Competition **Giveaway** How can we make the hobby better and attract new people post Covid boom?

Card giveaways. 😂 a man’s thrash could be another man’s treasure. Haha.
I Am Trying GIF by ION
 
The biggest advantage a forum has over Facebook and the like is a sense of community. It's more than just random buying and selling. This is the reason why I have very little interest in those cesspit marketplaces.

So how do we attract more members / activity on our boards? A few ideas:

Firstly, when you think about it, a forum/ community is very similar to a real life gathering. If you were to turn up to a gathering for the first time and no one is really talking to each other or there's very little happening, you're not likely to stick around too long or come back. On the other hand, if everyone is chatting, joking etc and you are welcomed, you're more likely to stick around and get involved. This is where it's up to us to be as involved and active on here as much our lives permit. Whether it's trading, sharing our wealth of knowledge or just having a joke and a laugh.

Also, I get the sense that there is a lot more box breaking on here than we think. If you are busting something, no matter how insignificant you think it might be, share it on the box breaking forum! Once again, it is another opportunity to create discussion.

Someone mentioned card shows and I think this is a major opportunity and competitive advantage for our forum compared to Facebook if we could leverage it. One thing I noticed recently with Ship my Cards is that whenever they are attending a card show, they give their members the opportunity to have cards sold on their behalf at the show. We have many long term, reliable members on here all over the country that could perhaps man an ozcardtrader table at these shows selling members cards, sharing their knowledge and promoting our forum. We could also have members donate cards for these shows that could be used to put together to sell Mystery Packs to kids. Members could also donate cards that could be sold for $1 - $3 each which would help fund the cost of the show. This helps promote the sense of community. How we could get this to work, i'm not entirely sure but I don't think it would be impossible.

A few thoughts on the card selling show idea:
  • Members pay all postage costs
  • Limited number of cards per member
  • The member gives an advertised sell price for each card as well as lowest possible price
  • Sales done direct through members' paypal
  • .....
There's a lot of generous/ wonderful members on here. The potential and future of this forum lies with us. Basically whatever effort we are prepared to give to the forum, the forum will eventually give back. We have to be bold and be prepared to step outside the boundaries or be stagnant.

Another thing... I'm sure we have email addresses for all accounts on here. Maybe it's an idea that we reach out to lapsed members who still have live accounts (not banned), and say something like. Hey, we've noticed we haven't seen you in a while. Whether you are still collecting or not, it would be wonderful to hear from you again. Feel free to drop in and say hi!

That's about all I've got for now...

The only other idea I have in addition to what i've already mentioned is to sell merch with the profits going towards member giveaway's
 
I know that we don't condone the running razz/raffles here but a lot of the hobby is doing it anyway on other platforms.
Maybe there could be a recommended razz page/s that could have an ozct logo / link when running vids or something along those lines?
Maybe even something as simple as a printable page that has a name and date section there with the logo and website address on there that people could use as a nameplate for those pages that require them.
 
Not sure about the frequency of your prizes/quizzes/giveaways but maybe if it was a scheduled event.. eg: weekly on a specific day like a sunday and advertise that through FB and other platforms… it may give the outsiders more incentive to drop by more frequently… or at least pique their interest.
 
I’m a newbie and am very keen on basketball cards - particularly of the old school guys from the mid-90’s.

But it’s so confusing to work out what to buy in terms of boxes etc. Seems like there must be 100 different types of boxes from each year and finding it really difficult to work out which boxes give me best chance of hitting my chosen player with a cool autograph or memorabilia.

I appreciate it’s basically ‘gambling’ when buying boxes - but at least want to know what I’m a chance of getting.

So…my idea…if the someone is able to somehow help navigate this web…I reckon that would help bring in newbies.

Just my 2 cents worth.

EDIT - looking for Tim Duncan signature, or Shawn Kemp, or David Robinson etc etc - but the website I’m currently looking at has 38 pages of types of boxes and I’m getting a headache…

Cheers.
 
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I’m a newbie and am very keen on basketball cards - particularly of the old school guys from the mid-90’s.

But it’s so confusing to work out what to buy in terms of boxes etc. Seems like there must be 100 different types of boxes from each year and finding it really difficult to work out which boxes give me best chance of hitting my chosen player with a cool autograph or memorabilia.

I appreciate it’s basically ‘gambling’ when buying boxes - but at least want to know what I’m a chance of getting.

So…my idea…if the someone is able to somehow help navigate this web…I reckon that would help bring in newbies.

Just my 2 cents worth.

EDIT - looking for Tim Duncan signature, or Shawn Kemp, or David Robinson etc etc - but the website I’m currently looking at has 38 pages of types of boxes and I’m getting a headache…

Cheers.

I'd recommend starting a thread in the Basketball section asking all your questions there. From what I've found this forum is extremely helpful in helping newbies find their way in terms of recommending which products to buy and which to avoid etc. You might even be able to link up with a few awesome sellers who have the singles you are after.
 
My serious suggestion is let's kick it off with a meetup. Start a regular get together to discuss and brainstorm. Then ramp it up to include trade nights, live breaks and giveaways etc
 
We need an easy app actually , now a days people use mobiles so if we can transform this forum into an app format it will be very handy and easy interface and can definately attract a lot of people , advancing with technology is important because it makes your communication easy and convenient.
 
I think we need to keep it simple initially. I know Panini don't send boxes anymore, but I thought that TLS still did. I am not sure how any premium members there are these days or if the revenue from the PM fees covers the cost of the site. If there is excess $$, is it possible for boxes to be purchased from that for giveaways?

There should be a box per month randomized for PM's and maybe one every 3-6 months for non PM.

The hard thing these days is most of the bigger dealers have their own sites and FB pages they run off, so they don't really need advertising on OZCT. Could get one of the bigger dealers on here to donate in exchange for advertising of group breaks etc.
 
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