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kds_comics Posts: 686
3/7/2018
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My thoughts on your purported objective to be the "go to" spot on the internet for comic book buying and selling.
Currently the obvious leader is eBay - due to volume.
There are also My Comic Shop and several other lesser know site like Comic Book Realms and Sell My Comics
Suggestions
1) Take the best features from the leader -
a) Organize by Modern, Copper, Bronze, Silver, Golden Age
b) Make the sales area searchable
c) Charge a small fee either for listing or for sales
d) Allow a sale page to link to PayPal via HTML.
2) Improve on the leader's model
a) Do not charge percentage - this kills sales. Just charge a small fee per completed transaction.
b) Total comic sales in ad must be over $7.50 (or what ever we think is a good minimum. Perhaps $4 price of a new comic) There is no money and too much junk on eBay for $1 each comics. Ridiculous.
c) Give the little guy a better chance. eBay is littered with dealers who have employees with little to do early in the day writing eBay ads. The purpose appears to be more for free advertising than real sales.
d) CPG needs to implement a system to certify sellers (or a rating). I give a money back guarantee. I am sure many others here would do as well. Most of us are collectors, not dealers.
What is good not that people don't know
3) I was able to link directly to my "make an offer" page for a specific comic in the classified ads. Perhaps you could automate this process to make it easier.
4) Facebook just does not cut it as a sales vehicle
Suggestion for improvement
4) Although CPG asks for minimum I will take - there is room for negotiation. I think you should revive the auction "one cent" minimum with a reserve by the seller. eBay has killed this feature with ridiculous fee for creating a reserve.
Have I used the term "ridiculous:" enough with eBay?
Okay - let's focus on CPG. Good luck. I am invested in the process and hope you succeed.
KDS (Robert)
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+1
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Ronbatman Administrator Posts: 2530
3/7/2018
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Robert, thank you for your well thought out suggestions. We will strongly consider everything you've said.
I have sold on eBay and realize how much money they take. Total fees for my personal sales were between 20 and 25%! (for July 2017- January 2018) That is painfully too much. We have a unique opportunity here because of eBay's greed. Currently, there are tens of thousands of books for sale on CPG and plenty of sales, but we want to expand this. Our short-term goal is to develop a feedback system to build buyer confidence. It would include an automated "responsiveness" evaluation. If someone makes you an offer and you don't respond within 7 days your responsiveness rating will be lowered. We do not plan to implement any kind of percentage. I agree with you completely, percentage kills sales.
Ron
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expander Posts: 241
3/8/2018
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some one call my name????
JK
I Agree. Maybe in addition to this there are a lot of people who have no interest in comics who end up (here) with inherited collections.
Maybe we can offer a service that will find those collections homes either in the form of auctions or donations and, depending on whether they are sold as a whole lot or parted out.
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Canadaguy59 Posts: 2
3/8/2018
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expander wrote:
some one call my name????
JK
I Agree. Maybe in addition to this there are a lot of people who have no interest in comics who end up (here) with inherited collections.
Maybe we can offer a service that will find those collections homes either in the form of auctions or donations and, depending on whether they are sold as a whole lot or parted out.
I am in the position of having 9,000 comics that I don't know where to sell  I have them all catalogued on Comic Collector for anyone to view, but would like to list them here. How can I do that en-masse, without having to enter them one at a time? Thanks
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expander Posts: 241
3/9/2018
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Canadaguy59 wrote:
I am in the position of having 9,000 comics that I don't know where to sell I have them all catalogued on Comic Collector for anyone to view, but would like to list them here. How can I do that en-masse, without having to enter them one at a time? Thanks
Depending on how you want to sell them it's a simple matter of time/effort put into listing them versus simply liquidating them all at once if you want more $ out of them then it would be advisable to part out the more valuable books and key issues first then splitting the remaining books into lots or if like you said you want to sell them en-masse then contacting a buyer like mycomicshop.com or an auction house (local or otherwise) would be your best bet.
Either way you'll still have to come up with a general list of what you have. either a text document or excel spreadsheet that you can email to a potential buyer would greatly help you out as far as selling the whole lot.
try a few google searches on comic book auctions and see if some one would be willing to let you consign them to an auction. A local auction would cut out the added hassle and cost of shipping them.
