Ok, my 2 cents... on my 2600th post!
I used to be on these forums 24/7 scouring the buy/sell/trade for anything that caught my eye, and I mean anything!
Loved it. Every Second of it!
I have only had good deals with the people on this forum and I've found most to be very genuine and kind people. Except
@kiwi_in_melb who hoards all the good cards and won't sell !!!
Things that have taken me away from the boards;
- Starting and running West Oz Cards takes up a monumental amount of time behind the scenes. I don't think a lot of people realize that apart from the live shows for a few hours, that after all the fun has been had and the lights go down... breakers still have to sort, pack and send those cards out. This can literally take days in between everything else you have to do like, arrange purchasing from distributors, track and pick up shipments, list products and breaks on the website etc. All this time really takes away a lot of the enjoyment of coming to these pages and sharing the enjoyment of the hobby with others.
I work 12 hours a day, so the available time I have to see everything is minimal.. heck I only just found this thread today! A great idea would of been to tag all members in the initial thread like you do with the member competitions.
- Facebook.
This is hands down, the BIGGEST OZCT killer. The instant gratification that you get on facebook trading pages is amazing. You can post a picture of your latest acquisitions and with a few hours, you may get 200 people view it and 10-50 odd responses including offers for trade/sell etc.
Add that to the diversity of pages, ie; auction page, raffle page for cards, raffle page for boxes/memorabilia/breaks etc.. there is just so much action on there, and its lightning fast, cards move super quick. Already just over 4 months old and we have nearly hit 500 completed raffles. It's a juggernaut that I don't see stopping any time soon.
My ideas for how to bring people back to OZCT...
1- Have a raffle section. I wouldn't bother with an auction section, but people go mad for raffles.
2- overhaul of the buy/sell/trade section. - a few issues I find;
- Incorrect/misleading thread titles to entice you to look, but really not accurate with what they're advertising. ie "HIGH END" then look in there to find sub $20 cards.
- To improve this, possibly enforce tags for the thread posts that are identified by the seller and to expand on the general search function; integrate a search function at the side like feebay, where you can tick box for certain keywords that have been identified by the seller as being in their sale thread. eg; Exquisite, Jordan auto, Gold Standard, RPA etc
- NO PRICES!!! This is a pet hate of mine. As was mentioned by Josh, I will not bother 90% of the time to ask someone what they want for a card. Unless I really want it.
- To improve this, mandatory sale or trade value. SV$ OR/and TV$ for all cards listed.
- All fs/ft mixed in together for me turns me off looking through every post. I'm just picky I guess because I don't have a lot of time, but I would envision something like separate sections for 90's, 00's and 10's . not sure how much this would benefit others, but I would enjoy using it a bit more streamlined.
- Use a rolling banner advertisement. Not sure what they really call it.. but you know how at the bottom of some ebay stores they have that rolling banner advertising other cards thta the seller has.. that could be used here, where for a small fee? $0.10c someone could list a card in it to be rotated in the banner... OR someone could subscribe to the service and when they create a sale thread, they could nominate 1 or 2 cards to be shown directly from their thread in the banner and clicking on it links the clicker to their thread?
Well I guess thats all from me for now.
Have a good weekend.
