Thoughtcast #20

TL;DR - We have made two updates to existing policies. Starting from today (31st July 2023);

• Pre-orders for TCG Singles cannot be cancelled, refunded, or partially reimbursed.

• We will now honor the quoted value on all buylists at the time of submission (currently, we reprice buylisted singles to their value at the time we receive them).

We have replaced the wall of policy text on the card screen with a 'Terms and Conditions' check box which must be ticked before proceeding to checkout.

The Long Version

In the lead up to the release of Commander Masters, one of our customers reached out to us regarding their Singles pre-order. They had pre-ordered an Extended Art foil of a chase reprint, only for it to drop in price by 33% two days later. They very understandably weren't too pleased about the situation.

As most of us are aware, card prices can be particularly volatile for a few weeks on either side of a set release (especially so when eternal reprints are involved). In this case though, our customer's annoyance made us come to the realisation that we didn't have a policy in place to deal with this scenario.

So, we had a discussion about what we thought would be fair, and decided to implement the following:

Shipping Policy - Pre-Orders and Back-Orders: Pre-orders for TCG Singles cannot be cancelled, refunded, or partially reimbursed.

Our TCG Singles prices are automated, and based on TCGPlayer Market Value. While we have some degree of control over how that market value is converted into what ultimately becomes our storefront price, fluctuations in price are  ultimately determined by the market.

In situations where you have pre-ordered a product where we have 100% control over the set price, we would be more than happy to reimburse the difference if we lowered the price during the pre-order period. This is because we have absolute control over the decision to change the price, the value of the change, and the timing of the change.

For TCG singles these factors are outside of our control, and it would be unreasonable to expect us to shoulder any losses based on the timing of your purchase.

• Although singles prices fluctuate, the fixed cost of the product we open to make singles pre-orders possible does not. If we implement what is essentially a 'lowest price guarantee' on singles pre-orders leading up to release day, we would get to a point where it would no longer be financially viable to offer singles pre-orders for new set releases.

• Because the quantity of singles available for pre-order are limited, we argue that when you pre-order TCG singles, you are paying the price you are comfortable with to guarantee yourself the copies of the cards you want. Because you were willing to pay at a higher price, others who aren't willing to pay as much miss the opportunity to receive those cards on release day, whereas you do not.

• Just as we would not expect to reimburse customers for any perceived loss in value due to a price drop, we do not expect customers to reimburse us for any perceived increase in value after a pre-order purchase has been made. To date, we have never cancelled a order and asked our customers to pay us a higher price due to an increase in value.

As always, any orders placed after the release date of a product can be cancelled and refunded for any reason. These orders are usually fulfilled within 1-2 working days, so there's no awkward week-long period where your order is waiting to be released while prices fluctuate.

"This is all well and good" you might say, "but why are we expected to lock prices in for purchases when you don't do the same for buylists?".

... And you'd be right. The double standard there wasn't lost on us, and so:

Buylist Procedure: We will now honor the quoted value on all buylists at the time of submission

Currently, we reprice your cards based on what they're worth at the time we receive your buylist. But, if we're locking prices in at the time you place a pre-order, then it's only fair that you get to lock prices in when you sell cards to us.

Starting from today, the price you see when you submit a buylist is what you will get. The only exception to this rule is when a card is regraded when we validate your buylist (e.g. You submitted a card as Near Mint, but we regrade it as Lightly Played as part of our review).

Both of the above changes are effectively immediately, and are now reflected in our Shipping Policy and Buylist procedure. 

We used to have a redacted version of our Shipping policy at the top of the cart page, but have unfortunately found that most people tend to ignore it. We have instead replaced this wall of text with a Terms of Service acknowledgement checkbox on the cart screen. You can ready our full Terms of Service and Policies by following the links at the bottom of our website.

As always, we welcome any feedback that helps improve our quality of service.

You can send any feedback you may have to info@calicokeep.com