Question re: selling

Since selling is not supported through RS, how about setting up a seperate feature such as RS auctions? This could potentially become a pay feature or remain honor system one, where donations are used. Or RS could simply start fining those who ignore the rules. Doing so, might reduce this practice or at least, enable RS to earn overhead funding.

Anyone who doesn't concur, do not flame me. We all benefit from the free use of RS and all of the hardwork Jason dedicates maintaining the site, the least we can do it abide by the rules.

I think the no selling policy is so that Jason doesn't spend every waking moment mediating sales disputes. "it was supposed to have a sketch" "I know I didn't pay for insurance, but the cel is lost and I want my money back"
Gives me the ibi jibies just thinking of it. Plus folks just don't use the auction features on small sites like this much. The Animanga one is actually being used but I don't see alot sales happening.
As I said I could be way off but I think the world of selling through the site is a nice idea that would open a giant can of worms.

Rubberslug is earning quite a bit of displacement -- meaning that as we approach 20k pieces of art, the word "portal" starts to creep into our vocabulary. We might just be the largest unified online cel library at ~18k cels and growing faster now than ever.

So what do we get with this amazing clout that 18,000 cels and hundreds of rabid anime fans gives us?

Bargaining power. Here's what's in store for the money issue:

Online auctions work unless your name is "eBay". One player owns 95% of the field. Game over. As much as I'd like to not believe it, group-think pervades business and no matter how cool I make an auction site, I won't beat eBay. I'm not going to play a game I can't win.

However, I think there's space out there for selling stuff straight away. It's convenient and if we can set up a trust system that goes beyond simple "positive feedbacks" we can scratch out at *least* second place in between "check yahoo japan" and "check ebay".

Problems with cel collecting online as I see it, and solutions that are being scratched out:

- Auctions send prices wildly all over the map, speculation becomes a concern, buyers hate playing the game. Solution: Sellers presetting prices makes it easy for us to compete with ebay, and removes some of that "last-minute auction syndrome" that is responsible for driving up (and consequently bottoming out) cel prices from week to week. I'm working out a few details of the system to deter sellers from setting prices at "fast food consultant" levels. (Remember the Jack and the Box commercial?)

- Online dealers buy a whole bunch of stuff and work on huge margins to maintain a reasonable inventory. The rise of direct auctions via Yahoo Japan is gutting the lifeblood of our best stateside resources. This should *NOT* be happening. Solution: Make every dealer into a direct seller by compiling wishlists of members into a single, searchable shopping list. Japanese agents stay in business, stateside dealers get a finger on the pulse of the collecting community and can afford to be competitive. The vision: Rubberslug for convenience, Yahoo Japan for selection, and eBay if you want to cash out some cels in a hurry.

- Fly-by-night cel dealing is too easy of a scam. Solution: In-depth analysis of sellers, created by fellow members. Encourages sellers to deliver high-quality merchandise, timely service, and other metrics to rate sellers by.

There's more, but this is the stuff that I'm far enough along so that it can't be replicated by some other hooligan out there. The good news, the above ideas only work because RS is such a massive cel collecting site. It's an open road as far as competition is concerned -- unless someone creates an evil archrival called Rubbermonkey. (Dammit, I wanna be Rubbermonkey.)

In any case, the demand is there. In my opinion, the *supply* is unstable -- a unique concern since every cel is more or less unique and supply is limited. Hopefully, some of the ideas above will help bring us some cash and help invigorate/stabilize the online cel collecting circuit at the same time.

This will all happen hopefully sooner than later. Thanks for the post. I don't have even the slightest idea on a timeline for this yet. There's just way too much on my plate to think about right now.




jn

Oh yeah, and I don't like mediating sales disputes... but when we start selling stuff (had to happen eventually, just waiting for the right time), we're bound to get a few.

I just don't want any trouble until I'm good and ready. That's all. Hopefully we can wash our hands at the beginning and label everything "buyer beware".

There are, naturally, many details to work out. Hopefully, the system should provide buyers enough information to make a decisions about the quality of the seller.

jn

Heres a small suggestion. If your going to allow sales through RS, that part of the site should in my opinion have a mod or admin or whatever you wanna call it to help you Jason. Im sure you have already thought of this and also about lookin up any law type deals that I assume would go along with it. Just would rather have it so your protected and so are the people using that feature. Enough of my ramblings!