the shop, and economize. I would never send any comic without tracking anywhere, much less to CGC, and unfortunately CandaPost's service triples in price as soon as you use any traceable service.

In a nutshell, I wouldn't touch the logistical aspect of shipping large orders from Canada for any amount of money, and not to shift blame here from one or another, but Paradise was one of the first chartered submitters to work with CGC.  It's how I met Steve Borock for the first time in 2000, when he was at the store introducing CGC to the Canadian market. The invoicing process being used is the one CGC had put in place for shops to submit to them. CGC modelled this from the early beginning to build it's customer base, and it would be disingenous to say it doesn't benefit them as much as the shops they work with.

What are they at now - 3 or nearly 4 million submissions - and they can't offer a lookup system online for customers to check the progress of their order by inputting their unique invoice number? There is no privacy issue with generating an order status based on an invoice number inquiry.  No names need to be given. Just tell me when item X is in your system, when it's graded, in qc, etc.  If an order sheet is generated with a numeric invoice number, that relational tie and association to a single comic or grouping of books submitted should be an automatic.  Why that isn't happening on CGC's end (and this can only happen on their end) is beyond me.

CGC built their business on the backs of shops, and it's great that the collecting community has evolved to submit online, at shows, directly, etc. But there are still peripheral methods being utilized for markets where it is cost prohibitive to submit.  After reading through this thread, there are certainly things that could be improved from the way the invoice inquiries are being handled.

Edited March 14, 2018 by comicwiz

[slowdowntubby]

Many years ago I had my store listed as a submission drop off centre. Eventually I asked CGC to take me off. Honestly, it's mostly a hassle and there's no real money in it. 

Most customers only want to submit one or two books but understandably don't want to pay the shipping that would entail (minimum $60 USD charge coming back). So you have to pool enough books from enough different customers together so everyone saves on shipping. Sometimes that takes some time to get enough books together. CGC has also stopped pooling together different tiers into one shipment (at least for international, not sure for US) so you also have to get a bunch of books all on the same tier. 

But honestly the biggest headache was people not being happy with their grades or the turnaround times or the costs and me being the focal point for their unhappiness. I just got tired of apologizing for something that I had no control over.

Recently I've started doing customer submissions again but I've taken to pre-screening potential submitters. 

Just to be clear I'm not commenting on Paradise or trying to explain any of what's happened here. I have known Peter for nearly 20 years and have never had a bad experience with him. Obviously others here sadly can not say the same but I'm hopeful it will get worked out. 

Just adding my  as to reasons why more stores in Canada don't do submissions. 

 

[revat]

1 hour ago, slowdowntubby said:

Many years ago I had my store listed as a submission drop off centre. Eventually I asked CGC to take me off. Honestly, it's mostly a hassle and there's no real money in it. 

Most customers only want to submit one or two books but understandably don't want to pay the shipping that would entail (minimum $60 USD charge coming back). So you have to pool enough books from enough different customers together so everyone saves on shipping. Sometimes that takes some time to get enough books together. CGC has also stopped pooling together different tiers into one shipment (at least for international, not sure for US) so you also have to get a bunch of books all on the same tier. 

But honestly the biggest headache was people not being happy with their grades or the turnaround times or the costs and me being the focal point for their unhappiness. I just got tired of apologizing for something that I had no control over.

Recently I've started doing customer submissions again but I've taken to pre-screening potential submitters. 

Just to be clear I'm not commenting on Paradise or trying to explain any of what's happened here. I have known Peter for nearly 20 years and have never had a bad experience with him. Obviously others here sadly can not say the same but I'm hopeful it will get worked out. 

Just adding my  as to reasons why more stores in Canada don't do submissions. 

 

yah it totally doesn't seem worth it. like at all. 

[greggy]

3 hours ago, VintageComics said:

So when you ship to Joey you don't fill out a commercial invoice declaring what they are?

No, I just do the regular customs forms with Canada Post and even if I did, Joey isn't going to forward the info to CGC.

I just got a package back today and here's part of my commercial invoice. 

No GST or anything charged.

