Questions regarding creating a site similar to sportslots

[tonsofcommons]

EDIT- Wrong thread.

 

[uniquebaseballcards]

checklists are killer to a site especially for bulk sellers. I deal strictly with nolan ryan (I do not sell anything) but have likely 1300 doubles. last thing I want to do is go through each card in the checklist to match it up.

Something like Google Goggles could help with that eventually, tie it into a database.

 

[Adamlind2011]

my take on a sports card market place is that the fees for the casual user isn't the problem


The lack of understanding of the niche is.

The lack of understanding that the people who sell on your site are ESSENTIAL to keeping your site running is important as well. When my stuff gets running it will have a similar fee structure to ebay. People who list at a level that is more than casual will recieve discounts immediately and the discounts keep getting better with volume.

I am also planning to do discounts for items listed on release day, as well as cafeteria style plans. I've got some good ideas, can't wait to use them.

I agree with you. I can't wait to see your ideas, when are we gonna get our 1st taste?

 

[Adamlind2011]

checklists are killer to a site especially for bulk sellers. I deal strictly with nolan ryan (I do not sell anything) but have likely 1300 doubles. last thing I want to do is go through each card in the checklist to match it up.

forgive me, but when you speak of "checklists are killer to a site" are you referring to this being a feature that helps the seller list an item more efficiently or are you refering to this as being more of a search engine benefit? I guess why I'm asking is I don't see that Ebay has any sort of checklist for when you list an item as a seller nor when you search as a potential buyer. I don't find this to be a nuisance or a stumbling block when listing or searching.....am I in the minority here?

 

[DaClyde]

I think there are two issues there.

1) If your site is going to be based around checklists, they have to exist for sellers to list their cards, and they have to be timely.

2) The site absolutely MUST have a good search with boolean capabilities. eBay has a very good search. Sportlots not so much. Beckett, COMC, Sportlots and Mercado Libre, the Spanish languange affiliate of eBay, suffer greatly from lack of boolean search capabilities.

I think such a site, if it is going to be card specific, must be checklist driven, like Beckett, SportsCardForum's Inventory Manager, Sportlots or OpenChecklist. Ultimately it is a plus for sellers and buyers as cards will all be listed consistently. But the search should be more keyword driven (like Beckett & eBay) than tied directly to searching specific tables (like SCF).

 

[cgilmo]

I think there are two issues there.

1) If your site is going to be based around checklists, they have to exist for sellers to list their cards, and they have to be timely.

2) The site absolutely MUST have a good search with boolean capabilities. eBay has a very good search. Sportlots not so much. Beckett, COMC, Sportlots and Mercado Libre, the Spanish languange affiliate of eBay, suffer greatly from lack of boolean search capabilities.

I think such a site, if it is going to be card specific, must be checklist driven, like Beckett, SportsCardForum's Inventory Manager, Sportlots or OpenChecklist. Ultimately it is a plus for sellers and buyers as cards will all be listed consistently. But the search should be more keyword driven (like Beckett & eBay) than tied directly to searching specific tables (like SCF).

is sports lots search not algebraic? Holy hell, how do you even go forward without that.

 

[sruchris]

I'm in the same boat here as I have thousands of doubles I want to sell but I haven't found a cost effective way to sell them. Sportlots is wonky and COMC and eBay are too expensive. So, I've decided to build a site on my own. It's far from complete, but here's what I have.

http://sruchris.com/cart/

I'm lucky, in a sense, as I have direct access to the BaseballCardPedia card database that contains ~2 million cards.

 

[sruchris]

I don't like COMCs business model as I would rather scan in my cards, package and mail them in order to save money in fees. This is why Sportlots is so popular, especially when it comes to selling large quantities of cards. I do most of my trading on SCF, but a forum platform can only do so much.

What I would like to see is a new site similar to Sportlots that has:

-a more usable UI
-improved searching, especially when searching by seller
-lower fees
-free trading

 

[Adamlind2011]

what happened to sportscardbin? Is it off the net?