How does ComicLink Exchange work? 1 1

[MagicMan_2017]

First time on ComicLink Exchange and sent in my first bid offer to a seller. It was declined. So I sent in a second, higher, offer. This time I don’t hear back from the seller. But I see on the listed item the “Buy It” price and below that is my “Bid Price” in red numbers. My question is - what does that all mean and when exactly does this listing end? Does it mean the seller is keeping my bid price in to show other buyers what they need to bid over? Does my bid price sit there indefinitely or does the seller have to commit to selling it to me, if no other interests roll in. If so, is there a deadline for how long the seller can sit on my bid for? I can’t find anything in their FAQ to clarify the process. Any help would be greatly valued. Thank you!

[WolverineX]

I was curious about this as well

[Iceman399]

Basically their exchange doesn't really work.  Most of the books have been up for months or years and the sellers haven't bothered to take them down.  You might get lucky hear and there but for the most part you just have to keep throwing out offers until the seller actually still has the book and actually wants to sell it at the offer/buy price.  Heck you can hit the bin on books and then be told they aren't selling it because again they've had it up for 2 years  

[bc]

The Clink website will retain the highest bid for a book on the Exchange until an acceptable offer is made to the seller. That amount could be less than what they asked for or it may need to actually match what they posted. It's purely up to the seller.

From what I have seen, people post somewhat of a "wish" price for their books and then it sits there forever as there doesn't seem to be an automated purge system.

-bc

[90sChild]

It is basically the same as ebay fixed price listing.  You can make all the offers you want but the seller doesn't have to do anything until they accept the offer.  The bid just shows you what the highest offer has been so far, but the listing never ends like an auction would.

[alexgross.com]

1 hour ago, Iceman399 said:

Basically their exchange doesn't really work.  Most of the books have been up for months or years and the sellers haven't bothered to take them down.  You might get lucky hear and there but for the most part you just have to keep throwing out offers until the seller actually still has the book and actually wants to sell it at the offer/buy price.  Heck you can hit the bin on books and then be told they aren't selling it because again they've had it up for 2 years  

i generally agree, though i did score a sweet surfer 3 9.4WP there last year. people do list books there daily, but most listings are fossils. i know this is off topic from the OP

[david20009]

In fairness to ComicLink I think it is a bit hard for them to police forgetful or lazy sellers.  I bought a Siver Age book from a different auction house a couple years back and about a month or two later I noticed the exact book I bought was in the ComicLink Exchange.  The person who consigned the book to the auction house was a member here so I contacted him and asked why the book I had in my hands was listed on ComicLink’s Exchange.  He admitted he had completely forgotten he had listed it there much earlier so forgot to take it down.

I haven’t purchased anything there recently but I have bought a fair number of books on the ComicLink exchange and never had a problem with any purchase.  You send the money to ComicLink and the seller sends the book to ComicLink.  It works well just be prepared that some books might no longer be available but that is not ComicLink’s fault.  Better protection for the buyer than eBay.  

[Iceman399]

Oh I'm not faulting Clink on policing it at all.  It's just very miss with a few hits.  Most of the times the problem is exactly what you described above.  Listed the book forgot it was there and then one day someone bids/buys it and goes no where cause it's not available anymore.  If I was "exchange" shopping I'd only be looking at their most recently listed stuff.

[serling1978]

I just recently started looking at comiclink to see if I should consider it to be an option to buy some early Marvel SA's. I have a couple points of confusion. 

If it's still the case that old lists hang around I get that they can't police sellers, but why not just have a template of pre-set end durations for listings? Ebay figured that out pretty easily. If a seller lists a book seems reasonable to have options like list for 30 days, 60 days, maybe up to 90 days. But at least that would keep listings from sitting around for years. 

Also I haven't yet been able to find a way to save searches yet. Maybe I'm just totally missing it. Without being able to save searches and quickly check if what I'm interested in has been put up for sale, I don't see myself going to the site daily and entering multiple searches to see what's new. Hopefully I'm just missing an obvious way to do this. 

[MattTheDuck]

On 7/24/2020 at 1:05 AM, MagicMan_2017 said:

First time on ComicLink Exchange and sent in my first bid offer to a seller. It was declined. So I sent in a second, higher, offer. This time I don’t hear back from the seller. But I see on the listed item the “Buy It” price and below that is my “Bid Price” in red numbers. My question is - what does that all mean and when exactly does this listing end? Does it mean the seller is keeping my bid price in to show other buyers what they need to bid over? Does my bid price sit there indefinitely or does the seller have to commit to selling it to me, if no other interests roll in. If so, is there a deadline for how long the seller can sit on my bid for? I can’t find anything in their FAQ to clarify the process. Any help would be greatly valued. Thank you!