[Iceman399]

4 hours ago, VintageComics said:

It's not CGC's job to fill out the commercial invoice. It's yours.

You get the commercial invoice from whomever you're shipping from.

Fed Ex has a stand alone commercial invoice, CanadaPost uses the form that you fill out when shipping as a commercial invoice.

You simply write something along the lines of 'being sent for evaluation' and then when CGC returns the shipment, they ship it back with the commercial invoice that accompanied the books on their way day.

@Guardian Comics Jim, is this how you do it too?

Bahaha Jim doesn't ship books for grading he's way tooooo lazy and just on sites. 

I ship cpc and fill out how many comics are going down (as per my invoice) haven't had any problems in a few dozen shipments since I no longer live close to the border. 

Will we See you this weekend? 

[VintageComics]

1 hour ago, greggy said:

No, I just do the regular customs forms with Canada Post and even if I did, Joey isn't going to forward the info to CGC.

I just got a package back today and here's part of my commercial invoice. 

No GST or anything charged.

Fair enough. I always fill out the commercial invoice and just figured it was part of the paperwork as the books are returned.

[thirdgreenham]

4 hours ago, slowdowntubby said:

Many years ago I had my store listed as a submission drop off centre. Eventually I asked CGC to take me off. Honestly, it's mostly a hassle and there's no real money in it. 

Most customers only want to submit one or two books but understandably don't want to pay the shipping that would entail (minimum $60 USD charge coming back). So you have to pool enough books from enough different customers together so everyone saves on shipping. Sometimes that takes some time to get enough books together. CGC has also stopped pooling together different tiers into one shipment (at least for international, not sure for US) so you also have to get a bunch of books all on the same tier. 

But honestly the biggest headache was people not being happy with their grades or the turnaround times or the costs and me being the focal point for their unhappiness. I just got tired of apologizing for something that I had no control over.

Recently I've started doing customer submissions again but I've taken to pre-screening potential submitters. 

Just to be clear I'm not commenting on Paradise or trying to explain any of what's happened here. I have known Peter for nearly 20 years and have never had a bad experience with him. Obviously others here sadly can not say the same but I'm hopeful it will get worked out. 

Just adding my  as to reasons why more stores in Canada don't do submissions. 

 

I do submissions for Canadian customers. I charge what CGC charges plus $10 CAD/book for shipping. 

It’s not difficult. 

 

[TheRealVenom]

A simple train ride over to mississauga would have solved all your problems ages ago. Gotham Central.

That being said, why not just sign up for a paid cgc account and ship the books yourself. Stop in at a local customs office and pick up a form (the name eludes me right now) But its meant for shipping goods to and from the US for evaluation purposes. 

I used to use my LCS all the time for getting books slabbed, then I stopped being lazy and just started subbing myself.

I don't get tagged with customs fees ever. I chose to grading service and shipping of my choice. I have my own invoice numbers I can track and recieve graders notes and most importantly I can deal with CGC myself.

The only drawback is obviously return shipping to canada. It's a damn stick up the prices usps, fedex and ups want to ship to canada these days. 

i can ship a book priority to arizona for $28 canadian. The return shipping to me from arizona via the same shipping method is around 50$ now, and thats US funds. 

i often feel like i'm getting mugged when I have to pay return shipping.

[VintageComics]

2 minutes ago, TheRealVenom said:

The only drawback is obviously return shipping to canada. It's a damn stick up the prices usps, fedex and ups want to ship to canada these days. 

i can ship a book priority to arizona for $28 canadian. The return shipping to me from arizona via the same shipping method is around 50$ now, and thats US funds. 

i often feel like i'm getting mugged when I have to pay return shipping.

Much like the Canadian exchange, Canadians just need to start factoring in shipping costs into their costs. It's just the simple cost of doing business.

Either that or buy all your books already CGC graded in Canada.

[VintageComics]

4 minutes ago, thirdgreenham said:

I do submissions for Canadian customers. I charge what CGC charges plus $10 CAD/book for shipping. 

It’s not difficult. 

 

No, but it is time consuming and a lot of work for very little return and a HUGE potential can of worms if something goes wrong.

