Gregory Hecht

Forgot to add: You don't have to use the ComicBase valuations when you post your comics for sale, you can set the price to be whatever you want for each individual comic. I find that it does help to look to see what other sellers at AA and other venues are asking for some items.

It isn't just you. I have also experienced these same problems with the AA wishlist.

The shipping calculator for AA could use a bit more transparency, I agree. I have been beating that drum for a while now (as have a few others), and my understanding is that AA is due for an "upgrade" at some undefined point in the near future. Hopefully one of the changes will be for the AA shipping calculator to tell the seller what shipping method it used to arrive at when making its calculation. Without knowing the particulars of your two orders, it is impossible to provide any kind of specific feedback re: what shipping method you should have used for your two orders in order to (at least) break even.

I assume that you are in the US. Sales tax rules depend on the state in which you live and, in some cases, your local municipality. So it is impossible to answer your question without knowing your location. It might be worth visiting the website for your state's version of the IRS.

Hi Richard! This is more of a ComicBase content problem rather than something specific to Atomic Avenue (titles and issues listed on AA are based on the ComicBase master database), so it makes more sense to post your comment over at the CB msg boards (specifically on the "Content and Corrections" forum). It has a greater chance of being seen and discussed over there by the folks who are in a position to make any necessary corrections to the ComicBase database.

I suspect that this is a question about buying multiple different issues from the same seller and how to do that with a reasonably low number of clicks. Atomic Avenue is in need of an overhaul in several areas, and this is one area that should get some attention from the programming team IMO. (Other items that should be on the "to do" list include: better integration of magazines, books, and newspapers into store listings and in-store search results; more transparency to seller and buyer regarding shipping method that was used in determining shipping costs; including the years of publication for titles in the drop-down hits when typing into the search bar much like how this is handled in ComicBase; complete updating of Atomic Avenue's Help pages to reflect current AA policies and standards etc.)

Whether a title falls into the Comic Book or Magazine media category depends on the contents of the publication, not on its physical construction. Marvel Previews and DC Connect do not actually contain comics (i.e., graphic sequential storytelling) and instead contain listings of comics that will be on sale in the future. Thus, these titles fall into the Magazine media category. Similarly, titles such as DC's Who's Who titles and Marvel's Official Index and Official Handbook titles have also been moved to Magazines (they contain encyclopedic descriptions of comics and comic characters, but don't contain graphic sequential storytelling). Other titles that have made the move to magazines include Amazing Heroes, Marvel Age, and DC Direct Currents. I leave it to @Peter R. Bickford and/or @Mark J. Castaneda to discuss what is up with the G.I. Joe series as I don't follow it and therefore don't know the in's and out's behind any changes there.

It is a known issue that items from the Books and Magazines categories do not show up in sellers' store pages, they can only be found via a search. I know that this has been mentioned several times to @Peter R. Bickford (including in the weekly ComicBase Livestream chat) and it is my understanding that there are some Atomic Avenue updates that are in the works. Hopefully this means that the problem will be addressed soon.

On the Atomic Avenue website, check to be sure that only a single database is the source of your AA inventory. My Account pulldown menu --> select My Store --> click on "Store Setup" (the link next to the gear) On the resulting page, you should be able to scroll down and verify that you have only one database as the source of your AA inventory in the "Currently Posted Items" section.

I honestly don't know how easy it is for buyers right now to see sets for sale when browsing on AA. Sets on AA kind of have the reputation of being a place where inventory goes to languish. But I know that this issue is on the radar and that a series of upgrades are in the works for Atomic Avenue... so I am hopeful that this will be addressed somewhat soonish.

IMO, the implication that the burden is on buyers prior to making a purchase to investigate whether sellers pocket extra money from improperly using media mail sounds kind of like, "hey, if the sellers can get away with it, then so be it." Since Atomic Avenue takes the approach of determining shipping charges to the buyer rather than allowing the seller to do so, it should be possible for Atomic Avenue to explicitly tell the buyer and the seller the shipping method used for that calculation. If at that point the seller elects to chisel a few extra bucks out of the system by using media mail, then the buyer can call them out in feedback etc... and claims that a seller is improperly using media mail that can be fact-checked using the tracking number that the seller is required to enter when they mark an order as 'shipped."