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kds_comics Posts: 686
3/14/2018
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Ronbatman wrote:
Robert, thank you for your well thought out suggestions. We will strongly consider everything you've said.
I have sold on eBay and realize how much money they take. Total fees for my personal sales were between 20 and 25%! (for July 2017- January 2018) That is painfully too much. We have a unique opportunity here because of eBay's greed. Currently, there are tens of thousands of books for sale on CPG and plenty of sales, but we want to expand this. Our short-term goal is to develop a feedback system to build buyer confidence. It would include an automated "responsiveness" evaluation. If someone makes you an offer and you don't respond within 7 days your responsiveness rating will be lowered. We do not plan to implement any kind of percentage. I agree with you completely, percentage kills sales.
Ron
A suggested alternative is to have a "once a month" auction for a few days. This will allow you regular time to do stuff with and limit your time/effort/overtime on the programming push for a few days.
KDS
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+1
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Ronbatman Administrator Posts: 2530
3/15/2018
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You are full of good ideas. We haven't played with that auction idea yet but who knows.
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+1
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expander Posts: 241
3/16/2018
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Perhaps a conference call might be in order at the next big meeting of the minds?
Say from the the top four or five contributors of ideas.
Let the creative teams hear first hand the excitement in our voices when we get going on an idea and bounce real time questions off of one another to really get some of these things rolling.
I know a lot of contributions to the site are made on a volunteer basis but for those who are actually employed by cpg lets work together on some genuine fixes.
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Oxbladder Posts: 487
3/19/2018
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Facebook and selling through forums are also common and they do not require any underlying frameworks that need to be managed by the staff. When the observation of inattentiveness is made putting more on the plate is probably not what should be considered. Attend to the current offerings, cut out those that distract from the main business, and then add other features in that promote the service sold or enhance it. A system for selling stuff exists now but right now I think to get fixed and working the way people may like would draw too much attention away from the guide and other core services. Unless CPG is profiting in some way from the selling on the site it should be scrapped and worked in later if it is felt that administering such a service is feasible. the attention from a good selling platform can help the site but right now I think there enough other issue to deal with that it should be put aside for now.
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Ronbatman Administrator Posts: 2530
3/19/2018
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From our perspective, we have a full list of things that we want to do this year. We want to change more prices, complete the app, develop our blog further, get the forum more active with positive comments, answer customer concerns, write more original content for CPG, finish the feedback system, improve the sales process and a few things that I cannot disclose right now. We are busy.
But I also think we've made amazing progress on our attentiveness. Everyone who has emailed, called or messaged us, knows that we answer and try to help. Oxbladder has a valid point about focusing on the core business and we've done that recently. On the other side of things, we need to keep dreaming and imagining what CPG could be. Maybe the auction isn't something we tackle in the next 6 months but after that, who knows?
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Oxbladder Posts: 487
3/19/2018
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What I was basically getting at is secure the core and getting working the way you wish/want then look at expanding from there. Building too quickly can be every bit as harmful if it is done too soon. Selling platforms are a tough thing to get and keep going. So many moving parts and dreaming go to for that means possibly neglecting the core system ... the system that is the bread and butter and core of the site. Now that attentiveness is there make sure that the core is clean and running well again and then tackle the dreams.
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kds_comics Posts: 686
4/4/2018
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One more thing I noticed - on main page under Sold comics there is a bar. If you could list last 100 or 200 sold comics - I think this would draw a lot of folks to your site. Every wants to know what issues really sold for - not just list prices. The proof is in the transaction amount! (Or the pudding - yeah, I like pudding).
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Ronbatman Administrator Posts: 2530
4/4/2018
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We've talked about something like that. It would be for paying members since our competitors often copy things on our site. Most people would be shocked at the number of comics bought and sold on CPG everyday. Those sales help us stay current with our pricing.
Pudding!
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kds_comics Posts: 686
4/9/2018
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Ronbatman wrote:
We've talked about something like that. It would be for paying members since our competitors often copy things on our site. Most people would be shocked at the number of comics bought and sold on CPG everyday. Those sales help us stay current with our pricing.
Pudding!
Should come up with a big sign saying "Pay Damn YOU!!!" Okay, maybe not.
And don't call me Shirley. Don't call me pudding either please.
edited by kds_comics on 4/9/2018
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