And then you have to deal with customers who don't like their grades.

It's a nice service to offer but in the end I'd rather show a customer how to package their books and have them do it themselves.

[Senormac]

7 hours ago, Erndog said:

I actually just spoke with fedex and asked how I could avoid this situation again in the future.

They told me I would need to have the merchant (i.e. CGC) document everything on the commercial invoice.  Essentially, CGC needs to write the books were sent to them for appraisal purposes only and were in the U.S. for a brief period of time.  That I owned the books.  To include the initial tracking number I used to send CGC the books. And for CGC to indicate the value of THEIR services (i.e. how much their work cost).  Then the gov't would tax me the appropriate amount based on CGC's services/costs.  Not the entire lot of books value (which is what happened last time around).

What happens when you (or someone ) goes to a con in US who is from Canada and you submit books at the CGC booth.  I can't imagine CGC takes the shipping hit to mail back to a foreign country ....... would they ?  They must charge up front.  

[TheRealVenom]

Just now, VintageComics said:

Much like the Canadian exchange, Canadians just need to start factoring in shipping costs into their costs. It's just the simple cost of doing business.

Either that or buy all your books already CGC graded in Canada.

I have. Any my buying has plummeted in the past year or so. I'll always look for a canadian seller before an american. 

I can't understate how many canadian comic book collectors there are here as well, I talk to many dealers, and collectors at the canadian comic cons each year and they share the same sediment. 

Strictly because of shipping (Not the exchange) their buying from the states is way down.

I try not to buy even on these boards from sellers who will not at least eat some cost of the shipping.  It's financially stupid any other way.

[VintageComics]

2 minutes ago, TheRealVenom said:

I have. Any my buying has plummeted in the past year or so. I'll always look for a canadian seller before an american. 

I can't understate how many canadian comic book collectors there are here as well, I talk to many dealers, and collectors at the canadian comic cons each year and they share the same sediment. 

Strictly because of shipping (Not the exchange) their buying from the states is way down.

I try not to buy even on these boards from sellers who will not at least eat some cost of the shipping.  It's financially stupid any other way.

It's no different for Asian, European, Australian or South American collectors.

They just suck it up and have come to learn to accept the cost of shipping.

I find Canadians complain a lot about it (that and the exchange, I am Canadian BTW) but in reality it's not going to change so you just have to factor it in.

[Senormac]

4 hours ago, greggy said:

4 hours ago, VintageComics said:

Sure, but it's based on documentation that you sent with your commercial invoice.

Do you not fill out a commercial invoice when you ship your books down?

Nope, they just do it all the time.  My stuff always goes through Joey anyways but I never fill out jack chit.   They just do it for me.  Not sure why they don't it for others.  At worse, I've been charged some nominal amount (less than $15) which I just eat because I have better things to do than to fight for that money back. 

It's because you are........

 

 

 

[TheRealVenom]

10 minutes ago, VintageComics said:

It's no different for Asian, European, Australian or South American collectors.

They just suck it up and have come to learn to accept the cost of shipping.

I find Canadians complain a lot about it (that and the exchange, I am Canadian BTW) but in reality it's not going to change so you just have to factor it in.

What is to Factor in?

So an american seller here is selling a book for $300. The gpa on the books is around 400$. Great deal right?  so my 300 after exchange turns into 375$ (Canadian) and then i'm told to add $50 us for shipping so my 375 canadian is now 437.50$ add a customs fee of 10$ and tax on that and im now at just under 500$ canadian. 

there is no justifiable way to make this make any financial sense. and thats all saying the us seller is actually selling a book for UNDER Gpa. most of the time it's sold at gpa which just after factoring these costs make it completly nonsensicle for me to even consider purchasing it. 

So there you go. Unless i MUST HAVE this book, I just dont buy from the us.

So if I do inqure about a book one of you may be selling DONT BE OFFENDED if I ask for some help on the shipping! You now know why!

 

Thats all completely off topic though.

Save your beans, use gotham central or just sub the books yourself with the correct paper work and customs forms and your life will be much easier.

Edited March 15, 2018 by TheRealVenom