I think it would be helpful if AA made it more explicit to sellers that they are responsible for following postal regulations, i.e., periodical comics that contain advertising should not be sent via Media Mail: "Media Mail packages may not contain advertising. Comic books do not meet this standard." This is not a new issue, it was suggested some time back by other AA users.

And I will take this opportunity to repeat some things that I have stated multiple times: What mailing service types are recommended/permitted is not fully clear to sellers for several reasons: (1) The Atomic Avenue shipping calculator does not tell sellers what shipping method it used to calculate the shipping reimbursement to the seller. Sometimes it is easy to tell, but sometimes the number that comes out is a real head-scratcher. More transparency there would help sellers, I think. (2) I suspect that sometimes the AA shipping calculator isn't savvy about USPS insurance thresholds or charges. When shipping via Priority Mail, insurance is free for package value up to $50... but the charges can add up once you get up above that $50 mark. IMO exactly zero AA packages should be shipped via USPS Priority Mail without being fully insured. (3) The Atomic Avenue help pages need an update. For example, the AA help pages refer to Parcel Post mailing when we were told some time ago that Parcel Post wasn't an option any more. As a seller, I can tell you that sometimes (especially with orders that are large both in terms of high $$$ and physical size) the shipping calculator undershoots by a decent amount. In those cases, I typically elect to just eat the extra postage costs. It is poor form to go to AA and ask them to bug the customer for a postage adjustment after that customer thinks that they completed their full order... and three-way email conversations (me, AA, and the customer) take time to resolve themselves, and I make it a point to get my packages in the hands of the USPS by the next business day. I will say, however, that once in a while AA substantially overshoots the shipping reimbursement. I just filled an order last night that cost me ~$20 to ship including full insurance... but the AA calculator billed the customer $36. I asked AA to make the adjustment at their end. But not all sellers do that, some will just pocket that difference and that's just uncool.

For what it is worth, I hear what you are saying, and I cannot disagree with you. It is indeed very bad form on two fronts: you were charged much more for shipping than the seller's cost, and you received a slower shipping service than what you paid for. You are correct that periodical comics are not supposed to be sent via Media Mail b/c of the advertising contained in them. Books without advertising can be shipped via Media Mail. Occasionally there will be a story of a postal clerk who denies a Marvel omnibus' eligibility for Media Mail, but those are supposed to be allowed. I assume that magazines (which are now sold on AA) cannot ship via Media Mail, but prose books (which are also sold on AA ) can still go via Media Mail.* Sellers may not know (or care) that when USPS inspects the contents of a Media Mail package (doesn't happen often, but it doesn't *never* happen), if the inspector determines that the contents do not qualify for Media Mail the *recipient* of the package gets charged the additional postage that is due. So a seller that sends periodical comics via Media Mail is asking the buyer to assume some risk of additional postage costs. Also bad form. IMO if you feel that an AA seller shipped at a substantially lower shipping service than what AA requires so that they could pocket the cost difference (which is what it sounds like for your situation), you can (and should!) indicate this when you leave feedback on AA for the transaction. If you *really* feel like you got badly overcharged for shipping relative to the shipping service that the seller actually used, you can also contact AA support via email and politely tell them the specifics of your experience. If this is a recurring problem related to a specific seller(s), then AA needs to know. *Another nudge to the folks at Human Computing that it sure would be helpful for buyers and sellers if books and magazines were browsable in sellers' store inventory pages on AA. This should have been in place when magazine and book sales first went "live" on AA.

Ah-hah, I see what you are referring to. Yes, Atomic Avenue is alphabetizing the issues so that any issue marked as "Version ##" gets placed between "Variant V" and "Variant W". That would be a web display function since Comicbase orders the issues differently. I will ping Pete on the Slack.