sales

[adminpoll]28[/adminpoll]

This is not saying that you can sell things. Sales are still not allowed under our current rules. Sales were always part of the plan, however. I wasn't thinking of doing this so quickly, but our current situation may force our hand.

We need a server and that's going to require a good deal of money we don't have. I've picked out some new equipment that will replace our current site hardware. If sales fees can help us get this site back to 100%, then I'm all for it.

Other things planned as fundraisers: I'm planning to sell a few of my cels and also write up the ability to pledge a month-to-month donation. More on this in another post later.

This poll is exploratory. The results of this poll will not dictate site policy. I can see vote stuffers by IP, even those who might try to change their IPs.

How small is the fee? I don't know, but it will be a flat fee. A percentage fee per item is totally unenforceable. Besides, if you're selling cels, you need money too. We don't want to take more than what's fair. We're not in this to make a million dollars, we're doing it because we love anime and cel collecting.

Perks from selling cels on our site versus any other website:

- Most likely we'll have a centralized "store" where visitors can find every cel for sale from authorized dealers across the entire site. We have 1.5 million page views and 50,000 unique visitors to the site each month. Almost all of them are either collectors or very interested in your specific kind of art. Our audience is highly focused.

- Third party legitimacy: buyers can visit your personal cel gallery and see what you collect and that you've been a member of our community for x number of years. Time and community involvement are the best indicators of fraud. You can fake an ebay rating but you can't fake a two year old account and respect from your fellow collectors.

- Easy inventory system. If someone wants to buy your cels, we can automatically mark the cel as "on hold" and remove it from the store. No more HTML retooling every time you get an e-mail about something you're selling. We might be able to automatically send e-mails to both parties as well, but that ability probably won't be in for a few weeks.

- Leave things on sale indefinitely, not just for a seven day auction. Only pay a small flat fee while you have active sales. Turn it off at any time and skip the fees.

If we do this anytime soon, it will most likely start as a free pilot program available to site sponsors only while we work out all the kinks. I don't want to start charging until we're sure it works as advertised.

Interested? Please let us know about it by responding to this post... assuming our crappy server lets you respond to it. We *will* get a new server soon, no matter what it takes.

I know I wasn't the only one going through withdrawl when I couldn't log on during Xmas. I think it's a good idea to raise funds and give us another sales outlet.Would there be another way to assure buyers/sellers other than years at RS? Some of us haven't been around that long but are reliable and trustworthy customers/sellers. Somebody want to vouch for me?

I really like the whole idea! One thought though as I don't have any cels I'm interested in selling: Would the sales be limited to cels only or could they include other anime items? I usually have some non-cel anime items that I'd rather sell here and support RS than give more money to Ebay.

Amen to that, Ebay has grown too much and sucks so much, I'd rather give to something that gives back.

70% yes 30% no... hmm, cel far cel good :-)