I had exactly the same experience with a book on the CL Exchange.  However, I have also had success purchasing a book there - so one might say that it worked as intended.

However, this is another thing about the way CL works that makes no sense to me.  "They should" add a "listed date" and then expire listings after some period (3 months?) unless the seller actively re-ups the listing.  The interesting thing is that - if many of these listing are fossils the seller has forgotten about - why are almost all the prices at or above today's FMV?  If a book was originally listed 2 years ago, and then neglected, the current price should reflect 2 years ago + whatever crazy premium the buyer wanted.  You never see this kind of huge underpricing on there.

[BabyAteMyDingo]

They also add a "New" yellow tab if the book is fairly recent. I have bought from them several times and each one was a successful purchase. If I went BIN and it wasn't available, I was notified rather quickly. I like ComicLink.

[Aman619]

To save a search just make a bookmark after you run the search.  All browsers do that and you can rename them as you want...

There are lots of books listed, but they wipe away a lot of sold items from time to time.   if you sort by list date, and search through the first 20-40 pages you’ll get to choose from recent listings, and there won’t be any fossils in there.   Unfortunately, a search for a particular issue just gets you all copies of it, but unless there’s a list date, (not every book gets one) you have no context for how old it may be. 

when you make a bid, you will be instantly rejected if it’s below a % of the ask price that the seller has listed it for.  This saves everybody time. Eliminates ridiculous low offers.  Usually it’s 50-70% of the list price.  Seller can counteroffer, and there a time window to agree on a price.  After that your bid remains so that others will see that anything less won’t be accepted either.

[lizards2]

So, I bid on a couple items on the comiclink exchange last night, and was prompted to select postage and check out. I thought that was kind of weird, as it seems like I should get some sort of response first.

I went in this morning and can find no trace of the bids. I also did not receive any emails about either bid.

Can anyone lend insight into how this is supposed to work? I guess I don't understand the process at all.

[Tec-Tac-Toe]

On 12/8/2022 at 11:11 AM, lizards2 said:

So, I bid on a couple items on the comiclink exchange last night, and was prompted to select postage and check out. I thought that was kind of weird, as it seems like I should get some sort of response first.

I went in this morning and can find no trace of the bids. I also did not receive any emails about either bid.

Can anyone lend insight into how this is supposed to work? I guess I don't understand the process at all.

Just forward your money, don't worry about it.

[lizards2]

On 12/8/2022 at 8:34 AM, Tec-Tac-Toe said:

Just forward your money, don't worry about it.

Very helpful! 

[Stefan_W]

The reason listers put up wishful prices is because CL does not allow bids that are under 1/2 of the list price. So basically, the lowballers are weeded out if you put up a list price that is high enough. Of course doing that also weeds out some of the serious buyers who look at a ridiculous list price and are instantly turned off. 

I have had weak results on their exchange as both a buyer and a seller. I managed to sell one books out of a couple of dozen listings that I posted, and I bought a handful that was maybe 10% of the offers I made. The biggest turnoff about their system is they set the time for the seller to respond to offers way too high (something like five days), which means that the amount of the offer is essentially tied up unless you want to risk a seller saying yes at the last moment after you gave up and already sent the money elsewhere. 

At the end of the day most of the buyers are content to wait around for the books to roll into auctions and gamble that they can get the books cheaper that way. I dont have hard stats to back this but I would guess they are right about this more than 90% of the time since it is much harder to get a deal making an offer than it is to scoop a below-value book in an auction format. 

[Pantodude]

On 12/8/2022 at 5:58 PM, Stefan_W said:

So basically, the lowballers are weeded out if you put up a list price that is high enough.

So....are you calling @lizards2 a lowballer?   Them's fight'n words!  

Edited December 8, 2022 by Pantodude

[lizards2]

On 12/8/2022 at 3:16 PM, Pantodude said:

On 12/8/2022 at 2:58 PM, Stefan_W said:

So basically, the lowballers are weeded out if you put up a list price that is high enough.

So....are you calling @lizards2 a lowballer?   Them's fight'n words!  

Edited 8 minutes ago by Pantodude

I think I'm an honorary snowballer - just ask the Canadians. 

[Gaard]

I've bought about a dozen books over the past couple of years and sold about half that many. Sometimes for the asking price, sometimes for an offer price. Never any problems (other than some sellers are pretty slow sending their book in)

[Tec-Tac-Toe]

On 12/8/2022 at 4:37 PM, lizards2 said:

Very helpful! 

You know I'm joshing, or is it jaking, I forget.